Page 88 of The Atom Between Us

He pins me to the wall, a hand across my chest. “Quiet,” he mouths, then listens.

Two voices, maybe five meters away. I catch fragments: “Secondary hall—check the vents—Petrov wants her alive⁠—”

Kang breathes, once, deep, and his whole body goes loose. For a second, I think he’s giving up.

Then he’s moving. He grabs my wrist, yanks me down the hall, staying low. We duck behind a rolling cart stacked with old biohazard suits, then cut left into another corridor. I see the words “Research Wing: Level 1” painted on the cinderblock.

Every muscle in my legs screams, but I keep pace. I have to.

At the next junction, Kang stops so suddenly I almost collide with him. He peers around the edge, then pulls me back, hard, chest to chest. His hand covers my mouth before I can gasp.

Three guards, full armor, rifles up. They talk into their radios, scanning every door. Kang looks up, searching, and I realize he’s memorizing the camera placements, the blind spots. He waits for a second, then tugs me into the shadow of a maintenance alcove.

We press together, close enough that I can taste the salt of his sweat. He’s shaking, just barely, but his hand is steady as it strokes down my hair, pushing it flat.

He mouths, “Almost there.”

Then he’s out again, dragging me at a crouch down the hall. My boots slap the tile, loud as gunshots, but the guards are focused ahead, not behind. Kang pulls me into a door marked “Specimen Storage,” slams it behind us, and finally lets go.

Inside, it’s dark and cold. The hum of refrigeration masks our breathing, but not by much.

He slumps against the wall, exhaling. For a moment, we just stare at each other.

I break the silence. “Is this real?”

He doesn’t laugh, not exactly. “I’m not that good an actor.”

I want to believe it, but I can’t stop the doubt. “Petrov will kill you for this.”

Kang’s smile is half wild. “He’ll have to catch us first.”

No time to dwell. He straightens. “Three minutes before they triangulate. Move.”

We run, together this time. Not captor and captive, not even Authority and rebel. Just two animals with the same hunger: survive, at any cost.

The corridors are a blur. I hear shouts behind us, the crackle of radios, the heavy clomp of boots. I count the steps, read the numbers on the doors, measure the distance in heartbeats.

At the junction, Kang covers me as I duck left, past the canteen and up the narrow stairwell. The doors here are all locked, but Kang has the codes. He punches them in with one hand, the other never leaving his sidearm.

Suddenly the sounds of footsteps down the hall grow louder, Kang shoots out a camera with a single, casual shot. The bulb explodes, showering the hall with black plastic.

He kicks a nearby door open and pulls us in.

For a second, all I can do is gulp air. Every inhale is glass in my lungs. I want to scream or laugh or maybe just collapse right here, but Kang is already moving, already scanning the room.

The air in here feels different—stale, heavy. Papers scatter across a desk. Ash curls from a half-burnt cigarette. On the corner, a framed photo: Petrov with a woman in her forties. Wife? Partner? Whoever she was, she’s smiling like the world’s still good.

“Shit. This is Petrov’s office,” I mutter.

Kang’s eyes rake over me—knees scraped, blood caked under my nails, my face pale but steady. “You okay?”

I laugh, cracked and bitter. “I will be. Once I know why you burned your entire life for me.”

He doesn’t answer. His mouth twists like the words would taste wrong.

I go to the console. The login is standard Authority protocol: six-digit badge, then retina. I don’t have the badge, but I remember how the system is coded. I pop the back of the terminal, exposing the port cluster, and short two pins with the tip of a paperclip. The screen flickers, then drops to root.

Kang watches me, head tilted. “How did you⁠—?”