“The camera’s back online. You’re clear for now,” Ronan confirmed. “Move forward twelve feet, then take the first right.”
I began to crawl, elbows and knees scraping against cold metal. The darkness was disorienting, the space barely wider than my shoulders. My breath came in shallow pants as I counted my movements—one foot, two, three.
The duct narrowed further at the first bend. I twisted sideways, exhaling completely to make the turn.
“Six more feet to the access panel,” Ronan said.
Something skittered across my hand in the darkness—a spider or some other small creature making its home in the ventilation system. I bit back a startled cry, pressing my lips together. Every sound I made could potentially echo through to whoever might be below.
“You alright?” Ronan’s voice instantly echoed with worry, as if he could sense something was wrong.
“Yeah…yeah.” I breathed out, trying to steady myself. “Everything is fine.”
The metal warmed beneath me as I continued forward, my body heat trapped in the confined space. Sweat beaded along my hairline, trickling down my temple. The darkness seemed to press in from all sides, a physical weight against my skin.
“You should see light from the access panel slats soon,” Ronan’s voice grounded me, a lifeline in the suffocating blackness.
I blinked as faint lines of light appeared ahead, cutting through the darkness. The grated access panel. Relief flooded through me, momentarily washing away the claustrophobic panic.
I inched further along the metal duct, elbows scraping against its sides with each movement. The small LED headlamp strapped to my forehead cast harsh shadows that danced and distorted with every motion. The light barely reached four feet ahead, making the passage seem endless.
“Two more turns,” Ronan’s voice came through my earpiece, unnervingly calm. “Left, then immediate right.”
My chest tightened with each breath. The space couldn’t be more than twenty inches wide—logical brain said there was enough air, but primal brain screamed about being buried alive. I focused on the cool metal beneath my palms, letting the sensation anchor me to reality.
“I’m good,” I whispered, mostly to convince myself. “Keep going.”
The ventilation system hummed around me, vibrating slightly against my body. The artificial air carried the scent of industrial coolant and accumulated dust. I’d crawled through plenty of uncomfortable places chasing a story—abandoned buildings in Detroit, neglected hospital basements in Chicago—but nothing this tiny. Nothing that triggered claustrophobia I didn’t even know I had like this.
Breathing was difficult, and so was keeping my heartbeat steady. It felt as if it was trying to tear its way out of my chest, and the only way to deal with it was to breathe properly, which was a different difficulty in itself.
My light caught swirling dust particles, thousands of them dancing in the beam like microscopic snow. I tried not to think about what I was breathing in.
I reached the left turn and maneuvered my body awkwardly to follow the duct’s path. My hips barely cleared the corner, scraping painfully against a metal seam. Twenty more feet to the security hub.
“Status?” Ronan’s voice interrupted the silence.
I opened my mouth to respond when my elbow slipped on something slick—condensation or oil—and for one heart-stopping moment, I slid forward uncontrollably. My chin slammed into the metal floor, and a scream bubbled up in my throat. I bit it back, tasting blood where I’d caught my lower lip between my teeth.
“Maeve?” Urgency edged into Ronan’s voice. I stilled for a long moment, just to ensure that no one had heard me. When no sudden noise broke through, I exhaled.
I forced myself to breathe, noting the throbbing pain in my chin, the metallic taste in my mouth. “I’m fine,” I whispered. “Just slipped at a junction. Still moving.”
“Four minutes to next guard rotation.”
I continued forward, more cautious now. My elbows were raw, and my knees ached from the hard surface. Every slight sound—my breathing, the fabric of my clothes against metal—seemed amplified in this confined space.
Finally, I reached the decorative grate. Below me stretched an expensively appointed study—mahogany bookshelves, leather furnishings, indigenous artifacts displayed in glass cases. The room screamed old money, trying to look cultured.
And directly beneath me, slouched in an ergonomic chair, sat a security guard. There wasn’t supposed to be one.Fuck.But I couldn’t back out now, it would be a disaster one way or another. He was young, maybe mid-twenties, with a military haircut and bored expression. His uniform was crisp, sidearm holstered at his hip. He scrolled through his phone with his left hand, clearly violating protocol.
I retrieved the electronic device from my pocket—a small black rectangle with a single button. Placing it against the grate’s electronic lock as instructed, I pressed the button and waited.
Nothing happened.
My heart rate spiked as I pressed it again, harder this time.
“It’s not working,” I breathed into my comms.
