"On me," he breathed, and they went up into it.
Blue-white stutter carved ribs into concrete and then forgot them. The sound with it—pop-pop, hiss, pop—rode the light like a cheap magician. The culvert mouth framed a sloped driveway belly, oil shadows, a garage door jammed knee-high. Inside, two fluorescent tubes tried to be gods and failed, flicking alive, then choking. [CHECK: fluorescent ballast / tube source of blue-white]
"Small," Gavin said. "Elbows in."
Madison flattened and eased out first. The woman slid beside the wall, a hand on stucco. The crouched man flowed like paper. Gavin came last, blade crosswise, guard high enough to steal wrists.
"Help—" The voice lived inside the garage. Small, human, frayed at the edges. Behind it, motion that wasn't language knocked a broom over and didn't apologize.
Gavin studied the jam: door rolled to knee height, spring complaining, a dent left of center. The tubes flicked blue-white, popped, died, tried again. If they die while we're under—
"Lane?" Madison breathed.
"Under the door, through the lane, out the side," Gavin said. "No heads. Knees."
The woman whispered, "I can talk them."
"Do it. Crouched—watch our rear," Gavin said.
The crouched man nodded and posted at the driveway lip, back to fence, palms up to show empty. He watched the culvert mouth for shapes that wanted to be decisions.
Gavin got flat and slid the saber's guard under the door seam. He levered—not enough to invite shoulders, just enough to keep the lip from biting his knuckles. "On my count," he breathed. "Madison first. I'll peel left. You—" to the woman, "—straight to the voice. Hold their eyes."
The tubes gave a working burst. Inside: a sedan with dust handprints, a toppled rack, a cooler bleeding melt. Near the rear bumper—a pair of knees, bare, gray with dust, tucked under a tarp curl. [CHECK: age/identity of the voice]
"Three," Gavin said.
Madison slid under, poker low. The door kissed his back and asked for a toll; he didn't pay it. The woman poured after him, head sideways, wrists close. Gavin came last, blade along the floor like a flat promise.
Air had that garage mix—rubber, oil, detergent—plus a copper line. The tubes flickered; the non-language motion resolved: a man in a torn polo chewing a glove caught in a vise as if leather were meat. He turned slow; Madison edited his shins.
"Left," Gavin said. He stole the calf with the saber's flat and put the man into the bumper. Teeth scraped steel. No language.
"Hey," the woman whispered to the knees under the tarp. "Eyes here. We're real."
"I can't," the voice said. "It's—" A shoe was caught in the cooler's rope handle. Hands shook, failed, fluttered.
"You can. Breathe in," the woman said. "On 'three', pull; not before."
"Three," Gavin said, lifting the door an inch without letting his back answer for it. The panel groaned. The shoe gave up; the voice became a body, small and fast and making itself smaller without being told.
The door sprang a half inch as the spring remembered pride. Gavin fed it down and kept his fingers. Don't gift the house your hands.
"Out and left," he said. "Hug the wall. Don't stand."
They slid as a set. Madison pivoted, giving the polo man the bumper again. The woman ferried the kid past storage and cooler. The crouched man's palms stayed up at the driveway lip as if truth were a shape that could deflect teeth.
Outside, the culvert wrote wind on concrete. Off beyond the fence, a calm voice admired the night without owning it. "You're choosing the maze," Theo observed, almost fond. [CHECK: Theo distance]
"Left," Gavin repeated. The woman slipped the kid—teen; don't pick an age—into shadow beside the wall. Madison flowed into rear, poker crossbody. Gavin backed under the door, guard up to shepherd ankles that tried to be wrists.
The tubes attempted a finale and started failing for good. One end glowed; one end died; the ballast hissed its last. The door stuttered as if a hand outside had touched it, then thought better. The garage kept its shape for one heartbeat and then took it away.
"Eyes low," Gavin said.
"Any bites?" the woman asked.
Head shake. "I was in the car. Then the door… it—" The kid bit the rest into a nothing-shape. [CHECK: age/identity]
"Later," Gavin said. "Feet now."
A shape slid along the far wall and tried to become a tackle. Gavin let it have the wrong angle and put shin to concrete where it wanted hip. It sat abruptly. It reached for something to hurt with and found a hose nozzle. It chewed that instead.
They made the corner—wall to left, fence to right, culvert mouth to rear. The driveway sloped down to a side gate at the street. Street meant road; road meant Theo's favorite word: lights.
"Cold," Madison said.
"Cold," Gavin confirmed.
A sprinkler clicked dry. Across the way, a porch light hiccuped and committed to glow. [CHECK: motion/porch light state] The kid flinched toward it—the lure of rectangles, of scripted safety.
"Don't," the woman said, hand on his sleeve. "It makes you a picture."
The culvert hummed behind; the utility gap finder thumped a palm on wood, learning. The tubes died with a pop. The blue-white went out.
"Map," Gavin breathed. "Fence run; trash enclosure; hedge seam; drop to culvert again if the road crowds us." Wins measured seconds, not yards.
Theo let the wind carry him. "Left still cold," he allowed, a pro giving notes to another pro.
They slid along the fence. Palms read wood; splinters read back. At the corner, a trash enclosure offered shadow and a high rot smell. Beyond, a narrow path cut to a hedge seam and a low wall with a lip you could belly over without offering your back to gods you didn't believe in.
"Here," Gavin said. "Hips low."
They belly-slid, ribs making quiet objections. On the far side, gravel that had never been raked waited with a sound like someone testing beads between fingers. He hated the sound because it told rooms where people were.
"Small," he said, as if the word could shrink stones.
The hedge seam coughed them at a short drop: six feet to a concrete apron that serviced nothing tonight. The apron ended in a culvert mouth twin to the last one, ribs squared to darkness. No blue-white here. Just the city's hum folding small.
"Down?" Madison asked.
Gavin tested the drop. "Drop and roll. Arms in. Saber last."
Madison went first—the mountain learning to fall quiet. The woman passed the kid by wrists and let him fall the last foot so he'd own his landing. He did. The crouched man hung by fingers and let go like a cat. Gavin last, saber flat along his thigh.
They were back in tunnel math: sound small; air cool; the road a mouth you could aim for without walking into it. The culvert carried a trickle that pretended to be a river when it met echo.
"Left or right?" Madison said.
"Right is road; left is neighbors," Gavin said. "We need a new vector."
From the street lip above, feet crossed fast and careful. A man's voice said something like team without committing to a noun. Theo's was not among them. Quiet men recruit other quiet men.
"Left," Gavin said. "Then T. If bad, we bleed back and cut under."
They moved. The kid's breath rasped; the woman mirrored it until he heard his own noise and solved it. The crouched man tapped the wall now and then, as if making sure world still existed.
The culvert bent around rootwork that combed hair and took leaves as toll. A side mouth appeared—a black square with a grate bolted crooked. Beyond it, echo changed: hollow, big, as if the culvert believed in rooms. [CHECK: storm chamber / junction box beyond grate]
"Later," Gavin said. He wasn't adding unknown rooms to tonight's list.
The trickle deepened; shoes went damp. The kid hissed; the woman squeezed his sleeve. "Cold is clean," she said. "Road is pictures."
Gavin almost smiled. Keep that one.
The culvert climbed shallowly and opened to a new mouth where gravel met it like teeth. A low retaining wall cut the right; shrubs made a scrim; beyond, the idea of a street took shape in the lighter dark. No blue-white. Just hum.
He listened: a car idled somewhere useless; voices far; voices near; one voice not talking, which he respected.
"On me," he said. "Eyes on feet. We—"
The garage door behind slammed at last. The sound carried through the culvert like a report. The kid flinched into the woman; Madison into the wall; gravel whispered.
From the shrubs left, a shape uncoiled and went for the nearest breath—the kid's.
"Left," Gavin said, and was already there, the guard finding shin, the shin failing, Madison adding an ankle tap that taught concrete to any remaining ideas.
"Move," Gavin said.
They cleared the mouth and hugged the wall, taking shadow over space. Across the street, a porch light died with dignity. The night got one tone darker. He liked it fine.
"Coach," Madison breathed. "Your call."
Gavin drew the map: cold lanes, culvert returns, patience like water in pipes. Win seconds. Stack them. Trade them for ground later.
"Left fence," he said. "Then behind the cars. If they push, we go to ground and let them spend their balance."
The kid's hand found Gavin's sleeve without asking. He's still here. Gavin tightened his arm just enough to answer, So are we.
They moved toward the darker left—
—and the porch across the street opened half a hand and a voice inside shaped help like it had okay lights and a spare couch and rules. The crack spilled butter-yellow, the opposite of blue-white, and for one beat he wanted to want it.
He didn't. "Cold," he said, and cut them into the hedge pocket that would make their next mistake cost less.
The street exhaled footfalls; the culvert held its breath; and somewhere behind them, Theo laughed once—short, not cruel, just certain—and let the night finish the count.