Elena’s POVNo one moved at first. The silence stretched, thick and deliberate, pressing in from all sides like the space itself was listening.I stepped forward.Michael’s hand caught my wrist before I could reach the door. “Wait.”I didn’t look at him. “We didn’t come this far to stand outside.”“That’s not the point,” he said quietly. “We don’t know what’s in there.”“I think we do,” Jameson murmured beside us.I glanced at him briefly. He hadn’t stepped back. His eyes were still fixed on the door, not with fear, but with something sharper. Focus. The same kind of curiosity that had brought him this far.“That’s why we’re here,” I said.Michael’s grip tightened slightly, then loosened. A silent argument passed between us in that brief contact—calculation, risk, timing. Then he let go. “Quick. We go in, we observe, we leave.”I nodded once. No hesitation.I reached for the handle. It was colder than it should have been. For a second, nothing happened. Then the mechanism gave with a
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