Page 23 of Enslak

My foot slipped and I caught myself against the wall. My hand came away wet and covered in slime. I wiped it on my pants and fought the urge to gag.

"Okay," I whispered. "You've got this. Just like the subway tunnels. Just like—"

Something splashed ahead.

I froze, hand going to the blaster in my pocket.

The sound came again, closer. Something moving through the filth. Something big.

"Enslak," I breathed. "We need to—"

He stopped and released my hand.

I turned, confusion and fear spiking through me. Had he changed his mind? Was he going to leave?

Before I could finish the thought, he bent and lifted me.

I made a small sound of surprise. Then he was moving, cradling me against his chest as he stepped into the tunnel, his feet sinking into the filth. Mine stayed clean and safe.

Something in my chest tightened. This massive, damaged creature who'd been treated like an animal was protecting me from walking through sewage.

"Thank you," I whispered.

He made a soft sound, not words but acknowledgment. His arms tightened slightly, careful not to hurt, but secure.

I pulled out the datapad and its screen glowed faintly, the map showing tunnels twisting beneath the facility with red dots marking guard stations and blue lines tracing our route.

"Left here," I said, pointing.

Enslak turned without hesitation, smooth despite the uneven footing.

My implants shifted to thermal and the tunnel painted itself in orange and blue, warm water glowing amber while stone walls faded to indigo. Heat signatures ahead. Two guards stationed at a checkpoint maybe two hundred meters above us. I adjusted our course left, following the secondary passage Binwee had marked.

My implants filtered through ambient noise, the drip of water, the skitter of unseen things, and locked onto something else: voices, guard chatter echoing through the tunnels from multiple directions.

"...thermal signature moving through sector seven... possible escapee... alert all checkpoints..."

My heart rate spiked.

They knew.

I pressed my face against Enslak's chest, trying to escape the sewer stench. It didn't help much. But pressed this close, the smell changed, or maybe I was just noticing it for the first time. Beneath the copper tang of blood drying on his skin, there was something else. Something distinctly male. It cut through the sewage stench like a blade, musk and heat and something primal that made my hindbrain sit up and take notice in a way that had nothing to do with fear.

I forced my focus back to the overlay.

Three more guard positions were converging on our sector, maybe five minutes before they cut off our escape.

I tapped Enslak's shoulder and pointed down a narrower passage flagged as clear.

No heat signatures that direction. No guards, no pursuit.

Just darkness.

We traveled deeper and the smell grew worse, the air turning thick and humid, warm like breathing through wet cloth soaked in rot.

My implants tracked guard communications as they spread out, searching methodically.

Moving away from us.