Page 69 of Scaled Daddy's Secret Heir
“Shit!”
“Kalev!” she yells, doubling back.
“Keep moving!” I bark, grabbing her wrist and yanking us both into the nearest service tunnel. “I’m fine.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“No time to argue.”
The secondary route is tighter than I remember. I slam a heel into a weak support bracket, shoulder the door open, and we plunge into black.
We runblind for three minutes straight, only the flickering green of Leah’s wrist beacon guiding us. The walls close in like jaws—moisture-slick, cramped. Our boots splash through inches of standing water, the smell of mildew choking in the close air. Somewhere behind us, the fight continues—shouts, another blast.
We’re leaving bodies back there. Friendly or not, I can’t tell anymore.
At the breach point, I slam my palm against the rusted control panel. Nothing. Leah’s already popping the cover, jury-rigging the charge manually.
“Three seconds,” she mutters.
I press my forehead to the cool steel next to her and breathe.
“Of course they’d send us to die,” I say.
“They didn’t expect us to live.”
The door groans open with the screech of years grinding on itself.
We slip through.
Inside the abandoned tram substation, everything is dust and silence.
Thick layers of it coat every inch, muffling even our footfalls. I motion for quiet—point upward. Listening.
Nothing.
But nothing can be worse than something.
I pull Leah into the corner behind a half-collapsed support strut. My arm throbs, the cloth soaked through with blood. She sees it and curses again, this time softly, almost lovingly.
“Let me?—”
“No.”
“Kalev.”
“Later.”
She doesn’t fight me on it. Not really.
Instead, she leans her forehead against mine, just for a second.
The world stills.
And then it spins again.
We take the northeast drain run-off channel, crawling through a chokehold of rust and rebar. Leah’s ahead of me now, shoulders tense, hips shifting with each narrow pivot. I catch the tremble in her limbs—not fear. Not weakness.
Rage.
