Chapter Text
Beep!
Another keypad blinked red.
"Didn’t we just change out this card?" Bellamy muttered beside me, brows drawn tight under his cap.
"Yes," I answered, tossing the flat piece of plastic over my shoulder. It bounced off the yellow safety railing of the platform and fell into the abyss below. "And that was our last tier four."
In the past two hours alone, we had burned through nearly every card I had stolen from the silo. Each time we used one, it would be deactivated at the next keypad. The Orqoruna were keeping track somehow. Perhaps they had begun accounting for their dead. Regardless, it was only a matter of time before they caught up to us, but until then, we ran through Level Two's backrooms, looking for a way to access the section Bellamy believed contained the acid fog.
Keeping our heads low, we walked briskly down the platform to another door. Bellamy flinched at something. My pulse jumped—I snapped toward him. But he only lifted a finger to his earpiece, and the panic eased.
"We’re a little busy here, Raven." A pause as we reached the door. "Yeah, we’re making our way there now. It’s taking longer than we thought."
While he spoke to her, I retrieved one of the last two keycards from my pocket and pressed it against the panel.
Beep!
Red. That was new. I double-checked the tier label. It should have worked. A weight slowly formed in my stomach as I pocketed the card and tried the last one.
Beep!
Same outcome. I felt him tap on my arm and turned to face him. Concern knitted his brows, dark eyes reflecting the same gut instinct I fought to suppress: the Orqoruna had deactivated the last of our keys.
"Something’s wrong," he spoke into his earpiece while holding out a hand, fingers flicking in a signal, but I patted down my pockets and shook my head. That was our last one. "Our keycards are out; we need to find another way in. I’ll call you back."
Hanging up on Raven, he turned to me—
BZZT.
"Stay right there!"
We froze. Then, slowly, we turned toward the source. Two Orqoruna stood by the door we had tried earlier, on the platform across the abyss, pistols raised, faces shadowed by the dull lighting and brown walls of the backrooms.
"Hands in the air," one ordered, sneering.
Bellamy's eyes met mine.
Go.
We bolted for the nearest staircase, two steps at a time. Breath burning, heart hammering, our boots clanged against the grates in a rattling staccato. Behind us, one of the guards barked into his radio: "Eastbound, in pursuit of the targets. There’s two—repeat, two!"
Damn it, there went our cover. But their pace echoed farther and farther away as we raced ahead, down a long corridor, making a hard right around the corner—a concrete wall on our right, yellow safety bars on the left, protecting us from the three-story drop below.
"Shit," Bellamy growled through ragged breath, then jerked his chin toward the end of the floor. I followed his line of gesture—
To a dead end.
Isma, did they herd us to this exact spot? No time to think. Still sprinting, I flicked my gaze between the various pipes jutting out from the skeleton of the platform until they landed on a thick bar. An insane idea popped into my head—one I had not executed in years—but far better than being captured. I reached for my belt.
"Bell!" I called out as we drew closer to the end of the corridor, my sapabola clicking loose. "You trust me?"
Breath short, he barely spared a glance. "You know I do."
All I needed.
Thumb through the leather handle, I secured chain behind my wrist and wrapped a good portion of the rest of the length around my forearm before hurling the ball ahead. Metal ground against metal as the length wrapped tight around the bar, locking the anchor into place. I caught Bellamy’s hand and slung his arm over my shoulders, the warm line of his side against mine. My free arm hooked around his waist.
"Ko—?"
I twisted over the safety railing, throwing us over the edge of the platform.
Air whipped around us, muffling his sharp intake of breath at my ear, his temple pressed against mine. Gravity pitched our stomachs as we followed the sapabola's arc, every muscle tensed. A spike of pain flared under my ribs as his arms clamped tight around a half-healed wound. The swing crested toward the second level of a scaffold across from ours. I squeezed his waist twice in warning, and he loosened his grip once our feet hit the grates.
Moving with the momentum, he dropped into a roll. My forearm and shoulder groaned in protest as they loosened from the pressure, but I turned around, whipping the chain. The wave traveled up and knocked the steel ball out of its anchor, landing right into my palm. A dull pain bloomed throughout my hand, but better than letting it clatter to the floor and revealing our new location.
"You're surrounded!" A guard's voice boomed in the distance, echoing off the walls of the large space. "There's no way out!"
I peered above to where we had jumped off, but no movement caught my eye. Good. The guards were left behind.
"You couldn’t have given me a warning?"
A smirk escaped me at Bellamy's grumbling. Turning, I coiled and clipped the sapabola back into its place at my belt as I faced him. His olive skin had taken on a pale, greenish tinge, a sheen of sweat catching in the light.
"Would it have helped?"
"...probably not."
"Mmn." Amusement seeped out of my hum.
Barely glancing at our new surroundings, our boots carried us toward the nearest staircase. Using the safety railings, he jumped down sets at a time while I hopped off the bars. Whatever got us downstairs faster. Once we reached ground-level, we broke out into a jog down a wide corridor, industrial-sized crates and strange machines blurring past us as we ran side-by-side.
A tap on my arm and a gesture to the left, he guided our path around the corner of a wall. We flattened ourselves against its side, Bellamy closest to the edge. Interlocking my hands on top of my head, I breathed deeply, regulating. He, on the other hand, bent over with his hands cupping his knees. I gently smacked his shoulder, chastising.
Raising his head, he sent me a playful mock-glare through the curls plastered to his forehead with sweat, but before I could scold him on his posture, something flickered in his eyes as he straightened.
"Are you—We're getting chased by Mountain Men, and you're smiling?"
I reined in whatever expression had been on my face, but it was too late. I pressed my lips together, but could not stop the corner of my mouth from tugging upward and averted my gaze. I mumbled, "We."
The word hung there for a beat too long.
Most of my mission assignments under Trikru had been solo. Occasionally I led a squad or platoon—once, the battalion at Caocin, though that had been out of necessity—but I never had a partner before. Not one I worked with this seamlessly. I glanced at him from the corner of my eye. He blinked, brows lifted just slightly, as if trying to read underneath that single, accidental admission. A dry laugh left him as he caught his breath, like he was not quite sure what to do with it.
"Unbelievable," he muttered, shaking his head. "You're insane."
Dropping my hands to my hips, I turned toward him. "I have not been on a mission like this in a while, alright? It's... kind of fun. Exhilarating."
He scoffed, as if I had confirmed his point, but I saw the barely restrained twitch of his lips.
"Why did we stop, anyway?" I changed the subject.
"All the doors here require a keycard," he nodded toward the closest one across from us, then peeked around the edge. "Just gotta draw one of them over here."
Quick thinking. Unclipping my weapon, I held the steel ball out in front of him, offering with an unspoken question. He nodded. Dropping the ball over my shoulder, I swung down the chain hard. The ball flung through the air in an arch and smashed into the corner of a nearby crate, wood splintering with a loud crash. Footsteps picked up, drawing near.
Bellamy gestured for me to move back, for me to stay. I acquiesced, retracting the ball like a fishing line and returning it to my belt.
"Keep your eyes open. Garza? Do you see him?" A radio crackled to life. "Garza, what's your status?"
I only saw a glimpse of the guard's foot before Bellamy lunged forward, landing a hook across his jaw. Garza stumbled back with a grunt, hands flailing to catch himself on the wall, but Bellamy hit him with an uppercut right underneath his sternum, and he fell on his ass. One last kick to the head, and the Mountain Man was knocked unconscious.
Quietly appreciative, I watched as Bellamy crouched and yanked the keycard from the Orqoruna's pocket.
"Garza?" the voice called again.
He clicked the radio off. With that, we stood and rushed to the nearest door. He swiped the card, and finally, the light turned green.
‧₊˚✩ ☾ ✩˚₊‧
Tap, tap. Pause. Tap—tap tap.
It only took a few seconds before the door swung open, and Vincent ushered us inside without a word.
"Vincent," Bellamy started, "we need your help."
"It's all over the radio; they know about you two. Did anyone see you here?"
Like I had said—there went our cover. A glance out of the corner of my eye showed Bellamy with the same concerned expression I had.
"No." Bellamy answered. "Been keeping to the halls, just like you said—"
"Vincent?"
An unexpected voice from deeper in the room.
Fast as a whip, Bellamy drew his gun, and I, my dagger. An Orqoruna in a guard uniform—late-twenties, clean shaven, hair curlier and shorter than Bell's—held up both his hands, palms out in supposed peace.
"It's okay!" Vincent said quickly, stepping between us. "Lee's with us."
"Dante was like a father to me," the guard added. "Some of us don't agree with Cage's agenda."
We glanced between Lee and Vincent. "Where's Wells and Maya?"
"They're okay," the older man answered. "Thanks to Lee, we moved them to a wing that's already been searched."
"Isn't that a risk?" Bellamy lowered his gun ever so slightly. I followed his lead, though I did not sheathe my knife.
"We had no choice. They've gone public with what happened on Level Five." The lines on Vincent's forehead deepened, something flickering in his expression. "They're saying you killed over fifty soldiers."
The numbers snagged in my throat and pierced through my stomach.
No need to ask how many of them were mine—more than half bore my markings: bruises in a chain pattern around their necks, the indent of a steel ball, jagged slits at the throat from a serrated knife. I had convinced myself these Orqoruna were not people, nothing but obstacles—or better yet, monsters.
Fifty.
Though he did not speak, Lee shifted his weight, dropping his head. Barely audible, he muttered, "Only forty-seven of us left."
I kept my gaze to the floor. Easier to look at tile than ghosts. In my peripheral, I saw Bellamy glance at me. Just once. Brief, unspoken.
"I don't know how much longer we can keep bouncing them around," Vincent continued. "Did you two take out the acid fog yet?"
"No, that's why we're here." My partner returned his gaze to the man. "We need another route."
"Way ahead of you." Vincent motioned toward the table, cluttered with notes, tools, and a mug, as he rummaged in a file cabinet. Bellamy and I carefully cleared the surface.
"You can get there through these retrofit zones." The older man said as he splayed a map. Lee joined us, all leaning over to get a good look at where Vincent pointed. "They're off limits. No cameras, no patrols. We used some to move the kids. You're also gonna need this." He reached under the table and pulled out a canister-shaped device, passing it to Bellamy. "An acetylene torch."
‧₊˚✩ ☾ ✩˚₊‧
At the ladder junction, Bellamy and I made our way up to Level Two, our climb steady, breaths controlled. Until we reached the Level Four marker, when Bellamy suddenly flinched, a hand flying to the earpiece connected to the radio.
I tilted my head up toward him. "What is it?"
Pulling out the wire from under his collar, he took off the earpiece and radio. "It's Raven." His jaw worked slightly, almost hesitant, before he added, "She wants to talk to you."
My body froze. Any hint of expression on my face flattened out; the heavy weight of resignation settled in my chest.
"She knows, doesn't she."
Not a question. The statement left my lips, low, quiet.
Mouth pressed together, he sent me a short nod, lowering his hand to pass me the radio.
I squeezed my eyelids shut. I should not have cowered out back then—should have told her when we were walking around the perimeter of camp after visiting Anya in the med tent. Plenty of should'ves to regret, but no time. Opened my eyes. Took the radio. Fingers frigid as I threaded the wire through my shirt.
’Pull yourself together, Kova. You reaped what you sowed.'
I popped the earpiece in.
Bellamy glanced up the shaft. "Should we...?" He gestured toward the nearest vent with a jut of his chin.
"No. Keep going."
Hesitation. But I met his gaze. Whatever he saw, it convinced him to resume climbing. Heart pounding almost painfully, I pressed the transmitter. "Raven."
"Were you ever going to tell me?"
Raw. Sharp. Furious. Static crackled as she raised her voice. "This whole time, you let me believe Murphy did it. I defended you—trusted you. And you didn't say shit."
Every word struck low in the gut. "I... I did not—"
"Don't even try it." She cut me off. "You let me think I was crazy for wondering what changed; that I had done something wrong. And—look," though her voice quieted, it did not take away the razor sharp edge. "I heard about what happened in TonDC. He... He lost it, okay? I get it. He killed people, yes, but he was still...he was still my—"
I caught the end of a cry as her voice broke off. Softly, I murmured, "I know."
"No, you don't." Her words dropped to a near whisper, pressed between her teeth. "Because if you did, you would've told me the truth to my face. Instead, I had to hear it from Anya out of all people."
My foot slipped off a rung.
"—I even asked you—"
I caught myself, but not in time to stop my chin from slamming into the bar, teeth rattling. Pain surged up my jaw, sharp, prickly, flaring up the throb emanating from the cut at my cheek once more. Fuck. And it had just calmed down, too. I stretched my jaw and slowly exhaled, trying to douse the irritable heat crawling its way up my throat.
"—and you still looked me in the eye and lied."
Hesitant, I looked up. Bellamy's mouth was drawn tight in a grimace. I gestured for him to keep going, to keep climbing, even as a single name bounced through the blooming headache. 'Anya.'
"Kova, answer me!"
The spreading blaze cracked my chest open.
"What was I supposed to say, Raven?" I snapped, voice sharp to my own ears. "That I had been avoiding you because the boy you loved—the last family you had left—died by my hands? That I let you believe a lie because I was too much of a coward to tell you the truth?" I swallowed back the rawness in my throat. My grip on the rung tightened. "Tell me, what could I have possibly said?!"
"Anything!" she shouted back. "Literally anything! But instead, you let me walk around with a knife in my back. You made sure I would be the last to know."
My throat closed. "I’m sorry," I forced out. "Not for what I did. For not telling you. I thought it would protect the alliance—"
"Save it." Her breath shook again. "In one strike, you killed the last family I had left, and someone I thought I could trust."
I had nothing to say to that. Because she was not wrong—not about Finn, not about me. I had known this might happen—that when the truth came out, it would fracture, if not decimate our friendship, and yet I pulled away out of guilt. Left our friendship to crumble. Still, hearing it spoken aloud split something open I thought I had sealed shut, had prepared for.
"Give the radio back to Bellamy. We’ve got work to do."
Click!
The line went dead before I could even take out the earpiece.
Removing the wire, I reeled it back around the radio and lifted it above my head for Bellamy to take.
He did not at first. Hesitant. "Kova—"
I shoved it into his hand. "Keep. Going."
His lips pressed into a thin line once more, but thankfully, he listened.
The air grew warmer as we climbed closer to Level Two, but that was not what sent a bead of sweat down my spine. It was Raven's voice. The hurt beneath. The realization that I had become someone she could no longer trust. Deep down, I had always known this would happen—that eventually, I would have to come clean, and she would hate me for it. But for it to come out because of someone who was never supposed to know in the first place...
Lincoln and I had convinced the elders of TonDC to not allow anyone to report what had happened in the village. A grotesque favor, but one we begged for on our knees. Though many were more than displeased, they were in agreement only to prevent another war from breaking out between Trikru and the Arkers, to prevent the deaths of more warriors and children of our clan.
And the Lieutenant—she was in the Arkers' camp when it had all happened, hooked up to strange machines and recovering from her injuries. By the time she was able to stand on her own two feet, she and Clarke had left camp to convince the Commander of a ceasefire to take down Mount Weather together. Though my distrust for Clarke had festered these past few days, I knew she was not the snitch. Pragmatic to a fault, with no benefit or motivation in revealing the truth.
So who was it?
The ladder vibrated as Bellamy hopped off the ladder, landing in the vent. Startled, I looked up before quickly climbing to take his place. He must have noticed I had been lost in thought, because as he offered out his hand for me to take, he asked, "Wanna talk about it?"
Taking a deep breath, I sighed through my nose, releasing one side of my body from the ladder and taking his hand. "Raven said Anya had been the one to tell her."
Surprise flickered across his face. "Anya? How?"
"Not sure." I bent my leg, coiling to hop off. It had to have been someone closer to home, someone from TonDC—
A carefully neutral expression, one that did not match the memory I had of his missing-tooth grin as a baby.
Oh, Gods.
The gathering. Anya was there.
And so was Artigas—
Crack!
The rung gave out beneath the ball of my foot.
"Ko!"
I barely had time to panic at the drop in my stomach before fingers clamped around my wrist, an arm cinching around my waist.
Spine met steel as Bellamy's back hit the floor, hauling me in with him. The vent reverberated with impact, echoing through my fingertips as my other hand cradled the back of his head, preventing him from cracking his skull off the metal. We landed tangled—a sharp exhale at my neck, and the hand around my wrist dropped down to push my knee digging into his abdomen off, shifting me into straddling his hips.
Brow knitted tight, I pulled back slightly with a quiet groan of pain, unable to control the shudder running down my back as I felt the friction of his short stubble against my throat and collarbone.
His startled eyes met mine.
And shame crawled up the back of my neck, sick and heavy in my gut.
Fuck. How many times had I screwed this mission up? Held him back? Getting trapped. The infection slowing me down. Even before the mission had started, with the twins. The fifty dead Mountain Men. This situation with Raven. Artigas.
'Can I even tell him?'
The idea of not being able to confide in my partner made something in my chest twist. Ignoring how his arm tightened around my waist, I pushed off him in silence, pressing my lips together as I sat up. Silence pooled between us, a cavern. I could not bear to look at him. Even as he sat up beside me, rubbing a hand at his lower back with a quiet grunt.
"You alright?"
No. I nodded anyway, trying my best to ignore the way he stilled, his gaze lingering, reading me.
"Kova."
My muscles tensed before I could stop them, instinctive—like I was bracing for discipline. I clenched my molars.
"You're shaking," he said quietly. "Want to tell me what’s going on in that head of yours?"
I glanced down. Somehow, I had not noticed the tremor of my hands. I lowered them into my lap, hoping they would ease. The admission tumbled out of my throat, quiet. "...you may have been better off on this mission without me."
Pathetic, even to my own ears.
I turned to crawl forward, hoping time would dull the prickling heat behind my nose—
A hand caught my wrist, and my whole body stilled in response.
"Ko," he spoke softly, and for a second, I wondered when he had started calling me that. "If you hadn't been here, I wouldn't have even made it past the first checkpoint."
Doubt forced me to sharply meet his gaze. "You sell yourself short."
He exhaled, almost a laugh. "Maybe. But I couldn't have protected all of them. Not without you."
I... I did not know how to respond to that. I just sat there, jaw and muscles slowly unclenching under the kindness of his words.
“Hell of a team, huh.” He nudged my shoulder, mouth twitching at the corners. “Guess that means you’re stuck with me.”
And this time, the heat that rose from my stomach and flushed my cheeks did not burn like acid.
Without waiting for a reply, he shifted onto his hands and knees and turned toward the narrow stretch of vent ahead, crawling past me, a faint, satisfied smirk on his face. My hands stilled in my lap. Breath caught somewhere between my chest and throat. Had anyone ever made me feel like this? Off-kilter and tongue-tied—a fool, leveled by a few words? He spoke to people well, when he had the patience to. No wonder the original group at the dropship followed him with ease.
Swallowing thickly, I crawled after him.
Eventually, we reached the end of the duct, where a narrow junction split in two: a ladder leading upward and a sealed chute across the way. Bellamy went straight for the other vent and unhooked the strange canister Vincent had passed him earlier from his belt. Something hissed softly as he twisted the top, and with a press of a button, something akin to flint struck. A tight flame pointed out—controlled, sharp, a blue-white knife cutting into metal as he traced a clean path around the grate's perimeter.
I watched, transfixed. Another artifact from the society of old—fire, made obedient. Efficient in a way that made my fingers itch to understand it. The moment the final corner connected, he nudged the once-sealed frame free, metal slats clinking softly as he lowered it against the wall.
We moved through the crawlspace. Shorter, tighter than the other vents, but notably no offshoots. Strange. Bellamy repeated the process at the exit, sparks shooting out from where fire met steel. Just as gently as before, Bellamy propped the grate against the wall below. He peeked out, looked both directions, and hoisted himself through. I followed, brushing dust from my sleeves as I straightened behind him.
Sterile green light washed over us from the side of the vent, but inside the room itself, everything glowed golden-brown, hazy and industrial. A massive steel vat greeted us, with rounded edges and large pipes connecting it to the walls. With the way Bellamy paused, something tells me he found what we had been searching for. He set down the torch on top of a step ladder as we made our way inside, unholstering his pistol.
"Looks like you were right," I said quietly, a step behind him, the chain of my sapabola loose in one hand, but the further we entered, the more our shoulders loosened. Nothing, save for a strong chemical smell burning sharply at our sinuses.
He checked on the other side of the vat. "All clear."
Across the vat, a monitor stood—similar to the one from the missile silo. I caught his attention and nodded toward the console. "Talk to Raven, I will keep watch."
He dipped his chin and holstered his gun, already reaching for the earpiece. "Come in, Raven," he said. "We made it. Hope you've got a plan."
While the two began to work, I scanned the rest of the room. No cameras—at least, not with the naked eye. Only one exit on the platform above, a pair of doors with a keypad to the side. No signs of other vents like the one we just came through. Red caught my eye. To my left, a glass case built into the wall, containing an axe. The outline was painted red. An emergency tool of some kind. Could be useful, but I did not trust the glass. Last thing we needed was to alert the Orqoruna where we were.
Instead, I climbed the steel tubing in front of me, fingers curling around the rails as I slipped between the bars of the platform above and kept low. A strange frost film obscured the windows of the door, but there was no movement. No signs of any guards. Hmm. I clipped the sapabola back into place at my side.
In the far corner, a slender pipe leaned against the wall. I took it. Jabbed the keypad, popping it off the wall with a flare of sparks. I barely flinched and jammed the pipe between the handles of the door. Just in case. Might not stop them, but it would slow them down.
"A huge steel vat. Looks like a submarine. Some other tanks with chemical formulas and warning labels..." Bellamy's voice floated upward. "Yeah, I'm at the monitor."
As if just now realizing I had fallen out of view, he swiveled his head around, searching the first floor before his line of sight landed on me. He connected his fingers, thumb to pointer, asking, 'All good?'
I answered with a short nod. Pointed to my chest, then my eyes, then swept two fingers outward to the doors. 'I'm watching. All good.'
He sent a thumbs-up back, and returned to the console. "Bunch of pipes running into the wall..."
Turning away from him, I leaned back against the safety rails. Still nothing out in the hallway. I could not help but wonder: where were all the guards? Growing up, the elders used to recite stories about the great Cerberus of Mount Weather, the three weapons the bunker was known for—the missiles that turned villages into craters, the fog that sloughed skin at the slightest touch, and the Reapers of the mines. The latter would not be able to hold off the Coalition's army, and we had sabotaged their most concerning weapon. Wouldn't the Orqoruna assign guards to their last viable weapon standing?
"No, I don't know what the hell an actuator is—look, could we just blow this thing?"
Biting back a laugh, I looked at him over my shoulder.
He caught it. Shot me a look, the corner of his mouth ticking up. But whatever Raven said next through his earpiece soured it ever so slightly. I could not help but be a little grateful; exploding the chemical vat sounded like a last resort. He resumed reading off whatever data scrolled across the screen.
Second subdirectory. Third failure. I zoned out after the fourth suggestion was shot down, staring down the hallway again.
"Okay, I'm on it. Got it. Says, uh... 'aqueous sodium hydroxide bath.'"
THUNK!
I nearly jolted off the rail.
Heart pounding, I turned. No visible change, but the sound of large mechanics vibrated through the platform beneath my feet.
"It's doing something!" Bellamy yelled over the comms. Raising a hand, he beckoned for me. "Needle’s moving—pH is rising. Passivation successful.”
I leapt back down, boots skimming the pipe curves until I hit solid ground. "All clear?"
"Yup." He pressed his radio again. "Send the flare."
And let the army come.
Gods, we were so close to the end. Now the outside team just has to follow through.
"Nice job." A quiet hum of amusement left me as I ambled toward the vent. "And we did not even alert anyone this time."
"Don't jinx it."
I snorted at that. He moved back to the stepladder, reaching for the torch—but then stopped. Stiffened. Leaned down and peered beneath the vat.
Alarm prickled at the back of my neck. "What is it?"
No answer.
His hand disappeared underneath the tank. When he pulled it back, dark dust smeared across the flat of his fingers. "Shit."
"Bellamy?"
I tried to catch a glance at whatever went wrong, but he quickly backed up, pressing the transmitter once more. "Raven, we’ve got a problem. The acid fog’s still active. Repeat—acid fog not neutralized. Get word to Clarke. Tell her to—Raven! Get her to call it off!"
I had never seen him like that before. Frantic, voice sharp with desperation, only cracking when he said her name.
He turned to me, eyes wide. Shook his head once. No response. The line was dead.
BZZT. BZZT. BZZT.
Our heads snapped up.
The alarm screamed overhead, shrill and mechanical, flashing yellow lights in rhythm with its pulse. Beneath the noise, shouts bled through the double doors: guards barking orders, boots hammering closer. The metal bar rattled violently, each impact sharper than the last. My hand went for my sapabola—
Fingers clasped around my wrist.
The doors burst open with a brutal echo. Bellamy yanked me back just in time, shoving us behind the curved bulk of the vat's cement support. My spine hit the cold wall. He stepped in close, arm stretched past my shoulder, bracing against the stone as he shielded me, tracking the threat.
I sent him a questioning look: 'are we not attacking?'
"No time." He peered over the side of our cover. Tapped the inside of my wrist—once, twice, again and again. Eight beats, eight hostiles. "Run for the vent when I say."
My hand shot up before I could think—fist curled tight in his collar, dragging him close like that alone would knock whatever plan that required us to split up out of his head. "Are you fucking crazy?" I hissed. "I'm not leaving you behind."
His dark brown gaze locked on mine. "Do you trust me?"
The words stopped me cold, grip slackening.
Oh, I hated when he did that. I turned my face away, but the sneer slipped out anyway. "Copycat."
"Kova."
"Yes," I interrupted, jaw clenched. "I do."
A pause. Slowly, a slight smile formed, determination flickering behind his eyes. The warmth of his hands lingered even after he dropped them. "Go. I'll be right behind you."
"You better." My warning felt weak, but I let go of his shirt.
More than a handful of guards to my right. Directly in front: ten feet of open space between me and the crates stacked by the vent. Maybe I could take one of the guards out with a knife for Bell—
'Put your faith in him.'
I sprinted. Bullets pinged off the wall behind and above me, scattering sparks. I kept my head low and my hips lower as I dropped down, sliding behind the crates—
"Cease fire! Don't hit the tanks."
—only catching a glimpse of eight blobs before I threw myself into the vent. Bone hit metal, sending pins and needles up the sensitive part of my elbows, but I crawled in fast. The last ricochets pattered off into nothing until someone else fired again. More shots, more yelling.
Thump!
I looked over my shoulder.
Bellamy hurled himself through the vent, twisting onto his back, boots slamming into the metal as he kicked his way backward. I tracked him just long enough to see him whip both pistols out and—
Pop-pop-pop!
Shots tore through the confined space, deafening. Though I did not stop moving, I ducked instinctively, ears ringing, flinching at the noise—but I spared one last fearful glance. Flashes from the muzzle lit the chute in rapid bursts, splitting his shadow across the walls—broad shoulders, back muscles straining through the shirt and vest of the uniform, wild curls caught in the strobe of gunfire. Dangerous.
A mechanical groan sounded from deep inside, and dread clenched my stomach as I realized it was the acid fog system clanking back to life. Shit. The army. But there was a bigger problem on our hands.
Click. Click.
Empty magazines.
The moment he registered the empty clicks, Bellamy holstered his pistols and scrambled toward the exit with reckless speed. Two heavy thumps reverberated behind him. The guards. Their hands and knees slammed into the metal as they rushed for us. Adrenaline surged up my throat, sour and fast. Would it be quicker to let Bellamy crawl out on his own, or—?
My body did not wait for an answer.
Swinging my legs out of the vent, my boots barely had a chance to hit the ground of the junction before I twisted around, upper body still inside the crawlspace. The weighted ball at the end of my weapon clattered as I rolled it down. He caught it in one hand, and I yanked him toward me. One sharp pull after another, teeth gritted with the effort. The guards fell behind as his hand reached just past the rim of the vent—
BOOM!
A shockwave hurled us sideways. My skull cracked against the rim with a hollow thud, darkness surrounding my peripheral, but my hand gripped his, even as the junction trembled around us. One last yank, and Bellamy tumbled out of the chute—straight into me.
My back hit the ground, wind rushing out of me as we collapsed in a heap. The sapabola landed somewhere behind us but I could not see it. Bellamy's full weight crashed into my chest, his knees braced against my thighs, both of us stunned as rumbling shook the world, low, growing louder, overtaking the pained wails of the guards still stuck inside. I opened my eyes.
An orange glow surged through the vent, flooding the junction with firelight.
Wrapping my arms around him, I rolled over just as the flames burst out of the entrance of the chute. Burnt cotton and scorched chemicals clawed up my nose. A blast of heat swept over my back, my neck, until we twisted out of reach, until his back hit the curved wall of the side and I surrounded him like a shield. Too much heat, too fast—
Jagged rocks slashing through skin and sinew. Dirt in my mouth. Smoke like poison in my lungs; a scream muffled by crashing stone.
I shoved the memory down. Curled tighter around Bellamy, tucking his head beneath my chin, arms shielding him from the heat. His arms clamped around my waist, face buried in my throat, no room to move. I felt the moment he tried to shift, tried to roll us over to protect me, but I hooked a leg around his hip and pressed down until he stopped wriggling.
Slowly, the heat gave way to smoke. My bones hummed with the echo of the blast, aching. I raised my head, squinting through the haze. Remnants of smoke drifted from the vent's gaping mouth, ash drifting and settling at the blackened rim of its edges. I did not want to think how much of that dust had once been muscle, had once been breath. Instead, I looked down.
Bellamy stared up at me, chest rising fast against mine. Eyes wide, dark, trembling yet searching, like he was still catching up to the fact that we were alive, but no sign of that separation I found myself in throughout this mission. Alive.
A broken laugh caught in my throat, half-choked. My hands moved before I knew what they were doing—shaking, cradling his face with a kind of gentleness I had not realized I possessed. His breath hitched, lashes fluttering closed as he leaned into my touch. I pressed my forehead to his, grounding him in the same way he had done for me.
"I-I'm never letting you plan anything," I murmured, teeth chattering as the adrenaline cooled, "ever again."
A sound escaped him—low, breathless, an exhale of a laugh more fractured than mine. His nose brushed against my own. He did not answer, but I felt one of his hands slide up my back, curling into the fabric at my nape, holding me there. And in that quiet pocket of stillness, with the smoke thinning and the worst behind us—for now—I let myself breathe.