Chapter 16 Thomas
Thomas
Darkness. Then gunfire.
I threw myself sideways, dragging Will down with me as bullets tore through the space where we’d been standing. Muzzle flashes strobed like lightning. Brief, blinding snapshots of chaos flashed around us.
A guard spinning.
Another falling.
Someone screaming in German.
Bisch was in the doorway, firing with mechanical precision. All shots found targets. One by one, they dropped.
“Move!” he shouted. “Now!”
I didn’t need to be told twice.
Will was already lifting the Baroness, cradling her against his chest as though she weighed nothing. Her head lolled against his shoulder, conscious or not, I couldn’t tell. In that moment, it didn’t matter. We were leaving.
I fired blindly into the darkness—two shots, three—covering Will as he pushed past me toward the door.
A shape lunged from the shadows, and I put a bullet in it without thinking.
The shape fell.
More gunfire. Not ours.
Something tugged at my sleeve.
I felt heat, then nothing.
I couldn’t afford to look.
“Thomas!” Will’s voice, sharp with fear. “Come on!”
We ran.
The corridor was a nightmare of strobing light and screaming men. Emergency lights had kicked on somewhere—red and pulsing, turning everything the color of blood.
Guards poured from side passages.
Bisch cut them down.
I stayed close to Will, weapon up, firing at anything that moved.
A guard appeared on our left—I dropped him.
Another on our right—Bisch got that one.
We moved like a machine, three parts working in terrible harmony.
Four parts. Otto.
I looked back and saw him still lying in the cell doorway, motionless.
“Otto—”
“Leave him!” Bisch’s voice was ragged. “He is dead weight. We cannot—”
“He’s not dead!”
“He will be if we go back!”
Will had stopped, the Baroness in his arms, his face twisted with the same anguish I felt. Otto had come for her alone. He’d been beaten, broken, and left as bait. We couldn’t just—
A bullet sparked off the wall inches from my head.
“Go!” Bisch shoved me forward. “I will get him. Go!”
He turned back before I could argue, limping into the chaos, firing as he went.
I grabbed Will’s arm. “Move. Trust him.”
We ran.
The service corridor was ahead. I recognized the junction, the pipes along the ceiling, the cable runs.
We’d come this way.
We could get out this way.
If we lived long enough.
Guards kept coming.
I don’t know how many I killed. Three. Five. More. They came out of the red-lit darkness like demons.
I put them down and kept moving.
Will was flagging.
The Baroness wasn’t heavy, but carrying dead weight through a firefight would exhaust anyone. I saw his arms trembling, saw his breath coming in ragged gasps.
“Almost there,” I told him. “Almost—”
A guard stepped into our path. He looked young and scared. His rifle came up too slow.
I shot him in the chest.
He fell, and I stepped over him. I didn’t let myself feel anything.
The service corridor opened before us. It stood dark and quiet, a tunnel back to the drainage channel and freedom. Behind us, the gunfire was fading. Either Bisch had dealt with the pursuit, or—
I didn’t finish the thought.
“Go,” I told Will. “I’ll cover.”
He disappeared into the darkness with the Baroness, while I crouched at the junction, weapon trained back the way we’d come, waiting.
Footsteps.
Uneven.
Bisch emerged from the red-lit chaos, a body over his shoulder.
“He breathes,” Bisch gasped. “Barely. We must hurry.”
I didn’t ask how he’d managed it, didn’t ask what it had cost. I just fell in beside him, and we moved into the service corridor, leaving the dead behind us.
The Shadow’s voice echoed down the passage, calm despite the carnage.
“Find them. Kill the men, but bring me the Baroness alive.”
We ran faster.
The drainage channel was ahead.
I could smell it—the cold, the damp, the promise of escape. Will had already started down, the Baroness in his arms, vanishing into the darkness below.
Bisch handed Otto to me. The old man weighed almost nothing, his body broken and bleeding against my chest.
“Go,” Bisch said. “I will hold them.”
“You’ll die.”
“Perhaps.” He checked his weapon. Three rounds left, maybe four. “But not today. Now go.”
Behind me, I heard Bisch’s pistol bark one final time.
Then I was in the channel, crawling through the darkness, Otto’s blood warm as it leaked across my skin. The only sounds were my own ragged breathing and the distant echo of men who wanted us dead.