The Broken Legacy of a Protective Mother and a Shadowed Empire
The coldness of the water seeped through my leather boots, numbing my toes.
Behind us, the grinding sound suddenly stopped.
It was replaced by a heavy splash.
Someone had dropped down from the hatch.
“They’re in,” Sullivan gasped, looking back over his shoulder.
“Don’t look back,” I said. “Just run.”
We rounded a sharp curve in the brick wall.
The tunnel split into two separate paths.
The path on the right was dry but narrow, barely wide enough for a person to walk through sideways.
The path on the left was wider, but the water was deeper and flowing faster.
“Which one?” Sullivan asked.
I shined my light down both paths.
The right path seemed to go upward, away from the river.
The left path had a faint, grey light at the very end of it.
“The left,” I said. “That leads to the water.”
Before we could take a step, a bright beam of light cut through the darkness of the left tunnel.
It did not come from behind us.
It came from the exit ahead.
“Stop right there!” a voice shouted from the end of the left tunnel.