26. Caleb
CALEB
The maintenance vehicle shudders as Rook pushes it to full speed.
Its small electric motor whines beneath us, struggling to gain on the train disappearing into the tunnel ahead.
Red emergency lights flash across the concrete walls.
Light.
Darkness.
Light.
Darkness.
The train’s rear lamps shrink with every turn.
“How fast can this thing go?” Cobra asks.
“This is it,” Rook says.
“That’s disappointing.”
Fathom braces his tablet against the dashboard. “The seventh drive is still transmitting. Whatever is aboard that train is maintaining the purge connection.”
The six stolen drives flash red inside their padded case.
A new countdown appears.
Eleven minutes.
“Why did the timer reset?” Evie asks.
“Graves transferred the purge to another system.”
“The train?”
“Or wherever it’s going.”
Mac grips the steel railing as the maintenance vehicle swings around a bend.
“The rail line divides ahead. One track leads to the eastern exit. The other goes deeper beneath the mountain.”
“The command archive?” I ask.
Mac’s eyes remain fixed on the darkness.
“No. Something older.”
“How much older?”
“I don’t know.”
Cobra looks at him. “I’m beginning to dislike that answer.”
“So am I.”
I stand behind Rook and study the rails.
Fresh oil glistens on the left switch.
The right track is covered with rust and dust.
“They went left.”
Mac leans closer. “That leads out of the mountain.”
“No.”
“It does.”
“The switch was moved after the train passed.”
I point to the drag marks along the mechanism.
“They want us to go left.”
Rook eases back on the speed. “Right track?”
“Yes.”
Mac looks from the rails to me. “That line was sealed decades ago.”
“Then someone has been maintaining a sealed track.”
Before he can answer, rifle fire tears through the tunnel.
Rounds strike the vehicle’s steel frame.
“Contact front!” Rook shouts.
Falcon returns fire from the rear platform.
Two men stand beside the junction, using the concrete supports as cover.
They aren’t trying to hit us.
Their shots are forcing Rook toward the left-hand track.
“Those are warning shots,” Evie says.
I see it too.
Every round strikes the right side of the vehicle.
They’re steering us.
Rook doesn’t slow.
“Caleb?”
“Right.”
He turns the vehicle directly toward the supposedly sealed tunnel.
The guards shift their fire.
One bullet strikes Falcon’s upper arm.
His rifle slips.
Shark catches his vest before he falls from the platform.
“Falcon’s hit!”
I fire once.
The weapon flies from the first guard’s hands.
Shark disables the second.
Rook drives through the junction.
The vehicle strikes the closed steel barrier at the entrance to the right tunnel.
Metal screams.
The corroded gate tears free and collapses beneath us.
Cobra looks delighted. “That was almost as good as explosives.”
Falcon sinks against the rear railing, one hand clamped over his arm.
Blood runs between his fingers.
Evie reaches him before the vehicle stops swaying.
“Let me see.”
“It’s a scratch.”
She cuts through his sleeve with a trauma knife.
The round passed cleanly through the outer part of his upper arm. Blood pulses steadily from the wound, bright against the black fabric.
Evie’s mouth tightens.
“No, it isn’t.”
“I was trying to sound brave.”
“You can sound brave after I stop the bleeding.”
She presses gauze into the wound.
Falcon’s face loses color, but he doesn’t pull away.
“Can you move your fingers?”
He flexes them.
“Your thumb?”
He obeys.
“Good. Hold this.”
Shark takes over the pressure while Evie wraps the compression bandage.
I watch her hands.
Steady.
Quick.
No wasted movement.
The vehicle rattles deeper into the darkness.
Evie finishes the bandage and meets Falcon’s eyes.
“You got lucky.”
His grin is strained now. “I’m charming that way.”
“No. You’re losing blood. Sit down.”
He sits.
Cobra leans closer. “She frightens me a little.”
“She should,” I say.
Evie looks at me. “You’re next.”
“I’m driving.”
“Rook is driving.”
“I’m supervising.”
“You’re bleeding through your bandage again.”
My hand moves instinctively toward my ribs.
Hers catches it.
“Don’t touch it.”
Even with the train ahead of us and armed men behind, warmth moves through my chest.
“You like giving orders.”
“I like keeping difficult men alive.”
“Then you chose the wrong team.”
A tiny smile touches her mouth.
The vehicle rounds another bend.
The train is gone.
No rear lights.
No engine noise.
Only darkness and two rails disappearing beneath the mountain.
Fathom checks the map.
“This tunnel isn’t on the plans.”
Mac looks at the walls.
His face goes pale.
“I’ve been here.”
Everyone turns toward him.
“When?” Rook asks.
“Twenty years ago.”
The answer sounds pulled from somewhere he has spent decades trying to bury.
“What’s ahead?” I ask.
Mac stares into the darkness.
“The place where the First Circle decides who belongs—and who disappears.”
A steel barrier crashes down behind us.
The exit vanishes.
Then another barrier begins descending across the track ahead.
The maintenance vehicle is trapped between them.
Rook accelerates.
“Hold on!”
We race toward the closing gate.