"This way," Kai orders, his hand still gripping mine as we navigate tunnels I can barely see. "Thirty seconds to the exit."
The passage twists, turns, slopes downward.
Underground.
We're going underground.
My lungs burn.
My legs ache.
My body is screaming from the ordeal—hanging upside down, the fall, the explosion, all of it catching up to me in waves of exhaustion.
But I keep running.
One-two-three-four.
One-two-three-four.
Count the steps.
Count the breaths.
Count the heartbeats until you're safe.
Light appears ahead.
Exit.
We burst out into?—
An alley.
Different from the one at the theater, but similar enough. Back entrance. Hidden egress. The kind of escape route you build when you expect to need one.
And waiting at the curb...
The black car.
The same one he threw me into.
I hesitate.
Just for a moment.
Kai feels it—the slight resistance, the memory of betrayal that hasn't quite faded despite everything.
"It's safe," he says. "I promise."
I promise.
Coming from a Lawson.
Coming from the man who drugged me.
Coming from my pack leader.
I get in the car.
