Flash covered the rear, knife in hand, eyes scanning the shadows behind the fences, where anyone could be hiding: a patrol, a mercenary, or just a homeless person.
Gideon no longer resisted; his head rested on the giant's shoulder, eyes half-closed from exhaustion and morphine, breathing hoarse but steady.
Ethan walked beside Flash, his shoulder still throbbing from the wound, the bandage soaked with blood, but he didn't complain.
In the backpack: disks, vials, papers, the flash drive. Evidence.
Everything they had descended into hell itself for.
"God, we made it out alive. But what now? We have the evidence this is our weapon against Corvin and the rest."
Ethan stopped for a second.
"Can we really start this right now?"
They reached their hangar the farthest one. The huge gates were ajar just enough for a person to slip through, a slit in the darkness like the entrance to a burrow.
Flash pushed the panel; metal scraped, but quietly, no louder than the rustle of wind.
Inside, darkness, only the faint glow of an emergency lamp in the corner, reddish like their flashlights.
The smell of machine oil, dust, and old metal hit their noses, mixing with the rain outside.
In the corner an old mattress, crates instead of tables, a generator in the other corner purring quietly like a sleeping beast.
They had been hiding here for a week already, a temporary refuge while they sorted through the data.
The hangar was their fortress, abandoned, forgotten, fitted with locks that Flash had installed himself.
Bruno carefully lowered Gideon onto the old mattress in the corner. He opened his eyes, gave a weak smile; his lips were cracked, face pale as paper.
"We made it…" he rasped, voice faint but carrying joy.
"I thought… we wouldn't get out. That thing… it was too close."
Flash closed the gates; the heavy bolt clanged shut, cutting them off from the outside world. The echo rolled through the hangar like a final sigh.
He turned, surveyed the group; his eyes were tired.
"We made it," he said quietly.
"But this isn't the end. They know someone took the archives. The mercenary, the drones, they'll keep searching."
"We need to figure out what to do next."
Ethan sank onto a crate, feeling his body finally give in.
His hands shook, his shoulder pulsed as if the wound had a life of its own, but inside there was a strange calm.
"I killed for the first time, I really did it. A person? I don't think I'll ever have to kill people."
"Gideon… he's fading. If we don't find help, will we lose him? And the evidence? We need it so badly. We have to use it no matter what…"
He looked at the others at Flash, already connecting the laptop to the old generator, the cable rustling across the floor; at Bruno, checking his weapon, wiping a knife with a rag; at Gideon, trying to sit up straighter, wincing in pain.
"Let's see what we've got," Flash said, opening the laptop.
The screen lit up with blue light, reflecting on their faces and making them look like ghosts.
The generator hummed louder when Flash plugged it in; the cable sparked for a moment.
He inserted the flash drive, opened the file with the chip the very one they had pulled from Maria's files.
The signal was weak; code scrolled across the screen, a map unfolded, a red dot blinking somewhere in Lower Manhattan, not far from the Brooklyn Bridge. Flash zoomed in, fingers moving quickly across the trackpad.
"The signal leads to an abandoned terminal," Flash said, leaning closer to the screen, eyes narrowing.
"But it's not just a terminal anymore, it's an underground club now. Or… Corvin's donor center.
"Look, entrance through an old warehouse on South Street. Basement level. That's where they collect blood."
"Not just for themselves for some kind of experiments. They store fresh samples there too. And possibly live donors."
"Coordinates are exact—40.7034 north, 74.0115 west."
"Underground, level minus two."
Ethan felt everything inside him tighten, as if the cold from the catacombs had returned.
"Donor center…" he repeated, voice quiet but laced with anger.
"So… they kidnap people? Take blood by force?"
Flash nodded, not looking away from the screen, scrolling the map.
"Not only."
"Sometimes there are volunteers. Sometimes people no one looks for. Homeless, migrants, those drowning in debt."
"Corvin pays, or promises. And then… they disappear. Become test subjects."
"Or food. It's their factory."
"Without this, nothing else exists."
Gideon coughed, winced; blood stained his lips.
"And Maria found out. She wanted to stop it. Wanted to expose it.
"That's why… they got rid of her. Just like the one who wrote the diary."
Bruno added quietly, his voice a low rumble full of rage:
"She wanted to save them.
"And she paid with her life. We can't stop now.
"This is our chance, to hit them, to hit Corvin."
Ethan stared at the map. The red dot blinked like a still-beating heart, like a reminder of Maria, of her fight.
"Then we go there," Ethan said. His voice was firmer than ever.
"We have to finish what she started. Destroy it. Save whoever we can."
Flash looked at him for a long time, appraisingly, as if seeing Ethan in a new light.
"You sure?"
"It's not like the catacombs down there, lots of people, security."
"Cameras everywhere, and possibly Corvin himself. It's their territory."
"We might not come back."
Ethan nodded, clenching his fists.
"I'm sure.
"I can't stop now. After everything… after what I did down there.
"This is for Maria, for all the people still left—we have to do this!"