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"Found you."
I spun around and Lane's fist caught me across the jaw. I hit the concrete wall hard enough to taste copper.
"Thought you could hide?" Lane stepped into the corridor light. Six-four, built like a freight truck, with a pipe wrench in one hand. "System marked you, Kane. Every loop veteran got the ping."
I wiped blood off my lip. "What ping?"
"New meat who died twice in six hours." He slapped the wrench against his palm. "That makes you either stupid or dangerous. Either way, you're worth two kills on my counter."
I backed up. The corridor dead-ended ten feet behind me. "Two?"
"Bonus for marked targets." Lane grinned. "I need one more to hit three. Then the door opens, and I'm gone."
He came at me fast.
I ducked under the wrench and drove my elbow into his ribs. Might as well have hit a concrete pillar. Lane grabbed my collar and slammed me into the wall again. Stars burst across my vision.
"You got spec ops training," Lane said. "I can tell. But this ain't Afghanistan, Kane. This is my house."
He raised the wrench.
Gunshot.
Lane jerked sideways. A hole appeared in his shoulder, blood spraying across the gray concrete.
"Drop him," Ada said.
She stood at the corridor junction, twenty feet out, holding a makeshift pistol. Looked like pipe, tape, and a shotgun shell. Still smoking.
"Frost." Lane let me go but didn't drop the wrench. "You want in on this? We can split the bonus."
"I don't split," Ada said.
"Then you just made a mistake." Lane turned toward her. "That's a one-shot piece. I can see the burn pattern. You got nothing left."
Ada smiled. "Who said I only made one?"
She pulled a second pipe gun from her belt.
Lane looked at me, then at her, then laughed. "You two deserve each other."
He charged her.
Ada fired. Missed. Lane was already moving, zigzagging, using the wrench as a shield. He covered twenty feet in three seconds.
I ran after him.
Ada tried to backpedal but Lane was faster. He swung the wrench in a wide arc. Ada ducked, but the wrench caught her second gun and sent it clattering down the hall.
"Now we're even," Lane said.
He grabbed Ada by the throat and lifted her off the ground.
I hit him from behind, full tackle, all my weight into his lower back. We went down in a tangle of limbs. The wrench skittered away. Lane rolled and came up on top of me, one hand reaching for my throat.
Ada kicked him in the temple.
Lane's head snapped sideways. He fell off me, dazed but still moving. I scrambled for the wrench, got my hand around it just as Lane lunged for Ada again.
I swung.
The wrench connected with Lane's knee. Something crunched. Lane screamed and went down hard.
"Finish it," Ada said. She was breathing hard, one hand on her throat where Lane had grabbed her. "Three seconds and he's back up."
I looked at the wrench. At Lane, trying to push himself up with one good leg. At Ada, watching me with those cold gray eyes.
"Do it," she said. "Or he kills us both next loop."
"I'm not a murderer," I said.
Ada laughed. Sharp, bitter. "Yeah? Then why are you on death row?"
Lane grabbed my ankle.
I brought the wrench down on his hand. Bones cracked. Lane howled and let go.
"Victor." Ada's voice cut through the noise. "You died twice because you don't understand the rules. This place doesn't care about your moral line. You kill or you get killed. That's it."
"She's right," Lane gasped. Blood ran from his mouth. "You think you're different? You think you're gonna find some clean way out?"
I stepped back. "There has to be another way."
"There isn't," Ada said. She picked up one of the pipe guns, checked it. Empty. She tossed it aside and walked over to Lane. "He's got a shiv. Left boot."
She was right. Lane had a filed-down piece of rebar strapped to his calf.
Ada pulled it free. "You want to live, you do what needs doing."
She offered me the shiv.
I didn't take it.
"Then get out of my way," Ada said.
She knelt down next to Lane.
"Wait," I said.
Ada looked up at me. "Why?"
"Because if you kill him, you're at three. The door opens. You leave."
"That's the idea."
"And I'm still stuck here," I said. "Marked. With every other veteran hunting me."
Ada stood up slowly. "So?"
"So you need me."
"I really don't."
"You do." I met her eyes. "You've been through twelve loops and you still don't know what's behind that door. You don't know if it's really an exit or just another trap. But you know this place changes every time. You know the rules shift."
Ada said nothing.
"What if the door only stays open for ten seconds?" I said. "What if there's something on the other side that needs two people to kill? What if—"
"What if you're just stalling?" Ada said.
Lane coughed. Blood bubbled at his lips. "She's... already decided... Kane. Frost doesn't... share."
"Shut up," Ada said. But she didn't move.
"I can help you," I said. "I've got combat training. I've got skills you don't. And I've only been marked, not killed. That means I can still move around without every veteran in this place hunting me."
"For now," Ada said.
"For now," I agreed. "But that's more than you'll have if you kill Lane and go through that door alone."
Ada studied me for a long moment. Then she looked down at Lane. "What do you think, Butcher? Should I trust him?"
Lane smiled through bloody teeth. "Doesn't matter... what I think."
"True," Ada said.
She drove the shiv into his throat.
Lane gurgled once, twice, then went still. The light faded from his eyes.
"Jesus," I said.
Ada stood up, wiping the shiv on her pants. "That's two for me. I need one more."
She looked at me.
I took a step back. "We had a deal."
"We had a conversation," Ada said. "I didn't agree to anything."
She moved toward me.
I raised the wrench. "Don't."
"You won't use that," Ada said. "You just said you're not a murderer."
"I'll defend myself."
"Will you?" Ada stopped three feet away. Close enough that I could see the pulse in her throat, the way her pupils had dilated. "Or will you hesitate, like you just did, and I'll put this shiv in your gut?"
We stood there, two predators in a concrete cage, each waiting for the other to move.
Then Lane laughed.
We both looked down. Lane was dead. No question. But his chest was still moving. His mouth opened.
"Finally," Lane's corpse said. Except it wasn't Lane's voice anymore. It was something else. Something cold and mechanical and old. "I was wondering when you two would stop playing."
Ada's face went white. "That's not possible."
"Instance-00003 has concluded," the voice said through Lane's ruined throat. "Survival metrics recorded. Adaptive responses noted. Initiating Warden Protocol."
The lights in the corridor flickered.
Somewhere deep in the prison, something massive began to move.
"The real warden," Lane's corpse said, and smiled with teeth that were suddenly too many and too sharp, "just woke up."