I kept one hand on the wall as I stepped off the final stair and onto the ground floor.
The darkness felt heavier down here. At first it had been nearly impossible to see anything, but my eyes had slowly begun to adjust. Shapes were starting to form out of the black; faint outlines of walls, doorframes, furniture.
Lydia had insisted I take a coldflare before leaving. I refused. The entire point of this plan was to move through the building without being seen. A flare would turn me into a walking beacon. Even a brief flash of light could give away my position.
Besides, I had other methods to find my way. The metallic smell that had flooded the second floor earlier had changed. The scent was still there, but it had shifted into something darker.
Death. A sour, rotting odor that lingered in the air.
Thankfully it wasn't nearly as strong as it had been upstairs. That worked in my favor. With the smell diluted, I could separate it from other scents more easily. It lingered strongest near the stairwell, giving me a reference point. Now I had touch, sound and smell at my disposal.
Caitlin had explained the layout before I left. The stairs leading to the lower levels were behind a door at the far end of the ground floor hall, past the lobby. She hadn't liked my plan.
None of them had.
When Lydia cut the power, calming the employees had taken longer than expected. Panic had spread quickly once the lights vanished and every piece of technology in the room died at once. Surprisingly, Mous had been the one to settle things. She explained the situation to them with a calm confidence that quieted the room. Once people realized the medical equipment still worked and the doors could still be opened manually, most of them accepted it. She hadn't even questioned me when I left.
Just wished me luck. She could be so reliable.
I crossed the lobby and continued down the hall on the other side. It felt like the building was abandoned. The silence was so loud that I could hear every breath I took.
Soon, I reached the end of the hallway. Two doors waited there, facing opposite directions. I opened the one on the left first, slowly easing it inward. A staircase greeted me. But the steps led upward. Wrong one. I closed the door gently and turned toward the other. Before my hand touched the handle, I heard it. Footsteps. Voices. Faint, but unquestionable. People were coming.
Quick but silent steps carried me back toward the lobby. I slipped behind the wall that framed the entrance to the hallway and pressed myself flat against it. Then I forced my breathing to slow. Calm and quiet.
The door opened behind me and light spilled into the hallway.
Not too bright, probably a cold flare, but enough to push the darkness back several meters. Their voices echoed softly along the corridor. I focused on the scents drifting through the air. Two people. No more. I began to consider whether I could take them on.
"…damn Evan," one of them muttered. A female voice. "Fucking idiot ran off on his own again. Now we're the ones stuck cleaning up his mess."
Evan. So that was his name. The man we killed upstairs.
"Well," the second voice replied, male, "doesn't matter now. He's dead."
"Yeah. Put down like the dog he was."
There was real bitterness in her tone. It was interesting. Even his own associates didn't seem to like him.
"But doesn't it worry you?" the man continued.
Their footsteps moved closer. "They took him down. Evan was an apprentice. And he was on rox."
Rox? Was that what had amplified his abilities?
"So?" she asked.
"So it means the people we're up against aren't normal marshals," the man replied. "They even triggered a grid killer. Those people might be crazy."
"Relax," she scoffed. "Evan being an apprentice doesn't make him some unstoppable monster."
There seemed to be some sort of rank or position called apprentice amongst themselves. And Evan was an apprentice.
"We'll deal with them," she continued. "And when we do, maybe the boss will pick one of us as his replacement."
Their light was getting closer now. Just around the corner. I had to make a choice. The scents grew stronger as they approached. Their chemical profiles were normal: sweat, fabric, oil. Nothing like the chaotic storm that had surrounded Evan.
It seemed they weren't on this 'rox', whatever it was. Plus, I had the jump on them. I released Trent and Lloyd, deciding to take my chances. The two figures rounded the corner. Their shadows stretched long across the floor in the light.
"I don't know, this all se—"
I moved before he could finish the sentence. My arm shot forward, driving my fist straight into his throat. Air burst from his lungs in a choking gasp. He staggered back, both hands flying instinctively to his neck as he tried to drag breath back.
The woman's eyes widened behind the flare-light. She started to react.
Not fast enough. Not nearly.
I stepped through the man's collapsing posture and drove my foot hard, straight into her stomach. The kick folded her in half and hurled her backward into the hallway. The flare flew from her hand and struck the floor with a loud clatter, spinning wildly as it rolled. Light splashed across the corridor in erratic circles, throwing long, jagged shadows across the walls.
She slammed into the ground, the air leaving her. I quickly scanned their bodies: a single axe secured to each of their waists, masks covering their faces, minimal protection gear.
Behind me the man staggered sideways. His hand slapped against the wall as he struggled to stay upright. His throat worked frantically, dragging in ragged, useless breaths. I turned on him immediately. I kicked out and connected with the side of his knee.
The joint buckled with a sharp crack. He dropped instantly, collapsing onto one leg while still clinging to the wall as if it might somehow keep him from collapsing completely. Before he could recover, Trent moved. The tip drove through his palm and buried itself in the wall behind it, pinning his hand with a dull punch of metal through flesh. His mouth opened.
The scream never came. My right hand had already dug into my belt. I pulled a grenade free and shoved it straight between his teeth.
"Bite down," I said quietly.
His eyes bulged. The cold metal cylinder filled his mouth. His jaw trembled as I forced him to clamp down on it.
I let go of him. He stayed there kneeling against the wall, choking and crying around the grenade. His free hand trembling uselessly in the air, unsure where to go. I returned to the woman.
She had rolled onto her side and was digging at the strap securing the axe on her hip. The flare lay a few feet away now, its light dimmer but still burning, painting the hallway in flickering yellow.
Her fingers finally freed the weapon. By the time it came loose, I had already moved. A single stride closed the distance. My knee drove upward into her face. Cartilage crunched.
Her head snapped backward and struck the wall behind her with a heavy thud. The axe slipped from her grip and clattered to the floor as her eyes lost focus. She sagged sideways, slumping to the ground.
I stood still. Breathing steady.
"Well," I muttered as I resecured Lloyd at my hip, glancing between the two of them. "That was easier than expected."
Honestly, it was a little disappointing. From the way she had been talking earlier, I expected more resistance.
The woman groaned weakly, trying to pull herself together. I stepped forward and seized her by the throat. My fingers tightened just enough to restrict her breathing without crushing anything important. It wasn't difficult. I had always had abnormally large hands for my size. It also helped that she was quite skinny.
She clawed weakly at my wrist as I dragged her upright and hauled her across the floor. Her boots scraped against the ground as I pulled her toward the man. He had started crying now. Quiet, panicked sobs pushed through his nose as the grenade rested between his teeth. His eyes darted wildly between me and the woman dangling in my grip.
I pulled Trent free from the wall. The tip slid out of his palm with a sickening ease. His hand dropped limply to his side, blood dripping onto the floor.
"Alright," I told him. "Here's what's going to happen."
He stared at me, trembling.
"You're going to stand up," I continued. "Slowly."
The spear tip rested lightly against his chest.
"And you're not going to make a sound unless you'd like to discover how quickly I can pull that pin."
His head bobbed frantically. Good enough for me.
He pushed himself upright with shaking legs, still biting down on the grenade like it was the only thing keeping him alive. Which, technically, it was. I pressed Trent into the middle of his back and nudged him forward. He complied without resistance, limping as fast as he could. I maintained my grip on the woman's throat and guided them both down the hallway. A few steps away an office door stood half open.
Perfect.
I nudged it wider with my foot and shoved the man inside first. He stumbled across, nearly collapsing as he tried to keep his balance. The woman followed as I dragged her in behind him. Once they were inside, I stepped through the doorway and closed the door quietly. The latch clicked shut. The hallway fell silent again.
And now we could talk.
I pulled a chair across the floor and sat down, studying the two of them.
Getting them secured hadn't taken long. Their masks were already off. Their wrists were cuffed tightly behind the chairs. I had stripped anything remotely useful from their gear and pushed it into the corner of the office.
The boy sat stiff and trembling. I could see how young he was now that the mask was gone. Younger than me. His face was pale and streaked with tears that hadn't stopped flowing since I forced the grenade between his teeth. His eyes kept darting around the room as if searching for a way out.
There wasn't one.
The woman was different. Even slumped in the chair, bruised and bleeding, there was still fight burning in her eyes. I had taken their masks and twisted them into a crude choker, tying it around her neck and fastening the other end to the chair frame behind her. Just tight enough to make breathing uncomfortable. Her chest rose and fell in short, strained pulls of air.
The boy whimpered quietly around the grenade, his eyes pleading with me. It was wasted effort. Whatever patience or sympathy I might have had earlier evaporated the moment I stepped onto the second floor.
I bent forward and loosened the cloth around the woman's neck. She gasped immediately, sucking in huge desperate breaths as oxygen flooded back into her body. I waited.
After a few seconds her breathing steadied. I opened my mouth to speak. She beat me to it.
"Fuck off," she rasped. "Dog of the state. You're getting nothing from—"
My hand flew before she finished. The slap cracked through the room. Her head snapped sideways and the chair tipped with her weight, crashing onto the floor. She coughed violently as blood filled her mouth. I stood up, grabbed the back of the chair, and dragged it upright again. The metal legs screeched across the floor.
Control. That was the first rule. Never let a detainee believe they had any of it.
"You don't speak," I said quietly, "unless I ask you to."
Her lips curled into a bloody smile.
"What's your name?" I asked.
She stared at me. Her eyes burned with hatred.
I sighed. "Wrong answer."
The second slap came faster. This time she didn't fall. The chair rocked violently but stayed upright as her head snapped to the other side. Blood dripped steadily from her split lip.
I leaned back in my chair.
"We don't have a lot of time," I said calmly. "So let's skip the part where you pretend this ends well for you. No one is coming to save you. We are trapped in this building with no power or outside communication."
I came in close. "My body-cam has been disabled. None of my squad members are here to stop me. Which means right now, I'm not some friendly neighborhood marshal. I'm just a very angry man."
The room went quiet except for the boy's shaky breathing through the grenade.
"I've already killed one of you. If you don't start talking, you will die here. Painfully."
"And I will make sure to get it out of your friend here." I gestured to the boy. "Even if I have to beat it out of him with your corpse."
I grabbed her hair and forced her face to level with mine. "So what's it going to be?"
She gave a bloodied smile and spat directly on my face. She also tried to headbutt me, but I held her in place, tightening my grip on her hair. For a moment the room went completely still. I wiped off the disgusting mixture of blood and saliva slowly with the back of my hand.
"Go to hell you piece of shit. Glory to the order." She spat again on the floor.
Wrong answer.
There would be no cooperation from her. Not quickly enough, anyway. And time was running out. I shifted my attention to the boy. His fear had filled the room earlier like smoke. Now it had changed. Her defiance had stiffened his resolve.
Just a little. Enough to make this harder. I exhaled slowly. Torture would break him eventually. But it would take time. Time I didn't have. But there was a way to speed up the process. Kill two birds with one stone
An idea had settled into place. Ugly but effective. I stood and looked down at the woman. Then at the boy.
"Pay attention," I told him calmly.
His whole body trembled.
"I'm sure this will be educational."
The woman suddenly jerked forward. "Turk, don't you da—"
My hand closed around her throat. I squeezed, crushing the air from her lungs. Her words died instantly. Her eyes bulged as she clawed at my wrist. With my other hand, I pressed a finger gently against her lips.
"Try not to interrupt the lesson."