barely hear myself over the alarm.
Idiot, I thought savagely. I didn’t have a phone. I didn’t even know where the secret exit emptied so that I could meet them down on the street. My options dwindled, running through my mind like the last gasp of power from a battery.
Releasing the button, I stepped back, assessing the two slender windows on the doors. I was small…I could maybe contort my body enough to drag myself through. I took careful aim, my arms absorbing the kickback of the shot. Instead of shattering the glass, the bullet ricocheted off it. Reinforced. The cartridge clicked empty.
“Shit,” I breathed out, wiping the sweat off my face. My thoughts spun out, dwindling with the last few possibilities. I could use my power to overload the doors’ circuitry and fry the wiring. That might be enough to lock them in an open position. Or it might activate a fail-safe that would only lock them down further.
I blew out a shaky breath, trying to steady myself with reason. At this point, there was really nothing left to lose. No one was coming to get me, except for the soldiers and security officers currently combing the floors. If the doors opened, great. Easy. If they jammed, I’d take my last option: trying to get out of the building another way and rendezvousing with the others somewhere else.
I’ve wasted too much time already, I thought.
I reached out for the door control again, only to feel something hard jab against the base of my spine. The flush of hot, numbing needles in my mind left me screaming in frustration. The alarm droned on and on, forcing Lana to speak directly into my ear. “Be a good girl and put your hands on the doors.”
Not like this.
The words burned through me, catching inside of my chest.
I just wanted to save Ruby. I just wanted to help.
Lana directed me forward with a push of her gun. I saw my shadowed reflection in the dull metal of the door. It was freezing to the touch as I rested my palms and forehead against it.
“If I can’t bring him her, at least I can offer you up,” Lana said, wrenching one of my arms behind my back. “This wasn’t a wasted trip after all.”
“You can definitely try,” I told her, ignoring the cold dig of the barrel against my spine. I squeezed my eyes shut, narrowing my concentration on finding that silver thread, on digging that spark out from under the hold she had on my mind. These powers were mine—no one got to take them from me—no one—
The tightness that had clamped over my skull, the pressure, seemed to shiver.
“What are you doing?” Lana growled. “Stop it—”
It happened so quickly, I didn’t realize I was falling until the doors disappeared from in front of me, and my body slammed into the freezing tile. My teeth clacked together, biting my tongue as pain rang through my knees and palms. I flipped myself over, lashing a foot out toward Lana, but the quarantine doors had already snapped shut again behind me. I gasped as the knot binding my mind snapped, and warm power surged through it again.
Mine.
For one insane second, I thought I had actually done it—but I was through the doors, and she was…
There was a muffled scream from the other side of the door, loud enough that I could hear it over the alarms. What the hell just happened? Red light washed over the hall as I pushed myself back up onto my feet.
Run, you idiot, I thought, even as I peered back through the window at Lana.
My blood stopped in my veins.
Someone had grabbed her from behind, gripping her across the torso and pinning her arms down at her sides. I saw the head of dark hair in the flashing emergency lights, and I knew. Even before he looked up, I knew.
“Roman!”
That’s…That couldn’t be right. I’d left him in the operating room. He’d gone down ahead, with Liam and Chubs and Ruby. Why wouldn’t he have left with the rest of them?
Why was he on the wrong side of the doors?
I banged my fist against the glass, trying to get his attention. Lana was thrashing wildly, but he only tightened his grip, his face pained as he told her something I couldn’t hear.
If I had my power, that meant—what did that mean? That he’d been able to surprise her and mirror her ability before she’d been able to turn it on him? That