Page 11 of Red Dreams

The crayon snaps in my grip.

“Just the freight elevator for deliveries. But...” Ethan’s glasses fog from the hot flush of his cheeks as he leans over myshoulder. “Wait. When I was comparing the blueprints to the city records, the sub-levels should go way deeper. I remember thinking it was weird when I put them up side by side. The basement level we can access is only using, like, half the square footage.”

A sound pierces the air. High and electronic, like feedback from dead speakers. We both freeze as Layla's voice filters through, but this time it's different. Intimate.

“Tell me how he touched you,”Cassie's voice demands.

Layla's answering whimper sends an iceberg into my veins.

“Did his hands shake? When he wrapped them around your throat, did you feel how badly he wanted to squeeze?”

I rear up and head to my gear bag, pulling out the burner phone responsible and throwing it against the wall. It lands between a child’s stick-figure drawing of her complete family before raining down in plastic shards. The sound cuts off as abruptly as it started, leaving us in silence thick enough to choke on. But I know there will be more. Cassie's playing us like a symphony, each scream and sob a note designed to drive me closer to the edge.

“Jesus,” Ethan breathes. “That's seriously your kid torturing Layla? Because she sounds like she's gunning for Supervillain of the Year and—” He stumbles back when I turn to face him. “Right. Sorry. Not helping. I just—I’m really worried about Layla.”

I force my attention back to the paper, adding details in quick, savage strokes from a red crayon this time. “The original building was a bank. Pre-Prohibition. Which means...”

“Secret tunnels?” Ethan perks up. “Like for smuggling booze?”

“Like for moving money. And now probably moving other things.” I sketch in the likely routes, the paths I would use if I were setting up a criminal empire. “Cassie wouldn't waste timemonitoring standard entrances. She's waiting for us to find the real way in.”

“So her name is Cassie. And it's definitely a trap.”

“Yes.”

“And we're going in anyway.”

“Yes.”

Ethan slumps into the tiny chair, his knees hovering near his ears. “Cool. Cool, cool, cool. Just wanted to make sure we're on the same suicidal page here.” He pushes his glasses up, smearing the sweat on his face. “Should I ask why Cassie's doing this? The whole torture-via-surround-sound thing?”

I drop the remnants of the red crayon from inside my fist. The lines on the paper have gone jagged, the potential secret tunnels looking more like slashes from a butcher knife.

“She wants me to suffer.” My statement comes out low and hoarse, scraped raw, though I haven’t been shouting. “And she knows the best way to do that is to make Layla suffer in my place.”

Ethan goes still. “That’s messed up.”

I turn away, but not before catching the shift in his expression. The hint of sympathy, of pity. It burns like acid on my skin. I haven't done anything to deserve it. Not after the things I've done. The things that led Cassie to this point.

“You're carrying extra gear,” I note, watching Ethan open a backpack beside him and pull out a tablet. “Destroy it.”

“But what if—” He catches my look and sighs, flicking a switch on the side of the tablet. “I'm keeping the tablet, but I’ll make sure it’s on silent. If Cassie’s in the system, maybe I can...” His fingers drum against the device. “Maybe I can track her signal or at least figure out which servers she's using.”

I turn back to the crude map, memorizing the likely tunnel routes. “You think you can out-code my daughter?”

“I think...” Ethan’s throat bobs. “I think Layla needs every advantage we can give her.”

The honest concern in his voice hits harder than it should. I've spent years building walls, learning to shut out everything but vengeance. But Ethan's humanity keeps finding cracks, seeping through like water around stone.

“Tell me about the security systems,” I say, changing the subject. “What did you notice when you had it up on your laptop?”

“Standard stuff on the surface. Cameras, motion sensors, key card readers.” He pushes his glasses up again, a nervous tic I'm starting to recognize. “But there were blind spots. Big ones. Like they wanted to look secure without actually watching certain areas.”

“Makes sense for a front operation.” I trace one of the theoretical tunnel routes. “They'd need ways to move product without documentation.”

“Product?” Ethan's voice cracks. “You mean people? Are they—” He looks green. “Never mind. I don't want to know.”

A phone starts ringing somewhere upstairs. We both tense, but it's just a standard landline. Still, Ethan's hands shake as he slips the tablet back into his pack.

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