"The vault." Knox's roar barely penetrates the cacophony of the alarm. He's pointing at the open vault door, where a small red light has begun blinking on the interior frame. "There was a secondary trigger. A failsafe."
Of course there was. Of course Hoffstead wouldn't rely solely on the digital lock to protect his most damaging secrets. The override code got us past the primary security, but opening the door itself must have triggered a separate system, a silent alarm that summoned every guard in the building to this exact location.
"We need to go." I'm already moving toward the office door, adrenaline flooding my system and burning away the paralysis of shock. "Now. Right now."
Knox grabs my free hand and pulls me into the corridor, his grip firm but careful, mindful even in this moment of crisis of the difference in our sizes. The strobing red lights turn the executive floor into a nightmare landscape of shifting shadows, and I can hear the thunder of approaching footsteps from multiple directions. The guards are converging on Hoffstead's office from every access point, cutting off our planned escape route.
"The stairs are compromised." Knox's head swivels as he assesses the tactical situation, his warrior's instincts processing information faster than my panicked brain can follow. "We need another way out."
"The roof." The word tears out of me as a fragment of the building plans surfaces through my fear. "There's a maintenance access ladder in the utility closet at the end of the hall. It goes up to the roof. From there we can?—"
"Go. I will delay them."
"Like hell you will." I dig my heels in, refusing to move, even as the footsteps grow louder and the first guards round the corner at the far end of the corridor. "We leave together or we don't leave at all."
Knox turns to look at me, and in the strobing red light, his expression is something I've never seen before—defiant and tender and desperate all at once. His hand cups my face, his palm rough and warm against my cheek, and he presses his forehead to mine.
"You carry the weapons that will win this war. The evidence must reach safety. You must reach safety. I will not lose you, Cypress. Not now. Not when we are so close to victory."
"Then don't make me choose between you and the mission." I grab the front of his turtleneck and drag his face down to mine, pressing a desperate kiss against his lips that tastes like fear and determination and something far more dangerous. "We run together. We fight together. That's the deal."
For one terrifying moment, I think he's going to argue. His jaw tightens, his hands flex at his sides, and I can see the warrior in him warring with the protector. But then something shifts in his expression, and he nods once, sharply.
"Together," he agrees. "Always together."
We run.
14
KNOX
The utility closet door splinters under my shoulder like rotted kindling, the hinges screaming their surrender as I barrel through with Cypress tucked against my side. The maintenance ladder stretches upward into darkness, a rusted iron skeleton that leads to the roof access hatch, but the thunder of pursuing footsteps tells me we have perhaps thirty seconds before the guards round that final corner and trap us in this dead-end corridor.
"The ladder. I can climb. I'll go first and?—"
"No time." I wrap my arm around her waist and lift her off her feet, ignoring her startled yelp as I sling her over my shoulder like a sack of grain. The document box presses into my back as she instinctively grabs onto my turtleneck for balance, her fingers twisting in the fabric hard enough to stretch the weave. "Hold tight, little valkyrie. This may be somewhat... undignified."
"Knox, what are you?—"
I leap.
My hand catches the ladder six rungs up, and the rusted metal groans in protest as I haul us both upward with rawstrength. The muscles in my arm burn with the familiar fire of exertion as I climb, each pull lifting us another three feet toward the roof access.
Below us, voices echo in the utility closet. Flashlight beams sweep across the walls, painting dancing shadows on the ladder rungs.
"They went up! Roof access!"
I climb faster.
The hatch resists my first shove, decades of disuse having sealed it shut with accumulated grime and rust, but the second impact of my fist punches it open with a screech of tortured metal. Cold night air floods down around us, and I heave us both through the opening onto the tar-paper surface of the roof, rolling immediately to put my body between Cypress and the hatch in case the guards are faster than I estimated.
"Stay down." I push her behind a HVAC unit, pressing her into the shadows where the ambient light from the city cannot reach. Her eyes are huge in the darkness, glittering with fear and adrenaline and something else—something that looks remarkably like exhilaration.
The hatch clangs below us as the first guard attempts to follow our path. I grab the heavy maintenance door that covers a secondary access point and wrench it free from its hinges, the bolts shearing with a satisfying snap, and I wedge it over the hatch opening just as the guard's head emerges. The impact is deeply satisfying, and the guard's muffled curse as he drops back down the ladder is even more so.
"That will delay them perhaps two minutes." I grab Cypress's hand and pull her toward the roof's edge, where the emergency fire escape ladder descends the building's exterior. "We must move quickly."
"Knox, that's four stories." She peers over the edge at the dizzying drop, her face pale in the amber glow of the streetlights below. "If you think I'm climbing down that in these shoes?—"
