Page 37 of Fractured Loyalties (Tainted Souls #2)

I taste the explosion before I hear it.

Copper, grit, ozone. It shivers along my teeth a split second before the roar punches through the chamber above. The vent seals slam down. Dust rains from the cross-beams. My hand goes to the sidearm I already holstered, but I don’t draw. Not yet. I’m not here to fight. Not in this corridor.

I’m here to see who makes it out alive.

The tunnel behind me breathes smoke, a slow exhale from the trap I left behind. One meant to collapse if someone followed me down the wrong axis. Directional charge, localized debris field. Surgical. No casualties unless someone’s foolish enough to stand still.

I wait. Count. Three seconds. Five. Ten.

Then footsteps. Steady, no stagger.

Mara.

She’s running a few seconds behind a man I don't recognize. His face is set, eyes calculating, that kind of dead calm I’ve seen before. The kind of calm that only belongs to men with nothing left to gamble.

He sees me, but he doesn’t flinch.

Mara rounds the curve behind him. She doesn’t hesitate either. She sees me and doesn’t break stride. Her face isn’t calm. It’s something worse—determined. Raw. Like she’s carrying fire under her skin, and she doesn’t care who it scalds.

“Who is this?” I ask sharply.

Mara slows only when she’s within arm’s reach. "He called himself Kinley, back in the hallway. Showed me some things and gave me some information too."

Kinley doesn't deny it. Just holds my stare like he's been waiting years for this introduction.

That’s probably not the only alias he’s used. I file it away.

“I didn’t authorize this detour,” I say, facing Mara now. My voice doesn’t rise, but the air around us shifts.

“We didn’t ask for permission.”

My jaw locks.

Kinley watches us like he’s taking notes for a post-mortem that neither of us will survive.

“You’re risking a lot for someone whose name I don’t recognize,” I tell him.

Kinley tilts his head slightly, measuring me in return. “I’m not here for you. Not directly. I’m here for Volker.”

The name slides through me like ice. I don’t move, but something in me knots so tightly I hear it.

Aras Volker. The name used to surface in whispers—classified trails, disavowed ops, rumors from programs that were never supposed to exist. He was the architect behind Eidolon’s darkest layers, the kind of man who didn’t operate from shadows but built them.

I've carried out some operations for and with him in the past. He's the kind of ghost that didn’t need to hide because everyone who knew how to look had already vanished.

“That doesn’t tell me enough,” I snap. "Why help her, then? If you're really just here for Volker."

“Because she’s the fuse. And you’re the trigger,” Kinley says calmly. “Volker’s been pulling strings too long. And when he pulls them, people like me end up as collateral. And who is the better option for me to operate with, other than you?”

Mara cuts in before I respond. “He showed me files, surveillance.”

My jaw locks tight. Something in me knots so tightly I hear it.

She keeps going. “And names, a face everyone thought was buried.”

My silence gives me away. Mara sees it. She doesn’t push. But she doesn’t stop, either.

“He says Jori’s alive.”

The knot in my chest snaps.

“That’s not possible.”

Kinley steps forward cautiously. “You never verified it. Volker hides bodies—and truths—he does it in ways that defy logic. Trust me, I know.”

Before I can respond, my comm crackles to life.

“Elias?” Lydia’s voice is sharp, clear, urgent. “We’ve got movement. Someone, or something, has triggered the pattern vault.”

"We're already inside, and Mara is here too, with some guy," I tell her, eyes still locked on Kinley.

She curses quietly. "Be careful who you trust in there. We both know people in this network don’t leave loose ends."

Kinley hears the comm clearly. He meets my eyes without a hint of fear. “She’s right. But I'm no one's loose end. I've been tracking Volker longer than you. If you want to finish this, you're going to need what I know.”

“Wait, Volker is in on this?” Lydia’s voice cuts through the comm.

“More like the mastermind,” I respond.

I weigh Kinley in silence for a long moment, feeling Mara’s tension beside me, a quiet storm ready to break.

I turn slowly toward Kinley. “How long have you known? About Jori?”

“Long enough,” he replies. “Long enough to see Volker’s not just pulling strings. He’s tying nooses.”

I step forward once. Just once. He doesn’t back down, but his hand shifts slightly toward his belt—out of instinct, not challenge.

“You brought her here,” I say. “That was your mistake.”

“No,” Mara cuts in. “I chose this. I wanted to see. I needed to know what kind of war we’re actually in.”

“And now you do?”

She nods. “And I’m staying in it.”

There’s no hesitation in her voice. No flinch in her spine.

Good.

Because what waits ahead won’t spare her for sentiment.

I turn. “Then keep moving. We’re not done yet.”

The corridor ahead darkens as we enter it. This place is a fucking maze, I'm just looking at it from another point of view for the first time.

A new pulse hums underfoot—faint, rhythmic, and it's too precise for machinery.

It's like a heartbeat.

It grows louder the deeper we go. Not in volume—frequency. As if the tempo is adapting to our pace, recalibrating to match our breath, our footfalls. Or maybe it’s not a sound at all. Maybe it’s something older. Something under the floor that knows we’re here.

The corridor opens slightly, just enough to suggest we’ve passed a checkpoint. There are no doors. Just lines etched into the concrete—geometry that doesn’t belong in this century. A code built for machines, not men.

Kinley slows beside me. He doesn’t speak, but he nods once at the wall to our left. Embedded in the slab is a panel—thin, matte, low-resistance. It’s not lit. Which means it’s waiting.

I move first.

Two fingers to the panel. A shallow click. Then the air shifts. Heat, barely perceptible, ripples along my shoulders like static wind.

Behind us, Mara mutters, “Is that supposed to feel like that?”

“No.”

The floor tilts—so subtly it might be an illusion. But my balance knows better. This place isn’t mapped for gravity. It’s mapped for control. For disorientation.

Kinley steps forward again. “The pulse you felt?” he says, gesturing toward the path ahead. “That’s not just an alert system. It’s tied to a biometric net. They’re reading us.”

I stop. “Live?”

He nods. “Every step. Every beat. Volker doesn’t just trap intruders. He catalogs them. And if your profile flags….”

“You disappear.”

“Worse. You’re turned.”

Mara’s voice sharpens. “Turned? How?”

Kinley exhales, like he doesn’t want to say it. “Reconstructed. Behavioral overlays. Synthetic loyalty binding. It’s not perfect. But if they get enough exposure, they can make you believe you were always on their side.”

“Fuck,” Mara breathes.

I nod toward the narrowing corridor ahead. “Then let’s not give them time.”

The walls begin to contract the farther we walk, pressing inward with each meter. It’s not claustrophobia. It’s design. Push the threat. See who breaks. We don’t.

But the air starts to smell different.

Not rot. Not dust.

Memory.

A scent I can’t place immediately—something metallic but not blood. Cold, like old steel that’s held too many secrets.

I reach the next junction and pause. There’s a split. The left tunnel is wider, but steep. The right one is narrow, with faint blue light flickering at the end.

Mara’s eyes move between them. “Which way?”

Kinley’s mouth flattens. “You know this place better than I do, Eidolon.”

I hate the name more every time it comes out of someone else’s mouth.

I scan the wall. Find the marker. A small triangle etched above head height, barely visible in the low light. Standard code for corridor sequencing. It’s flipped sideways.

“Right,” I say. “That’s where the access deck leads. But the slope on the left—”

“Emergency descent,” Kinley finishes. “Could be flooded.”

“Or worse,” I add. “Severed.”

I don’t wait. I take the right.

We move fast now. Feet silent. Eyes forward.

Until we reach the bend.

And that’s when I see it—the first trace of blood.

Just a smear. Dry. Old.

But it’s fresh enough to matter.

Someone came through this corridor.

Recently.

And they bled on their way out.

Whoever’s ahead of us is either dying or baiting us.

Either way—we follow.

The blood trail threads along the seam of the corridor like a whisper. Not a pool. Not a splatter. A brush of fingers, maybe. Or knuckles. Someone crawling.

I motion for silence. Not that anyone’s been talking. But it’s instinct. A kind of muscle memory carved into the marrow.

Kinley sees it too. He moves slower now. Less certainty in his steps. Not fear—calculation. Assessing the possibility that this was staged.

The corridor banks left, narrowing again into a chamber that looks half-built. Rebar exposed along one wall. A ceiling grid dangling half-secured, swaying gently despite the stillness of the air.

That’s where I see it.

A smear. Bigger. Darker.

The stain pulls toward the corner. There’s something there. A shape. Slumped.

Mara’s hand ghosts toward my sleeve. Not touching, but close.

I draw.

The movement is silent—deliberate. My gun—a SIG Sauer pistol—clears the holster in one practiced motion, so smooth the leather barely whispers. I lift it, muzzle angled up, every sense locked in. My eyes sweep the room as I move forward, ready to take the lead.

Three steps. Five.

The shape resolves.

Not a threat.

Not alive.

But not long dead either.

A man. Blood crusted along the side of his neck and chest. Throat cut—sloppy. Not surgical. Defensive wounds on his palms, two fingers broken backward. Eyes wide open, as if they never saw what came for him.

Kinley exhales behind me. “That’s Lang.”

I turn. “You knew him.”

He nods, jaw clenched. “One of ours. Deep embed. Sent in last quarter to trace Volker’s network. He shouldn’t be here.”

Mara’s voice is low. “Then someone wanted him found.”