Ty is down there. I will get to him. I’m not dead yet.

I sink back into myself. I test out my senses slowly, one at a time. Touch: I’m on a rough wooden surface, pocked and dented. Sight: A dim, flickering yellow bulb illuminates an earthen ceiling crisscrossed by support beams. To the side is a row of gaping open-air windows overlooking a larger pitch-black cavern. Sound: That never really went away, but at least now I can think clearly enough to name the person who’s been speaking. The one who dragged me out of the collapsing tunnel and carried me here.

“Ackermann,” I cough, “I formally request a stay of execution. I’m in far too much pain for you to kill me right now.”

The hands at my wrist tighten a little, then release me. “I’ll take that under advisement,” he says. There’s something incredibly tired about his voice. I wonder if it’s from my situation, or seeing his mother again, or both.

I ease up onto my elbows, open my eyes, and find him. He’s standing at my right side. His clothing is soaked, his hair plastered to his face, his expression haunted. And that’s not even taking into account the dark blue bruise spreading over his cheekbone from our fight in the clearing. “You look like shit,” I note.

He summons up something akin to a glare. “You try swimming through a flooded storm drain with half a dozen cops on your ass.”

I wave him off. “I got you here, didn’t I?”

Here is, of course, my loft. It’s hidden right beneath the city, its entrance tucked away behind an elevator shaft. The flickering light overhead is powered by a generator that I traded for in one of my deals. I’m lying atop my battered old desk. All of the things that used to be on its surface—a few sheets of precious, stolen paper, a covered hand mirror for emergency defense, and a picture of Ty and me in a haphazardly glued, homemade wooden frame—are scattered across the floor. My sleeping bag sits off by itself in a corner, rolled up to keep the spiders out.

“Yes, you did,” Elliott answers, “and now you owe me an explanation.”

His words cue up a flood of memory, and I jerk upright. “The transmitter,” I say urgently, looking down at my empty hands. “The transmitter, holy shit, tell me you saved it from the cave-in.”

Elliott gestures to the side, at the stairs that lead down into the darkness of the empty cavern below. Sitting on the landing, looking a little banged up but with its red lights still glowing steadily, is the transmitter. I sag in relief.