Derek's POV
Chemical smell burns my nose like someone shoved acid up there. The hissing stopped, but that's not a good thing. When volatile chemicals stop making noise, it usually means they're about to make a really big noise.
"How long do we have?" Damon's voice cuts through the darkness, steady despite everything falling apart around us.
My brain feels like it's splitting in half. The artificial programming is trying to access chemical data they burned into my skull, but my real thoughts keep fighting it. It's like having two people argue inside my head while the world ends around us.
"I don't know," I admit, treading water in the pitch black. "Could be seconds. Could be minutes."
"That's helpful," Marcus says, his voice strained from keeping Damon afloat.
The water's up to our ne
