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Liam looked back at me, face grim. "It's not over yet."

Ignoring him, I focused on moving as fast as I could up the stairs, heart racing, legs pounding beneath me.

Excitement filled me as I moved faster, then faster, my body not feeling quite as tired as before.

A rush of footsteps sounded above — moving down the stairs and directly to us.

We slowed, fear thumping loudly in my chest as my breath came in gasps.

Two guards appeared, their eyes wide as they yelled at us to move and hurried past.

Holy hells — it had worked!

"Shouldn't there be more guards heading down?" the man to my left whispered.

Liam glanced back, nodding. "Maybe. These aren't the primary stairwells that most crew use, though."

The man nodded, and I swallowed the lump in my throat.

But the man was right. This felt too easy …

We continued to climb, flight after flight, periodically interrupted by a group of guards or ship workers rushing down to the explosion.

Most just raced past, but one slowed, eyeing our strange group with suspicion as they approached.

"Hurry, we just came from the boiler room," Liam said, voice frantic as he subtly shifted to stand between the guards and our group. "The fire is everywhere!"

The taller guard narrowed his eyes at Liam. "Wait a second. Aren't you …"

Chapter 17

Kaiya

The guard stepped in closer to Liam, trying to get a better look at his face.

Liam turned on me, expression tense. "Get back in line, girl."

He was trying to hide his face.

"Fuck you," I snapped, channeling all the frustration I felt into my expression.

The tall guard's gaze fell to me briefly. Then he reached for Liam's shoulder — as though to force him around for closer inspection.

But before he could do anything, the other guard tugged him away.

"Leave it, you idiot," he snarled. "None of this will matter if we don't follow orders and get down there right now."

The taller guard stared at us a few seconds longer,then nodded reluctantly and followed the shorter man down the stairs.

Liam let out a sigh the second they were out of sight. "Thanks."

"Not needed," I said, pushing past him. "I meant it."

That was far too close … I needed to get everyone away before more guards got suspicious.

Breaking into a jog, I rushed to the top of the steps.

Legs on fire and gasping for breath, we finally burst out onto the open deck.