Chapter 22: Hold the Door

Jude's POV

The north door was a steel loading door at the end of a concrete corridor, and it was shaking in its frame.

I got there first, because I was the only one in the hall who had done it before.

The bar that locked it lay on the floor in two pieces. Somebody had cut it, or it had rusted, and nobody had been standing on the wall to see.

I put my back against the door and spread both arms.

The first blow came through the steel into my spine.

It was not a fist. It was a body, and then it was three bodies, then ten.

I knew what the weight meant.

I had felt it once, and then the lights had gone out.

"Jude."

Annabel was at my shoulder.

She had thrown her whole weight against the door beside me, with her bad collarbone and her hair coming out of its braid.

"Get back," I said. "Annabel, get back."

"No."

"I can hold it."

"You held it by yourself," she said through her teeth. "You did that already. Not twice."

"Annabel."

"I'm not asking."

The door jumped, and we both went hard against it.

I felt her whole body take the impact beside mine, and something in my chest that had been tight since the night I died came open.

It had not occurred to me that I could be helped.

"This isn't how I planned the evening," I said.

"Shut up and push."

"Yes, ma'am."

The steel screamed along its frame, and a gap opened at the bottom.

A grey hand came through it, flat on the floor, fingers working.

Behind us, the corridor filled with people who did not know what to do.

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