The next night, everything changes.
It happens fast. Quiet.
I'm half-asleep, curled into the thinnest shape I can manage on the filthy bunk, when I hear it—soft steps. No boots. No shouting.
Just a figure slipping through the dark like a ghost.
Silpha.
She taps my shoulder once, hard and fast.
"Move," she mutters.
For a heartbeat, I think I’m dreaming. Fevered. Hallucinating.
But then her fingers dig into my arm, urgent.
"I said move, girl."
I stumble to my feet, heart hammering.
No one else stirs. No alarms blare. Somehow, she’s made it so the guards don’t see. Or maybe they’ve been paid off. Or threatened. I don’t know.
I don’t ask.
Silpha presses a finger to her lips, signaling silence.
Then she pulls me along through the dark corridors, through winding maintenance tunnels that smell like rust and old water. Every few feet, she glances over her shoulder, tension locked tight in every line of her body.
I don't speak. Don't dare.
We pass through old service doors, ones I didn't even know existed. Down past kitchens, past storage rooms, deeper into the guts of the Spine.
We reach a small, forgotten maintenance chamber.
The walls are cracked. The air’s damp. But it’s dry. Hidden. Empty.
Safe.
Silpha shoves me inside.
"This is where you stay now," she says, voice sharp. "At least until I figure something better out."
I blink at her, still shivering, still waiting for the catch.
"Why?" I rasp.
She looks away, jaw tight.
"Because you’re carrying something bigger than you understand," she says. "And because... I’m tired of watching Petru destroy everything he touches."
Her voice breaks a little on the last word. Just a hairline fracture, but it's there.
She tosses a bundle onto the floor—blankets, two protein packs, a battered canteen of water.
It looks like nothing.
It feels like salvation.
