POV: Mia (Zero)
The emergency tunnel was colder than I remembered.
Chito leaned heavily against my side, barely conscious, his breathing shallow and wet. The other children—four who could run, two that could barely walk—clustered behind us like shadows, their bare feet silent against the steel floor.
And Echo followed last.
Always last.
Silent as a ghost.
Every footstep toward the surface tasted like hope.
But hope, I had learned, was often the bait before the trap.
We reached the last bend, and I saw the door ahead.
A reinforced steel lock with a palm scanner and a manual override.
One more code.
One more push.
And we’d be free.
I handed Chito off to the strongest of the older boys—Rylo, maybe fourteen, already developing the angular shoulders of a fighter—and stepped forward
