I don’t breathe until the indicator light shuts off.
The silence in the room is a vacuum. No one moves.
Then a distant alarm begins to pulse.
Tatek’s voice hits like a jolt. “They’ve traced the signal path. On the move. North hallway team’s inbound in under a minute.”
“Copy. Moving.”
The technician by the doorway flinches as I pass. I don’t slow. My boots echo too loud against the floor as I sprint toward the emergency hatch just before the main exit locks down.
Red sirens burst into bloom across the walls.
The outer corridor floods with movement—guards pouring in, shouting, some leveling weapons.
“Vent shaft three,” Tatek says. “Go left now.”
I veer hard, shoulder slamming the doorframe. The air is thick and hot, the station’s emergency lighting casting everything in infernal red.
They’re closer.
I can feel the vibrations of their boots in the steel beneath my feet.
And then he’s there.
Tatek emerges from the far corridor like a storm loosed from its leash. His blade flashes, a blur of motion that spills blood and drops two guards before the third even blinks. He grabs my arm as he passes.
“Run!”
We sprint together. Footsteps pound behind us. Shots fire—two of them wide, one grazing the vent frame as we dive inside. The shaft is narrow, the air stale and full of dust, metal rasping under our hands as we crawl faster than I thought possible.
“They’re tracking our heat,” he grunts.
“How long until we’re out of range?”
“Depends how many they send.”
“Optimistic.”
We drop into a side chamber—dark, narrow, some kind of old filtration node. It smells like rust and ozone and long-forgotten fear.
Tatek seals the hatch behind us. For a second, neither of us speaks.
We’re soaked in sweat. My side’s bleeding. His shoulder’s a mess of blood and bruises.
And we’re still alive.
I press my hand to the wall, just to feel something solid beneath my palm. My lungs burn.
Tatek leans next to me, head tilted back, eyes closed.
I whisper, “It’s done.”
He turns to look at me. And for once, there’s no smirk, no pretense, no clipped edge to his voice.
He just says, “No. It’s begun.”
CHAPTER 20
