“It’s a clean sweep, Adrian,” Caleb sneered from the corner, his voice muffled under Marcus’s grip.

“You were never supposed to find this place.”

I stared at the wires, my mind racing as the red screen on the device suddenly flickered.

A bright red sequence of numbers appeared, pulsing in time with the sharp beep.

The countdown began.

The red digits on the screen settled into a steady, rhythmic pulse.

05:00.

Then the numbers shifted, the seconds beginning their silent, downward march.

04:59.

04:58.

“Marcus, hold him,” I said, my voice tighter than I intended.

Marcus tightened his arm around Caleb’s neck, pressing his weight into the older man’s spine.

Caleb did not flinch, though his breath rattled shallowly in his throat.

“You cannot stop this, Adrian,” Caleb whispered, a thin line of saliva bubbling at the corner of his lip.

I ignored him and knelt closer to the plastic case.

The smell of old dust and dry-rot in the alcove was suddenly overtaken by the sharp, chemical odor of plastic and copper.

I reached out, my fingers hovering an inch from the thick blue casing of the main wire.