The substation's air was heavy with the smell of rust and old power, the kind of place that made every sound feel sharper. James kept me to his left, his pace unhurried but angled, like he was already charting three different exits in his head.
Somewhere deeper in the building, metal scraped again, two short pulls, a pause, then one long. Deliberate. Not a rat, not a pipe shifting. Someone signaling.
James glanced at the breaker panels lining the wall, each tagged with numbers worn down to smudges. His eyes didn't stay on them; they tracked the shadows pooling at the far end of the corridor.
"Three doors ahead," he murmured. "Two of them don't matter."
"And the third?"
"That's where the noise came from."
He stepped forward, weight balanced, the faint creak of the floor under him masked by the hum of dormant machinery. My grip tightened on the case. The corridor narrowed until the walls almost brushed our shoulders, and the light from the cracked window behind us faded to a grainy smear.
Halfway to the first door, a shadow shifted in the gap at the bottom, someone was already standing just inside. James didn't slow.
When he reached the frame, he moved in one clean motion, shoulder to the door, hand flat to push it wide. The smell hit first: cold air, damp cloth, and the faint sting of copper. A man stood in the center of the room, back to us, head tilted like he was listening to the building breathe.
He turned slowly, a smirk cutting across his face before his eyes even met mine.
"James," he said, voice low, familiar. "You brought company."
James didn't blink. "Didn't think you'd still be breathing, Evan."
The man's smirk widened. "Funny. I was going to say the same about you." His gaze drifted to the case in my hand, lingering just long enough to make the air feel colder. "Guess I know why you're here."
"You don't," James said flatly.
Evan took a slow step closer, his boots barely whispering against the floor. The light from the hallway caught in his eyes, sharp and watchful. "Then tell me what's in it. Save us both the trouble."
James shifted his stance, not toward Evan, but just enough to put himself fully between us. "You don't want to open that box."
"Oh, I do," Evan said, voice all teeth. "The question is whether you'll be smart enough to hand it over, or stupid enough to make me take it."
A silence settled between them, thick as the damp air. James' coat shifted, and I caught the faintest glint of metal near his hand.
Evan saw it too, and smiled like that was exactly what he wanted.
Then he moved.
Evan moved first. Not fast enough to be a blur, but with the kind of certainty that meant he'd already decided what would happen next. His hand dipped toward his jacket, and James closed the distance in a single step.
The sound of impact was dull, a controlled thud as James drove him back against the wall. The case in my grip felt heavier, like it knew too much about why we were here.
"Still think you want to see what's inside?" James said, his voice low but edged in something I hadn't heard before, real warning.
Evan's smile didn't break, though it thinned. "You've gotten slower."
"Slower's still faster than you," James said, pinning Evan's wrist with enough pressure to make his knuckles whiten.
The two of them were close enough to pass for shadows cut from the same piece, neither giving ground, both listening for something beyond the other's breathing. My eyes flicked to the open doorway behind Evan, dark, no movement, but a cold draft crawling through like the building was exhaling.
Evan's gaze slid to me for half a second, and James noticed. His grip tightened, a sharp reminder that attention was currency here, and Evan had just spent too much of it.
"You came here for a reason," James said. "Say it, or walk out."
Evan's free hand tapped twice against the wall, another signal, deliberate. Somewhere deeper in the building, the sound came back, faint but answering.
James' eyes shifted just enough to read the space around us, then locked back on Evan. "You brought company."
Evan's smirk returned. "So did you."
From the far end of the hall, the reply to Evan's signal came again, closer this time, a steady rhythm of footfalls on concrete. James' posture changed, subtle but decisive, his shoulders setting as if measuring distance and angles in the same breath.
"Stay with me," he murmured without looking back.
Evan's smirk didn't falter, but his eyes cut toward the sound. "Looks like we're about to see whose friends arrive first."
The footsteps slowed just before the doorway, a shadow stretching across the threshold. For a heartbeat, no one entered. Then a tall figure stepped into the light, lean and sharp-eyed, the kind of presence that made the room feel suddenly smaller.
"Didn't think I'd find you both in the same place," the newcomer said, voice even but threaded with something that pulled at my nerves.
James didn't move away from Evan, but his focus split, one eye on the man in the doorway, the other still locking Evan in place. "Then you weren't looking hard enough."
The air tightened, each second stretching longer, until I realized my grip on the case had gone rigid. Whoever had just arrived wasn't here by accident, and James knew exactly what that meant.
The newcomer stepped farther into the room, his shoes quiet against the warped floorboards. He didn't look at me right away, and that made it worse. His attention was fixed on James and Evan, like he was weighing which one he'd rather take apart first.
"Long way from home, James," the man said. "And you brought a gift."
James' jaw didn't move, but his hand shifted just slightly on Evan's wrist. "If you came for the case, turn around."
That finally earned me a glance. It was brief, but it was enough to feel like I'd been measured, sorted, and filed into a category I didn't want to know. "Not here for the case," the man said. "Here for whoever's still standing when you two are done."
"Then you're wasting your time," James said, not breaking eye contact with Evan. "This doesn't end in here."
The man in the doorway smiled, slow and deliberate. "Everything ends somewhere."
From the hallway, a second set of footsteps joined the first, lighter but no less certain. The narrow space behind the newcomer filled with shadow, and the walls seemed to draw in closer. I could feel my pulse in my fingertips, the case warm against my palm.
Evan tested James' grip with a slow twist, not enough to break free, but enough to prove he wasn't just waiting. "Your move," he murmured.
James didn't answer. He shifted his weight, pivoting so that I was at his back, both Evan and the doorway in his line. The change in his stance told me we weren't walking out without choosing a side, or forcing one.
The newcomer's smile didn't fade, but his voice lost whatever softness it had. "Clock's running, James."
"I know," James said, and for the first time since we'd stepped into the substation, I heard something in his voice that wasn't control.
It was finality.