Anton watches me, eyes wild, pleading. “I don’t want to die down here.”
“Then stop giving us reasons to kill you,” I reply sharply.
His breath catches, but he lowers the gun, inch by inch.
Anton’s eyes flick from me to Damian, jittery and bright like a moth terrified of its own shadow. For a breath, for the thin slice of silence between heartbeats, I think we might trap him here, pin him between truth and consequence and make him finally face the wreckage he built.
But the tunnels shudder.
A soft, trembling vibration ripples through the floor, subtle enough that I first mistake it for my pulse kicking up. Then another stronger tremor follows. Dust shakes loose from the ceiling in a dry whisper, drifting like gray snow.
Damian’s head lifts sharply. “Harper—”
I don’t hear the rest.
A violent crack detonates through the tunnels, a sound so massive it feels like the earth rearing up and roaring directly into my bones. A pressure wave slams into me, folding the air into a fist that punches through the chamber.
The lights overhead flicker once, like they’re blinking in terror, and then explode in a burst of white sparks. The entrance behind us caves in with a monstrous, grinding roar.
Rock, dust, a shriek of metal ripping apart is the only thing I hear. I stumble backward, weightless and helpless, the ground jolting underneath me like a living creature trying to buck me off.
Damian’s arms are suddenly around me.
He wraps an arm around my waist and yanks me under him as debris rains down in choking sheets. The ceiling collapses where we stood seconds before, stone and concrete smashing into the floor with enough force to send shockwaves radiating through the chamber.
Something large crashes inches from my head.
Dust erupts in a suffocating cloud, swallowing the world in a darkness so thick I taste it. Bitter, mineral, ancient.
“Harper!” Damian shouts, his voice raw, torn open by the chaos. “Harper, answer me!”
I try. My throat is filled with dust and my lungs burn.
I cough violently and his grip tightens, grounding me in the avalanche of noise.
“I’m here,” I choke out.
His exhale is both relief and desperation.
Through the settling haze, I see Anton in a blur of frantic motion, scrambling to his feet. For a moment, his outline is framed by the dim, flickering emergency lights.
Then he bolts.
Not toward the collapsed entrance but toward the deeper dark.
Cowardice wears the same face as survival. I see that now.
“Anton!” I try to push up, but Damian holds me down as another tremor rolls through the chamber, sending loose stones pattering around us like hail.
His voice is rough in my ear. “Stay low.”
The second collapse is smaller, but it sends a new wave of dust cascading over us, thickening the air until each breath feels carved from stone. My heartbeat hammers at the inside of my ribs, violent and terrified, but Damian’s solid and unwavering presence over me keeps me anchored.
When the world finally stops shaking, a ringing silence swells in my ears, high and sharp, like a tuning fork pressed to my skull. I blink through the swirling dust, vision stuttering in and out of clarity.
The tunnel entrance, the only path back to Kiro and the others, is buried under a mountain of rubble.
Completely sealed.
