The impact shudders through the corridor. The doors bow inward but hold, the iron crossbars flexing against the frame. Rex slams his shoulder into the wood again, a snarl ripping through his throat, and Phoenix drives his boot into the seam between the two panels hard enough to splinter the oak along the grain.
The doors groan but don't give.
"Again," Rex grinds out.
They hit them again. Phoenix's massive frame crashes into the left panel while Rex throws his entire body weight against the right. More splintering. The iron crossbar on the left bendsvisibly, the bolts pulling out of the ancient wood in slow, screaming increments.
Raf steps up behind them, chambers a round, and aims the submachine gun at the lock mechanism. "Move. I'll shoot it off."
"That's not how—" Phoenix starts.
"I saidmove!"
"This isn't a fuckingmovie, Raf!"
I glance at the bottom of the door.
The combined impact of two alphas hurling themselves at the panels has done something they haven't noticed because they're too busy trying to out-testosterone each other. The lower hinge on the left panel is warped. Bent inward at a thirty-degree angle, the pin half-ejected, the mounting plate pulling free of the frame in a spray of old wood dust.
"Hey."
Nobody hears me.
Rex hits the door again while Phoenix and Raf yell at each other.
"Hey."
Still nothing.
I put two fingers in my mouth and whistle sharp enough to make all three of them flinch.
"You guys bent the hinge." I point at the base of the left panel. "Just kick it."
Three alphas stare at the hinge.
Then at me.
Then at the hinge.
Phoenix lets out a bark of laughter that echoes off the corridor walls, and he pivots, lifts his boot, and stomps down on the warped mounting plate.
The hinge shears clean off.
The entire left panel crashes inward, ripping free of the upper hinge as it goes, and the weight of it drags the right panel's locking mechanism out of the frame. Both doors slam open and hit the interior walls with a thunderclap that rolls through the auditorium.
Dust billows out.
The main opera house opens before us.
It's massive.Beyondmassive. A fucking glorious palace of red velvet and gilt, tiered balconies climbing toward a painted ceiling depicting a mythological scene I can't parse in the emergency lighting. At the far end is the yawning empty stage, shadowed by heavy burgundy curtains.
"Where—" Phoenix starts.
"Up." Rex is staring at the ceiling.
I follow his gaze to the catwalks.
A lattice of narrow metal walkways looms over the stage, the kind of weblike infrastructure that lets crew manage curtains and scenery from above.