Page 25 of Shadow's Chosen

"Just be glad it was one of the kids." Someone laughed.

Nezka paused at the end of the passage to look out. Elise couldn't see much with his back in the way, but she did make out the flicker of a light and a pair of shadows moving along the far wall of the tunnel.

"I'm sick of this shit, for real. There's no point being down here, Kodi. No one's gonna walk this."

"Lady Moth said to be on the lookout for those that might try coming along."

"Then why is it just the two of us patrolling? Rio, that ass, should have sent more of us down."

"You think we can't handle a couple of soldiers? Assuming any of them actually made it out when the gate got seized and the tunnel broke."

"I heard some got out. You never know."

Nezka put up his hand for her to wait. Then, slowly, he clicked off the light on his gun and snuck out of the passage, disappearing into the dark corners of the railway tunnel. Elise looked out from the end of the passage and saw, not far down the way, two drogin men wearing the same gear as those who had attacked them at the first gate, the large X's across their chests glowed red. Funny, despite their namesake, they didn't wield blades or knives of any sort. They instead had their guns drawn, not bothering to keep a close watch of their surroundings; talking with their backs turned as they stood on the edge of a platform.

"I think we should just go," one said. "Nothing is gonna come this way. And if they do, Moki will probably be awake. I don't wanna stick around if he is."

Nezka snuck onto the platform with a blade now in hand and was on them before they could even so much as shout or aim their guns. With lightning quick movement, he cut them down. One from the back then the other in the same fashion. They went down before their faces could even portray shock. Nezka didn't hesitate. He kicked the guns onto the tracks and began rifling through their pockets.

Elise, feeling it was probably safe for her to approach, did so. As she came to the platform, she eyed the guns at her feet. They were too big, unfortunately, to fit in their bags, and carrying them would be a pain as they required both hands to hold them properly. She picked one up and found them to be rather heavy as well. When she held one up and aimed, she found the trigger was locked.

"They won't work for us. They've been programmed to be only of use to those to which they were assigned. A security measure. I've seen it before," Nezka explained.

"Great." Elise dropped the gun back on the ground. "Find anything useful?"

"No." He stood straight but continued to eye them curiously. Then he placed his bag down and started pulling out a few scraps of clothing and flinging them to the side. "Actually, these masks could be useful."

By masks he meant the ventilators she'd seen the men wearing at the attack to keep smoke and ash out of their lungs. Probably used when they set off smoke bombs and the like. They were large and covered the whole lower half of their faces. Nezka stuffed the pair into his bag then threw it back over his shoulder. As he dropped down, Elise started forward to join him when she felt something squishy under her foot. She looked down and saw a tentacle. As her eyes followed it, she found it attached to a squid-like creature with several eyes. She cursed and jumped back, but the creature didn't move. It was clearly dead.

"Gross," she said, shaking the slime off her boot. Nezka came over and studied it, moving the creature with his foot. "What is it?" Elise asked, as if he would know.

Nezka didn't speak, only stared down at it. He closed his eyes and rubbed a hand along his forehead then looked back at her. "Let's keeping moving."

Confused, Elise gave the creature one last glance-over before following Nezka into the next tunnelway.

They passed the gate now, at least. But what little excitement she felt in that was overpowered by the growing sense of urgency to get out of the tunnels. Though she found it hard to know what Nezka was truly thinking or feeling, something in his walk and the way he stopped every so often to look around or to perhaps listen put her on edge. She found herself looking over her shoulder more than once and pointing her gun at everything that made the smallest bit of noise.

Despite her tension, nothing met them in the darkness, and after nearly a mile and a half of walking, she started to ease up, thinking maybe they wouldn't see anything after all, that they would pass through undetected.

But the smell didn't fade, and soon they were seeing signs of animal markings, or at least Nezka identified them as such. Slick black marks along the walls and cracks in the roof were clearly made by something Elise had no desire to meet. A really big something. But she knew they were too far deep now to turn back. She could only hope the hunter would steer them away.

Eventually, they came to their first dead end—a caved-in tunnel—and Elise could see the hunter was debating what to do.

"We could turn back and just find another route," Elise said after a moment. "I'm sure one would take us close, in the direction we need to go." Nezka pulled up the map. Elise drew up beside him to look over his arm. "Ah, see there,"—Elise pointed to another tunnel close by, only a little out of their way— "we take the service tunnel from there and head toward the central hub."

Nezka didn't say anything as he closed out the map. He turned and moved out of the now blocked tunnel, walking back the way they came. "We head south," he said.

Elise stopped. "South?" She hurried to catch up with him. "But that's way out of our path."

"It will be better."

"How?"

"Trust me."

Glaring at his back, she kept quiet, telling herself it was better not to argue, that he knew something she didn't, though she would've liked to have been in the know also. They picked up speed to gain back the time they had lost, but once they traveled down the service tunnel and came to a fork, Nezka stopped, and Elise thought she heard him murmur something low in his own tongue. Before she could even ask, she heard the voices and saw lights flickering around the curve of the south tunnel.

"Looks like they found their buddies," Elise said. "Guess we're headed to the central hub after all." She started for the north tunnel but Nezka didn't move. "Are you coming or not?"

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