The tunnel dips slightly, then curves, opening into a wider chamber where the ceiling lifts enough to let the air move again. Faint light filters in from somewhere ahead, not natural, not clean, but enough to shift the space from total darkness into something navigable.
I slow, raising a hand again.
“Hold,” I whisper.
“What?” she asks, quieter now.
I tilt my head slightly, listening.
Voices.
Faint.
Distorted by distance and stone, but there.
“Patrol,” I murmur. “Above us, not far.”
She steps closer behind me, her shoulder brushing lightly against my back as she leans in just enough to hear.
“You sure?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I reply. “Listen.”
The sound filters down again, boots against metal this time, sharper than the stone echoes around us, and her posture shifts immediately.
“Checkpoint?” she asks.
“More than that,” I say, moving toward a narrow vertical shaft along the chamber wall. “That’s layered movement. Rotating positions.”
She follows me without hesitation as I press myself against the wall and glance up through the fractured opening. Light spills down in thin strips, broken by movement above, and I catch glimpses of armor passing across the gap.
“Yeah,” I murmur. “They’re sweeping.”
“For what?” she asks, though I can hear the answer already forming in her tone.
I don’t respond immediately.
Instead, I reach up and hook my fingers into the edge of the opening, pulling myself up just enough to see more clearly.
The structure above isn’t just a checkpoint.
It’s locked down.
Barricades.
Sensors.
Multiple units cycling through positions with tighter spacing than standard patrol.
“That’s not routine,” I say quietly, dropping back down.
Jolie watches me closely.
“What is it?” she asks.
“They’re not just watching the border,” I reply. “They’re looking for something specific.”
“Or someone,” she says.
