The darkness beyond was mellowed by soft light, its source unknown. It took a couple of her weak breaths for a wet, fetid stench to hit her. She pressed her face into Adam’s shoulder. They could be in only one place. The sewer. A mangy rat darted past the elevator door.
“We’ve got to move. Got to find somewhere safe.” Adam sounded like he was talking to himself. He stepped out into a tunnel, looking each way as if weighing his options, debating between the two stretches of stinking tunnel.
It was strange to see Adam at a loss. Adam, who had a contingency for everything. Adam and his redundant securities. Not that she blamed him—no one could think of every unforeseen need. He’d done so much already by taking the whole of the wraith war onto his shoulders.
“Ah, hell,” he said, dragging her to the left. “The loft should have been safe. Should have been secure. It’s not affiliated with Segue, but they found us anyway. How’d they find us?”
Talia knew he wasn’t really asking her. Her job was to keep breathing, and she poured her concentration into that effort. It was the only way to help him.
“If they find us again, Talia, you run and hide. Got that? You run and hide. You do your dark thing and get to safety. I’ll try to hold them off as long as possible.”
He took some of her weight by circling his left arm under her shoulders. The dank length of darkness was slick with wet—the kind of dampness that never dried. It clung to the walls and soaked the debris at their feet made of disintegrating newspaper and unrecognizable trash. Only the bright white plastic of a fast-food cup seemed impervious to the sludge.
He stopped at a rusted metal ladder bolted to the concrete wall, manhole disk above, and peered at it intently.
“What about—” Talia began in a croak. She meant What about Custo? who was to meet them at the loft. Had he turned traitor like Spencer and led to the attack or was he walking unsuspecting into the hands of their attackers?
Adam turned quickly to her. “Shhh. Don’t talk. You need to rest your voice. You need to heal. You won’t be safe until you heal. No one will be safe until you heal.”
In a rush of horror Talia understood. Her scream, their great defense against the wraiths, had been silenced.
FIFTEEN
OH, shit. Which way? Indecision crushed Adam’s shoulders. It bowed his head with its incredible, immediate weight. He gripped the cold, wet metal of the ladder in frustration. Each stinking breath in this rotting tunnel cost them time they did not have.
He glanced at Talia—her face was gray, chest heaving as air rattled in her lungs. She’d needed him, and he fucked up. Again. Every time he fucked up, people died.
Case in point: The Collective had not challenged Segue and he’d been lured into a false sense of safety. He may have gotten his people out of the West Virginia research facility, but the satellite offices were unresponsive, his people most likely dead. His fault. And he’d stupidly thought the New York loft was secure, yet it was attacked, and Talia, the only weapon they had against the wraith war, was hurt. His fault.
Now it all came down to an either-or decision. Up to the surface or stay in the tunnel. So simple.
But he had no idea.
Talia needed medical attention, which could only be found on the surface, but then again, no medical attention was better than capture and final defeat.
Ah, hell—what should he do?
“Pssst.”
Adam spun, swiftly drawing and pointing his gun in the direction of the sound.
He’d taken too long. They’d been found.
His heart pounded as he anticipated an attack. Soldiers most likely—wraiths would have overpowered him by now. He strained his eyes and aimed down the barrel. Murky darkness swallowed the tunnel. He couldn’t see shit.
Talia’s hand on his arm startled him. He darted a glance at her and she shook her head. No. Don’t shoot.
He peered back into the darkness. Whatever was down there didn’t alarm Talia, but he wasn’t about to make another mistake. His grip on his gun tightened.
Talia squeezed his wrist, her hand warming with pressure. The shadows around him shifted, differentiated like overlapping thunderheads on a moonless night. The stench grew thicker, smells separating into distinct pools of foulness, each with its own fetid personality. Drops of water pinged clear notes in a strange wind chime of wetness.
And in the depths of the tunnel, a white face became visible.
A ghost.
No. A young girl, eyes outlined and dramatically shadowed in black. She had to be—what? Sixteen? Seventeen?
What the hell was she doing down here?
Adam almost started toward her—she might know a safe, sheltered way out of this hellhole. Somewhere they could hide.
But he pulled back. He wouldn’t make another mistake and get that young girl killed. He couldn’t possibly trade a hope of safety for a child’s life. He drew the line there.
Up the ladder, then.