Lirian shifted slightly. His voice was dry and soft, but steady. “Once he’s down, I get the door. We don’t stop. No looking back.”
“We have to get Dory…” whispered Thane. “We can’t leave her here.”
They fell into silence again.
Then Thane said, barely audible, “If we screw this up…”
Zel didn’t blink. “We won’t.”
Thane swallowed.
Maro added, “Either we run now…or we die like Paul.”
And in the quiet, they were lost in their own thoughts.
Tomorrow wasn’t a choice anymore.
It was survival.
Chapter 7
Time stretched like skin over emaciated bone—thin, fragile, and ready to split at the slightest provocation.
They had agreed that the moment Rubin came, it would begin. But the waiting was worse than anything Thane had felt before.
The hours crawled.
Each creak of the floor above made his breath hitch. Every distant noise had them staring at the door like half-starved dogs.
Maro paced the room, muttering under his breath, twirling the sharpened spoon between his fingers like a coin. His bare feet made soft, scuffing sounds across the floor.
Thane sat on the cold ground, back to the wall, gnawing his fingernails down to bleeding nubs. He didn’t realise he’d gone too far until the pain made him stop.
Zel didn’t move. He turned fifteen yesterday and hadn’t told anyone.
He sat cross-legged by the door, like a statue carved from bone. His shiv rested in his palm, glinting dully in the low light. Every so often, his fingers flexed, but his eyes didn’t seem to blink.
Lirian leaned in the corner, utterly still. Eyes closed, listening. Every few minutes, his fingers twitched against his leg like he was counting. Or praying.
Across the wall, Dory whispered, “What if it doesn’t work?”
’Thane leaned closer to the crack in the concrete. “We won’t mess it up,” he whispered back.
She didn’t answer right away.
“Don’t let them catch you bring you back. Even if it means you don’t come back for me.”
His throat burned.
“I’ll come back,” he said. “Even if I have to run, I will come back with the coppers.”
He heard her exhale softly, the sigh heavy with held back tears.
“Then run fast, Thane.”
They waited.
And waited.
