Lucía stared at him like she wanted to break his face.
The crawling woman still had both hands knotted in Lucía's sleeve, eyes huge, cheeks wet, leg trailing wrong behind her. The employee she was tied to made another low wrecked sound on the floor and tried to pull air into lungs that sounded half-full of blood.
"We are not leaving her," Lucía said.
Joshua kept his voice flat.
"We ain't got time to argue this."
"That's a person."
"So is she." He jerked his chin at the crawling woman. "And so is the baby."
Lucía's jaw tightened so hard it jumped.
The copied voice drifted down the hall again.
Closer.
This time in his own voice.
"Lucía."
The whole crossing died.
Not loud.
Not dramatic.
Just one word in Joshua's exact tone, same cut, same weight, and somehow that was worse than if it had screamed.
Lucía went pale.
Joshua's grip on Nia tightened so fast she squeaked another frightened cry into his chest.
No.
That thing did not get to sound like him.
Priya moved first.
"Dae-hyun, lift the crawling one. Idris, find something sharp. Hana, solve the cable. Lucía, check the employee's head and airway. Everyone else stays exactly where they are."
The order hit the room like a slap.
Good.
Dae-hyun crouched and got both arms under the crawling woman's shoulders before she could protest. She screamed anyway when he lifted her enough to take some drag off the line.
"Rosa!" she cried. "Don't leave Rosa—"
So that was the employee's name.
Good. Worse.
Idris spun, eyes landing on the dead vending machine at the crossing. Its front had already blown inward at some point, clear jagged pieces glittering under the red emergency wash.
He grabbed one.
Lucía looked up just long enough to snatch it from him. "You'll gut somebody with that."
"Then don't," Idris snapped.
Hana dropped to both knees over the cable by Rosa's ankle and squinted at the twist point, fingers hovering without touching.
"It's doubled through the employee side," she said fast. "Pulled through itself. If he lifts her more— no, more than that—"
"I'm trying," Dae-hyun grunted.
The crawling woman was crying too hard to help. Her bad leg dragged useless behind her as he braced and hauled her torso up.
Nia cried louder.
Joshua bounced her once and looked over his shoulder down the hall they'd come from.
Nothing visible yet.
That meant absolutely nothing.
The thin bald man laughed from the side room by the bend.
Not hysterical.
Amused.
Like this was a better show than he'd expected.
"You all really gonna do this?" he called.
Priya didn't even look at him. "Joshua."
He knew.
He shifted two steps left, putting his body between the crossing and the room where the bald man was hiding. Nia stayed tucked tight against his chest, one hand cupped over the back of her head. His other hand came free.
"Come out," he said.
The bald man leaned partway back into view, still smiling that little wrong smile.
His eyes went to Nia.
Stayed there too long.
"Jesus," he said softly. "That's nasty."
Joshua wanted to hit him until his face forgot how smug worked.
Instead he said, "Come closer."
The bald man laughed under his breath and vanished behind the doorframe again.
Coward.
The copied voice came again from behind them, in Lucía's exact tone this time.
"Joshua, left."
Idris flinched.
Joshua didn't.
He kept his eyes on the side room, because that human piece of shit was the one close enough to matter right now.
Behind him, Lucía said, "Rosa, look at me. Rosa. You hear me?"
A cracked, wet breath.
Alive enough.
The crawling woman sobbed, "Please don't let her die. Please don't let her die."
Hana's hands moved now. Quick. Smart. She got two fingers into the cable twist and pulled one section up.
"No, no— there." She nodded hard at Dae-hyun. "Hold. Hold exactly there."
He locked in.
Lucía brought the broken shard down against the tight black cable and started sawing.
It didn't do shit.
Or it did, but too slow.
Way too slow.
The material bit back. Thick. Rubber-wrapped. Built to survive things.
Lucía cursed.
The copied voice said from the dark behind them, now in Abeni's voice:
"Is Nia crying?"
Joshua's stomach dropped.
Nia.
It had her name now too.
The crawling woman's head snapped up. "What the fuck was that?"
Abeni, back with the clustered group, made a strangled sound.
Tomasz said, "Oh no. Oh no, no, no—"
Priya cut him off. "Shut up."
The baby screamed again, tiny whole body shaking against Joshua.
He looked down at her for half a second.
Hot cheeks. Wet lashes. Little mouth open in blind outrage.
He had no idea what he was doing with a baby in a death corridor and somehow that had already stopped mattering.
He bounced once. Not enough.
Again.
Still crying.
His eyes cut back up.
The hall behind them stayed empty too long.
Not safe. Worse.
Hana's voice got sharper. "Lucía, angle down. Cut the inner side where the twist thins."
Lucía changed the angle.
This time the shard bit.
Not through.
Enough to tear a line into the black wrapping.
Idris crouched beside her and jammed his fingers into the split. "Again."
The copied voice behind them went quiet.
That was somehow the ugliest sound in the whole building.
Nothing.
No scrape.
No whisper.
No testing.
Just absence.
Joshua hated it immediately.
The bald man must've heard the same thing, because he laughed once from the side room, smaller this time.
Nervous.
Good.
Lucía sawed again.
The cable opened another little bit.
Dae-hyun's forearms flexed thick with strain.
The crawling woman was half-hanging in his grip now, crying for Rosa, for help, for God, for anything that would let this minute stop being hers.
Rosa made another broken throat-noise on the floor.
Her fingers twitched once against the concrete.
Alive.
Still alive.
Lucía looked at Joshua over her shoulder.
Not asking now.
Warning him.
If this didn't work fast, she was staying anyway.
He could see it all over her.
Of course she was.
From the clustered people at the crossing, the nurse started making a high, thin panicked sound again. The old man in the brown coat was whispering some prayer too fast to hear. One of the college boys was crying openly now and trying not to let the other one notice, which almost made Joshua want to laugh if anything in this place still felt like laughter.
The bald man stepped out from the side room again.
This time with something in his hand.
A fire extinguisher.
"Joshua," Priya said.
He saw it same second.
The bald man swung and hurled it low, not at Joshua— at the cluster at the crossing.
Smart enough to aim at the weak point.
It bounced once on concrete and smashed into the knees of the guy in the Yankees cap.
The man screamed and folded. The heavy metal cylinder rolled under the businesswoman's feet. She tripped into the long green-skirt woman. The back half of the group went sideways in a knot of limbs and panic.
Nia screamed harder from the jolt.
The teenager shrieked.
Tomasz actually shoved somebody to keep from going down.
And the thin bald man laughed like he'd been waiting all day to do that.
Joshua moved.
Not toward the hall.
Toward him.
Two fast steps before the man realized he'd overcommitted.
The bald man's smile dropped.
He tried to yank himself back into the service room—
Joshua hit the doorway first and slammed his forearm across it hard enough to crack frame and flesh together. The man grunted and twisted, but Joshua was already there, baby on one side, free hand grabbing cloth at the throat.
"Got you," Joshua said.
The man stabbed a thumb straight for Nia's face.
Joshua's whole body went cold.
He wrenched the man sideways into the wall so hard the back of his skull knocked concrete. Not enough to kill him. Enough to make stars happen.
The bald man choked and clawed at Joshua's sleeve.
"Touch her," Joshua said, voice low and ugly, "and I'll open you up in here."
He meant it.
The bald man believed him too.
Joshua saw that.
Then, from the hall behind them, something stepped into the crossing.
Not loud.
Not rushed.
Just there.
The first thing everybody felt was the group behind him shutting up all at once.
No sobbing.
No prayer.
No cursing.
Just that animal drop in sound when prey sees something before the words come.
Joshua turned.
The voice-copying killer stood at the mouth of the crossing under the red emergency wash.
Maintenance jacket zipped high.
Black work pants.
Tool ring at the hip.
Off-white smoke hood wrong over the head, eye cuts too wide, nothing human where the mouth should've been.
Its right hand hung low with the segmented utility blade. Blood was dry-black down the knuckles.
Its head tilted.
Not at Joshua first.
At Nia.
She kept crying.
Small.
Hot.
Alive.
The thing listened.
Then it spoke in Joshua's exact voice.
"Run."