Read Chapter 13: The Escape

The key slid into the service duct lock with a soft click that sounded like a gunshot in the silent cell. Finn held his breath, listening. Nothing moved beyond the door but the distant drip of water and the hum of the high zone's endless machinery.

Forty minutes between rounds. He'd counted nine since Mercer's cryptic warning, timing them against the shift in the water pressure that came with the guards' patrols. He had maybe thirty minutes left. Maybe less, given the crying that had stopped at dawn.

He twisted the key. The lock gave with a groan he felt through his palms, and the inspection panel swung outward into darkness. No alarms. No shouts. For one fragile moment, Finn let himself believe.

He pulled himself through the opening, Danny's key clutched in his fist. The duct was barely wide enough for his shoulders, the metal cold and slick with condensation. Somewhere above him, water thrummed through pipes that fed the high zone's endless appetite. Below, nothing but black.

He'd crawled maybe twenty meters when he heard it: voices, echoing through the metal, sharper now. The holding block's corridor. One voice was reading off numbers—a checklist—and another answered in clipped, efficient monosyllables. The guards' rounds were early.

Finn froze. The duct opened into a junction, one branch angling up toward what he hoped was the medical wing, another dropping down toward the pressurization chamber Mercer had described. The voices grew louder. A flashlight beam cut through a vent slit somewhere ahead.

He had a choice. Up, toward Tess and the unknown layout of the infirmary. Down, toward abandoned service docks and certain survival—alive, alone, empty-handed. Danny's warning echoed in his skull: the key opens doors that shouldn't exist.

Finn went up.

The duct narrowed, and he had to squeeze, ribs grinding against rusted metal, tool-free hands scraping raw. He gritted his teeth and pushed. The shaft opened into a wider crawlspace, and through a grated vent he saw fluorescents, the sterile white of high-zone medical equipment. Two figures in scrubs moved past a curtained alcove.

"—can't wait for the donor match. He'll be questioned in the morning, Carver's orders. Stabilize her, then prep for transport."

Tess. They were talking about Tess.

Finn pressed his face to the grate. The infirmary was small—two beds, a bank of monitors, a surgical light bank already dimmed. Tess lay on the nearest bed, her face pale against the harsh pillow, an IV line snaking into her arm. A bandage wrapped her shoulder, stained a faint amber at the edges. She wasn't moving.

The bigger risk was the corridor beyond. Two orderlies, one armed guard slouched against the far wall, rifle loose in his grip. Finn counted the distance from the vent to the floor: three meters, straight drop. He'd have one moment of surprise, and Danny's key wasn't a weapon.

He unscrewed the vent's corroded grate as quietly as he could manage, each rotation of the screws a small eternity. The orderlies laughed at something. The guard checked his watch. Finn let the grate drop into his palm, then swung his legs through the opening.

He landed on the far side of the surgical curtain. The guard's reflection flickered across a monitor glass—head snapping toward the sound. Finn didn't wait. He crossed the room in three strides, key gripped like a blade, and drove his fist into the guard's throat before the man could voice an alarm. The rifle clattered. Finn caught it, brought the stock down once, twice. The guard slumped.

The orderlies spun. One opened her mouth to scream. Finn leveled the rifle. "Do it and I'll drop you both."

They froze. The one nearest the door raised empty hands. "You're making a mistake. There's nowhere to run—"

"Out." Finn gestured with the barrel. "Through the door you came in. Slow."

They moved. The door hissed shut behind them. Finn shoved a supply cart against it and turned to Tess.

Her eyes were open. Watching him. "You look like hell," she whispered.

"You got shot." He dropped the rifle's strap over his shoulder and began pulling the IV from her arm. "So we're even."

"Plans." She gripped his wrist with surprising strength. "The chip. I had it when—" Her hand fell to her bloodied jumpsuit, the pocket ripped open. Empty. "Gone. They must have—"

"Screw the chip. We're leaving."

The door shuddered. A muffled shout from the corridor beyond. Finn swore and hauled Tess upright. She swayed, weight dragging at his shoulder, the gash in her shoulder seeping fresh blood through the bandage.

"Can you crawl?"

"I can do a lot of things, Delaney." But her voice was thin, and her legs buckled on the second step. Finn caught her, swung her arm around his neck, and half-carried her toward the vent. Behind them, the supply cart screeched as something heavy slammed into it.

He helped Tess through the opening first, then scrambled after her into the duct. The crawlspace she'd been gunned down in had prepared her for this; she moved ahead of him on her elbows, breathing hard, blood leaving a dark smear on the metal.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"Abandoned service docks. Mercer's route."

"Trusting cellmates now?"

"He knew Danny."

She said nothing to that. They crawled in silence for what felt like an aeon, turns branching and merging, the duct system opening into a service shaft large enough to stand in. Water dripped somewhere close. A maintenance ladder descended into darkness.

The shaft joined a wider arterial passage—bundles of cables, pressure valves painted peeling red. And voices.

Finn flattened himself against the wall, pulling Tess behind him. A vent grille at head height showed a control room below. Three guards, one in Carver's livery—the dark uniform with the flood-mark crest—stood over a console displaying schematics of the barrier wall.

"—initiation confirmed for dawn. Final countdown's already cycling the auxiliaries. He wanted the timing to hit the morning tide."

Finn's blood went cold. Not in forty-eight hours. Not tomorrow.

Tomorrow was today. The drain was happening at dawn.

"Low zone's still dark," another guard said. "No word from their council. Carver's distraction worked better than expected."

"Then we're done here. Once the gates close, there's no going back. The whole sector floods inside the hour."

The guards moved off. The console screen flickered, the wall schematic rotating slowly, red markers pulsing along its length.

Tess's hand found his. Her fingers were cold. "Dawn," she repeated.

"We don't have time for the docks." Finn turned, pulling her toward a wide vertical shaft he hadn't yet explored, cables running along its walls. "We need the broadcast tower. We need the whole city to know what Carver's doing before the gates close."

"Or what's left of it after." Tess's voice was barely a whisper.

They climbed. Below them, the control room hummed with the countdown only the high zone could hear.