The air changes. A subtle tension. Like a held breath in the concrete bones of the tunnel. My body reacts before my brain finishes catching up. I’m already sitting up, gun in hand, heart picking up speed. A whisper of motion—too far to hear but close enough to know.
I lean over her. “Eliza.”
She stirs, lashes fluttering, eyes hazy. “What?”
“We’ve got to move. Now.”
The tone of my voice must hit home because she bolts upright, tension snapping through her limbs as she grabs her shoes. I toss her the go-bag.
“The drive. You got it?”
“Yes.”
“Good. On your feet.”
I shoulder open the rusted exit door, pistol raised, and we slip back into the arteries of the city’s underbelly. The tunnels yawn ahead, damp and echoing. Stale air mixes with the stench of mold and sewage, heavy enough to taste. Water drips from overhead. Pipes hiss. Rats skitter across our path, their claws a rapid, clicking percussion.
One darts too close and Eliza startles with a squeal—high, sharp, unmistakably human. My hand flies up instinctively, pressing firmly against her shoulder, urging her back against the tunnel wall.
“Shhh,” I hiss, cutting a look over myshoulder.
She clamps her mouth shut, cheeks flushed with embarrassment. But her breathing’s fast and shaky, and when I reach for her hand, she doesn’t hesitate. Fingers tighten around mine. I pull her close, tuck her behind me again, and keep moving.
The darkness stretches ahead—uneven concrete, rusted rebar, old signage half-obscured by time and graffiti. These tunnels were never meant for people, not really. Just maintenance crews and ghosts.
We move fast, boots slapping against wet concrete. I keep her tucked behind me, my good hand on her arm, guiding. We round a corner, and a man lunges out of the shadows like he’s been waiting for us.
Hunched. Twitching.
Filthy hoodie pulled tight over his head, the glint of a blade trembling in his hand. His eyes are wild, yellowed with fever or something worse, pupils blown wide. The stench hits before his voice does.
“Give me your bag!”
He’s strung out, desperate. I can see it in the way his hand shakes around the hilt of the blade, the way his whole body jitters like a live wire. This isn’t a mugging. It’s a last-ditch gamble for survival.
But I don’t hesitate. Can’t.
One step forward—my foot snaps low, fast, sweeping his legs from under him. He hits the ground with a wet grunt. The knife clatters from his grip, skittering into the dark. Before he can scramble for it, I’m on him—boot pressed to his chest, pinning him to the slick concrete, his breath wheezing through cracked lips.
“Don’t,” I warn, voice low and lethal. “Stay the fuck down.”
He nods frantically, coughing, palms up. I hold him there just long enough to make sure he’s not stupid enough to follow.
Then I kick him hard to the side. He crumples against the wall, groaning.
Not dead. Just out of the way.
I spin, grab Eliza’s hand. Her eyes are wide, her body stiff, but she moves when I pull. Around another corner. Down another dark tunnel. The walls close in tighter here. The ceiling is low. Pipes snake overhead like metal veins. The smell intensifies—something rotting in the far recesses.
She slips. A sharp cry. I catch her by the arm, wrench her upright.
White-hot agony tears through my shoulder like lightning laced with glass. The burn isn’t just pain. It’s a detonation of sensation. Blinding. Crippling. My knees nearly buckle. The bandage beneath my jacket goes hot and wet.
Fuck.
The wound is open again.
Blood surges down my arm, soaking through fabric that’s already stiff with dried sweat and old crimson. I grit my teeth so hard my jaw creaks, vision narrowing to a tunnel of pulsing red.
