All Chapters of DOOMSDAY FORTRESS: THE OFFICER'S COLD BRIDE : Chapter 61 - Chapter 67

The secondary service duct behind the twentieth-floor radio alcove was narrow, cramped, and lined with rotting fiberglass insulation.Betony stood in the dark, her cheek pressed near the rusted iron grate. Below her, in the narrow concrete landing where the upper stairwell met the armory corridor, two sets of boots rested flat on the floorboards."The angle doesn't make sense, Captain," Miller’s voice rattled up through the vent, low and dry. "I checked the entry hole before we hauled him to the chute. It wasn't a stray round from the doorway. Someone pressed the muzzle straight against his ribs and pulled the trigger."A long silence stretched through the vent. Betony heard the slow, heavy scrape of Zaid’s leather vest against the wall."Susan was hyperventilating," Zaid said, his tone flat, heavy with hesitation. "She saw a man bleeding out on her doorstep. She's twisting what she saw.""She said your girl walked down the stairs, picked up the gun, and executed him," Miller pressed,

The comms handset in Apartment 17B dropped from Susan’s fingers, swinging on its coiled black cord against the plaster wall.Zaid took the stairs five at a time. He didn't wait for the cage elevator on thirty. He didn't put on his fleece vest or grab his sidearm. He ran down the unheated concrete stairwell in his wool shirt and trousers, his heavy boots making a rhythm like thunder against the steps.When he slammed through the timber door of 17B, the air in the narrow living room smelled sweet and heavy, thick with the scent of boiled lard and warm corn meal.Toby was sitting on the carpet by the low table. His small hands were pulled up to his throat, his face dark red, his lips already taking on a faint, terrifying shade of blue. Each breath came out as a thin, wet whistle, his chest heaving against his cotton shirt as his lungs starved for air."Zaid!" Susan wept, dropping to her knees beside the boy, her hands shaking violently as she hovered over him.

The air in the seventeenth-floor hallway was stale, smelling of cold soot and damp wool.Betony was carrying an empty zinc water bucket back toward the service stairwell when the door to Apartment 17B unlatched. Susan stepped out into the corridor. Her eyes were bloodshot, her dark hair tangled in matted clumps against her forehead, her wool cardigan stretched loose at the elbows.She stopped dead when she saw Betony.Betony didn't alter her pace. She held the heavy zinc handle with two fingers, her face smooth, unbothered, as if she were stepping past a sack of spoiled flour left in the passage."You think you won, don't you?" Susan’s voice was dry, cracking on the consonants. She stepped sideways, blocking the narrow concrete walkway between the handrail and the wall. "You think because he locked the bolt on me, you get to keep him."Betony halted three paces away. She set the zinc bucket down on the cold floorboards. The met

The wind high on the terrace carried the shrieks upward, whipping Eleanor’s cracked wails into thin, desperate shreds against the concrete spire.Zaid leaned his heavy forearms over the iron railing, his eyes squinted against the driving sleet as he looked down thirty stories. "You know them?"Betony didn't turn her head. Her face stayed completely still, framed by the cold fur collar of her coat, her blue eyes fixed on the three shivering shapes huddled against the perimeter turnstile."The old woman is Eleanor," Betony said. Her voice was flat, dry, devoid of inflection. "My mother. The girl beside her in the quilt is Saskia, my supposed best friend. They came up here before during the extreme heat, remember? The man holding the pole is James." She paused, a tiny, dark flicker touching the corner of her lips. "My ex-fiancé."Zaid’s hand tightened on the frozen rail, his brow furrowing as he looked down at her. "Your family?"