"On me," he said—and the three of them moved as if the night had given them a snap.
The bay held its breath. Chain tick. Drip. Wind combed the roll-up's bottom lip so the slit breathed with them. From the corridor behind came that learning sound again—the push bar testing angles, patient hands unpacking a puzzle. Outside, shoes waited in gravel like punctuation.
"Left," Gavin whispered. "Along the pallets. Widen the cone."
Madison ghosted first, the poker slanted across his body, shoulders rounded to make less man. The woman moved on his shirt like a lifeline, the fabric tight between her fists. Gavin slid last, blade low and crosswise, no wrestling—redirect shoulders, take knees.
Theo's voice [CHECK: identity] let the dark sit, then smiled through it. "Good. You're thinking." He stayed where the gravel thickened. Farther off, another set of feet paced—never close, never far—herder spacing, Gavin thought and hated that the word fit. "Light in two," Theo added conversationally. "Don't startle."
"Don't look," Gavin breathed. He'd seen too many rookies follow the ball. "Eyes low. Listen."
They rounded the first pallet pyramid. Cardboard musk and glue filled his head. Staple tails caught his forearm and let go. The roll-up slit became a black ribbon to their right; the corridor door a flat, waiting shape to their left. The floor rasped under their shoes in paper-dry whispers.
The slit brightened—a blade-thin white. Not a flood; a line. Someone outside slid a phone face under, screen dimmed to knife-edge. It drew a thin rectangle across the concrete and painted the bottom inch of Madison's boot. The light never probed up where faces lived; it mapped edges.
"Cute," Madison murmured.
"Don't kick it," Gavin said. People behind the light, not the light. He nudged the phone sideways with the saber's guard. The glow slewed away; the hand outside was quick but didn't snatch.
From the corridor—clack. The bar finally learned where to land. The latch tested, slipped, tested again, this time with timing. The door bumped, then seated. A third bump would do it.
Gavin changed the picture. "We jam left," he said, breath thin. "On my mark we take the near pallet and tip it into the corridor mouth. Then we vanish along the wall."
"Loud," Madison warned.
"Loud is fine if it buys ten seconds."
Theo's voice stroked the dark. "Don't box yourselves in there." He let the phone light sneak a whisker under again, as if to pet their shoes. "Left or right doesn't matter if you freeze."
"Ready," Gavin said. He set the saber, hand low on the grip like a lever. "Three—two—"
The corridor door hit its third bump.
"—now."
They put shoulders to cardboard. The pallet pyramid wasn't elegant; it was weight with corners. It heaved an inch, scraped, then slid. Boxes sloughed—paper towels, plastic wrap, a chorus of small collapses. The pyramid met the door exactly as the latch released. The door opened a hand's width and ate corrugated edge; the weight shifted, then sat. The gap became fluted cardboard and angry fingers. Something on the other side shoved, pushing boxes into their own friction. The door thunked and stayed.
"Go," Gavin said. They tracked the wall. The woman breathed like she was measuring sips. The slit line shifted as the phone retreated and returned. Theo exhaled a small laugh that pretended to be friendly and wasn't.
"Coach," he said, as if the word were neutral. "You're burning daylight you don't have."
Gavin ignored it. We are three. Field is twenty yards long. Posts are defenders on our side.
Halfway to the far corner, the roll-up flexed as a hand outside found the bottom and tested the chain. The door answered with a short hop and clink. If they lifted it, the slit would become a crawl; crawls were fights.
"Chain," Madison whispered.
"Don't let them get fingers under," Gavin said. If outside could buy four inches, a shoulder would follow. He set the saber point under the lip like a tent stake, not to lift, but to not lift.
The phone's glow receded. Feet on gravel shuffled a step right, adjusting to the chain. Theo didn't fill the silence this time.
The corridor door behind them didn't boom; it scraped. Someone had switched from pushing to pulling boxes away one by one. Tape peeled. The jam would hold—but not long.
"Corner," Madison breathed.
They reached it—a cool L of cinderblock. A junk dolly crouched under a tarp, two wheels up, handle tucked. Gavin lifted the tarp's edge with the saber and saw the slatted face and fat rubber tires.
"New wedge," he said. "If they roll the door we feed them dolly, buy time, and slip."
"Slip where?" the woman asked.
"Left along the bay to the fence, then right. We don't go to the road unless forced."
Outside, gravel shifted again. A second light winked, not under the slit—off to the side. A stroking beam probed the yard like a paintbrush, careful not to flood the bay. "Not yet," Theo told his man, pleasant as takeout.
"Okay," Madison said. "I hate him."
"Focus." Gavin took the dolly handle, set it by the roll-up lip, angled to jam if lifted. The chain overhead clicked again.
They had inches and seconds. Use both. "On my mark," Gavin said. "Madison, you feed dolly if they lift. I'll take fingers. You—" he touched the woman's sleeve, "—crab left along the wall and find the fence panel we used. If we break, you don't wait. You go under and right. Don't stand."
"I won't leave you," she said.
"You'll do what I called," he said softly. Coach to three living. "Ready."
The corridor jam squealed—tape giving up—and a box slipped free with a papery sigh. A hand probed the gap and found the pallet's torn edge. Fingernails scratched cardboard hungry. The jam breathed.
Theo let the phone light die. Silence inflated. His voice came from further left now, away from the slit. "It's colder that way," he observed mildly. "Fence looks friendly until it strips your shirt and calls your name to the men who like fences."
"Counting us," Madison muttered.
"He hears you breathing," Gavin said. He set the saber's guard against the roll-up so any lift would bite steel.
The slit rose—two inches—clink—four. The chain tried to bind and failed, then seated a link. Air moved. The dolly's wheels chirped as Madison shoved its nose under the lip. Metal met rubber and squealed. Someone outside grunted—effort.
Gavin brought the guard down and met fingers. The sound was wet wood cracking. The hand jerked away. The slit dropped an inch on reflex; the chain caught it. The dolly pinned the rest.
"Again," Madison said softly, not to them.
The corridor door exhaled victory. The jam bled open another inch; an arm in a torn tuxedo sleeve groped into the bay, wrist rolling like it had learned greed. The hand found pallet plastic and gathered it like dress fabric.
"Decision," Gavin said. The play had a clock. "We break left now."
Theo heard the decision in his silence and smiled as if invited. "Road's open," he called helpfully, farther away again. "We can walk you to the flashing."
"Ready," Madison breathed.
"On me," Gavin said. "Left. Go."
They ghosted along the wall—pallets to their right, bay mouth to their rear, corridor door to their left becoming a square of worse dark fanged with fingers. The woman moved in a crouch like she'd always known how. Asset, Gavin thought and filed it for a world that might pay wages later.
The fence line loomed as a deeper black. The panel they'd used bowed an inch at a touch and sprang back. Madison set a shoulder. The panel drank him and gave an inch more.
Behind, the corridor door lost the argument with physics. It slammed wide and rebounded, then went wide again as a weight shoved the mess aside. Bodies did not flood; they arrived—deliberate, low, learning. One turned its head at the scrape of fence and began to move on all fours, fast.
"Under," Gavin told the woman. "Now."
She went flat like a letter under a door. Hair snagged; she ripped it free without a sound. Madison levered the belly of the panel up, making a centimeter of mercy. The panel bit him; he didn't say a word. The woman's feet vanished into the yard.
From the bay mouth, the roll-up leaped an inch as the chain lost a tooth. The dolly squealed, then started to slip. Theo's man saw the moment and committed—shoulder down, hand under. The move had been practiced on other doors tonight.
Gavin planted his inside foot, turned his hips, and shoved the roll-up down with the saber's flat while jamming the guard into the space his face would have been if he were a worse man. The guard kissed jaw instead of teeth with a hard musical sound. The man swore—language, useful. "Easy," Theo said calmly from somewhere left. "We've got time."
"We don't," Madison said through his teeth.
"Under," Gavin said. "Go."
Madison dropped to a knee, shoved his shoulders under the fence belly, and tried to make a mountain fit a mouse hole. The panel protested with a metallic bark. Something in the corridor got the distance wrong and hit a pallet post with its face, then corrected without comment. Hands touched the floor. The floor said yes.
Madison's hips vanished. Gavin was last. He set the saber flat and pushed it ahead into scrub, then got his chest into gravel and went for the black slot. Behind him, the roll-up's chain climbed a half link; the slit breathed wider. Fingers brushed his shoe. He took his foot away and left the shoe, because foot is expensive, shoe is cheap.
Theo's voice drifted: "Right to the road," as if offering directions to ice cream. "Left stays cold."
Gavin's shoulders cleared the fence. The panel tried to eat his belt; Madison's hand found his waistband and made space. He slid into dead shrubs that smelled like dust and old dog. The woman hauled at his sleeve with surprise strength. The saber lay under his palm like a promise somebody else made.
Behind, the bay breathed men. The corridor exhaled more. The fence belly bared its teeth and tried to bite closed again.
"Up," Gavin whispered, staying low. "Along the fence. Right at the corner. We use the wall."
"Road," Madison said, not arguing exactly, just naming the temptation.
"Options," Gavin said. And risk.
They crabbed through shadow—a hedge of plastic bags and thorny sticks and one dead irrigation hose that grabbed his ankle. The fence corner came as a harder angle of dark. Beyond it, the lane opened to sky glow—the kind of light that made people into silhouettes for men with patience.
He tasted the choice. Left: colder, cover, time. Right: road, light, unknown men with calm voices. Behind: doors that had learned to open.
"Coach," Madison breathed.
Gavin set the saber across his thighs and took one clean breath. "On three," he said. "We—"
A flashlight snapped on at the lane mouth, low and canted—not at their eyes; it painted the asphalt right of the corner like a path. Theo's voice, still pleasant: "Right is clear." The beam never shook.
The fence behind them twanged as a body tested where bodies had gone. The panel bucked and then held, for now.
"—we go cold," Gavin finished, and cut his hand left along the fence.
"Copy."
They moved—
—and a shape stepped out of the colder dark ahead, inside the fence corner, silhouette against nothing, close enough that Gavin tasted the man's breath before he heard his shoes.
"Easy," the shape said, quiet, close, wrong. "Don't—"
"Down," Gavin snapped.
The three of them dropped as one while the bay behind and the lane ahead both decided at once to close.