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Tonight it has sealed Elena away from me.

I enter my override code. Rejected. I try the emergency sequence. Rejected again.

Someone has turned my own system against us.

"Go into the bathroom," I tell her. "Lock the manual door and stay there."

Before she can answer, a faint electronic chime sounds from somewhere beyond her. I know that sound. It belongs to the concealed service entrance inside the dressing room.

The intruder is no longer two floors below.

He used the camera outage to enter the emergency stairwell. The shutdown disabled the stairwell sensors and let him climb while Evander and I were staring at a restored camera feed. Now the same credentials that reset camera seventeen have opened the service passage behind my bedroom.

"Elena, move. Now."

"Someone just opened the service door."

My blood turns cold. "Can you see him?"

"No. I'm in the bedroom. The dressing-room partition is closed."

"Lock it manually, then get behind the bed. Do not use the bathroom. He will expect you to hide there."

I hear her moving, followed by the hard click of the partition's manual bolt.

"Locked," she whispers.

"The gun is in the bedside drawer."

A pause follows. "I know."

"Take it."

The drawer slides open. "I have it."

I smash the plastic cover over the emergency release beside the main door and pull the steel lever beneath it. Nothing happens. The manual cable should retract the upper and lower bolts even if the electronic system is dead. Whoever compromised the lockdown disabled that too.

This was planned specifically for her.

Metal scrapes against metal inside the suite.

"What is that?"

"He's testing the dressing-room door."

The intruder entered through a service door his credentials could open. The partition between the dressing room and sleeping area is different. Elena engaged its mechanical bolt from her side, and no stolen code can retract it.

Another scrape follows, heavier this time.

"He's using something on the frame," she says.

I wrench open the narrow fire cabinet opposite the bedroom and pull out the steel breaching bar secured inside. It exists so anyone trapped during a system failure can force an interior partition. I drive its flattened end between the bedroom door and the frame, searching for purchase beside the lower bolt.

"Stay behind the bed," I tell her. "Keep the gun aimed at the dressing-room door. Both hands. Do not fire until you can identify him."

"I remember."

The steel bar bites into the frame. I throw my weight against it. The door groans but holds.