The street James led us to didn't look like a place anyone would bother watching. The storefronts were boarded, signs faded until the letters were just ghosts of paint. A sagging awning flapped loosely above a door with no glass left in it, only warped plywood. He didn't slow, didn't glance back to see if I kept up, he expected I would.
We crossed into a narrow service lane behind the row, the air carrying the smell of stale cooking oil and dust that hadn't seen rain in years. Somewhere far off, a delivery truck shifted gears, the sound rolling over the rooftops before fading again. Here, the quiet wasn't comfortable; it was the kind that asked you to notice every small sound.
James stopped at a metal door set flush into the brick. He knocked twice, waited, then three times more, a rhythm that seemed to matter. The lock turned from the inside, and a thin man with close-cropped hair and eyes like cold water pulled it open. No greeting, just a sidestep to let us through.
Inside, the light was dim but warm, coming from bare bulbs strung high along the rafters. The space had the smell of old wood and tobacco, layered with something metallic underneath. Tables sat scattered across the wide floor, some stacked with crates, others with ledgers and open rolls of paper. No one spoke to us, though heads lifted briefly as we passed.
James walked like he belonged here, hand brushing my arm once as he steered me toward a side staircase. The steps groaned under our weight, and at the top, he pushed open a door to a room with no windows, just four walls lined in shelves of mismatched files and boxes. A single chair sat by a desk in the center.
He motioned for me to sit. I did, the wood hard and cold beneath me. James closed the door behind us, the click of the latch quieter than I expected.
"This place is safe," he said, leaning against the desk. "For a while."
"Safe from who?"
His mouth pulled into something almost like a smile, but there was nothing warm in it. "You're thinking too small. It's not just who anymore."
The alley narrowed until we were forced to walk single file, our steps muffled by the damp grit underfoot. James didn't slow, but I noticed the way his gaze flicked to every gap between buildings, every darkened doorway. The sound of the city was muted here, replaced by the faint metallic groan of pipes buried somewhere overhead.
Halfway down, he stopped without warning. I nearly collided with him, catching myself on the cold edge of a brick wall. His head angled slightly, listening. I followed his gaze toward the far end of the alley, nothing but a chain-link fence and a padlocked gate.
"Not that way," he murmured, barely moving his lips.
We doubled back toward a side door painted the color of rust. He rapped twice, short and sharp. No answer. Another knock, slower this time, and the lock clicked from the inside. A man with weathered hands and a face like carved stone opened just enough to see us.
James leaned in, speaking low enough that the words were meant for him alone. The man's eyes shifted to me briefly, unreadable, then the door opened wider.
Inside smelled of steel and machine oil. Narrow aisles of stacked crates made the room feel smaller, the light above thin and uneven. James kept moving until we reached a far corner where a workbench sat littered with bolts, wire, and the gutted shell of an old radio.
He rested a hand on the bench and finally looked at me. "We'll wait here."
I glanced at the crates, some marked with faded stencils in a language I didn't recognize. "You trust this place?"
"No," he said plainly, "but I trust the man who owns it not to ask questions."
The man from the door disappeared somewhere deeper in the building, the sound of his boots on the concrete fading into the background hum of a compressor. James' hand stayed near his coat pocket, his body angled toward the single exit.
"What happens if they find us here?" I asked.
His answer came without hesitation. "We leave faster than they can follow."
That wasn't comforting, but I didn't expect it to be.
The minutes stretched, marked only by the occasional creak of the building settling and the low hum from somewhere deep in its walls. James didn't pace, but the way his fingers tapped once against the edge of the bench told me he was counting each passing second.
I tried to read his face, but it was the same guarded mask he wore when he wanted me to stop asking questions. My gaze drifted to the open radio casing, its tangle of wires stripped and coiled like veins. Whoever had taken it apart had done so with care, but not with the intention of fixing it.
"Why here?" I asked finally.
He looked at me for a beat before answering. "Because it's quiet enough to hear someone coming before they're close enough to matter."
I was about to press further when the man from the door reappeared, moving with the kind of unhurried efficiency that said he didn't waste steps. He held something wrapped in brown paper, edges folded tight. Without a word, he set it on the workbench between James and me.
James didn't open it immediately. He brushed the side with his knuckles, feeling for something beneath the paper before sliding it closer. When he finally peeled the wrapping back, a small black case rested inside.
His eyes shifted to me once, a silent reminder to keep still, then he clicked it open. Nestled in the felt lining was a compact pistol, matte finish catching just enough light to define its shape. Next to it, two loaded magazines sat neatly side by side.
"Not for you," James said before I could speak. His voice wasn't sharp, but it carried finality.
The man who'd brought it didn't linger. The door shut behind him, the sound muffled by the walls, leaving us alone again. James slipped the weapon into an inside holster and pocketed the magazines, all without breaking his rhythm.
"Something's moving faster than I thought," he said, mostly to himself. Then his gaze lifted to mine. "We're not staying past tonight."
"Where?" I asked.
"Someplace harder to find," he said. But he didn't sound like he believed there was such a place.
Before I could reply, a faint metallic clang echoed from the direction of the alley. It wasn't loud, but James stilled immediately, head turning toward the sound. His hand brushed the inside of his coat, and his other hand motioned me back, quiet, deliberate.
We didn't speak.
The sound came again, sharper this time, like a pipe striking metal. James' eyes narrowed. He moved to the single light hanging above the workbench and switched it off, plunging the space into a dim half-shadow. The sudden quiet seemed heavier now, the building itself holding its breath.
His hand closed around my wrist, not rough, but firm enough to guide me behind a stack of crates. The air smelled faintly of dust and old varnish, the edges of the wood pressing into my shoulder as we crouched.
Footsteps entered the alley outside, slow but purposeful. They paused near the door, then retreated, only to return seconds later. A soft scrape followed, the sound of someone testing the lock. James' grip tightened once, a wordless warning to stay still.
The steps receded again, but he didn't relax. He stayed crouched, listening until the building's natural creaks returned, until the compressor hummed again like nothing had changed.
When he finally let go of my wrist, his expression told me it wasn't over. "We move in five," he said quietly. "Pack light." He was already sliding the pistol from its holster to check the chamber, every motion silent, deliberate.
I didn't ask where we were going. I just nodded, because whatever was outside wasn't gone, it was waiting.
James didn't go for the alley door. He cut the light again and steered me toward a narrow corridor I hadn't noticed, a seam in the shelving that opened into a utility passage. The air changed to something clean and chemical, a hint of citrus under old dust. We moved single file past mop sinks and stacked cartons of paper towels. Somewhere above us, a cable thrummed once, the kind of sound a freight lift makes when it starts but doesn't come down.
He kept one hand close to his coat, the other brushing the wall like he was counting distance by panels. At the end of the passage, a metal grate blocked our way. He tested a bolt with two fingers, found it loose, and rolled it back without a sound. Beyond the grate, a short run of stairs dropped into a square room lined with vending machines and a faded notice board. The fluorescence overhead hummed unevenly, a low, insect sort of buzz.
"Put this on," he said, taking a folded cap from a crate by the wall. It was dark, utilitarian, the kind you see on delivery drivers who slide through buildings without being seen. He pulled a second one over his own hair, setting the brim low enough to change his shape.
A service lift waited with its doors half open, the kind with a wire gate you drag across. He didn't press the call button. He listened. After a count of five, he slid the gate shut, pressed a recessed switch, and the motor took us down so slowly I could feel each floor pass as a shift in the air.
My tongue tasted like coin. He didn't look at me, only watched the slats as if the building might decide to speak through them.
The lift stopped in a hallway that felt unused in a different way, not neglected, just chosen by people who preferred to be left alone. The floor was smooth concrete, swept clean. A single red stripe ran along the base of the wall, turning left at the first corner, then right again toward a door with a push bar. Someone had stuck a paper arrow above it, hand drawn, pointing to an exit that didn't exist.
"That one is for people who don't ask questions," James said. "We're not those people."
He took us the opposite direction, past a locked cage full of janitorial carts and a stack of flattened boxes tied with twine. The smell of starch hung in the air. Another door waited with a scuffed kick plate and no sign. He cracked it an inch. Not the street. A laundry room, industrial size, steam whispering from a line that hadn't been fully closed. He led us through it, weaving between canvas hampers and plastic bins until we reached a loading bay screened by clear plastic curtains that stuck to my sleeves when I brushed them.
Voices carried from the far end, not close, and not interested in us. He waited for the rhythm to dip, then nudged me across the threshold and down a short ramp into a different corridor with low ceilings and strip lights that flickered but held.
We passed a gray door tagged with a chalk X, small and neat at knee height. James didn't slow. I did.
"What is that," I asked.
"Someone's breadcrumb," he said. "Means this path was already walked."
"By who."
"By someone who wanted to remember the way back."
We reached a door with a narrow slot of glass and a view of a basement parking level. The air on the other side felt cooler, dryer, smelling faintly of rubber and cold metal. A few cars sat with dust on their windshields, the kind of dust that settles only in places where engines rarely turn over. He watched his reflection in the glass instead of the lot, shifted his weight once, and pushed through.
No footsteps. No engines. Just the tick of cooling pipes and the slow drip from an overhead valve.
He angled me toward a stairwell painted the color of old bone. Halfway up, a single sheet of receipt paper lay on the step, curled at the corner. He picked it up, scanned the blank side, then turned it over to a scribble done in thick black pen. A circle. A short vertical line through it, not quite centered.
"You know it," I said.
He didn't answer. He folded the paper and slid it into my pocket like it belonged there.
"Why me," I asked.
"So you feel it when you forget," he said.
At the landing, he paused, hand tight on the rail, listening in that particular way of his that makes every other sound fall away. When he moved again it was decisive, the stairwell door opening to a corridor lit softer than the one below. Somewhere ahead, a different kind of noise filtered through, low voices and the clatter of plates, the kind of place where people came and went without looking up.
"Keep your cap on," James said. "Stand close, and if anyone asks, you're waiting on a signature."
"For what," I asked.
"For something that doesn't belong to us," he said.
He opened the last door. Warmth rolled over us, the scent of yeast and hot air from ovens working through the night. A bakery, not open yet, racks of bread cooling on wheeled trays, timers ticking in gentle intervals. A woman in an apron crossed the far end of the room with a tray and didn't glance our way.
James touched the small of my back, only once, then let his hand fall. He was already looking for the next exit, the one that would take us into a morning full of strangers who weren't watching for us.
"Today we disappear forward," he said.
"How will we know if it worked."
"We won't," he said, and there was something like approval in his voice. "That is the point."
He chose a door near the ovens, one that let in a thread of cool dawn air. Before he pushed it, he looked down at my pocket, where the folded receipt rested against the fabric.
"When you feel that mark," he said, "it means we're not the only ones taking this route."
"What do we do if we see it again."
"We stop pretending the path is ours," he said. "And we make a new one."
He opened the door, and the first light of morning edged across the threshold, thin and colorless, the kind that gives nothing away.