The red light on the remote began to blink, faster and faster.

“Press it,” Gianni spat, blood bubbling at the corner of his mouth. “Press it and we all stay here.”

I tried to pull my leg free, but his grip was like a iron vise.

Matteo lunged out of the darkness.

His boot came down hard on Gianni’s wrist, snapping the bone with a dry crack.

The remote slipped from Gianni’s fingers and rolled into the dirt.

Matteo kicked it into the darkness of the collapsed tunnel.

Gianni let out a sharp, wet groan and went limp.

“Can you walk?” Matteo grabbed my elbow, pulling me to my feet.

My knees trembled, but I nodded.

“We have to go, now,” he said, his voice tense and low.

“Is he dead?” I asked, looking down at Gianni.

“It doesn’t matter,” Matteo said, dragging me toward a narrow crevice in the broken stone wall. “Gianni didn’t act alone. The guards at the main gate aren’t answering my radio.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, stumbling over a loose brick.