The explosion behind me was a dull, heavy thud that rattled the very bones in my chest. In the narrow, stone-walled corridor of the fortress, the sound was magnified, chasing me like a living thing. I didn't look back. I couldn't.
Every instinct I had honed over the last two weeks, every bruising hour on the training mats… every cold lecture from Ryker… screamed at me to keep moving. I was no longer the nurse who hesitated at the sight of a needle; I was a woman running through the gut of a dying beast, a steak knife in a knuckled grip.
The emergency lights flickered on, bathing the hallway in a rhythmic, strobing red. It made the shadows dance, turning every alcove into a potential hiding place for Enzo’s traitors or Silas’s mercenaries. I reached the end of the hall where the service
