"The doors are open!" Reid shouted, his voice cutting through the smoke-thick air as his hand found mine in the dark, gripping tight like I was the only stable thing left in a collapsing world.
But Julian wasn't moving toward the exit.
In the chaos, he had lunged for the counter instead, like escape had never been part of his equation. I heard the violent crash of ceramic—an espresso cup shattering against the floor—followed immediately by the cold, controlled sound of his voice, closer than it should have been.
"You think a reset saves you?" Julian hissed, almost conversational now, as if we were still in some calm room instead of a burning trap. "I didn't just slave the doors to her heart, Reid. I slaved the gas lines to the reset."
For half a second, everything in me froze.
Then the smell hit us.
Natural gas. Sharp. Invisible. Wrong.
