RIVAL’S POV
The facility had cracks — not literal ones you could slip a hand through, but places where the cameras didn’t quite cover, where the guards didn’t waste their time patrolling because they thought no one was stupid enough to go there.
I wasn’t stupid. I was desperate.
Thomas’s wrist was clamped in my hand as I yanked him through one of those cracks — a half-forgotten maintenance shaft that stank like old metal and mold. He stumbled, his boot scraping against the rusted ladder rungs as I pushed him ahead of me.
“You’re not answering me,” I said, my voice low, sharp. “Who’s on the other end of that chip?”
“I told you—”
“You haven’t told me anything except bullshit,” I cut in, shoving him hard enough that he caught himself on the wall. “You had your face in my bunk. Twice. Fi
