Chapter 32 The Walls
Dante stared at me, his brow furrowed in genuine confusion. The gun in his hand lowered slightly, though his grip didn't loosen in the slightest.
"The walls?" he repeated, his voice flat. "What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about the dust," I said, my voice gaining strength as I latched onto the half-truth I had constructed.
"The grey dust on Marco’s sleeve. The dust you found in the cellar."
"That was drywall dust," Dante said dismissively.
"It's from the maintenance shafts. We already know that Marco was using them to move around, so there's nothing else."
"But we also know that Marco was just a runner," I pressed, stepping closer to him.
"He was stupid and clumsy. But the man on the phone isn't. He knows the layout better than you do."
Dante’s eyes narrowed. "Get to the point, Lilith."
"I found them," I lied. "Not just shafts. Tunnels."
It wasn't a complete lie, but the omission sat heavily on my tongue. I didn't tell him about the panel behind my closet.
I didn't tell him about the silver key hidden on my doorframe or the nights I had spent crawling through the dark, spying on him.
"I found a service hatch near the pantry a few days ago," I said, inventing a location that was plausible but far away from my room.
"It was loose. I looked inside. It wasn't just a duct for pipes, Dante. It was a walkway. Old, dusty, and narrow, but big enough for a man."
Dante went still. He looked at the wall next to us as if he could see through the plaster.
"The service corridors were sealed up in the eighties," he said, though there was a flicker of doubt in his grey eyes. "My father had them bricked off to modernize the HVAC system."
"Then he missed some," I said. "Or maybe someone opened them back up."
I gestured to the room around us, my arms flailing at my sides as his eyes followed.
"Think about it. The gas in the nursery came from the vent. The phone that was under my bed. The voice on the intercom. He isn't walking through the hallways, Dante. He isn't hacking the electronic locks because he doesn't need to. He is moving behind the locks."
Dante stared at me. I could see the gears turning in his mind, re-evaluating every security breach of the last forty-eight hours through this new lens.
He looked skeptical. I could see he wanted to dismiss it, to tell me I was imagining things or that a few crawlspaces didn't constitute a security threat.
But then his eyes shifted to the red dress on the bathroom floor, stained with soot from the nursery fire, and something flickered in his gaze.
I'm sure he remembered the smoke. He remembered lying Jasmine limp in his arms.
"If you are right," he said slowly, "then the Vault isn't safe."
"The Vault relies on concrete," I said, echoing his words from earlier. "But it needs air. If there is a vent in that room, there is a tunnel leading to it."
A muscle feathered in his jaw.
"You said you found a hatch," he said, his gaze snapping back to mine, sharp and assessing.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I hate you," I said honestly. "And because I thought I could use it to escape."
It was the perfect answer. It was the truth, but it hid the bigger truth, that I still had the key.
Dante studied my face for a long moment. He was looking for the lie, looking for the trap. But the fear he saw in my eyes was real.
I wasn't scared of him finding the tunnels; I was scared of him not finding them fast enough to save his daughter.
"Fine," he said abruptly.
He holstered his gun and grabbed the radio from his belt. He didn't ask me to show him the pantry hatch. He didn't ask for a tour. He just acted.
"Antonio," he barked into the radio. "Change of plans. Stop the room-to-room search."
“Dante, we haven't cleared the West Wing yet,” Antonio’s voice crackled back, static-laced and tense.
"Forget the rooms," Dante ordered. "He isn't in the rooms. He is in the infrastructure."
“Say again?”
"The crawlspaces. The maintenance shafts. The voids between the walls." Dante walked to the wall of the bedroom and pressed his hand against the silk wallpaper, as if testing for a pulse.
"He is using the old service network."
“Those are sealed, Dante. They’re rat runs.”
"Clearly not," Dante snapped. "Lilith found an access point."
He looked at me as he said it, his expression unreadable.
"Issue thermal scopes to the men," Dante continued, his voice dropping into the cold, tactical register of a commander at war.
"I want every vent, every grate, every maintenance panel ripped open. If there is a hollow space in this house bigger than a shoebox, I want a gun pointed into it."
“Understood,” Antonio replied. “We’re on it.”
"And Antonio," Dante added, his voice grim. "If you see movement in the walls... don't hesitate. Fill it with lead."
He lowered the radio.
Then he looked at me one last time. He didn't thank me. He didn't apologize for the suspicion.
He just nodded, a sharp, singular motion acknowledging that the game had changed.
"Stay here," he ordered. "Lock the door behind me. And stay away from the vents."
He turned and walked out of the room.
I rushed to the door and threw the heavy deadbolt, my heart pounding against my ribs.
I leaned my forehead against the wood, listening to his heavy footsteps retreating down the hall.
I had done it. I had given him the target.
I slid my hand into the pocket of the oversized shirt, and my fingers brushed against the cold metal of the silver skull key.
I hadn't given him everything.
I listened as the shouting started downstairs, the sound of men tearing paintings off walls and smashing through plaster.
The hunt had begun.