Page 130 of Convict's Game

And in the space of waiting, everything unspooled.

Mila’s eyes, wide and wet with unshed tears. Her mouth gasping when I upped the speed of the vibrator.I need you to be honest. Not lie to me.

The nameConvict, spat at me by a faceless crowd, teenage fists flying in the blood-slicked basement of that Leith fight club.

The spiderweb scar. The scared face of a girl. The feeling that everything I knew was a lie I’d built to survive.

“Deploying gas,” Shade reported.

I forced my mind to the present. Listened as his crew dropped two canisters down into the vents. A hiss. Faint green mist coiling up.

Seven minutes, Shade had said.

He readied the override for the service door. “Go.”

The door clicked open, and we slipped inside.

The interior was decay and rot. Forklifts abandoned mid-run. Pallets stacked floor to ceiling. Faint alarms buzzed, but nothing else stirred. The gas had worked. Bodies lay slumped already, guards in masks, collapsed where they stood.

We moved fast, hugging walls, eyes on every side passage.

Arran’s voice crackled. “Main floor secured. Tunnel teams on the move. Salter unaccounted for.”

Manny returned, “Copy. Stay sharp.”

My headache spiked. I stumbled and caught myself on a rail.

Shade stopped. “All good?”

”Fine,” I lied. The sense of déjà vu was unbearable. The smell of damp and the dim lighting. The way the tunnels forked.

The sense of something deadly lurking around a corner.

I’d been here before.

Not this exact place. But a place like this. A warehouse, as a recruit. Or something worse. My hand went back to the scar on my side, feeling it pulse.

I pictured Mila, and fear ghosted over me.

Something shifted ahead.

Arran’s announcement crackled over the line. “Salter’s on the run. We flushed him out of the sublevel tunnels.”

Manny cursed. “Fucker’s smarter than he looks.”

Shade gestured sharply for me to cut left. We took a side passage, angling to intercept. The gas was thinning. Ahead, faint shouting echoed, panicked voices, gunshots.

“Go. Now!” Shade barked.

We sprinted.

The tunnels narrowed, and we passed cages stacked against the walls. Old, rusted things. Memories blurred with reality, me hating a place like this. But not with my fists raw, but something else. A need to act and hide my emotions.

I barely heard Shade’s shout from far ahead.

I’d fallen behind.

Between me and them, a door burst open. Salter fell out, gaunt, wild-eyed, and gasping. He clutched a gun with his silver rings glinting.