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Nate hesitated for only a moment before he swung again.

The basement answered to his violence.

The whole furnace shuddered. Something inside it banged hard enough to make the casing jump, and the work lights flickered.

Nate lowered the hammer and waited.

Leo’s whole body felt wrong.

Too tight. Too full.

He could feel the house around him in a way he hadn’t since the night Nate first put his hand against this wall. The joists overhead. The pipes. The old furnace. Every loose nail and badly fitted piece of wood vibrating with the command building inside him.

Out.

Out.

Out.

“Nate.”

Nate lifted the sledge.

“Don’t.”

The hammer struck stone.

“No!”

Another piece of mortar broke free.

Leo flew at him.

He stopped himself inches away.

Nate never even flinched.

“Get away from the wall,” Leo yelled.

Nate’s chest rose and fell beneath his shirt. “Say the word.”

“What?”

“The word, Leo.”

Leo wasn’t sure what he meant. His thoughts felt slippery. There was the basement. Nate. The sledgehammer. The wall.

That was all.

There was no word. “What word are you talking about?”

Nate lifted the hammer.

Panic surged so fast Leo barely had time to recognize it. “Wait!”

The swing landed.

“Jesus Christ, Nate!”