Chapter 68 BRUISED
The tunnel swallowed them in darkness.
Cold air rushed around Lea as George pulled her forward, their footsteps echoing in the narrow passage. The emergency lights flickered overhead, weak red glimmers that barely cut through the shadows. Water dripped rhythmically from the pipes, each drop sounding too much like footsteps behind them.
“George, slow down,” she breathed. Her lungs burned, her pulse was a frantic drum.
“We don’t have time,” he said, gripping her hand tighter.
She stumbled but kept pace, her mind spinning with Cassian’s final words.
Her file. Hidden. Wanted alive.
None of it made sense, and all of it terrified her.
The tunnel sloped downward sharply. George steadied her, his arm slipping briefly around her waist when she nearly skidded on the wet floor.
“Careful,” he said.
His voice was gentle, but there was an edge under it, tension wound too tightly, fear buried too deep.
She swallowed. “What’s in that file, George?”
Silence.
“George”
He stopped abruptly. Too abruptly. Lea bumped lightly into him, her palms pressing against his back.
He turned to her, face shadowed, chest rising and falling.
“Lea,” he said quietly, “this is not the place. And it’s not the time.”
“That’s what you keep saying,” she whispered. “But time keeps running out.”
Her voice cracked, just a little.
George stepped closer, his features softening in a way that almost hurt to look at.
“I will tell you. I swear it. But right now, if we don’t move…”
A metallic clang echoed through the tunnel behind them.
Both froze.
Then came the unmistakable rhythm of boots. Slow. Deliberate. Drawn out like a promise.
Lea’s skin prickled.
“Corin’s men?” she whispered.
George’s jaw tightened. “Maybe.”
He didn’t believe that. And neither did she.
He grabbed her hand again. “Move.”
They ran.
The tunnel twisted left, then right, narrowing until Lea could touch both walls with her fingertips. Pipes ran overhead like exposed ribs. The air grew colder, denser, tasting faintly of earth and metal.
Then, ahead, a faint glow.
Light. The tunnel exit.
George slowed. “Stay behind me.”
They approached cautiously, footsteps muffled by the dirt floor. The light grew brighter, whiter, until they rounded the final corner and…
Stopped.
The exit hatch was wide open.
The lock mechanism had been ripped apart, not cut cleanly, but torn, twisted, as if someone had forced it from the outside.
George muttered something under his breath. “This wasn’t Corin’s men.”
Lea’s stomach dropped. “Then who…”
A shadow moved behind them.
“George.”
It was instinct, she didn’t think, didn’t breathe. Her hand tightened around his arm. George spun around, pulling her slightly behind him.
A figure stepped into the weak red light.
Broad shoulders. Dripping coat. A faint smear of blood drying along his jaw.
Billy Ernest.
He looked like he’d crawled through hell to get there, and brought the storm with him.
Lea’s breath caught.
George’s hand went for his gun instantly. “Don’t.”
Billy raised both hands slowly, palms open.
“If I wanted you dead,” he said quietly, “you’d already be on the floor.”
His voice wasn’t threatening. It wasn’t mocking.
It was tired.
Exhausted.
Hurting in a way Lea couldn’t define.
George didn’t lower his gun.
Lea stepped forward before she even realized she had. “Billy… how did you find us?”
He looked at her, not at George, not at the weapon pointed at him, just her.
And something in his eyes softened.
“I followed Corin’s men,” he said. “And I got rid of the ones coming through the upper corridor.”
Lea’s pulse faltered. “You killed them?”
A slow nod. “Unless you wanted them alive?”
She swallowed hard. “No. I just…”
“You don’t have to explain,” Billy murmured.
George took a threatening step forward. “Why are you here?”
Billy finally turned his gaze on George, cold, sharp, cutting. “Because she’ll die if I don’t help.”
Lea opened her mouth, but Billy wasn’t finished.
“You’re too slow,” he said to George. “Too careful. Too worried about protecting her to actually save her.”
“That’s enough,” George snapped.
Billy took one step forward.
“You hid her file,” he said quietly. “You knew how dangerous it was. You knew someone would come for her eventually.”
Lea’s breath froze.
George’s fingers tightened on the gun.
“Billy,” George said, voice low, “walk away.”
“Not until she hears the truth.”
Lea felt the room tilt. “What truth?”
George looked like he might actually shoot Billy.
Billy took another step, ignoring the barrel aimed at his chest.
“Lea,” Billy said, voice lower now, “you aren’t just someone Corin wants to use.”
He waited.
She waited.
George looked at the ground, a sign more telling than words.
Billy continued, each word deliberate, steady, heavy:
“You’re someone Corin has been searching for… for years.”
Lea felt the air leave her lungs.
“No,” George said sharply. “You’re twisting this…”
Billy cut him off. “Tell her, George. Stop hiding it. She deserves the truth.”
Lea’s voice shook. “Tell me what?”
George closed his eyes briefly, pain flickering across his face.
Just then, distant roar of engines.
Billy’s attention snapped upward. “They found the surface hatch.”
George swore softly.
Billy stepped forward, grabbing Lea’s arm, not roughly, but urgently. “We have less than two minutes. If you want answers, you have to live long enough to hear them.”
Lea looked from one man to the other.
George, furious, desperate, protective.
Billy, bruised, bleeding, but eyes steady on her.
“Choose,” Billy said quietly. “Stand here and argue, or run.”
She didn’t hesitate.
“Run,” she whispered.
George grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the exit. Billy moved behind them, covering their backs.
Above them, the hatch rattled, someone was trying to break through.
They ran into the cold night air, the forest stretching out before them.
Behind them, heavy boots slammed the hatch open.
George didn’t look back.
Billy did.
And as gunfire split the night, he stepped into its path, not toward the forest,
but back into the tunnel.
“Billy!” Lea screamed.
He didn’t turn. Didn’t hesitate.
He simply said, loud enough for her to hear:
“Keep running.”
Then the tunnel swallowed him as the first shots rang out.