Souls Below - Rebellion

Chapter Twelve.

Krane’s fingers danced over the console, the rhythmic tap of keys filling the space between us. The card in the tech box pulsed faintly, casting a dull glow across his hands. The hum of the machine rose, and a flickering hologram burst to life, scrolling with rows of access codes, zone maps, encrypted partitions—all of it moving too fast for me to keep up. He leaned in, squinting.

“There’s a level system,” he muttered, more to himself than to me. “Didn’t know these things had ranks. This one’s a Level Three.”

“Is that… good?” I asked, inching closer.

“It’s not nothing,” he replied, brows furrowed. “Gives access to most of the Lower City—workshops, tunnels, transit nodes, some of the guard network… but not all of it.” My eyes narrowed.

“So how many above it?” Krane’s jaw tightened.

“Four to Eight,” he muttered quietly. “Locked up tighter than anything I’ve seen. Whoever had this card wasn’t just another soldier.” He leaned back with a scoff that didn’t quite hide the edge in his voice. “We thought this was junk. Turns out, it’s a damned skeleton key for the City’s guts.”

I watched him, hesitating. He hadn’t looked at me since he started working. Not really, and yesterday still seemed to hang in the air.

“Krane… ” I started, voice soft. “About yesterday—”

“Don’t.” He didn’t even glance at me. Just waved a hand, dismissive.

My chest pinched. “But I— ”

“I said drop it,” he snapped, sharper this time. Still staring at the screen like it might swallow him whole if he looked away. I flinched, a breath caught in my throat. He didn’t yell, not usually—not at me. I bit the inside of my cheek and leaned back, trying to act like it didn’t sting.

Fine.

Silence stretched between us, thick and electric. The hum of the tech box filled it, but didn’t soften it. I let my gaze drift over him—his hands clenched tighter on the console now, shoulders rigid and jaw tight.

Whatever yesterday had been… it hadn’t meant nothing. Not to him. But whether it meant the same and it did for me, still swirled uncertainly in my chest. He just wasn’t ready to talk. I crossed my arms.

“Well, guess I’ll just save my grand apology speech for later,” I mumbled under my breath instead. That earned a flick of his eyes in my direction. Brief, but it lingered just long enough to feel like something.

“Don’t get all dramatic, Mira.”

“Says the guy brooding into a tech box like it insulted his mother.” He snorted, but it was weak—muted. Then the tension in his jaw cracked just a little.

“Fine. Maybe I overreacted.”

“Maybe?” I echoed, lips quirking despite myself. He turned back to the screen.

“Still don’t wanna talk about it.”

“Didn’t ask you to,” my voice was lower now. “Just… didn’t want to pretend it didn’t happen.” Another pause. Another breath. Then, quieter —

“Yeah. Me neither.” The words settled into me like heat. Not enough to soothe, but enough to thaw the edge. No quite an explanation, not quite an apology either. I let the silence stay, this time gentler. The screen reflected in his eyes, casting glimmers over scars I’d memorized without meaning to.

The map kept unfolding—routes, schematics, locked sections of the City we’d only ever heard rumors about. Places people like us weren’t meant to go. But what unsettled me more than the secrets blinking on the screen—was how badly I wanted Krane to step through them with me.

And how much it’d hurt if he didn’t.

~*~

I hadn’t meant to leave so quickly.

Part of me had wanted to stay—just a little longer—with Krane, to keep unraveling the mystery we’d tripped over like a loose panel on the Mech sector floor. The P.I.P. readers we’d found—hidden in walls, buried under conduit panels, tucked near vents like forgotten relics—weren’t isolated. There were more. Dozens more. Each one led to areas the Uppers had branded “quarantined.” Krane had pulled up a grainy video from years ago, the day he and his dad were forced out of their shop. Something about an “outbreak.” The footage skipped and glitched in the exact spots that might’ve explained why.

Someone had scrubbed it. Badly.

And disturbingly… intentionally.

Still, I’d lied. Told Krane Jerard needed help at the shop. The excuse had tasted like rust on my tongue, but he didn’t call me out. Just gave me that lopsided smile like he was humouring me. Maybe he knew I was lying. Maybe he let me have it anyway.

He’d been sitting on the edge of the bed when I stood, too close, warm and steady. Our shoulders had brushed and it sent a pulse through me that felt more dangerous than anything in the city. Then, with all the drama of someone handing over a snack ration, he slipped something into my hand.

“Try not to trip over your own boots, dream girl,” he jested, grin c****d like a challenge.

I scoffed and folded my arms. “Better a dreamer than a grease-stained pessimist with a sarcasm addiction.” The pillow hit me square in the face before I even saw it coming.

“Hey!” His laugh cracked the tension like light through metal blinds, rich and familiar. The kind of laugh that filled up hollow places.

I couldn’t help it—I laughed too, muffling it behind the pillow as I lobbed it back at him. It missed. Completely.

“You throw like an Upper,” he teased.

“Say that again and I’ll staple your boots to the ceiling.” He reached over and took my hand. No jokes. No warning. Just fingers sliding into mine, calloused and sure, and suddenly the whole room felt smaller. Closer.

“Just… be careful, Mira,” he said quietly. “These walls are only bearable because you’re in them.”

For a second, I forgot how to breathe. “Krane…”

He didn’t let me finish. “There’s something happening.” His voice dropped low, serious in a way that cracked through the usual armor. “Strem says the Uppers are planning something. No one knows what. Just rumors. Whispers.” He looked out the window like maybe they were watching, even now. “If something happened to you… ”

He trailed off, jaw tightening. He never finished sentences like that. As if saying the bad thing out loud might make it real. I watched him, studying the face I knew better than my own reflection. And yet lately… he felt different. Like some half-forgotten blueprint I was only just beginning to see for what it really was.

“Jerard’s been tense too,” I admitted. “Holding meetings behind closed doors. Talking to people I don’t recognize. He’s worried, I can tell—won’t say it, but I see it in the way he double-checks the locks.”

Krane nodded, distracted. His green gaze flicked back to me. I’d always thought it was just green. But now, I noticed it—tiny flecks of gold that caught the light like slivers of sun.

“I overheard a guard, when they came askin' bout that Upper” I told him, lowering my voice. “They’ve heard the rumours about someone without an ID tag.” My throat tightened. “Jerard thinks they’re sniffing around because of it. It’s tied to that missing Upper—whoever they were. I don’t know why it matters now, but it does.”

Krane’s expression sharpened. He didn’t say anything, his grip on my hand was just a little tighter.

The end-of-shift whistle screamed through the city like a warning. Outside, the streets stirred—workers yelling their goodbyes, machinery hissing to life. Steam curled from vents and the sky turned that particular shade of artificial dusk, neon reflections smeared across puddles in a bruised spectrum.

I hated how fast the moment had passed.

Now, walking alone through the thrum of the city, I uncurled my fingers. He’d slipped a pendant into my hand when I wasn’t looking.

It was small—no bigger than my thumb nail—but it caught the light in strange, lovely ways. The stone was milky white with veins of silver, and if I tilted it just right, faint flickers of blue shimmered through it. The casing was hand-crafted, spiraled metal twisted delicately around the gem. Imperfect. A little crooked. But unmistakably his.

Krane never made things for show. He made them to mean something.

He’d once told me, half-mocking, that his Dad used to grumble at him for wasting time making “pretty things.” Said there was no use for beauty in a place built to break you. But Krane made them anyway.

What he didn’t know—what no one did—was that I’d seen a shard like this before. A merchant once told me it was called a starlight stone, though I’d never seen a star in my life. I’d climbed to the highest point I could reach that day, pressed the fragment close as I could to the glass pane, and watched it drink the last of the golden light.

Later, when the lights were out, it glowed.

They called it Darklight. And this pendant… it was a solid piece of it.

I slid the leather cord around my neck, the stone warm where it pressed against my skin. I could almost pretend I wasn’t walking through a city that wanted to crush us. That Krane wasn’t just my best friend. That maybe, beneath all the wisecracks and banter, something had shifted between us.

Because even in this cold, grey city, he’d found a way to give me light.