My phone vibrates.
Declan.
I answer it.
"Finally. I've called you three times. You got eyes on Keira?" His voice is sharp, frantic. "The whole building's power went out and back on."
"I'm handling it."
"Octavian, what does that mean? Where the fuck is my sister?"
I hesitate for half a second. Then I lie.
"She's safe. Stay in position unless I call back."
I hang up before he can argue. My stomach knots. I've lied to him. If I fail now, I'll have nothing left to go back to, but I can't let him interfere with this. Not when I'm this close to ending it all.
I keep moving and end up at a stairwell, the door unmarked, half-hidden behind a utility cart.
I hesitate, double-checking the app.
The dot is below me now; it's closer to me than it's been. Do I keep going? Is this the right way?
Fuck.
I look around and something in my gut screams at me to move.
So I do.
I descend the stairs, taking them two at a time, my hand gripping the railing to keep my balance as the metal rattles beneath me.
The air gets colder the farther down I go and Keira's face is all I see.
That moment at the statue, her tension, the way her beautiful green eyes glanced at me like she knew something was coming.
She felt it. Just like I did.
I push the images away, force myself to focus, but they come back relentlessly.
The memory of her body beneath mine, the sounds she made, the way she said my name.
I can't lose her. I won't.
I reach the bottom of the stairwell and stop.
Walls all around me. No doors, no hallways, nothing.
Just solid concrete on all sides. A dead end.
"What the fuck?" I say, spinning in place.
This makes no sense. Why would stairs lead to nowhere?
I check my phone again. The dot is ahead of me, same altitude.
She has to be here.
I press my palm against the wall in front of me and it's solid.
