Chapter 36 Talon
THIRTY-SIX
TALON
The passage is narrow—barely wide enough for my shoulders—with exposed pipes overhead, and concrete walls slick with condensation. I’m running blind, following the sound of footsteps that echo and distort in the enclosed space.
Behind me, Jasper’s footfalls match mine, stride for stride. We’re moving fast, weapons ready, but the two men ahead have a head start and know these tunnels better than we do.
The passage branches out and I take the right on instinct while Jasper peels left. We’ll cover more ground separated.
“Stay on comms,” I say into the radio.
His acknowledgment crackles back. “Copy.”
The tunnel slopes downward, then curves back up. My lungs burn, but I push harder. We came here to kill three men.
The passage widens into a junction—four exits radiating outward like spokes. I stop, listening.
There, coming from the left tunnel.
I move, weapon raised, flashlight cutting through the dark. The beam catches movement ahead—a figure, running, shoulder clutched, blood trailing on the floor.
The stranger. Jasper’s shot from earlier caught him in the arm. He’s wounded but still moving fast.
I fire.
The shot goes wide—moving target, awkward angle—and the bullet sparks off the wall. He doesn’t slow, doesn’t look back, just keeps running toward a door at the end of the passage.
He reaches the door, slamming through it.
“Stop!” I shout, knowing it’s useless.
The door closes with a hollow boom.
“Fuck!” I slam my fist against the metal once, twice. The door doesn’t budge.
He’s gone—escaped through whatever exit this leads to. It probably surfaces somewhere on campus, far enough away that we’ll never catch him.
One target escaped.
“Lost Marcus,” I say into the comm. “Locked door. He’s out.”
Jasper’s voice crackles back. “Edmund went a different direction. Still in pursuit.”
“On my way.”
I retrace my steps, moving fast back through the junction, taking the passage Jasper went down.
I push harder, following the direction Jasper went. The passage twists, narrows, then opens into what looks like a maintenance area.
“Jasper, I’m in the old mechanical room. You close?”
No response.
“Jasper?”
Static.
Shit. The tunnels must be interfering with the signal.
I move through the machinery. It leads between two massive boilers, a gap barely wide enough for a person.
Then the tunnel opens up again—a larger space, maybe thirty feet across.
And in the center: Edmund Mercer.
He’s standing, not running, one hand pressed against his side where blood seeps through his expensive suit, the other holding a small pistol—.38, probably.
Aimed at me.
“Talon Reed, I should have known you’d be the persistent one.”
I don’t respond, just keep my weapon trained on him, looking for an opening.
“You realize this is pointless, right? Even if you kill me, even if you kill James, the Syndicate continues. It’s bigger than any one man—bigger than all three seats.”
“Maybe. But you’ll still be dead.”
“True. Though I have to ask, was it worth it? Burning your life down for one girl?”
“Every second.”
“Romantic. Foolish, but romantic.”
His gun hand wavers slightly.
“Drop the weapon,” I say.
“And if I don’t?”
“Then I shoot you and you bleed anyway, just takes longer.”
“Fair point.”
But he doesn’t lower the gun.
We’re at an impasse. From a distance, I can hear a weapon discharging.
“Sounds like your friend made his choice,” Edmund says. “Question is, can you make yours?”
I don’t take my eyes off him. “Jasper, you copy?”
Static.
“Jasper, report.”
Nothing.
Dammit. I need to know if Dredyn’s alive. If that shot was him killing James or James killing him.
“Go check on your friends. Your friend could be dead already.”
“You could be lying.”
“I could be, but you’ll never know unless you go look.” He lowers his gun slightly. Not dropping it, just pointing it at the ground instead of me. “Go, Talon Reed. Save your friends if you can.”
It’s a trap. It has to be. But that gunshot—
“Jasper,” I say into the comms device. “Dredyn’s position. Now. Check on him.”
Finally, a response. “Copy. On my way.”
Thank fuck. Jasper can check on Dredyn; I can finish this.
I turn back to Edmund—
He’s moving. Not running toward me, running away, toward one of the marked exits on the far wall.
I fire.
The shot goes wide and sparks off the wall six inches from his head.
I fire again—another miss. The shot hits the doorframe as he barrels through it.
“Shit!” I take off after him, legs heavy, lungs burning.
Through the door is another passage—narrower, darker. And ahead, Edmund’s silhouette disappears around a corner.
I push harder. Round the corner—
He fires.
The impact spins me as the bullet hits my left shoulder, just above my collarbone. I hit the wall hard, weapon clattering from my hand.
“Should have stayed with your friends. Now you’ll die alone, in the dark.”
He raises his gun again, aiming center mass this time.
This is it. This is how I die.
Mara’s face flashes through my mind—her smile, her laugh. The way she said my name.
I’m sorry, Princess. I tried.
Edmund’s finger tightens on the trigger—
A door slams somewhere behind him.
Edmund hesitates for just a second, weighing his options: finish me or escape while he can.
He chooses escape.
“Tell your friends,” he says, backing toward another exit, “the Syndicate doesn’t forget. We’ll be seeing you again.”
Then he’s gone.
I slide down the wall, hand pressed to my shoulder, blood seeping between my fingers. Not arterial—I’d be dead already—but bad. Definitely bad.
“Jasper,” I manage over the comm, “I’m hit. Left shoulder. Edmund got away. Need extraction.”
“Where are you?”
The tunnel spins. “Maintenance tunnels. Old section. I—I don’t know. Lost.”
“Stay on comms. We’re tracking your signal. Hold on.”
Hold on. Right. Because I have so many other options while bleeding out, alone, in the dark.
I press harder on the wound. The pain keeps me conscious, focused.
One out of three. Only James dead. Edmund and Marcus both escaped.
We failed.
We came here to cut the head off the Syndicate and we barely nicked it. One leader dead, two alive, and now, fully warned. They’ll regroup—come at us harder with more resources, more rage, more reason to see us dead.
And I’m bleeding in a tunnel, unable to even stand.
There’s footsteps down the tunnel. I try to reach for my weapon but it’s too far away, and moving sends fresh waves of agony through my shoulder.
If it’s security, I’m caught. If it’s Syndicate, I’m dead.
The footsteps round the corner—
It’s Jasper and Dredyn, both covered in blood, weapons ready, eyes scanning for threats.
“Talon!” Jasper’s at my side immediately, hands replacing mine on the wound. Assessing me. “Through and through. Missed the major vessels. You’ll live.”
“Fantastic,” I breathe.
“Edmund?”
“Got away… Shot me and ran. There’s another exit back there. He’s gone by now.”
Dredyn checks the passage Edmund fled through, weapon raised, before he returns, shaking his head. “He could be anywhere on campus by now.”
I try for a bitter laugh but it comes out as a cough. “We got one out of three. That’s… that’s not good enough.”
“It’s what we’ve got,” Dredyn says flatly. “James’s dead—one seat vacant. That’s more than anyone’s managed before.”
“But two leaders still live. That’s two-thirds of the power structure still intact.” The tunnel spins again.
“We’re alive. That’s the win right now. Survival first. Revenge later,” Jasper signs while working on my shoulder with a field dressing he produced from his duffel. “That’ll hold until we get to the rally point, but you need a hospital.”
“Can’t go to a hospital. Gunshot wound means police reports.”
“Then we find someone off-books. You’re not bleeding out on my watch.”
“How romantic.”
“Shut up and lean on me.”
I do, putting my good arm over Jasper’s shoulders while Dredyn retrieves my weapon. We move back through the tunnels.
“Almost there. Just a little further,” Jasper signs.
We make it through the PTO house and back onto the street.
The OCK house is still burning in the distance, smaller now, the roof collapsed, but still lighting up the sky.
“We did it. We actually fucking… tried,” I say, voice slurred from blood loss and exhaustion.
“We killed James. That’s not nothing,” Dredyn says.
“It’s not enough.”
“It’s what we’ve got. Now we run—live to fight another day.”