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"Stop running, little rat."
The blade punched into the wall beside my head.
I flattened myself against the metal and bared my teeth. They were still too small to look threatening. Great. Very useful. I had the body of a starving trash mob, the strength of a kicked mop, and a hunter with a sword trying to turn me into floor paste.
"You missed," I said.
The hunter yanked his blade free. "I was aiming to scare you."
"Then aim better."
He kicked the wall.
The whole tunnel shook. My claws slipped on the damp metal, and I dropped onto the narrow ledge below. The hunter leaned over the edge, his boots scraping against the grate.
"There you are."
I ran.
A red line flashed across the tunnel ahead. The dungeon's lockdown seal. It had appeared three seconds ago, right after Vera's voice came through every monitor in the maintenance wing.
Lockdown active.
Gates closed.
Erase timer: 08:41.
Not exactly comforting.
I skidded before the glowing line and spun around. The hunter was climbing down after me, one hand on the ledge, the other holding his sword low.
He was tall enough to make the tunnel feel smaller. Black armor. Gray cloak. A silver mask covering the left side of his face. Blood ran from the edge of the mask and disappeared under his collar.
Kane Draker.
Top delver. Professional monster killer. The man who had nearly killed me twice this week.
"You really should stop chasing me," I said.
Kane dropped from the ledge. His boots hit the grate hard enough to rattle my bones.
"You really should stop stealing from things that can kill you."
"That describes most of my life now."
His eyes narrowed. "What did you take?"
I backed toward the lockdown seal. The red line burned against my fur without touching me. Behind it waited a sealed maintenance shaft. Beyond that, I had no idea. Maybe an exit. Maybe another mouth full of teeth.
Kane took one step closer.
"Show me your hands."
I laughed. "I have paws."
"Show me them."
"No."
His jaw tightened. "Jessa."
Hearing my name in that voice did something stupid to my heartbeat. It was low and rough, like he had been saying it for a while and hated that he knew it mattered.
I lifted both tiny paws. A black shard sat between my claws. It pulsed once.
Kane's sword came up.
"Put it down."
"You first."
"You don't understand what that is."
"Then explain it before you stab me."
"I don't have time."
"Neither do I. Look." I jerked my chin toward the red timer floating above the tunnel. "The dungeon is deleting me in eight minutes. You can either keep trying to kill me, or you can tell me why Vera wants me gone so badly."
Kane glanced at the timer.
That was all I needed.
I threw the shard at his face.
He moved faster than a man that size had any right to move. His shoulder twisted. The shard missed his eye and struck the wall behind him.
The wall opened.
Not cracked. Not broke. Opened.
A round black hatch swallowed the shard, then snapped shut.
Every light in the tunnel went out.
Kane grabbed me before I could run.
His hand closed around my middle. Warm glove. Hard fingers. No room to squirm. He lifted me until my claws scraped uselessly against his breastplate.
"You just fed the dungeon a key," he said.
"You just grabbed me. We're both having a bad night."
He brought me close enough that I felt his breath against my ear. "If that key wakes the lower gates, everything in this wing comes up."
"Then put me down."
"No."
"Kane."
"Don't use my name like it gives you leverage."
I twisted and drove my elbow into the gap beneath his armor.
He grunted and loosened his grip.
I hit the floor, rolled, and sprinted through the dark.
Behind me, Kane swore.
Good. At least one thing was going my way.
I followed the faint blue marks painted along the floor. The dungeon used them for maintenance mobs. I had learned that by dying in three different corridors and watching the same janitor creatures get dragged away from the traps.
The marks led to a split in the tunnel.
Left: a narrow shaft with a broken gate.
Right: a wide passage with fresh blood on the floor.
I stopped.
Kane landed behind me again.
"Left," he said.
"That was fast."
"Right is a dead end."
"You say that like you haven't killed me in one before."
His eyes dropped to my back. "You remember that?"
I turned my head. "I remember all of it."
For half a second, his expression changed. Not fear. Not exactly. His fingers tightened around the sword hilt.
"How many times?" he asked.
"Enough to know you always favor your right knee before you strike."
"You're lying."
"Then test it."
He stepped toward me.
The tunnel behind him groaned. Something scraped across the far side of the walls. Slow. Heavy. Too many claws.
Kane looked over his shoulder.
The sound came again.
"Left," he said. This time, it wasn't an order. It was a warning.
I ran left.
He followed.
The broken gate slammed down behind us just as a shape hit it from the other side. Metal bent inward. A pale hand pushed through the gap. Then another.
Kane shoved me behind him.
"Stay there."
"You don't get to order me around."
"You want to argue, or do you want to live?"
"Both."
He planted his feet and raised his sword.
The creature on the other side shrieked. The sound punched through my skull. Kane struck through the gap. Once. Twice. A third time.
The hand vanished.
The gate shook again.
Kane grabbed my arm and pulled me deeper into the shaft.
His glove slid from my wrist to my palm. Even through the fabric, I felt the heat of him. My claws caught against the seams of his glove.
He looked down at our hands.
Then he let go.
Too late. I had felt the hesitation.
"What?" I asked.
"Nothing."
"You looked nervous."
"I don't get nervous."
"Sure. You just bleed and lie. Very different."
He pressed one finger to his lips.
A monitor flickered on above us.
Vera's face appeared in the blue light. Perfect hair. Perfect smile. Not a single mark on her face, even though the dungeon was shaking around her.
"There you are," she said. "I was beginning to worry."
Kane lifted his sword toward the screen. "Open the exit."
Vera smiled wider. "Still giving orders, Kane? That's cute."
"Open it."
"I can open it for one person."
My stomach tightened.
Kane looked at me.
Vera tilted her head. "Choose carefully. The little thing has only four minutes left before the Maw clears her from its records. If she disappears, your contract loses its last living witness."
Kane's face went still.
I stared at the monitor. "Living witness to what?"
"Ask your hunter."
"I asked you."
"And I gave you a better question."
Kane stepped between me and the screen. "Vera, stop talking."
"Why? She should know what you're protecting."
I moved around him. "What am I protecting?"
"Not you," Vera said. "You're the thing being protected. That's the problem."
The monitor flashed. A second image appeared beside Vera's face.
A map of the maintenance wing.
Several red dots moved toward us.
The creature behind the gate was not alone.
Kane's hand closed around my shoulder. "We're leaving."
"She said one person gets out."
"I heard her."
"So which one of us dies?"
His gaze dropped to my mouth for one sharp second. Then it snapped back to my eyes.
"You talk too much."
"You avoid simple questions."
He leaned close. His armor pressed against my chest. I could feel his breath, warm against the top of my head, and the faint metallic smell of blood under his collar.
"If I choose you," he murmured, "Vera gets what she wants. If I choose myself, you die."
"That sounds like your problem."
"It becomes yours when the door closes."
"Then don't let it close."
For the first time, Kane looked genuinely angry. Not at Vera. At me.
"You think this is a game because you keep coming back."
My claws curled. "You think I asked for it?"
"I think you know more than you're saying."
"And I think you know why I'm stuck here."
His hand rose.
I flinched before I could stop myself.
He didn't strike me. His fingers stopped beside my face, close enough for the warmth of his skin to reach me through the cold air. His eyes followed the motion.
"You remember every death," he said.
"Yes."
"Then remember this one."
He turned and slammed his fist into the monitor.
The screen shattered. Vera's image broke into white lines.
Her voice continued through the speakers.
"Kane, if you damage another relay, I will trigger the purge early."
He pulled a metal plate from the wall. Behind it sat a black lever.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"Making my own exit."
"You said we were leaving."
"I said we're leaving. I didn't say together."
He yanked the lever.
The floor dropped under us.
I fell with a squeak that I refused to call a scream. Kane caught the back of my torn shirt with one hand. My body swung over a vertical shaft, claws scraping empty air.
Below us, something moved.
A dozen pale eyes opened in the dark.
"Kane!"
"Stop kicking."
"Stop dropping me!"
"I'm not dropping you."
"Your grip says otherwise!"
His arm shook. Blood spread across his glove from a cut along his palm.
The shaft walls began to close.
Kane reached for the opposite ledge and missed by inches.
"Give me the shard," he said.
"I don't have it."
"You threw it into the wall."
"The dungeon ate it."
"Then make it give it back."
"Oh, sure. I'll ask nicely."
The walls pressed closer. Stone scraped against Kane's armor. His grip slipped another inch.
The eyes below rose with the sound of wet claws against rock.
Kane looked down at me. "Jessa."
"What?"
"When I tell you to jump, jump."
"Where?"
"At the wall."
"That wall is closing."
"I know."
"You're insane."
"You're alive."
"Barely!"
His mouth pulled into something that wasn't quite a smile. "Still counts."
The shaft snapped shut behind my back.
Kane swung me upward and threw me toward the left wall.
I hit a narrow opening and landed hard. My claws caught the edge. Kane grabbed the ledge with his free hand and pulled himself after me.
The walls slammed together beneath us.
The pale-eyed creatures vanished into the stone.
For one second, neither of us moved.
Then the tunnel ahead opened into a huge chamber.
A dozen dead screens hung from the ceiling. Chains crossed the floor. Rows of metal doors lined the walls, each one stamped with a number and a red warning mark.
At the far end stood a machine shaped like a crooked iron mouth.
The janitor's station.
I knew it from the marks on the floor. Every trash mob that entered this room came out changed. Smaller. Faster. Meaner.
Or didn't come out at all.
Vera's voice crackled from the ceiling.
"Welcome to the sorting room."
Kane pushed himself upright. "Show yourself."
"I don't need to. The Maw sees for me."
The screens flashed on.
Every one showed the same image: me, small and filthy, standing beside Kane.
Then the image changed.
A timer appeared.
00:59.
"One minute," Vera said. "Tell me what you remember, Jessa. Tell me who sent you into the Maw. Tell me why Kane's mark is inside your core."
Kane went silent.
I looked up at him. "His mark?"
"Don't listen to her."
"That wasn't a no."
"Jessa."
"Why is your mark inside me?"
He crossed the space between us in two steps and caught me by the scruff of my shirt. He didn't hurt me, but he lifted me until our faces were level.
His breath touched my cheek.
"Because you were supposed to stay dead," he said.
The words landed harder than the fall.
"You knew?"
"I suspected."
"You killed me."
"I killed the thing wearing your face."
"It was me!"
"No."
The red timer dropped to thirty seconds.
The chamber doors began unlocking one by one.
Metal clicked.
Kane set me down but kept his hand around my wrist. His pulse beat fast beneath my claws.
"When the doors open," he said, "you run to the iron mouth."
"Why?"
"Because it hides your signal."
"And you?"
"I draw them away."
"You can't even stand straight."
"I didn't ask for an assessment."
"You don't get to throw yourself away and call it a plan."
His eyes locked onto mine.
For once, he didn't look like a hunter. He looked tired. Cornered. Human enough to scare me.
"You want to live?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Then trust me for ten seconds."
"I don't trust you."
"Good. Keep that. Just move when I say."
The first door burst open.
Something tall stepped out, dragging a hooked blade across the floor.
The second door opened.
Then the third.
Kane shoved me behind him and raised his sword.
"Now!"
I ran for the iron mouth.
A creature lunged from the side.
Kane intercepted it. Steel flashed. The impact threw him into the wall.
"Kane!"
"Keep moving!"
The chamber filled with shrieks and pounding feet.
I reached the machine and jammed my claws into the control slot. The metal burned. A blue symbol lit beneath my paws, then rejected me with a hard pulse.
No access.
The doors behind me opened wider.
Kane shouted something I couldn't hear.
I pulled the bent cleaning hook from the machine's side. It was longer than my whole body, but the handle fit across my back.
The nearest creature charged.
I swung.
The hook smashed into its chest and knocked it sideways. It hit the wall hard enough to crack the old stone.
The impact shook the machine.
The blue symbol changed.
Access granted.
For half a second, I thought the iron mouth had opened.
Instead, the wall behind it split down the middle.
Kane appeared on the other side.
He was on one knee, one hand pressed to his side. Blood soaked through his armor. His sword lay several feet away.
He looked up at me.
"Jessa, don't—"
I swung the hook again.
The metal head smashed through the broken wall.
It hit the other side.
It hit Kane.
His body jerked. The hook tore free, and he crashed backward onto the stone, blood bright against his armor.
Behind him, the passage filled with approaching footsteps.
Kane tried to push himself up. Failed. His eyes found mine through the jagged hole.
"Run," he rasped. "If you stay, they take us both, and—"