The safehouse was a concrete bunker beneath an abandoned textile mill, its walls damp with condensation and its air thick with the smell of mold and diesel. Marisol had arranged it through a contact in the city's underground—a man who asked no questions and kept no records. It was the kind of place that existed in the margins of maps, a hole in the world where people could disappear. The team had been here for six hours, and already it felt like a tomb.
Caleb stood at the entrance, his back against the cold concrete, his eyes fixed on the steel door that separated them from the city above. The adrenaline had faded hours ago, leaving behind a bone-deep exhaustion that made every movement feel like swimming through mud. His body was a catalog of wounds—the old injury from the Spire, the new
