Page 205 of Caterina
That does it.
Not because she wants to.
Because she hears the thing under it.
The request. The trust. The fact that I am asking her to let me walk out of this room, and she knows exactly what that costs.
Her chin trembles once. Then she steps aside.
I do not touch her.
If I touch her, I may not leave.
I move to the door and bring up the panel. The internal system is still alive, barely. Door power is intentionally independent.
I unlock the first mechanism manually.
I hear one of the girls start crying behind me. They may not know what’s going on, but the feeling of fear is palpable.
“Lock it behind me,” I say, and pull the door open an inch to listen.
The basement outside is dark beyond the emergency strips. No footsteps. No voices. No gunfire close enough to hear through the reinforced room and concrete walls.
I would rather hear gunfire.
Silence means they may already be inside.
I take one breath.
My side pulls, and I ignore it.
Before I step out, Caterina says my name.
“Adrian.”
I stop and turn my head.
She crosses the two steps between us and grabs the front of my shirt.
For a second, I think she is going to pull me back.
She does not.
She kisses me hard.
Desperate enough that it tastes like goodbye, and angry enough that it tells me she will never forgive me if I let it become one.
Then she releases me.
“Come back,” she orders.
I nod and step into the darkness, pulling the door shut behind me.
I wait long enough to hear the lock slide into place.
The basement hallway is dim, lit only by the red emergency strips along the floor and the weak spill from a backup fixture near the stairs. The air smells faintly electrical from the failed power system.
I stay still for three seconds.
