I can barely move from the hole in my leg. The pain is paralyzing between the moments where it tries to lull me into sleep, and it’s agonizing when I force myself to sit up and drag my body to the wall. I’m not sure if I had for a moment. Everything moves as if my vision is lagging, blurred and slow, but the coolness of the wall on my back grounds me, even just for the second it takes me to realize I’m still bleeding. It’s slowing, but not fast enough, and without having any water, I won’t last much longer.

Scooping up some dirt on the floor, I pack it tightly in my hand and shove it into the bullet hole. I wince from the sting, but it’s gone seconds later, replaced by a dull throb that I put aside as I pull out Castor’s necklace.

The metal is tough, but I slowly pry the gold apart, unbending a single point of the star to form a small hook on the end. It’s a long shot, but it’s all I have.

I reach up to try the knob, trying to force down the false hope settling deep in my gut that the door would fall open like last time.

Locked.

My heart stutters, frustration mounting in my chest, but I shove the makeshift pick into the lock anyway. The gold bends almost instantly, barely making it past the first tumbler before it caves in on itself.

“No, no, no...” I try again and again, but the pick bends each time it’s jammed into the lock. I grunt in frustration when the side groans under my next attempt, breaking off the necklace and clattering to the floor. “Come on!”

My hands are shaking, and the remains of the necklace slip between my bloody fingers. With a frustrated huff, I force the metal to bend in half, doubling the pick into something that will hopefully fit into the lock without bending or breaking.

I slip it into the lock, wiggling it into the tumblers inside the metal. They scrape along the inside, and my knuckles ache from the harsh grip on the gold.

Click.

I freeze. The soft sound echoes in the concrete room, like a ghost laughing mockingly at my hope of escape. But it isn’t mocking me. The handle turns and with a loud groan, the iron door falls open, flooding the room with the bright hallway lights.

I let out a breathless laugh, pushing the door open just wide enough to slip through. I’m up, moving down the corridor with my heart pounding in my ears. This exact scene played through my head days ago. I’d run through these halls before, always under the Codex’s watchful eye.

Could they be watching me now? Did they orchestrate this? No. I don’t have any more information to give them. Unless they’re doing this for fun now. I’m the last of my unit. They wanted all of us dead, me included.

The memory forms a pit in my stomach, but I shake it off.

Only one of us is going to die, and it’s not going to be me.

I hear muffled voices. Castor’s room is close. I recognize the way he’d led me, and their intoxicating scent of pine and gun oil above the faint smell of sewage. It stands between me and the way out, and I can’t head that way yet, not while I’m naked and unarmed. I need something—anything—to help me get out of here.

I duck into another hallway, ignoring the pulsing pain in my leg as I tug on doors that lead to nothing. Finally, I find what I assume is Baron’s room. It’s bare and empty, with nothing but boxes full of weapons and vacuum-sealed meat. It’s lifeless, like him. I waste no time rifling through his things.

Clothes. Where are the fucking clothes?

I rip open another box under his bed, pulling out a slew of bullets and the sidearm he shot me with.

And still no clothes.

Where the fuck are they? There’s no fucking way that he’s survived wearing the same underwear for months on end. He has to have some clothes somewhere in case his burned or tore.

Finally, something catches my eye. A single wad of clothes, tucked tightly into rolls at the foot of his cot.

I unravel them, and two shirts and pants spring free. I throw one of the shirts over my body, ripping the other to tie around my leg before pulling the pants on. They hang off my body like a sheet thanks to them. I rip another strip of cloth from the shirt and loop it through the belt loops.

I hope he rots in those disgusting clothes.

I grab the sidearm before I move out, checking through other rooms, desperately searching for a weapon, a gun, a pick, anything sharp, but there’s nothing—of course, they’re all in Castor’s room.

Dammit!

I force myself to think, forcing away the ache in my leg. Files. I need the files. No, fuck the files. They can burn along with them for all I care. I’m getting out of here.

I slip back into the hallway, moving as fast as my leg allows, keeping to the shadows. I limp down the passage, closer and closer to the entrance of the distribution center when—

“No!”

Castor’s voice booms through the tunnels, freezing my blood. “Find her!”

Their footsteps echo down the corridor, heavy, rapid and quickly gaining ground.

I force myself forward, sprinting despite the agony in my leg. I won’t let them take me again. I won’t go back to that cell. I won’t!

I round a corner.

“I’ve got her!” Baron’s voice cuts through the darkness, making panic surge through my veins like poison.

He’s close, his footsteps bounding on the concrete like my pulse in my ears. I can feel the anger in his voice, the short, controlled breaths as he sprints after me coming so close that I can practically feel it on my neck.

My hand fumbles with the gun in my hand and I fire it behind me.

“Stay the fuck away from me!”

His footsteps stutter and scratch along the concrete as he takes shelter. I don’t look back and I don’t stop to listen if he’s gone.

Castor’s footsteps are lighter, cleverly timed with mine so I don’t hear him, but I do—soft measured paces as if he’s running on his toes to mask the sound of him trudging after me.

They scatter behind crates when I fire again, and the bullet ricochets off the metal walls before shattering one of the crates lining the wall.

“Stop!” Baron yells. “You’re going to blow us off the mountain!”

“I don’t care!” I shoot again and the bullet bounces off the walls. I duck behind the corner until it lands into another box —hopefully the one they’re hiding behind—and when I raise the gun again, I catch a glint against the light; a flash of white, curved like a claw.

I duck just as the knife is hurled at my head and it misses me by inches, but not my gun. It connects with the weapon and both fly through the air, clattering to the ground several feet away.

I make a dash for the weapons but another smaller knife is thrown inches from my face just as I grasp the gun.

“Helena, stop!” Castor’s voice cuts through. There is an edge to his voice this time—one I’d heard only once before.

Fear. Actual fear.

I hesitate, my finger trembling on the trigger. Even when Castor had played a victim before, his voice was even and measured—something I’d misinterpreted as a feigned strength—but there was a tremble in his voice and he was visibly shaking as he stared at the gun.

“This infrastructure is filled with methane,” he explains frantically. “If you keep firing, you’ll kill us all.”

My hand falters.

Castor steps out from behind the crate, his hands raised in surrender. “Helena. Please.”

The gun is a weight in my hand. I’d been here long enough to be able to tune out the disgusting smell of sewage in this rotting cavern, but it’d never occurred to me exactly why the mine was abandoned.

I don’t realize I’ve lowered the gun until Baron steps out from his hiding spot. “Listen to him. We’re telling the truth. Just put it down, doll.”

My grip tightens, that word snapping me back to the present like a rubber band. Doll. Fucking doll. That’s what I am to them—a doll, a fucking toy to be used and manipulated. They think they can cry their way into me willingly disarming myself, and I fell for it once.

Not this time.

I raise the gun in the same instant that Castor’s body crashes into me, slamming me to the ground. My leg twists, sending a blinding pain up my side.

Baron’s foot comes down on my leg as I try to stave off the wave of pain. “Stay down,” he orders, aiming the pistol at my head.

Castor rises slowly as I yank my leg back. He doesn’t stop me this time, just watches as I fall back, desperately trying to keep distance between the two men.

“Don’t fucking touch me!” I spit, my voice hoarse. “You want to take me back to that goddamn cell, you’ll have to kill me first. I’m not going back there!”

Baron laughs derisively. “I don’t think John would appreciate seeing his daughter so soon,” he mocks. “You should’ve stayed home, doll.”

“Stop calling me that!” I shriek, my chest heaving with adrenaline. “You don’t get to talk about my dad. You fucking murdered him, so don’t act like you were friends.”

Castor’s sigh draws both of our attention.

“You really are stupid, aren’t you?” He mutters. He moves in front of Baron, tilting his head down until his lips are inches from me. “We were friends, Helena.”

Those three words freeze me in place, binding me tighter than the chains that rubbed my wrists raw. Three words that I wouldn’t have believed if not for the look they shared with each other, like it was a secret I wasn’t supposed to know.

“What are you talking about?”

They don’t answer, sharing another look of an unspoken conversation that I can’t decipher.

“John was a part of the Codex,” Baron says after a moment. “He wanted Bane dead as much as we did. His death was an accident.”

I snort. “My dad wasn’t a terrorist. He was one of the best operators in the U.S. military. Bane trained him personally.”

Castor visibly flinches, and he turns his head away, like he’s shielding himself from it.

“Trust me, Helena,” Castor warns. “If Bane takes an interest in you, it’s not a good thing.”

I look between them, trying to gauge their behavior, their words, the tone, the body language—something to prove that this is an attempt to blindside me by telling me that my dad didn’t die protecting his country, but all I see is nothing. Castor is shielding himself from me, acting as though he might run from what he’s telling me, while Baron tries to mask the concerned looks at his friend with control and indifference as he pins me with his gun.

The gun!

The mine is filled with methane, they said. If that were true, then they wouldn’t dare shoot me again when the gas converged in this metal box.

Baron takes a step closer as I brace myself on my hands, so close to me that the barrel of his gun is grazing against the loosened fabric of my shirt.

“You know,” Baron seethes, “maybe if you got your head out of your ass, you wouldn’t fucking be here to begin with.”

I lunge at him.

He jumps back in shock but not before I tackle him to the ground and the gun skids away from us both.

Castor is on me before I have a chance to grab it. “Would you stop and listen?” he snaps, frustration bleeding into his voice. He throws me off Baron, pinning me with a single hand around my throat.

“I’m not stupid!” I hiss. “You think you can manipulate me again by acting like an abused dog? I learnt my lesson.”

Baron groans, rubbing his face. “Fucking hell, this bitch is just as stubborn as him.” He turns to me, his face turned down in exasperation. “Did you inherit anything from your mom, doll? A brain, maybe?”

I wince as Castor’s grip tightens around my throat, releasing only when he notices. He pulls back just as I slam my foot into his chest. He only pushes back a few feet, but it’s enough for me to scramble to my feet and swipe up the brandished white knife.

My blood boils when they don’t react. They aren’t afraid, seeming to take up my weapon like a child throwing a tantrum.

“Stay the fuck back!” I slash the knife forward as Castor attempts to disarm me. “You know, I think my dad might actually be proud of me,” I sneer. “Because after I bash your head in, I’ll cut off your dick for even thinking of touching me.”

Castor shoves his hand in his pockets, offering me nothing more than a shrug.

“You know, your attitude would be a lot more attractive if you weren’t such a moron.” In a flash of movement, Castor closes the gap and repays my earlier gesture by swiping his foot onto my ribcage, sending me crashing against the metal office splitting the two south tunnels.

He doesn’t stop me from clutching the blunted pain in my stomach. Instead, he cages me in, shadowing me with his large frame as he tilts my chin up with a finger.

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news,” he says softly. “We don’t have any files. Bane used you.”

I laugh, the sound moving painfully through my lungs. “And I’m supposed to believe that?”

“If you intend on getting out of this alive.” Baron stalks towards me, his face contorted into a scowl. “Those ‘files’ Bane sent you to find are locked up in a bunker in the Alps, which Bane would have if he hadn’t tried to blow us off the mountain six years ago.”

“We’re looking for them too,” Castor adds.

“Why?”

“So we can kill him faster.”

“Bane is dead,” I retort.

“Acacia doesn’t know that,” he says. “Which means we have a window of opportunity.”

My brows push together. That name keeps coming up, appearing in every disaster that I’ve narrowly managed to escape—that same company my dad worked for before he enlisted. The same company that Alastor owns. Except it’s not. They talk about it like it’s an entity of its own.

Like it’s a person.

“Who the hell is Acacia?”

Neither of them answer.

I frown.

“Even if he lied, there’s a reason he wants you dead,” I say, shaking my head. “You can’t cry and act like you haven’t killed thousands of people, that those women and children in Libya and Syria were the enemy? You think I’m that fucking stupid?”

Baron sighs in exasperation, making another silent exchange with Castor. “You still think we’re on that side, doll?” Castor steps back just as Baron takes his place, his blue eyes icy with cold rage. “Let me ask you something, Helena. In all the times we’ve fought, how many times have you seen us use bombs?”

My retort dies on my tongue with a single glance from them both, and a cold realization sets in. He’s right. The raid in the forest was our weaponry, not theirs. Their entire methodology was based on Baron’s knife and Castor’s poison. Even their use of guns has been minimized until the attack on the embassy.

But a grenade isn’t a bomb and neither were the mines that shattered the COP. Those were targeted, enclosed, and the exact opposite of the carnage from Syria.

I open my mouth to speak, until I see something behind Baron.

It’s a light—-a small red dot growing larger as it flies through the center tunnel.

Baron and Castor catch my confused stare and their eyes widen in horror as all three of us finally catch sight of the light flying into the complex.

It’s a flare.

“Get down!” Castor throws me out of the way as the light turns into a ball of fire.

The mineshaft explodes.