“Move.”
Adrian’s voice cut through the darkness just as something rushed toward us again.
I didn’t think. I shifted left, pulling with him, the air slicing where my throat had been a second ago. Metal. Fast. Controlled. They weren’t guessing anymore, they were learning us. “They’re mapping us,” I said under my breath.
“I know.”
His grip tightened, then released just enough for movement. Not distance. Never distance. Just space to act.
Another step. Another shift.
The room had turned into something alive, breathing around us, closing in, listening. “Three of them,” Adrian murmured. “Four,” I corrected. “The one talking isn’t moving.”
A pause. “You noticed.” Of course I did. That one wasn’t here to fight; that one was here to watch. And that made them the most dangerous.
A faint scra
