The absolute darkness swallowed the medical suite whole, a suffocating blanket woven from the manor’s dead power grid. Vossik’s raw question about the baby still hung in the air, a phantom sound in the sudden, terrifying silence. Then, a series of distant, heavy thuds began – methodical, steel-shattering impacts that vibrated up through the very floorboards. Not a single breach. Multiple. They were coming from everywhere.
Kezia fumbled for her phone, its screen a useless black mirror. “Vossik? Where are you? I can’t see anything!” Her voice, usually so sharp, wavered.
A hand, cold but firm, found her arm, pulling her close. The copper stink of Vossik’s dark blood, faint but unmistakable, reached her. He was deteriorating, visibly. “Stay low. Keep close.” His voice was a guttural rasp, strained with acute urgency. He moved with an animal’s instinct, guiding her away from the center of the room, towards a wall that felt solid and cold against her back.
Another series of thunderous *CRUMPs* shook the entire wing, closer this time. A faint shimmer of light, barely visible, flickered at the edge of the medical suite’s heavy durasteel door, then vanished. They were cutting through. Kezia’s hand flew to her stomach, a primal shield. She could feel the faint tremor in Vossik’s arm, a stark contrast to his usual unyielding composure.
From the corner of the room, a low growl rippled through the darkness. Chert. His hackles were raised, a deep, vibrating warning. Kezia could hear the soft scuff of his paw as he shifted, a shadowy sentinel.
A sliver of light pierced the gloom as a section of the door hissed inward. A dark form, bulky with tactical gear, stepped through. The raider held a weapon that glowed faintly at its tip – a dart launcher. It swept the room, its beam an icy needle in the black. Kezia shrank back. They weren't here to kill immediately. They were here to take.
The beam locked onto Kezia, illuminating her pale face for a terrifying instant. The raider raised the launcher. Kezia braced her ribs against the masonry. Before the shooter's finger could twitch, a blur of dark fur launched itself from the shadows. Chert, a snarling, three-legged missile, slammed into the man's knee. The man grunted, staggering back, the dart firing wide into the ceiling with a soft *thwip*.
Chert didn’t let up. He latched onto the merc’s armored boot, a whirlwind of furious nips and tearing, his snarls echoing in the confined space. The merc stumbled again, trying to shake the tenacious canine off, cursing under his breath. It bought them precious seconds.
Vossik didn’t hesitate. He shoved Kezia forward, his voice a strained whisper. “The escape route. Behind the diagnostics unit! Go!”
Kezia didn’t want to leave him, not with the sound of Chert’s frenzied scrap and the thud of boots nearing. “Vossik, no! I can’t—”
“Go!” he roared, his voice raw, before turning, a dark silhouette against the fractured light from the doorway. He moved with a speed that belied his worsening condition, grabbing a heavy gurney and slamming it against the doorframe, wedging it with surprising force. The merc, recovering from Chert’s assault, aimed his weapon again, but Vossik was already moving, kicking another piece of equipment into the path of the incoming soldiers. The sounds of metal scraping and heavy boots clashing filled the air.
He turned back to Kezia, his face grim, illuminated by the sporadic flashes of a stun grenade detonating down the corridor. His eyes, usually cold and calculating, were alight with wild ferocity. “The child… is everything.” He reached for her, pulling her into a fierce, breathless embrace. His lips found hers, not a gentle press, but a bruising, consuming kiss that tasted of fear and iron and the salt of his skin. It was a promise, a goodbye, a demand for survival, all rolled into one searing moment. He pulled away, his eyes locking onto hers, the resolve in them absolute.
“Live, Kezia. For us.”
Before she could argue, before she could even breathe, he thrust her, hard, towards the hidden panel behind the diagnostics unit. It slid open with a soft hiss, revealing a dark, cramped tunnel. “Don’t look back. Don’t stop.”
The sounds of battle intensified behind her – shouts, the crackle of energy weapons, Chert’s furious barks. Kezia scrambled into the tunnel, her movements clumsy in the confined space, the claustrophobia pressing in. The air was thick with damp earth and the acrid scent of ozone. She moved on all fours at first, her hands scraping against rough-hewn rock, the narrow passage barely wide enough for her shoulders.
Every echo, every drip of water from the unseen ceiling, rattled her nerves. She banished the image of Vossik, bloody and fighting, out of her mind. She walled off the terror for Chert, for the man who had become, against all odds, her anchor. Her focus narrowed to a single, burning point: the life growing inside her. That was her charge now. That was her only purpose.
She crawled, then stumbled to her feet as the shaft widened slightly, allowing her to half-crouch. The darkness was absolute, save for the faint, almost imperceptible glow of her own skin under the damp Mirehollow seepage. The ground became muddy, slick. She could feel the constant, heavy tremor of the manor above, a battle raging she could only imagine. Each step was a prayer, each breath a struggle against the rising panic.
The corridor stretched on, an endless, winding maw. Just as exhaustion threatened to break her knees, a faint, acrid draft reached her, not of blood, but of the city’s sulfurous exhaust. A sliver of light, a cold, grey dawn, appeared ahead. Hope flared sharp in her chest. She scrambled faster, her legs aching, her lungs burning, towards the promise of escape.
She burst out of the tunnel’s mouth, gasping for air, into a narrow alleyway choked with refuse and the persistent Mirehollow mist. The air was frigid, biting at her exposed skin. Her eyes, still adjusting to the meagre light, scanned the deserted alley. Empty. She was free. She was—
A sharp click, directly in front of her, cut through the silence. The blue steel of a weapon appeared, centered squarely on her midsection. Bramwell Croy stood there, a ghost in the swirling mist, his smile thin and triumphant, a tactical pistol leveled directly at her pregnant belly.