They left the tunnel with salt in their mouths and ash in their clothes. The service corridor spat them out behind an old warehouse, the air sharp with diesel and the aftertaste of smoke. Above, the city moaned—sirens knitting into the skyline, searchlights cutting slow, methodical arcs. Below, the water still slapped at the ruins of the pier like a thing testing new teeth.
Cain tasted iron and old promises. He kept his blade out of habit, not because he fancied blood, but because the world still moved in positions of advantage and threat. The wet steel felt honest. It told him when something would take and when something would give.
Susan leaned against a wall, breathing like a bellows. Her ribs tightened with every inhale; still, she laughed once—short, dry—because laughing had fewer obligations than crying. "They'll call us terrorists," she said. "Or heroes. Depends on who writes the reports."
