If she didn't move now, she'd lose them both.
She wove through the wreckage, staying low and using what covershe could. The floor was sticky underfoot—spilled chemicals or water from burst pipes, she didn't want to know which. Heat intensified as she moved, fires spreading somewhere below. Each breath came harder than the last.
Metal groaned overhead. Emergency lights swung on damaged fixtures, casting wild shadows across the destruction. Brewer was armed. She'd need a weapon.
Twenty feet ahead, a fire extinguisher hung crooked on the wall, one mounting bracket broken. Red paint chipped and faded. She grabbed it, feeling the weight settle into her hands—ten pounds, maybe fifteen. The cold cylinder pressed against her palms.
The irony wasn't lost on her.
She followed Brewer down the corridor, keeping twenty feet back and using debris as cover. Silent steps learned from years of moving through spaces unnoticed.
David wasn't resisting much, too exhausted and hurt.
Then sirens wailed in the distance.
Faint at first, then growing louder with each second. Multiple vehicles approaching fast.
Brewer's head jerked up. He heard them too.
A door swung open ahead of them, and Chief Hale emerged from darkness—clean, not covered in powder like everyone else. He'd been down here already, near his escape route, while the station collapsed above.
His rough voice echoed up the stairwell. "Brewer! Down here! Bring him."
The deputy froze. His head swiveled between Hale ahead and the sirens behind, growing louder. Cara could see his panic from here—wide eyes, quick shallow breathing, the calculation playing across his face. He shoved David toward the chief and ran, disappearing into the twisted wreckage.
Hale's scream echoed after him, but Brewer was gone.
Hale cursed viciously and grabbed Davidroughly, jamming his gun into David's ribs. He dragged the injured man through the unmarked door into darkness below.
Cara waited, counting heartbeats, until the door started to swing closed. Then she moved.
Down the steps. Through the doorway. Into basement darkness while the station collapsed behind her.
40
The stairs descendedinto older construction, built into bedrock instead of perched on top of it. The air changed as Cara moved lower—cooler, damper, the acrid dust and smoke from above giving way to the smell of salt and wet stone.
Her hand trailed the rough wall as she followed the sound of Hale's footsteps and David's protests echoing from below. Emergency lights were strung along the corridor at intervals, creating pools of yellow glow separated by deep shadows. Someone had maintained this space, kept it functional while the building above rotted.
The stairs ended at a heavy door standing ajar. Hale had gone through fast.
She peered around the edge.
A tunnel stretched ahead, carved through solid rock and shored up with ancient timber. More emergency lights hung from the ceiling like Christmas lights, leading toward the rhythmic crash of waves she could hear but not yet see. The walls wept moisture, and the air tasted of diesel fuel and brine.
The boat house.
Wade had been right about the station having direct water access—perfect for smuggling, perfect for an escape route Hale had probably used for twenty years.
Ahead, Hale's rough voice bounced off stone. "Keep moving. Don't make this harder than it has to be."
David's response was lost to the ambient noise of footfalls and distant waves.
Cara slipped into the tunnel, careful not to make a sound. If Hale saw her, she had nowhere to run. The skills came back like muscle memory.Stay on the balls of your feet. Control your breathing. Use the darkness between lights.The fire extinguisher felt heavy in her hands, cold metal warming slowly against her palms.
The tunnel sloped downward toward water level. Crates were stacked along the walls—recent and well-maintained. Clear evidence of regular traffic. How many boats had come and gone through that boat house? How many shipments had Hale overseen in this very tunnel?
"They'll search—" She heard David insist.
