**DAMIAN POV**
I hit the door with my shoulder first.
The impact rattles my teeth. The metal groans but holds, rust flaking into my collar like dead skin. The smell hits immediately, iron and rot and something older that shouldn’t still exist. I snarl and kick it this time, heel slamming into the weak point near the latch. The impact reverberates up my leg and into my spine, pain sharp and grounding and still not nearly enough to bleed off what’s coiled inside me.
“Open,” I growl, as if the word itself might make it obey.
It doesn’t.
The third kick does it. The latch snaps with a brittle crack and the door tears inward, slamming into the wall with a clang that ricochets down the corridor. Dust billows out in a choking cloud, thick and metallic, coating my tongue and the back of my thr
