Page 104 of South of Justice

Flames burst out sideways, searing hot. Gates turned and ran like hell.

Ryan turned left down another hall, this one tighter, filled with stacked crates. He ducked through shadows, checked each door. One was ajar, marked with a faded “Hangar Access.” He limped toward it, one hand trailing the wall for balance. The pain in his leg was building, hot and relentless. Then he thought of the pain Lucía must be in and his own immediately faded into the background.

He had to get to her.

Suddenly, a voice cracked through the radio on his belt. Static, then something low in Spanish. Ryan froze. The voice didn’t repeat.

Somewhere behind him, he heard footsteps. Then shouting. He backed against the wall.

He waited a second more, his heartbeat slamming in his ears. The radio on his hip crackled again, louder this time. A flurry of voices. Then alarms screamed to life overhead.

Shit.

Ryan broke into a limp-run, teeth bared against the pain. A siren blared. The floor shook under his feet as a heavy door slammed somewhere behind him.

The doorway loomed up ahead. A few more yards, then beyond it, the hangar. His thigh felt molten. He tasted blood in his mouth. The pistol in his hand was almost empty.

But he was here. He was close. Lucía was close.

And he was going to burn this whole place down if they laid another hand on her.

The hallway beyond the torture room reeked of diesel, sweat, and the acrid tang of burning fuel. Lucía limped through it like a ghost from some ruined war, wrapped in a merc’s oversized uniform, blood drying sticky at the backs of her knees.

She held the pistol in both hands. The hall curved left, toward a bank of utility lockers and a concrete washroom, its industrial sink stained with old rust. She ducked inside, breathing hard.

In the mirror, she looked like something unearthed from a grave. Blood crusted in the creases of her lips. Her eyes were too wide, whites showing all around. Her arms trembled. But under the wreckage, there was something clean and electric in her expression.

Focus.

Lucía tucked the pistol into her waistband and splashed cold water over her face. Then tore paper towels from the dispenser and pressed them to her skin.

The radio crackled, voices distorting through static.

“—repeat, fire’s reached the generator shed. Containment’s failing.”

A burst of static. Another voice, higher-pitched, panicked. “North depot’s gone! We’ve got chemicals burning, smoke in the hangar bay!”

A final voice, hoarse and breathless: “Where the fuck is Reyes?”

She stepped back into the corridor. She didn’t know where Javier had gone, but she knew where he liked to be.

High ground. Surveillance. The seat of power.

She crossed into a long access hallway, moving slowly, staying to the shadows. Her footsteps were near-silent. A stairwell rose ahead, unguarded, dimly lit. She took the first step, then the second, each one dragging fire up her legs. By the fifth, her vision was swimming.

She paused on the landing, breathing hard. Her wounds were searing, hot from adrenaline, but she kept going.

Something scraped above her. A voice: low, male.

Javier.

She moved faster now, adrenaline eating through the pain. The stairs opened to a steel catwalk that wrapped around the edge of the wide hangar floor. The mezzanine office door stood open.

Inside, a glass wall looked out over the hangar, but it was covered by so many years of grime, the view was like staring into smoke. Javier stood by the desk. His jacket was draped over a chair.

She watched him from the doorway, gun raised.

And for a moment—just a flicker—her arms trembled.