This place shouldn’t exist anymore.
Fucking Anton, he could only find this place?
Harper moves behind me, her breath steady but sharp. She’s been steady through every collapse, every ambush, every betrayal. But down here, where the world narrows to dim corridors and the hum of dying machines, I feel the tremor beneath her composure.
I curve my arm back and let my fingers brush hers, just enough to anchor her. She squeezes once, then releases them.
The tunnel widens ahead, swallowing us in its mechanical throat. Bundles of wires snake along the walls, thick and disorganized, new coils grafted onto old infrastructure like someone tried to resurrect the place with scrap tech and a prayer.
A faint buzzing vibration travels through the floor. Several heartbeats overlapping. Machines stirring where they shouldn’t.
Harper notices it too.
“Damian,” she murmurs, her voice lowered but not weak. “The power draw shouldn’t be this high. Not in a place this abandoned.”
“Which means it isn’t abandoned.”
She nods once, grim, face pale in the stuttering light.
We keep moving.
A junction splits ahead. Left corridor is collapsed under a ceiling cave-in, right corridor lit by a string of emergency bulbs that shouldn’t have power. They sway softly from the frayed cables above, casting elongated shadows across the floor like warning signs.
Anton’s voice slithers from the right passage, distant but clear enough to raise the hairs on the back of my neck.
“You’re late,” he calls out, tone lilting with the unhinged cadence of someone who has lost their last tether to sanity. “I thought the Ignatovs ran on punctuality.”
Harper stiffens. I raise a finger to my mouth, signaling silence. She stops moving instantly, disciplined as any soldier I’ve ever trained.
Anton’s laugh echoes thinly, fragile, but laced with static.
He’s near.
The echo reverberating through metal and stone makes it impossible to pinpoint his exact location though.
A trap. It has to be.
I move forward slowly, every sense sharpening. The tunnel narrows again, pressing close, the ceiling low enough that I have to duck beneath sagging panels. Sparks hiss from a ruptured conduit above, briefly lighting the corridor in violent white flashes.
The wiring is thin and inconspicuous, camouflage with the stones.
Explosives.
Small, compact, military-grade devices strapped to the support beams. Barely noticeable unless you know what you’re looking for.
Or unless you’re looking for the thing that’s trying to kill you.
My breath freezes, then returns in a controlled exhale.
He’s rigged the tunnels.He’s rigged the servers, damn near everything.
And the sick fuck wants an audience.
I turn slightly, keeping my voice low.
“Harper. Don’t touch the walls.”
Her brows furrow.
