“So how are you getting inside, exactly?” I asked as he drove the vehicle up the long dirt road and headed toward a garage. Elnos and I had observed a surprising number of people coming and going from this seemingly unimportant structure, so we had already suspected that it held the entrance to the bunker. But with no way to breach the wards, our theory had been impossible to confirm.

“Watch and learn.”

“Good evening, Captain,” a guard said as he approached the running vehicle. I half expected him to salute, but he didn’t, likely because they were keeping up appearances around here.

“Good evening,” Rylan replied, and the two launched into a brief conversation. The guard pulled a small remote and pressed a button, and the garage door rolled up on well-oiled hinges, exposing around a dozen vehicles—mostly industrial—that sat within. Rylan guided the car inside, and parked it in one of the spots set alongside the left wall. I looked around as best as I could through his eyes as he got out of the car, but didn’t see anything suspicious—it looked like a regular company garage.

Rylan pulled out the captain’s key ring as he headed to the back wall of the garage. He stopped in front of an unmarked grey door, then tried several of the keys on the ring. The third one worked, and the door revealed a dimly lit stairwell that shot steeply beneath the ground.

“So that’s where they’ve hidden the entrance,” I mused as Rylan descended, closing the door firmly behind him.

“I always hated this part,” Rylan admitted as descended the stairs. “It feels like I’m on my way to hell.”

“Maybe you are, for what you’ve done.”

“Ha-ha.” He didn’t sound amused. “At least I’m by myself. It’s worse when you’ve got people behind you. If someone stumbles and bumps into you, or pushes you intentionally, you’ll go bouncing down this thing and break every bone in your body along the way.”

“Ouch,” I said, rubbing my left arm as I imagined crashing down this set of endless stairs. Yes, shifters could heal, but that amount of damage could be debilitating. Because we healed so quickly, our bones had to be set fast if we didn’t have the energy to shift. Otherwise, they healed incorrectly, and could leave us crippled unless they were broken and reset again. I’d witnessed such things myself, and it was not pretty.

It took some ten minutes for Rylan to reach the bottom of the stairwell. Toward the end, the tunnel grew brighter, light from the landing filtering upward. Four Resistance soldiers waited there, dressed in full Resistance uniform, their red armbands proudly displayed. Down here, there was no need to hide their true colors. They also carried pistols in addition to the swords strapped at their belts.