"Naomi—"
"Don't." Her eyes met mine. "Don't make this harder. Just... when you get out, remember what I told you in the farmhouse. About the future. About what I want."
"You're going to tell me yourself. When we're all out of here."
"Jace—"
"No." I grabbed both their shoulders. "Nobody's dying for me. Not you. Not Belle. Not anyone. We're all getting out of this together or we're all dying in here, and I'm too stubborn to die in a dimension that smells like someone set fire to a wet dog."
Hikaru appeared beside us without warning. Her red eyes swept across the creature, cataloging, analyzing, searching for the weakness that had to exist.
"The shell is too thick for direct assault," she said. "But shells can crack under sustained pressure. If multiple attacks hit the same point simultaneously..."
"We don't have enough firepower."
