Chapter 16 Purge Sirens and Unsaid Want
Purge Sirens and Unsaid Want
The strobe died like a throat going silent - one last violent flash cut off mid-breath - and the tunnel swallowed them in darkness so complete it felt physical.
Roman hauled Ava around the corner by the elbow, his grip firm enough to keep her upright, not gentle enough to pretend he wasn’t afraid.
Her pulse was a frantic vibration through her sleeve.
The floor under their boots was damp concrete, cold as a grave, and somewhere ahead a motor whirred with the steady patience of something programmed to hunt.
“Don’t fight me,” he said, low. “Not now.”
Ava’s breath came sharp, the kind that meant she’d been holding it until she couldn’t. “Roman - ” Her voice scraped like she was trying to force sense through panic. “If you keep dragging me, you’ll - ”
“I’m keeping you alive.” He angled his gun down, never away, the barrel cutting a thin line through the black. “You want to argue? Do it after we’re out of this purge zone.”
The words should’ve calmed him. They didn’t. Because Ava wasn’t just tense - she was bristling, like she could feel the facility’s teeth closing around them. Like she’d been built for courtrooms and cross-examination, and now she was trapped in a corridor where the only verdict was death.
They reached a side passage and Roman shoved Ava into a narrow alcove beside a service panel. The metal was scabbed with old paint, its edges biting through the thin fabric of his glove. He snapped a light to life on his wrist - dim, tactical, enough to read surfaces without announcing them.
The panel’s screen glow caught Ava’s face. Her eyes - too bright, too wide - were fixed on the folder tucked against his chest. The slim folder stamped with Ava’s private seal. The evidence cataloged and ready to use.
“You still have it,” she murmured.
Roman’s jaw flexed. “Don’t look at it like it’s a promise. It’s bait.”
Ava’s mouth tightened. “It’s the only thing that can stop them.”
Roman leaned closer, the air between them suddenly intimate even though they weren’t touching.
He could smell her - clean soap over something sharper, adrenaline and fear.
Her hair had come loose during the transfer, strands stuck to the damp line of her temple.
He wanted to tuck them back. Wanted a thousand stupid things that didn’t belong in a purge tunnel.
He forced himself to focus on the sound: a soft, rhythmic beep, then a click - drones moving overhead, their purge cycle syncing with the facility’s internal burn.
Ava’s gaze flicked to the ceiling. “They’re deploying.”
“Yeah.” Roman kept his voice flat. “And the plan you helped set - public disclosure - won’t matter if you’re dead before the signal goes through.”
Her throat worked. “The signal is scheduled.”
“Scheduled by who?” Roman asked. The question came out harder than he meant. He hated that it sounded like accusation, hated that it landed in her like a bruise.
Ava stared at him. In the dim light, her pupils looked darker, as if the facility had sucked the color from her. “By me,” she said. “By my team. By the sealed chain-of-custody we discussed.”
Roman felt the old discipline in his bones, the instinct to control variables, to reduce uncertainty to something measurable.
The problem was the purge controller had just locked them into a burn cycle - exactly like the message warned - and now the evidence folder felt heavier for reasons he couldn’t name.
He checked the alcove door behind them, the latch already warm from recent use. “Then you should trust it.”
Ava’s laugh was short and humorless. “You think I don’t trust it? Roman, you watched them tamper with the ledger. The charred page. The missing sections. The fact that the chain broke in the middle of our hands - ”
“That’s not what I’m saying.” Roman pressed his palm to the panel to steady himself.
The metal vibrated faintly, like the facility was purring.
“I’m saying the traitor knows our timing.
That means the purge isn’t just clearing debris.
It’s wiping evidence of movement, wiping data trails - maybe people. ”
Her gaze snapped back to his. “Then you know it’s not enough to get me out. We need the backup source.”
Roman blinked once. “You already think that?”
“I’ve been thinking it since the ledger burned.” Ava’s voice steadied, attorney-bright, sharpened by years of digging until the truth bled through. “They couldn’t fully burn what they couldn’t reach. But they degraded parts of the record. That means there’s a copy somewhere else. A second line.”
Roman’s fingers tightened around the folder strap. “If there is a second source, it’s not in my hands.”
Ava leaned forward, and for a moment the argument went quiet enough that Roman could hear her breathing and the distant whine of drone rotors. “Then we find it. We don’t waste time pretending we can win with only a damaged file.”
The vulnerability in her voice - fear disguised as logic - hit him harder than any threat.
She didn’t just want to survive. She needed the evidence to be intact because she needed the truth to be real.
Because if it wasn’t, she’d have to stand in court and watch monsters walk free with a clean story.
Roman’s chest tightened. He hated how well he understood that.
He reached for her wrist, then stopped short, hovering at the edge of her skin like he’d forgotten the rules. Like touching her might set off another purge cycle.
Ava didn’t pull away. Her eyes dropped to his hand, then back up to his face. “Roman.”
“Don’t,” he said. The word came out like a command, and he didn’t know whether he meant don’t argue or don’t look at me like that. “If you push too hard, you’ll trigger their focus. They’ll mark you.”
“They’re already marking me.” Ava’s chin lifted. “I’ve been marked since you brought me into protective custody.”
Roman’s gaze flicked away, because he couldn’t stand hearing it said so plainly. Because he remembered her words from earlier - about partnerships and controlled disclosure - and he remembered how hard he’d tried to keep her from becoming collateral.
A drone whirred closer, the sound traveling through concrete like a vibration in Roman’s teeth. He moved first, dragging Ava out of the alcove and into the parking bay beneath the chapel.
The space opened up suddenly, wide enough to swallow them - rows of sealed doors, thick steel columns, and a ceiling crisscrossed with cable trays.
The air was cooler here, laced with the chemical bite of purge agents.
In the distance, red indicator lights blinked in patterns that felt too coordinated to be random.
Drones hung in the air like metallic insects, their lenses swiveling. One hovered toward the far end of the bay, then corrected course when it caught movement.
Roman shoved Ava behind a concrete pillar and pressed his back to the stone, taking the angle he always took when he didn’t trust the world to be fair. His gun came up.
Ava’s hand found his forearm. It wasn’t gentle, but it was deliberate. “We can’t - ”
“We can.” Roman cut her off, because her logic was getting them killed. “We just do it without you improvising.”
Her fingers tightened. “Without me? Roman, I’m not a hostage.”
“I know.” The admission tasted bitter. “That’s why I’m trying to keep you breathing.”
Ava stared at him for half a second too long. Then, as if her body decided she’d had enough restraint, she leaned in and kissed him - hard, urgent, like she was trying to anchor herself in something solid before the facility chewed through them.
Roman’s breath caught. His control cracked for one dangerous heartbeat. Her mouth tasted like heat and defiance, and her hand slid up his chest, flattening against the folder under his jacket.
Then a drone’s lens clicked toward them.
Roman broke the kiss instantly, shoving her back behind the pillar, his body between hers and the drone. “Ava.”
Her eyes were furious and hurt at the same time. “You’re acting like I can’t handle this.”
Roman’s voice went low, dangerous. “I’m acting like I can’t afford to lose you.”
For a flicker of time, the words landed where he meant them to - close to her heart, not on her nerves. Ava’s expression shifted, softened by something raw. Then the softness shattered when she looked down at his jacket.
“You’re still protecting the folder,” she whispered. “Even when it’s degraded.”
Roman froze. “What did you say?”
Ava’s fingers lifted, then dropped. “It’s warmer than it should be. You felt it when we moved from the tunnel.”
Roman hadn’t noticed. He’d been too busy controlling everything he could - angles, timing, distance. He forced his attention to the folder through layers of fabric.
A faint vibration pulsed against his palm through the jacket liner, irregular, like a device trying to keep itself alive. When he shifted the folder slightly to check it, the stamp on the seal caught the wristlight - scratched, not by him.
His stomach sank.
The evidence had been tampered with further. Degraded, not just partially burned. Corrupted in motion.
Ava saw his face change and went still. “It’s worse.”
Roman didn’t answer. He couldn’t risk words. The purge drones were closer now, their rotors creating a rising whine. One of them drifted toward the pillar where Ava crouched, scanning the gap.
Roman yanked Ava farther back, closer to the far wall where an emergency service door sat behind a cage of heavy mesh. “Keep your head down.”
Ava’s voice came out tight. “You’re going to leave the folder with you.”
“I’m not leaving anything.” Roman’s tone sharpened, because fear made him mean. “You think I’m going to hand it over to the first drone that looks at it?”
Ava’s laugh broke out, strained. “No. I think you’ll decide what’s best for me again and call it protection.”
His grip on her wrist tightened. “You want the truth? The truth is I don’t trust anyone in this building. Not the purge controller, not the comms, not my own chain. And you’re holding pieces of a case that could burn half the city down.”