The door slammed shut with the final clang of a tomb.
Total. Absolute. Darkness.
The world vanished. The only reality was the smell of old dust, the sharp tang of gunpowder, and the painful burn of tear gas in my lungs. My eyes were streaming and blind. Each breath was a ragged gasp.
"Isabella! I heard gunfire! Isabella! LEO! STATUS! I SWEAR TO GOD, STATUS!"
Dante's voice echoed in my ear, frantic and desperate. I felt buried alive.
I struggled to find my earpiece, my fingers shaking and my throat too raw to speak. "Dante!" I managed to choke out, but the sound was swallowed by the heavy air in the tunnel.
A heavy thud followed by a spray of coal hit my legs. A man's body crashed into the small space, and then I heard the metallic slam of an iron bar falling into place, sealing the chute from the inside.
"Leo?" I whispered, my voice a shaky blend of hope and fear.
A low groan answered me. Moments later, a weak beam of light from a tactical flashlight cut through the darkness, revealing our prison. We were in a small, brick-lined chamber, filled halfway with years of coal dust. Marchand slumped against the wall, coughing violently into a handkerchief, his frail body wracked by gas.
Then I saw Leo. He leaned heavily against the iron door, his face pale and sweaty. His left arm pressed tightly to his side, and dark blood seeped through his fingers. He had been hit. In the frantic moments covering our escape, he had taken a bullet.
Heavy thuds echoed from the other side of the iron door. Someone was trying to break it down.
"We have to move," Leo said through gritted teeth, pushing himself off the door. His flashlight beam shook. "Now."
I fumbled with my earpiece, my heart weighing heavily in my chest. "Dante! We're alive! We're in the tunnels! Leo's hurt!"
All I heard in response was a burst of static. The tons of earth, stone, and brick between us and the surface had turned the penthouse into a distant, unreachable star. We were cut off. We were completely alone.
That realization hit me like a cold blow, scarier than any gunfire. Dante didn't know if we were alive or dead. He would be tearing through the city, a blind king raging in his castle, while we were lost under his feet.
"He can't hear us," I said, my words feeling hollow.
Leo nodded, as if he expected it. He was focused only on survival. "Marchand. You're the guide. Where?"
Marchand, his coughing subsiding, pointed a trembling finger into the darkness beyond the coal chute. "This tunnel… it was the main artery. It runs south, beneath the old city, leading to the cellars under the cathedral. It's the only way."
"How far?" Leo asked, his breath hissing as he tore a strip from his shirt to make a makeshift bandage for his arm.
"A kilometer. Maybe two," Marchand replied. "But it's not an easy path. These tunnels… they were not meant for people to walk in."
The thudding at the door grew louder, followed by the high-pitched whine of a tool. They were cutting the hinges.
"We go," Leo said firmly.
He took the lead, his flashlight beam our only guide. I was in the middle, my arm looped through Marchand's, half-supporting the old man, who still gasped for clean air. The ledger tucked inside my jacket felt like a heavy weight against my ribs—the reason for all of this.
The tunnel was a claustrophobic nightmare. It barely stood five feet high, forcing us into a painful crouch. The air felt thick and musty, carrying the scent of forgotten years. Water dripped from the low ceiling, while the ground was a treacherous mix of mud and slick, mossy stone. Each step felt dangerous.
Marchand struggled. His breathing was shallow and painful; his weight grew heavier on my arm. Despite his injury, Leo kept a steady pace, alert to every sound. His light swept through the darkness, revealing intersecting tunnels, rusted machines, and the remains of rats.
"How do you know the way?" I whispered, my voice echoing unnaturally in the narrow space.
"My first job at Fafnir… I was an archivist," Marchand panted, his voice weak. "The director was paranoid. He believed war was inevitable. He had me memorize the original blueprints… the ones he hid from the bank. The ones showing the real foundations and escape routes. I thought he was a fool." He let out a dry laugh. "It seems the paranoid see the world more clearly."
We walked for what felt like hours, lost in darkness and dripping water. My muscles ached, my lungs still burned, and the weight of the ledger pulled me deeper into the earth.
Finally, Leo stopped and held up his uninjured hand, his body tense.
"What?" I whispered.
He didn't answer. He simply turned off his flashlight, plunging us into complete darkness. I could feel Marchand trembling beside me. My heart pounded against my ribs.
I strained to listen. At first, there was only the drip… drip… drip… of water.
Then I heard it.
It was not a rat. It was not our movements echoing back. It came from the tunnel behind us. A faint metallic scraping. A pebble dislodging.
And then, a whisper.
My blood turned to ice. They hadn't given up. They hadn't been fooled. They knew about the tunnels.
We weren't escaping. We were being hunted in the dark.