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He stood, shaking. He was a striker, built lean for speed, and I was a heavyweight with a sealed boot dragging at his right side. His legs trembled, then locked. He adjusted his grip, stabilized us both, and moved toward the door with slow determination. I felt what each step took out of him through his back, the muscle jumping, the breath going shorter. I put my face down against his neck and kept the pain quiet, because he was carrying his own.

“Where are we going?” I whispered against his ear.

“We can’t go back to the dorm,” Felix said, stepping into the corridor. “They’ll be waiting. We have to go deeper.”

A mournful siren began to wail, echoing off the concrete walls while red lights spun, throwing long shadows down the hallway.

SECURITY BREACH.

LOCKDOWN INITIATED.

“Hold on,” Felix said.

CHAPTER 32

FELIX

The siren was a hammer against the base of my skull, a mechanical pounding that synced with the pain radiating through my lower back.

I staggered under the weight, dress shoes slipping on the slick concrete as I worked through the maze of service tunnels. Leander rode my back, a dead weight of muscle and bone, and every step bent me further forward to hold the balance. My tuxedo shirt was soaked through. My lungs burned in the oxygen-starved air of the lower levels.

“Put me down,” Leander grunted against my ear, his voice strained by the jolt his leg took with every step. “You’re going to blow a knee carrying me like this.”

“Shut up,” I wheezed, adjusting my grip on his thighs to hoist him higher. “We aren’t deep enough yet.”

He shifted his weight and forced me into the rough concrete wall. “Felix, stop. I’m serious. Leave me here. I’m broken hardware, but you can still make it out if you run solo.”

“I can’t leave you,” I snarled, shoving off the wall to regain my balance. “They’ll send you to the Front.”

“I’d rather die in a trench than drag you down with me,” he whispered, the stubbornness in his tone warring with exhaustion. “You have a future. Don’t throw it away for a cripple.”

I didn’t answer, because he didn’t get it. There was no future without him, only this cage, and being alone at the top. I tightened my grip, fingers digging into the muscle of his thighs, and kept moving.

The corridor stretched on, lit by flickering yellow emergency bulbs in wire mesh. The air got hotter the deeper we went, smelling of old coolant and rust. My arms were shaking. The adrenaline of the breakout was gone, and what replaced it was pure physics. Leander was broader than me, heavier than me, and every step was a war against gravity.

I turned a corner and my foot caught a loose grate. I went down to one knee.

Leander hissed as the bad leg hit the floor.

“Sorry,” I gasped, trying to haul us both back up.

“Leave me, Felix,” he said, harder this time. “Go.”

“No.”

I gritted my teeth and forced my legs to straighten. I hadn’t burned my reputation and insulted the Director just to quit because I was tired.

Blue light flashed at the far end of the corridor.

SCANNING SECTION 4.

The mechanical voice echoed off the damp walls. A security drone came on with a low hum, its sweep painting the concrete in a grid of blue laser light, hunting us.

“Door,” Leander hissed, pointing at a rusted panel on the left.

I lunged for the maintenance hatch, kicked the release bar, and shoved the heavy metal inward with my shoulder. We spilled inside as the drone’s hum swelled to a roar.

I let Leander slide from my back. He hit the floor with a grunt, clutching the stabilization boot on his right leg, while I slammed the door and set my back against it, heels dug into the floor, wedging it shut with my body weight.