Kai went ahead of me without waiting, light on his feet, faster than his earlier chaos suggested, slipping into shadow, and I adjusted to his pace, letting him take point for the descent while I covered angles, weapon up, every sense tuned to what waited below.
Basements held things people didn’t want found.
We were about to find out what this one was hiding.
TWENTY-FIVE
Caleb
I movedwith Zach at my shoulder, matching his pace, controlled and quiet, with comms first as the plan, until we turned a corner and I froze, my hand coming up as two figures resolved ahead of us—small, too small—and Zach stilled beside me, reading it at the same time I did as we both lowered our weapons a fraction without needing to say anything, because these were the collared guards that Noah talked about.
Their eyes went wide with fear the second they saw us, their bodies bracing for pain, and I forced myself to slow everything down, deliberate and readable as I shook my head once and lifted a finger to my lips in a clear signal for silence.
They froze, which told me all I needed to know about what they’d been conditioned to expect, and I stepped closer carefully, keeping my hands visible and my posture nonthreatening, then gestured behind them, back the way we’d come, indicating the route out rather than the danger ahead.
“Unalarmed side door,” I whispered, keeping my voice low and steady. “You need to leave. Now.”
They froze, then one of them lifted a shaking hand to the collar at his throat, eyes locked on mine, asking the questionwithout words. I nodded once, giving him the only reassurance I could without breaking the moment.
“We’re going to neutralize those,” I whispered. “You need to go.”
There was a beat where neither of them moved, and then one of them spoke, voice thin with fear. “Noah’s with him. We’re not leaving him.”
I swallowed that down and kept my focus on them, on the immediate objective, because panic would unravel this faster than anything else. “We’re getting Noah,” I said, holding his gaze, making sure he believed it. “That’s happening. But right now, you go. Side door. No noise.”
They hesitated, fear and loyalty pulling them in opposite directions.
“Go,” I said again, quieter this time but sharper, enough to cut through the hesitation.
That did it.
They slipped past us and into the dark, trusting us enough to follow the path we’d given them, and I watched until they were gone before turning back to the corridor.
I hoped we could get the connection to those damn collars disconnected.
“Comms,” Zach said, his voice low and steady.
I nodded, pushing everything else aside as we headed on again.
The next room we came to—some kind of lounge area with sofas was lit, door ajar enough for light to bleed into the corridor, and I slowed, flattening to the wall as I took a quick look inside.
A man sat in front of a TV, florid face, hair scraped back into a tight ponytail, attention fixed on whatever he was watching, while Noah stood to one side of him, head bent, posture wrong in a way that told me everything about control without needingto see the mechanism, and a single guard lingered inside the door with his back to us, weight lazy, weapon low.
I glanced at Zach and made it quick and clean with my hands—two targets, two prongs, I take the man at the console, he takes the guard—and he nodded once, already changing his angle.
We moved together.
Zach went first, silent and fast, closing the distance to the guard in three steps and dropping him before he could even register the threat, while I cut inside and brought my weapon up on the man at the screens.
“Michael?” I said, and he turned enough to confirm it.
He went for something.
I fired and the shot hit him high rather than center mass, and he folded, but his hand came up clutching a small control unit, fingers tightening even as he sagged, and his voice broke into a wet shout.
“Stop—”
Zach didn’t hesitate.
