The needle pricked my skin, a tiny, cold violation. I closed my eyes, a silent apology to Leo forming in my mind. *I tried.*
Then came the sound that saved me, the sound of the world breaking apart.
It wasn't a polite knock. It wasn't a procedural opening. It was a percussive, deafening **BOOM**, as if a battering ram had been slammed against the great oak doors of the chamber.
The sound echoed like a gunshot. Every head in the room snapped towards the entrance. The medic froze, the syringe in his hand trembling, the needle a millimeter from plunging into my vein.
**BOOM.**
A c***k spiderwebbed across the solid wood of the right-hand door.
On the third impact, the lock shattered. The doors flew open with a force that sent them crashing against the marble walls, the sound a thundercla
