15. Elena #3
Alexei pulls back, already moving. Alexei’s flashlight snaps on, its beam slicing through the dark, cutting down the opposite tunnel.
A sharp report splits the noise, followed by a tearing sound, concrete shearing, steel giving way. The water answers with an even louder roar. Faster. A roar echoing off stone.
“Is that?—”
He grips my arm hard. “We need to go. Now.”
He pulls me the opposite way, keeping me tight to the wall as we run.
My flats slide on the slick stone, breath tearing in and out of me.
I glance back.
“That’s water?—”
“Keep running!”
Behind us, the tunnel fills, an avalanche of black-green water, relentless, devouring the narrow passage. It eats light. It eats sound. It eats everything in its path like it was never there at all.
My lungs burn. My legs scream as the space tightens, unforgiving, every step a gamble.
Alexei’s flashlight swings upward.
The fork.
“What do we do?” I cry.
Alexei doesn’t hesitate. He turns right, pulling me with him. I don’t question it. I never do. In Zurdonia or Petrova, it’s the same. He always knows.
The water follows, faster now, surging through the junction, filling every hollow.
“Just a little further!” he shouts.
The tunnel ends abruptly.
A ladder.
Metal. Rusted. A drain lid clamped tight above it.
Relief spikes… and dies a second later.
“Up you go,” Alexei urges.
I look over his shoulder. The water rounds the corner, already racing toward us.
“Don’t look,” he says sharply. “Go.”
My foot slips again. Panic surges hot and sudden, too fast to reason with.
Alexei is there instantly. Chest to back. Hands steady, firm, anchoring me before the fear can pull me under.
“You’ve got this.”
I cling to the sound of his voice more than the ladder. If he lets go, even for a second, I don’t trust myself not to freeze.
Cold water surges around my ankles as I climb. My arms burn halfway up. My legs feel weighted, slow.
Alexei stays right behind me, close enough that I can feel every movement, ready to catch me if I fall again.
The water swallows the first rungs.
I reach the top and shove at the lid.
Nothing.
I drive my shoulder into it. It barely budges, and now my shoulder throbs.
“It won’t open!” My words drown in the roar below.
I step aside, arm looping through the ladder as Alexei crowds in. He grunts, muscles straining, the lid scraping but not giving.
“I’ve got you!” I shout, gripping his jacket.
He nods once, flashlight clenched between his teeth. He releases the ladder and drives both hands into the lid.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Light begins to crack through the darkness.
Cold water surges over my calves and thighs.
“Alexei!”
He glances down. The beam catches the water, swallowing the tunnel beneath us.
The lid scrapes open a little more.
“Your turn,” he orders.
We switch. I climb. My foot slips again, but I keep moving until light floods my vision. My arms scrape metal as I squeeze through.
Hands push at my hips, Alexei’s strong grip, boosting me upwards.
My palms slam against the pavement. I haul myself up, arms shaking from holding my weight, and slip.
“Elena!”
His hand clamps around my forearm as I drop, water crashing into my chest. I gasp, choking, blind.
“I can’t see!”
“Stay still!”
I freeze.
Slowly, he lifts me, guiding my hands back to the bar, his body caging mine again, steadying me.
“You okay?”
His hands push my hair from my face, his palm cupping my cheek.
“Yes,” I pant, fingers curling over his.
“Go.”
I climb again; faster this time, desperate, determined. I roll out onto the pavement, chest heaving. I roll back onto my stomach, overlooking the drain opening.
“Now you!”
Alexei starts up…
The ground shudders beneath me as stones within the tunnel crack and start to give way, the roar so loud it presses against my chest.
“Alexei!”
His grip slips.
The world narrows to that single failure. One moment he’s there, solid, climbing, alive, and the next he’s gone, swallowed by black water.
“Alexei!”
The scream rips out of me, animal and useless. My chest caves in, already bracing for the absence. For the quiet that follows loss.
I can’t do this again. I won’t survive it again.
A second later, his head breaks the surface, gasping, already climbing again. Relief crashes through me. I reach?—
Hands grab me, too strong, too sudden, and tear me backward.
My fingers claw at the empty air where Alexei should be. Where he was.
“Alexei!”
I hit the ground hard, crashing into the side of the alley. I groan, rolling onto my side, as two men dressed in black suits tower over me. My internal alarm is enough to know these aren’t my or even Max’s guards or first responders.
“The grate,” one orders.
“No!” I lunge.
The man in front of me hooks an arm around my waist, yanking me back. I fight—elbows, fists, teeth—landing one solid hit before a blow slams into my side. The world tilts. I crash down on my stomach.
My vision swims.
The lid slides back into place, sealing him away. The sound is small. Final.
Something inside me breaks quietly, like glass sinking into water.
“Have a good sleep, Your Majesty.”
A fist fills my vision.
Darkness takes me whole.