Ox wraps a massive hand around one of the beams, his knuckles bruised and raw. “You don’t understand, Annah. We need you! The Sanctuary will fail without you and Catcher. They’ll all die.” He tugs at the metal, picking apart the debris, and I kick at the pile again, shifting the rocks to narrow the gaps he’s creating.

Behind them shapes flicker, deeper grays in the black darkness. The dead. My heart stutters and then races. I step back again, the light cast over the Recruiters growing weaker.

“You should have thought of that before,” I shout at him. The two other men start pulling at the boulders, and they’re so much stronger than I am that it won’t be long before they’ve dug a way through.

Not that they have much time before the Unconsecrated will overwhelm them.

I start running. “I know these tunnels,” I yell back at him, following the curve of the tracks as they meet with another set. I stumble over the metal rails but manage to catch myself. “You won’t find me!” It’s a lie but he doesn’t have to know.

My muscles have already cooled and they pull and strain as I run harder, gasping for air. I don’t care about the pain. I can live with that if I can get distance. I need to lose them.

I know the smartest thing would be for me to drop the lantern, that it must be easy for them to follow the light, but then I’d be blind. Every time I tripped they’d draw closer. Every time I had to hesitate over my footing, they’d gain on me.

Besides, I’m not that desperate. Yet.

I lose sense of everything in the almost-darkness: who I am, where I’ve been, how much time I’ve been down here. I just run: one step illuminated, then the next, and always the moans and Ox’s shouting behind, constant, grating.

I think about pressing myself into a crack in the wall and holding my machete tight, waiting for Ox to thunder past and then striking. I’d slice along the back of his leg first, nicking the tendons and hobbling him. Then I’d kick him onto his face and make the final blow against the back of his neck.

My own vicious thoughts make me shudder. Could I really do that? Take his life?

He deserves it, of that I’m sure. But as I run I think about the sound of Catcher’s blade slicing through Conall’s spine.

It was murder. A brutality that still weakens me. Because where do I go when I cross that line? I’m not ready to make such a decision, and so instead I keep careening into the darkness, since as long as I’m moving I’m still safe.

Or at least, that’s the illusion I promise myself.