Chapter 16 #2
The tremor hit with no warning, just a subsonic groan that rolled up from the bedrock and turned the world inside out. The computer screen flickered, then snapped to black. Every light in the lab strobed, the emergency LEDs popping and buzzing as if caught in a strobe-lit seizure.
I tried to stand, but the floor lurched and knocked me sideways into Kang. He caught me, one hand clutching my arm tight enough to bruise. Maven shouted something—maybe a warning, maybe a curse—but the sound drowned in the roar of shearing concrete as the ceiling fractured above us.
A spray of dust hit my face. The air went instantly granular, thick with a chemical haze of powdered ceiling tile and whatever spores lived in the blue moss along the walls.
I coughed, eyes watering, and barely registered Kang’s body slamming into mine just as a fist-sized chunk of lab light crashed down where my head had been.
We hit the floor together, and for a moment I didn’t know if he was dead, or if I was, or if this was just how it felt to go blind and deaf all at once.
Then the silence came back, sharp and sudden.
I opened my eyes, blinking the grit away.
The terminal was dead, the glow from the Echo Sphere above the door the only real light left.
Kang was sprawled half over me, his body tense, ready for another impact.
His face hovered inches from mine. I could see the blood at his temple, a single perfect line that beaded and then rolled down his jaw.
He exhaled, and I felt it on my lips. “You alive?” he said, voice hoarse.
“I think so,” I croaked, and tried to move. Debris had blocked the lab door; the hallway beyond was gone, replaced by a slumped wall of concrete and half-molten blue moss, already sparking back to bioluminescent life.
Kang pushed himself upright, the effort careful and precise. He checked me for damage—first the head, then the ribs, then the hands—his fingers clinical, but trembling just a little at the edges. A shout from the other side: “Diana! Captain! You still breathing?”
I turned toward the voice, but a chunk of ceiling had collapsed between us, sealing the hallway like a stone sarcophagus. “We’re here!” I called, forcing steadiness into my voice.
Kang crouched, eyeing the rubble. “No way through.”
Maven’s reply crackled over the comlink, strained and uncertain.
“I—I don’t know the layout well enough to map you a route.
I’ll try to circle around and link up, but if I can’t find you in an hour…
I’m out.” I glanced at Kang. His jaw tightened.
“Then we move,” he said as though the words were already set in stone.
He led the way into a narrow service corridor, half-buried in moss and slick with condensation. The pendant at my throat cast a feeble blue light across the dripping walls. Kang’s body pressed close behind me, so near I could feel the heat of him, the slow rise and fall of his breath.
At one low arch, I ducked through and knocked my shoulder. Kang’s hand caught me at the waist, steadying me. His palm curved against my back, a quiet promise in the darkness.
“Keep going,” he murmured.
We rounded a dogleg and the floor tilted sharply, water sluicing past our boots like a shallow stream. Drips echoed—gunshots in an empty vault. The moss thinned, revealing bare concrete braced with corroded beams. The air smelled of wet citrus and rust.
The corridor ended in a dented bulkhead, its panel half-hanging from the last quake, warped at the edges.
The only way through was force—and Kang didn’t hesitate.
He reached for his belt first, tugging it free with a sharp motion.
The metal buckle clinked dully in the silence as his trousers loosened just enough to dip on his hips.
My eyes dropped before I could stop them.
The cut of his V-line was sharp, carved like it had been honed from tension and discipline. That deep groove leading into darkness, into places I definitely shouldn’t be thinking about right now. Heat bloomed low in my stomach, unexpected and unwelcome—but impossible to ignore.
I blinked hard, tried to look away. Not the time. Not the place. Nor the person.
But then his hand was on my belt. He didn’t ask. Just grabbed and yanked.
A low grunt rumbled from his chest—more force than finesse—as he hauled me forward. The sudden pull made my breath hitch. I staggered, off-balance, drawn so close I could feel the heat radiating off his body like it belonged to the core of the earth.
My lips parted, but no sound came. I was too stunned. Too aware.
The scent of sweat and metal clung to him. The brush of his knuckles as he worked my belt free sent a jolt through me I pretended not to feel. With quick, utilitarian movements, he looped both belts together, tying them into a makeshift strap.
I couldn’t stop staring.
He braced his boot against the wall, muscles flexing as he heaved against the bulkhead. The door groaned, metal grinding against metal, until it cracked open—just wide enough for one body.
“Go,” he rasped.
And I did—but not without my pulse still hammering from the feel of him. Fuck…
I paused, the black void beyond swallowing the pendant’s glow. Kang’s hand settled on my shoulder—firm yet somehow encouraging. “I’ll follow,” he whispered.
I wriggled into a vertical shaft, boots scraping the slimy rungs. At the top, a narrow crawlspace led to a dimly lit utility corridor. Kang slid down behind me, landing softly. He held out his hands, and I let him guide me onto solid floor.
We stood in silence, broken only by the drip of water and the distant hum of emergency fans. I wiped sweat—and blood—from my brow. Kang brushed at the cut. “You’re bleeding,” he said, half-smirking.
“Just another hazard,” I replied, heart still fluttering from the brush of his touch.
The corridor wound away in sharp angles, its walls glazed with silver fungus, cables writhing overhead in the EM haze. The pendant’s light stirred the moss, and for an instant the passage glowed with an otherworldly dawn.
But there was no dawn in here—only more twisting corridors. We exchanged a look, the weight of Maven’s warning heavy between us. Reluctantly, we turned deeper into the unknown, searching for any exit that might still be open.