Chapter 63

Chapter 63

Ariel’s heart thudded fast. She turned to her left, then her right.

Suddenly, a whooshing sound made her gasp.
“Micheal?”
There was no response.

She gritted her teeth and tapped her comms, but they weren’t working.

“Fuck,” she cursed under her breath. She ripped the comms from her ear, held her gun tight, and fired into the darkness to light up the space.

Ariel gasped. For a brief moment—between the flashes of the two shots—she saw something. Someone.

Unsure, she fired twice again, and her eyes widened.
“Micheal!” she screamed.



An hour earlier.

The tunnel was dark, except for the torches in Ariel and Micheal’s hands.

They carefully treaded the path, scanning their surroundings.

Water soaked the ground. Micheal walked on the metal rails like the remains of an old railway track.

“This place looks like an abandoned railway,” Micheal muttered, looking around.

Loud noises echoed from somewhere ahead.

Ariel looked at Micheal and nodded. They hastened their steps toward the sound.

As they approached, they saw a light.

Ariel turned off her torch as they got closer.

They reached the source of the light — an electric bulb wired up crudely. This part of the tunnel looked different from where they started: dry, oddly lived-in. Almost like a small underground home.

As they moved toward the noise, the bulb illuminated their path clearly.

“Hey, I don’t sell that for less. You know how hard it is to get it.”

The voices became clearer.

Ariel waited behind the wall — just one turn, and they would see whoever was speaking. She turned to Micheal, who was incredibly close. She could feel his breath against her face.

She quietly cleared her throat, took a peek around the corner, then turned back.
“There are quite a few men. Armed with weapons,” she whispered.

“Should we wait for backup?” Micheal asked.

She shook her head. “That will take time.”
Immediately, she stepped out of hiding and stood in front of the men.

“Hello, fellas,” she called, drawing their attention.

Micheal watched from his hideout.

“I am looking for a man. Whoever can bring him to me will get a reward.”

The men—gruesome faces, rough features, dull scarred eyes, about twenty in number—held weapons: cutlasses, chains, heavy iron balls attached to rods.

Ariel stood without a hint of fear. Instead, she smirked.

They looked alert, their faces wrinkled in shock.

A fat one with a wobbly stomach stepped forward.
“How did you get in here?”

Ariel smiled. “Through the door, of course. Same as you guys.”
She began walking forward, now standing in their midst.
“You see, I really need to find this person. You don’t have to worry, I have no business with the rest of you.”

“What’s the reward?” another man with a deep voice and a muscular chest asked from behind her.

Ariel turned to him. “This.”
She raised it in the air—an expensive diamond Rolex.

“Do you see that?”

“It’s pure diamond.”
“I want to get my hands on it,” one of them said, the others murmuring in greedy excitement.

Ariel smirked at their reaction.

“Should I be impressed or what?” Micheal muttered from his hideout.

“Hey, lady, I don’t think you know where you’ve walked into,” the fat guy said. The others joined him in laughter. “And if you don’t, it’s clear you can see we’re not here to play. These weapons aren’t toys.”

The others muttered in agreement.

“You can either hand that over, and we forget you were here… or make us do this the hard way.”

Ariel sneered. She slipped the watch back into its pouch and pocketed it tightly.

“Let me tell you a story.”
She walked slowly, moving closer to the fat one.
“A female lion lost its child. It roared for hours, cried. Do you know why?”
She traced an imaginary line across his stomach.

“Because it was killed by one of its own. And this female lion… in the midst of others she’s timid. But at the loss of her child, she walked into a pack of lions for the first time.”
Her eyes grew wild.

“She tore through their might… and won the fight.”

The men laughed.
“Go tell children’s tales to your kids. We don’t need it.”

“Will you listen?!”
The words came out calm but dangerous, her glare sharp.

She suddenly smiled and continued,
“I lost someone dear to me. And talking here right now is really getting on my nerves.”
She cracked her neck and knuckles.

“If you won’t tell me where he is, I’ll find him myself.”

The men all exchanged glances. Then slowly, they stood and began to close in.

“The one mistake you made… was coming here alone,” the deep-voiced muscular man said.

They dragged their irons on the ground, the grinding noise echoing.

Ariel watched them close in.
“Who said anything about being here alone?”

One of the men swung his chain at her. Ariel bent backward, hands touching the ground, then flipped herself back onto her feet.

Gunshots rang out behind them.
“Ariel! What the hell are you doing?!” Micheal shouted.

She smirked, sprinted toward the fat guy, and kicked him hard in the stomach — sending him crashing to the floor.

The muscular man charged at her with a cutlass. Ariel dodged effortlessly and even caught the blade mid-air, palms gripping each side.

The man yanked it out of her hold.

Ariel turned just in time to see someone running away through the chaos. She groaned and ran after him.

“Ariel!” Micheal called, backing away from the others while he kept firing.

They hadn’t gone far when all the lights abruptly shut off.

But in the split second before the darkness hit, she saw a glimpse — something that looked like Micheal getting struck.

Her heart raced. She fumbled around her waist and quickly pulled out her torch, shining it around as she moved toward where she saw the hit.

Someone slammed something into her from behind. She fell, her torch rolling away. Ariel crawled toward it, but then she heard footsteps… slow, approaching.

She saw a pair of legs. The figure stepped on her torch, crushing it.

For a while, there was silence.

Only her shallow breaths echoed in the dark.
She stood, turned sharply to her right, her heart hammering.

She heard a whooshing sound and spun—


The lights flickered back on, buzzing weakly before stabilizing.

Ariel walked toward the body slowly. She removed the cover— and gasped.