Page 36 of Fractured Loyalties (Tainted Souls #2)

I glance at the timestamp on the wall panel ahead, one minute left on the countdown. A chime sounds faintly from behind—probably piped through the emergency relay system, not from the room itself. No visuals, just numbers. Nothing to see now but the seconds falling away.

“Don’t look behind,” he warns. “You’ll miss what’s ahead.”

We reach a lift. Old, industrial. He scans the key, and it grinds into motion.

It carries us down. Further than I expected. My ears pop.

Then the doors open, and I stop breathing for a second.

We step into a room that doesn’t belong underground. Polished floors. Glass panels. A round table in the center with chairs that don’t match. Surveillance screens line one wall, all showing feeds from places I don’t recognize.

And in the center, on the main display—

My face.

Not now. Not here.

Me, from days ago. On the beach. Walking. Alone.

I spin toward him. “How long have you been watching me?”

He tilts his head. “Long enough to know you’d follow the signal.”

I step forward, anger licking at the edge of my voice. “Why?”

He doesn’t move. “Because you’re not the soft part of him. You’re the trigger. And someone had to make sure it went off at the right time.”

The words echo in the room like they’re still choosing who to wound.

I don’t speak. Not yet.

Because what terrifies me most is that he might be right.

“I want answers,” I say, voice low, teeth close to the edge of baring. “Real ones. Not riddles wrapped in fire escapes.”

He doesn’t hesitate. “Then sit. You’ll need both hands free.”

I don’t trust him. But I trust my rage to keep me upright if this goes sideways.

I sit.

He taps something on the main console. The display changes. Files open—slow, grainy surveillance footage, cross-referenced comm logs, voice overlays flagged with keywords that make my stomach twist.

And then—

A name.

Elias’s. But not just his. Dozens of tagged entries.

“You’ve been logging him,” I say.

“No,” he says. “Volker has.”

He spins another feed forward. This one’s different. A warehouse, maybe. Empty except for one figure pacing in a slow arc. The camera angle is strange—like it was filmed through smoke or glass. The face is mostly shadowed.

“That’s Toma Virelli,” he says quietly.

I don’t recognize the name. Don’t ask.

He keeps talking like I’m supposed to already know.

“Volker was tracking them both. Separately. Until Elias stopped running and made himself a fortress.”

My pulse roars in my ears, but I stay still.

He points to the far left screen.

And that’s when I see it.

Me.

Not just the beach footage. Not just clinic feeds. Something darker. My old apartment. A timestamp from nearly a year ago. I’m walking across the room, barefoot, in a tank top. Unaware. Unprotected.

I jerk back from the screen like it burned me.

“That wasn’t supposed to exist,” I say.

He doesn’t blink. “But it does. And Volker used it. This didn’t start again because of what Elias did. It started because of what Elias has.”

I press my knuckles to my mouth, bile pushing up hard.

The screen shifts again. A new file. A name appears.

Jori.

My head snaps toward him. “Who is that?”

His expression doesn’t change. “Vale’s brother.”

The breath catches in my throat.

He keeps going, voice even. “Volker kept him. After the Belgium op. Rewired his memory with chemicals and shock. Thought he could mold him. Use him. But something broke loose. And he ran. Everyone believes he’s dead, even Vale; that’s the lie Volker pushed out.”

I can barely process the words. The details fall like sharp glass—shards I don’t know where to place.

“He’s alive?” I whisper.

“For now,” he says. “But not for long. Volker doesn’t let things slip. Not without consequence.”

My hand finds my chest, trying to calm the storm building underneath it.

“Why are you showing me this?” I manage.

“Because Elias needs to know. And he won’t believe it unless it comes from you.”

The room stills. Screens pulse low in the quiet. The air feels metallic, full of things not meant to be spoken aloud.

I swallow hard.

“Then we go back,” I say. “And you’re coming with me.”

He smiles, slow and knowing. Like he expected that answer all along.

And this time, I don’t look back.

The corridor that leads out is colder than the one we came from.

Not temperature-wise. Something else. The air feels stripped—emptied of noise, of warmth, of anything but purpose.

My steps echo against steel-paneled floors that weren’t made for foot traffic.

This is no hallway. It’s a vein—one meant for secrets to pass through undisturbed.

He walks ahead of me now. No more sideways glances. No more cryptic lines. Just his back straight, his hands open by his sides like he’s done being clever. I don’t buy it. But I follow anyway.

“I know a shortcut,” he says without turning.

“If this is where you slit my throat, at least pick a cleaner wall.”

That earns me a laugh. “You’re more valuable walking.”

I don’t ask if that’s meant as comfort.

The shortcut isn’t through the main door. It’s through a narrow seam in the wall I didn’t see until he pressed a coded panel near the floor. The whole thing shifts inward with a quiet hydraulic hiss. He ducks through first. I follow.

We enter a tight corridor that smells like old walls. The light is low, with red emergency stripes marking the floor. The hum of servers fades behind us.

"Where does this go?" I ask.

"Deeper. Then sideways. Then out. This facility's a maze. Most people who wander it don’t come back out the same. If they come out at all."

We move fast. Not running, but not slow either. Every turn is too smooth to be chance. Every few steps, a different passage breaks off—dark, narrow veins disappearing into the unknown. I glance at them, but Kinley keeps to one precise path.

"You're sure this leads to Elias?" I ask.

"It connects," he says. "Eventually. Think of it like a pressure system—Elias went in deeper. We’re coming at it from the underside. It'll converge. Just not gently."

I don't like the sound of that. But I don’t stop.

The next hatch opens into a chamber not unlike the one we left—but older, colder, and it seems to be built for more than escape.

In the center is a transport. Compact. Black. Military design. Its engine already hums low.

Kinley steps up beside me now.

We climb in. The seats mold around us like memory foam laced with control. Kinley inputs something on the dash. The screen flickers.

Then the floor beneath us vibrates. The chamber slides open to reveal a vertical launch tunnel—tight, metallic, coiled with hydraulic rail.

The vehicle jolts, then begins to climb.

Suddenly, I realize we’re not aboveground. We’re somewhere beneath it all—buried in a facility so dense it folds in on itself.

As the ascent builds, the walls blur. The pressure shifts in my ears.

Kinley says nothing. Neither do I.

Until the chamber below fades and light breaks above.