The silence didn't last.
Not in a place like this.
It broke first with a rattle—the crash cart beside me trembling from the reverberations of a distant, echoing clang. Then came the subtle hum of the overhead lights growing sharper, as if the facility itself had taken a breath. Something in the air shifted. An alert system maybe. Or motion sensors reactivating.
We had seconds, maybe minutes, before someone noticed the guard hadn't checked in.
"He won't be out long," Alexis muttered, already moving. She crouched beside the unconscious soldier, pressing two fingers to his throat, then searching the compartments of his armor. "Vitals steady. Nervous system's overwhelmed. She didn't just disable him. She short-circuited his ability to move. That shouldn't be possible."
Sienna remained silent.
