I exhaled, long and controlled, letting my hand fall away from the knife.
“Keep going,” I said.
The ladder shook and swayed. Each rung, slick with rain, was a gamble I had to take. I guided my feet by instinct, trusting my grip more than my eyes.
My boots hit the ground.
I turned immediately, scanning the full length of the alley in both directions. The child’s shoe sat in a puddle near my right foot, sodden and small. I stepped over it without looking down.
Clear.
For now.
Libby dropped down beside me a second later, landing lightly, breathing hard. Rain had soaked her completely through—clothes clinging, hair plastered against her face, skin pale in the dark. But her eyes were sharp and present.
I grabbed her hand without thinking.
Her fingers laced through mine, shaking slightly, and squeezed once, hard, before we both started moving.
We ran into the storm, the noise, and the flooded streets where the gutters ran with rainwater and blood, using every bit of chaos the sky had given us to stay one step ahead of everything trying to pull us under.
The grass had turned to mud, deep and sucking, pulling at my boots with every stride like the ground itself had decided we weren’t leaving. Somewhere behind us, a chorus of shrieks rose and fell with the thunder, overlapping and answering each other, almost like hunting calls. I looked around, swearing under my breath as I realized they had spotted us.
“Libby, we have to hurry,” I said, propelling her forward.
“Here—” Libby gasped, dropping to her knees beside the statue.
I stepped over it and reached for the access panel.
My hands slipped on the wet metal immediately, rain pouring down my arm and numbing my fingers. I dug in harder, nails scraping against rust.
“Come on—”
It gave with a sharp, grinding jerk that sent a spike of pain through my wrists.
“Go!”
Libby swung her legs over without a second’s pause and dropped into the darkness below. Her boots found the ladder rungs—fast, controlled—and then she disappeared entirely.
I swept the park one last time. Near the treeline, something moved—slow, hunched—too far out to matter. I dropped in after her, grabbed the hatch, and hauled it shut. The clang swallowed itself in the storm.
Darkness. Total.
I fumbled for my phone and thumbed the flashlight on.
The beam cut through the tunnel—
And the air left my lungs.
Water. Of course. The storm—I hadn’t—fuck. I should have thought of that.
The water was brown and already moving, ankle-deep, shoving hard against the walls. It carried things with it: a plastic bag, a single shoe, something dark and sodden I didn’t look at long enough to name.
“Shit,” I said.
Libby turned. The flashlight caught her face—eyes wide, chest heaving, hair plastered flat against her skull. Water already lapped at the tops of her boots.
“I didn’t think about the flooding.” She was already moving. “We need to go.”
