THE CELL DOOR

​POV: Jarrah

​The air in Kilsyth Manor's lower catacombs didn't just smell like ancient stone and damp earth; it tasted like rust and cheap sulfur. Every breath I pulled into my lungs burned, raw and laced with the sharp, metallic tang of cold iron.

​My boot heels slammed against the uneven flagstones, each stride vibrating up my spine. The subterranean corridor stretched out before me, a narrow throat of jagged rock lit only by the sickly orange glow of emergency strip lighting mounted low against the floor. Up ahead, three flights up, the rest of the world was falling apart, but down here in the dark, time felt frozen, twisted, and suffocating.

​Where is she?

​The thought pounded behind my eyes like a hammer on an anvil. My pulse roared in my ears, drowning out the muffled thud of structural tremors vibrating through the cavern walls. I tightened my grip on the heavy-gauge pump-action shotgun in my hands, the textured grip slick beneath my calloused palm.

​Crack.

​The sound echoed down the damp vault, sharp, dry, and terrifyingly distinct.

​A gunshot.

​My heart spiked into my throat. The world shrank until all that existed was the heavy oak and steel door at the end of the corridor, labeled only by a tarnished bronze plate: Cell 4.

​"Malia!" The name tore out of my throat, ragged and wild.

​I didn't stop to think. I didn't check for tripwires or guard sightlines. I hit the final stretch of stone at a dead sprint, raising the stock of the shotgun to my cheek in one fluid, instinctual motion. Through the heavy iron grate set into the door, I couldn't see anything except flickers of shadow against stone.

​I slammed my shoulder against the wall opposite the door frame to brace myself, lined up the barrel directly with the heavy reinforced steel hinges, and pulled the trigger.

​BOOM.

​The roar of the 12-gauge blast blew through the narrow space like a physical force. Sparks showered across the flagstones, blinding white against the darkness. Shredded metal and splintered steel rained down around my boots. Before the smoke could even clear, I swung back, chambered another shell with a heavy, mechanical rack, lined up the lower hinge, and fired again.

​BOOM.

​The solid steel frame shrieked in protest, the latch shearing away in a cloud of dust and molten iron. I dropped the weapon's barrel, raised my right leg, and kicked the heavy door inward with everything I had.

​The door buckled, tearing completely off its ruined mounting, and crashed onto the stone floor of the cell with a deafening thud that sent dust rising in choking clouds.

​I rushed through the doorway, shotgun raised, eyes scanning the dim chamber, ready to tear apart whatever was inside.

​Then I stopped.

​My breath caught in my chest, locking up my ribs so tight I couldn't pull air.

​The cell was small, a brutalist box of cold, unpainted concrete. But I didn't see the concrete. I only saw her.

​Malia was standing in the center of the room, her silhouette framed by the harsh overhead bulb. She was trembling not with fear, but with an agonizing, body-wracking exhaustion. Her bare feet were caked in gray dirt and dried blood. Her wrists were heavy with thick iron cuffs, the skin beneath them torn, raw, and bleeding onto her forearms.

​And in her hands, locked in a white-knuckled, two-handed grip, was a blued steel revolver. Smoke was still curling lazily from the tip of the barrel, drifting up toward the low ceiling.

​At her feet lay Alastair.

​He was sprawled sideways against the base of the far wall, clutching his shoulder where dark, rich crimson was rapidly soaking through his tailored linen jacket. He was gasping, his face twisted in a mixture of disbelief and pure malice, his teeth stained pink as he choked on his own rage.

​Malia didn't drop the gun. She didn't look down at him. Her eyes were fixed squarely on the shattered doorway, on me.

​Her chest heaved. A single tear cut a clean line through the grime on her cheek, but her dark eyes were fierce, blazing with a terrifying, beautiful resilience that made my knees feel weak. She had fought. She had survived.

​"Jarrah..." Her voice was barely a whisper, broken and raspy from thirst and scream-raw vocal cords.

​My throat tightened so hard it hurt to swallow. Every violent instinct that had carried me down into this pit melted away, replaced by an overwhelming, agonizing ache. I lowered the shotgun, taking a cautious, unsteady step toward her, afraid that if I moved too fast, she might break or worse, that she was just a phantom born of my panicked mind.

​"I'm here," I rasped, my voice thick with emotion I couldn't hide. "I'm right here, Malia."

​She swallowed hard, her eyes locking onto mine, the smoking gun lowering an inch as the sheer weight of what she had done seemed to hit her all at once. The tension between us was suffocating, a wire pulled so taut it threatened to snap us both in half.

​Then, from the floor below her, a guttural laugh rasped out.

​Alastair's mouth curled into a bloody, ruinous sneer. His right hand, slick with his own blood, wasn't clutching his wound anymore. It was sliding stealthily, inch by painful inch, across the damp concrete toward a small black box mounted low against the skirting board: a recessed, steel-encased detonator switch.

​"You think... you've won?" Alastair spat, his fingers hovering inches from the red toggle.