Chapter 19 – When Subtlety Dies
1385 Words
The first guard rounds the corner with a clipboard in his hand and boredom in his eyes.
He doesn’t get to keep either.
“Now,” Corren breathes.
Everything happens at once.
The hum of fluorescent lights, the low drone of machinery, the thud of boots on concrete—then a blur.
Corren moves like a switch flipped inside him. One heartbeat he’s at my shoulder, the next he’s halfway down the hall, slamming into the lead guard with silent, surgical force. There’s a muffled grunt, a crack as skull meets wall, and the man crumples.
The second guard barely has time to register motion. Jarek is on him from behind, arm hooked around his neck, hand over his mouth. A quick, vicious twist, and the man slumps unconscious to the floor.
The third—because there’s always a third—stumbles back, hand going for the radio at his shoulder.
I’m already moving.
I close the distance in three strides, fingers jamming into the soft spot under his jaw. Human throats are fragile; you don’t need claws to convince them to cooperate. He chokes, eyes bulging, radio slipping from his grasp.
“Shh,” I hiss, pinning him against the wall. “Scream and you’ll never talk again.”
His gaze flickers from my face to the hall behind me, where Corren and Jarek are dragging the others out of sight. Calculation wars with panic.
“Who—” he croaks.
I squeeze just enough to cut him off. “The people whose kids you’re torturing,” I say. “Now. How many on this level? How fast can they lock it down?”
He shakes his head, breath rasping. Sweat spikes sharp in his scent.
Corren’s hand lands on my shoulder, grounding and hot. “We’re short on time, Riva.”
“I know.” I ease my grip a fraction. “Twenty seconds of honesty, and you walk out of here breathing. Lie, and I feed you to the river. Your choice.”
His pupils blow wide. The human fight‑or‑flight dance goes wild in his eyes—no training for this, no protocol for angry wolves who talk like this is personal.
“Eight,” he gasps. “Eight on this block. Two at the main station, four rotating between labs and— and containment. Me and Harris on C‑check. That’s it, I swear.”
“And lockdown?” I press.
“Control room upstairs.” His voice shakes. “Access code, master locks, alarms. Takes ninety seconds to seal the block if they hit the panic. Less if they’re at the board.”
Ninety seconds. My brain clicks through layouts, distances, fights fought in tighter spaces.
“Take him,” Corren says.
I blink. “What?”
“Alive,” he clarifies. “Gagged. Tied. Jarek?”
“On it.” Jarek is already producing flex cuffs from his jacket. He binds the guard’s hands and feet, then tapes his mouth shut with a strip torn from some industrial roll hanging by the station.
I let go. The man slides down the wall, wheezing.
“We go loud from here,” Corren says. “We don’t have the hands to babysit him, but leaving a corpse on camera buys us less time than leaving someone who looks like he slipped and hit his head.”
“Always thinking about optics,” I mutter.
He ignores that. “Sera, report.”
Her voice crackles in my ear—little comm bead tucked snug behind it. “Team Two in position at downstream exits,” she says. “We’ve got eyes on three side doors, one loading bay. Two human trucks, both cold. No movement yet.”
“Hold,” Corren says. “We’re about to wake the neighbors.”
He turns back to the containment doors. To the boy behind glass, watching it all with a predator’s stillness.
“Kid,” he says. “You said loud. How bad?”
The teen tilts his head, eyes narrowing. Then he lifts his restrained hands slightly, chains clinking.
“You open this,” he mouths, “and I can fry their cameras. For a bit.”
“And then?” I ask.
He jerks his chin toward the runes on his cuffs, then to his head. His expression twists in disgust.
“They’ll feel it,” he mouths. “And pull back. Hard.”
Meaning: Silas and his techs will know someone’s messing with their net. But maybe we get a window.
“How long?” Corren asks.
The boy squints, thinking, then holds up three fingers. Drops one. Two.
“Two minutes,” I translate. “Maybe. If he’s not overselling.”
He arches a brow at me like I’m the one being dramatic.
My wolf pushes against my ribs. “We take it,” I say. “We won’t get a quieter chance.”
Corren nods once. “Jarek, cover. Riva, on my mark—panel.”
I step to the side of the teen’s door, fingers hovering over the keypad. The rune above it pulses faintly, attuned to the boy’s marks.
For a heartbeat, my scars throb in sympathy.
“Ready?” Corren murmurs.
The boy closes his eyes. When he opens them again, something inside has shifted—focus sharpened, jaw set.
“Ready,” he mouths.
“Three,” Corren says. “Two. One.”
I slam my palm onto the override button.
The rune flares, searing bright. Pain lances up my arm, like someone driving a hot needle into every old binding scar.
The lock groans. Then, with a clunk that echoes down the hall, disengages.
The door swings inward.
The boy moves faster than I expect for someone who’s been half‑drugged and chained to a wall.
He surges to his feet, chains rattling, and slams his cuffed wrists against the panel outside his cell. Sparks leap. The rune on his cuffs blazes, then shatters like ice under too much strain.
Every camera in the hall pops, one by one, lenses cracking, little bursts of smoke puffing out.
The lights flicker. The hum in the walls jumps.
Far above us, somewhere in the guts of the dam, an alarm starts to wail.
Not the full siren. Not yet.
Just a warning.
“Two minutes,” the boy pants, sagging against the frame. His eyes burn. “Maybe less. You gonna stand there, or you gonna open the others?”
My heart kicks into a higher gear.
“Jarek,” Corren barks. “Start cutting cables. Riva—doors.”
I move.
Door after door, panel after panel. Some open easy with the same override. Some need more force, teeth and claws and a little borrowed strength from the half‑broken bond that flares every time Corren lays a hand on the steel.
Behind each—eyes. Fear. Confusion. A few flickers of hope.
“Stay back from the doorway,” I warn them, voice steady despite the storm rising. “We’re getting you out. Stay small. Stay quiet. When we say run, you run.”
Some sob. Some stare. One small girl bares milk‑teeth in a shaky snarl, as if she’d take my fingers off if I get too close.
Good. They should hate cages, even when I’m the one opening them.
The boy from Winterfen staggers into the hallway, rubbing raw wrists. He jerks his chin toward the far end.
“Block the stairs,” he says, voice rough from disuse. “They come from above first.”
Corren tosses him a short baton taken off one of the guards. The teen catches it one‑handed, tests the weight, then plants himself halfway down the hall like he’s been doing this his whole life.
He probably has.
The alarm pitch rises, more urgent now.
Somewhere in the concrete above us, heavy locks are sliding into place.
Silas knows exactly where we are.
“Two minutes,” I murmur, moving to the next door. “We open what we can.”
The black thread at the edge of my senses hums, taut and furious.
“Then,” Corren says, eyes gone full wolf, “we make enough noise he never forgets whose children these are.”
- Writer
