In that very instant, Brutus, Freya, and Atticus threw themselves out from the shadows, looking for all the world like three drunken stagehands stumbling onto the wrong side of the curtain mid-performance.
They jogged up to the nearest group of guards who were in the process of loading various crates into the backend of the train, their laughter echoing faintly through the cavern. For a fleeting moment, I thought, Ah, yes. Here it is. The grand deception. The masterstroke of subterfuge.
Then Brutus opened his mouth.
"Uh—hey! Fellows!" He boomed. Every head turned toward him in slow disbelief. He blinked, realizing too late that perhaps subtlety was, as always, the better part of valor. "We, uh, got orders from—uh—from upper—uh..." He trailed off, his eyes darting sideways to Atticus for help.
Atticus, of course, looked like a squirrel caught mid-theft. "Yes!" he sputtered, adjusting his glasses. "From upper management! They said, um... we’re here to conduct a surprise inspection!"
Freya, to her credit, stood entirely still, arms crossed beneath her cloak, expression set into that unreadable mask of someone who’d seen the abyss and decided it was too tiresome to comment on.
Her silence, as it turned out, lent her an air of ominous authority that none of the others possessed.
The nearest guard—a wiry man with a crooked nose and a ragged mustache—squinted at them. "Inspection?" he said slowly, as though tasting the word and finding it suspect. "Ain’t no inspections scheduled ’til next week."
Brutus nodded, sweating slightly. "Exactly! That’s why it’s a surprise!"
A pause. The sound of distant machinery filled the gap, gears grinding somewhere beneath the floor.
Atticus chimed in again, waving his little notebook around as if it were a sacred text. "You know how it is—administrative efficiency, morale assessment, ensuring everyone’s... morale is, you know, moral."
The guard frowned, scratching at his jaw. "That doesn’t make any godsdamn sense."
"No, no," Atticus said, his words tumbling over themselves like a panicked salesman. "You see, the Warden believes strongly in spontaneous evaluation to gauge the, uh, productivity and cohesion of the working populace."
Freya rolled her eyes. The guard’s mustache twitched. "The Warden," he said flatly. "Believes in cohesion?"
Brutus, clearly deciding that too much thinking might doom the operation entirely, jumped in with the enthusiasm of a man attempting to steer a falling cart. "Yes, sir! Cohesion! Teamwork! Discipline! That’s why we’re here—to... assess how well you’re all... loading these crates together as a family unit!"
A few of the other guards exchanged looks. One of them snorted. Another shrugged, muttering, "Sounds like something those idiots upstairs would come up with."
Brutus nodded sagely. "Exactly! Idiots—uh, visionaries, I mean! You nailed it!"
At this point, I was still crouched in my position by the tunnel, watching the entire charade unfold like the world’s worst theatrical production. My head dropped into my hands. "Saints above," I muttered under my breath. "We’re doomed. Death by incompetence. What an embarrassing epitaph."
Still, I couldn’t help the faint smile tugging at my lips. There was something endearing about watching three people attempt deception with the collective grace of collapsing scaffolding. Besides, if the world was going to end, at least it would do so with comedic flair.
The moment the guards’ attention was securely hooked by Brutus’s verbal flailing, I exhaled softly. "Alright, Loona," I whispered to myself. "Time to contribute something resembling competence."
I felt the phantom heartbeat begin its slow, rhythm thud beneath my ribs, only eight beats this time, before it drew me under like the pull of dark water.
With that, I slipped from my hiding place and let the shadows swallow me whole.
I darted forward, silent as regret, my boots kissing the ground without a sound. The air was thick enough to chew on—hot, damp, and full of the earthy musk of old iron.
My lungs ached with every breath, but my mind buzzed with that delicious electricity that only danger provides. Ah, yes, that old familiar flavor—fear, wrapped in adrenaline and laced with the faint spice of overconfidence. It suited me.
I reached the nearest stack of crates off to the right, vaulting over one with a neat little hop that I was certain looked far more graceful in my head than it did in reality.
I landed in a crouch, my heart thumping loud enough to feel obscene in the quiet. For a second, I just stayed there, letting the darkness hold me before snapping back to reality.
Just then, a faint creak echoed somewhere to my right. I peeked around the corner of my crate. And there, barely ten paces away, was a lone guard—lean, bored, and wholly unaware of the disaster tiptoeing toward him. He leaned back against a crate, wiping sweat from his brow with one hand and yawning into the other.
"Perfect," I whispered. "The universe gifts me a volunteer."
I let the shadows stretch around me again and slipped forward, the world dimming at the edges as I reappeared behind his crate. The man shifted slightly, muttering something about the heat. I could smell his sweat, sour and human, mingled with the acrid scent of oil and torch smoke.
Then, before he could even finish his sigh, I struck.
My hand clamped over his mouth, the other catching the back of his head, and with one smooth pull I dragged him backward over the crate. He hit the ground with a dull thud, his eyes going wide as the air fled his lungs. He tried to yell, but my palm smothered the sound into nothing.
"Shh," I hissed softly, like soothing a frightened child. "It’s impolite to scream during a performance."
His eyes bulged as my fingers shifted, delivering a quick, precise jab to his throat. He wheezed once, then went still. I held my breath, waiting—listening.
Nothing. No shout of alarm, no call for backup. Just the steady hum of machinery and the faint chatter of Brutus still trying to sell his nonsense.
I allowed myself a small, victorious grin. "Still got it," I murmured.
From there, it became a rhythm. A silent, deadly waltz between shadow and breath. I moved through the cavern like a ghost, slipping behind one guard after another, dispatching them with the same quiet precision. Each fall was a note in a symphony no one else could hear.
Meanwhile, from across the cavern, the soundtrack to my carnage was Brutus’s continued verbal chaos.
"So you see," he was saying loudly, "we’ve determined that the average morale index directly correlates to the curvature of one’s spine while lifting crates!"
"What the hell are you on about?" a guard demanded.
"It’s science," Atticus said, snapping open one of his vials and tossing it into the air. A puff of bright violet smoke erupted, swirling like a drunken ghost. The guards gasped and then clapped, because men in uniform will apparently applaud anything that glows.
Freya said nothing still, which, in retrospect, was probably the smartest move of anyone present. She just stood there, radiating the kind of energy that said if anyone asks me to explain this, I’ll murder them where they stand.
I took full advantage of the distraction. Another guard, then another. I was up to six by the time my arms started to ache. Sweat ran down my temple, stinging my eyes, and my breath came faster now—short, sharp, little bursts of effort swallowed by silence.
I crouched beside the seventh body, wiping my palm against the stone to rid it of the sticky residue of someone else’s life. My heart was hammering, though not from guilt, I’d misplaced that years ago, but from the sheer, intoxicating thrill of it.
And then came the eighth.
He was larger than the others, broad-backed and thick-necked, the kind of man who probably spent his youth headbutting walls for entertainment. I crept behind him, every nerve taut as a drawn wire. One step. Two. My hand reached for him—then I slipped, catching a loose pebble that skittered across the floor.
The man turned, half-yawning, half-suspicious. I lunged, catching him by the jaw, but he managed to let out a small, pitiful squeak.
A squeak. That was all. Hardly even a sound, more like a startled mouse at best. But in the vast silence of the cavern, it may as well have been a gunshot.
I froze. "Shit!" I cursed to myself.
Across the chamber, one of the guards stopped clapping. His smile faltered. He glanced over his shoulder toward the shadows, eyes narrowing.
Then, like dominoes, the rest followed. The laughter died. The smoke thinned. The torches flickered. And just like that, the illusion cracked.
"Who’s there?" a voice barked.
Another guard flapped open his coat, drawing a blade from within. "Something moved! Over by the crates!"
"Oh, bloody marvelous," I muttered, ducking lower.
Luckily, my crew seemed to have it under control. Like nightmares given flesh, they moved in a blur of violence and choreography so smooth it almost felt rehearsed.
Freya struck first, the dagger she produced from beneath her cloak singing through the air as it buried itself in the front man’s chest with a sickening thud.
Before his gasp could even form, she spun around him in a dancer’s arc, the blade coming free before slicing clean across his throat, scarlet mist catching the torchlight like glitter.
Without breaking stride, she flung the dagger into the second guard’s forehead.
Brutus, meanwhile, went for brute poetry—he swept a guard’s leg out from under him with a crunch, grabbed the poor fool’s skull mid-fall, and drove his knee upward with enough force to turn the man’s face into a red ruin.
Atticus, ever the quiet one, simply slipped a syringe from his boot and jammed it into the neck of the last guard. The man shuddered once, then melted to the ground like butter left too close to a flame.
Brutus whipped around then, his eyes catching the light with a flash of command, gesturing sharply to the others still hidden in the gloom behind us.
They moved without hesitation, scattering across the cavern just as a low grumble echoed from the train—followed by a muttered curse and the clang of metal.
The most important of the bunch, Victor, the Boss, and the remaining druglords, stripped the fallen guards of their cloaks, throwing the heavy cloth over their own shoulders while our lesser men heaved the corpses into half-empty crates, slamming the lids shut with grim efficiency.
When they finished, I snapped my fingers with sharp precision, motioning for them to circle to the far side of the train.
And right on cue, the conductor emerged, muttering curses to himself as he hopped off the cab. He squinted through the haze, scratching at his nose with a grease-blackened thumb before waddling toward Brutus.
"Oi! You lot done with the loadin’? Thought I heard somethin’ queer just now. Don’t tell me we’ve got rats again."
Brutus didn’t even flinch. "Aye," he said smoothly, though his accent faltered halfway between dockhand and drunk noble. "Just the...uh...wind, cap’n. Sounds like it’s in heat tonight."
The conductor barked a laugh so loud it echoed against the cavern walls, smacking Brutus on the shoulder. "Ain’t that the truth! Wind’s a right harlot down here. Always moanin’ when she oughta hush. Good work, boys. Hop on then—we’re behind schedule already."
The others exchanged quick glances before climbing aboard. Brutus and the others in disguise filed into the front with the conductor, hunching low, pretending to be men too tired or too stupid to talk.
Dregan and I, taking the rear guard, led the rest of our crew into the storage cars at the back of the train—rows of stacked duskmetal crates glinting like captured moonlight.
As my boots hit the floor of the train, I let out a slow, shaky breath. Saints above, we’d actually done it. No alarms, no bloodbaths, well, fewer than expected, and no disasters—just clean, perfect deception, the kind that tasted like victory and bad decisions all at once.
Just then, the train began to lurch forward with a violent hiss, its wheels groaning, steam coiling around the cavern like ghostly serpents.
The floor rattled beneath my feet as we began our traverse deeper into the pits. I steadied myself against a crate, feeling the vibration hum up my arm before allowing myself the smallest of grins.
"Nothing to it," I murmured to myself, the air hot and heavy with the scent of triumph.