Chapter 56
Breaking the Lock
My knees hit cold concrete. Lucas bled on the screen, staggering under gunfire.
Every instinct screamed: move.
“No. Not this time.”
I ripped open drawers, found a letter opener, and jammed it into the control panel.
Sparks spat, alarms buzzed, the smell of burning wires filled my nose.
“Come on, come on,”
Click. Green light.
The lock hissed open.
I ran, barefoot and furious, through the smoke-stained corridor.
***
Gun in hand. Blood dripped to my wrist. And then…
“Maddison?”
She burst through the haze, hair wild, eyes fire. My ruin and my rescue.
“You don’t get to lock me up and then bleed out where I can’t reach you,” she snapped, hands already pressing to my wound. “Do you hear me? You don’t get to leave me.”
Her voice shook, but her grip was iron.
And I thought of Logan. Of Penny. Of how she made him soften, made him human.
Maddison was doing the same to me. Two anchors, two women too stubborn to let us drown.
He thought I’d stay locked up.
Instead, I chose the fire.