Chapter Four: The Vault
758 Words
The Vault
The wind carried salt and memory as Isla and Rhys made their way along the narrow path skirting the eastern cliffs. The morning sun was thin, filtered through banks of sea mist that clung low over Eider’s Reach like a veil. Below, the tide crashed against jagged rock, relentless and loud.
According to the hand-drawn map, the place labeled “Vault” was near the edge of a disused quarry, long since swallowed by scrub and brambles. Locals avoided this part of the coast—bad footing, worse stories.
Rhys scanned the landscape ahead. “This the part where I say this is a terrible idea and you ignore me anyway?”
“Feel free,” Isla said, brushing a strand of hair from her eyes. “But keep your eyes open.”
The brambles thinned suddenly at a bend in the path, revealing a weather-beaten shack built low into the cliffside—part shed, part bunker. Its door was bolted shut with a rusted chain.
Rhys crouched and studied the lock. “This hasn’t been opened in years.”
Isla pulled the brass key from her coat pocket—the one they’d found in Tomas’s shop. She slid it into the lock. It turned with a groan.
The chain fell away.
Inside, the air was thick with damp and the slow decay of forgotten things. A staircase led down, carved from stone, slick with moss. They descended carefully, torches cutting thin lines through the dark.
At the bottom was a wide chamber. Walls reinforced with old ship timbers. Crates stacked along the far side, half-collapsed. A single hanging bulb flickered weakly above.
Isla moved toward a crate marked with faded red paint: PROPERTY OF HMS MAGNUS – 1986.
She pried it open.
Inside were waterproof bags filled with clothing, journals, and a sealed envelope labeled in block letters: TRANSPORT – DO NOT FILE.
She opened the envelope and pulled out a set of photographs.
Not just supplies.
Passports.
Dozens of them.
Syrian. Somali. Albanian. Stamped and unstamped. Most were stained with mildew, but one was pristine.
A man in his thirties. Sharp jaw. Dark eyes.
Name: Arben Leka
Isla’s hands tightened.
This wasn’t just smuggling. This was identity laundering.
Behind her, Rhys knelt beside another crate. “Some of these are empty.”
“Which means some of them made it out.”
She stood, her breath catching.
And maybe one didn’t.
A sound echoed from above—faint, deliberate.
Footsteps.
Someone was up there.
She turned off her torch, heart hammering. Rhys did the same.
The chamber filled with silence.
Then came a voice. Distant. Male. Cold.
“You shouldn’t have come here, Merrin.”
Isla motioned to Rhys—lights off, stay low.
The voice echoed again from the stairwell, followed by the unmistakable sound of a second set of footsteps. Whoever was up there wasn’t alone.
Rhys’s hand found the hilt of the small utility knife he carried, though it looked pitiful against the threat they couldn’t yet see. Isla scanned the room, her mind racing.
There—along the far wall, partially obscured by crates, a narrow drainage culvert.
She grabbed Rhys’s sleeve and pulled him toward it. It was just wide enough to crawl through, wet and black with sea sludge, but it led away—downward, toward the cliff face.
Behind them, a voice closer now: “Bring the light.”
They didn’t wait.
One by one, they crawled into the culvert, the wet stone scraping their elbows, seawater soaking through their coats. The passage curved sharply—once, then again—before opening into a vertical shaft.
A rusted iron ladder clung to the rock.
They climbed in silence, the sound of voices and movement fading behind them. At the top, a grating of iron bars. Isla pushed. It gave with a creak and opened onto a thicket just above the eastern cliffs.
They tumbled out into the morning light, breathless and wet.
Behind them, the sea roared.
No one followed.
They crouched there for a long moment, catching their breath.
Then Rhys muttered, “Someone knew we were coming. Someone’s watching us.”
Isla nodded, wiping grime from her brow.
“And someone doesn’t want the truth coming out.”
She pulled the photo of Arben Leka from her coat, now wrinkled and damp but still legible.
“Now we know his name,” she said quietly. “Let’s find out if he’s still alive.”
Below them, the sea clawed at the rocks, louder than before.
- Writer
