Chapter 31: Harrow’s Betrayal

Harrow waited until the outpost trusted exhaustion more than locks.

The transport crew slept around the command room in borrowed blankets. One guard watched the perimeter screens; another had gone to check the generator. Gabriel sat against the wall with his boots still on, asleep before he had finished cleaning his rifle.

Ava held the outer watch. Harrow could see her through a slit in the barricade, a narrow figure beneath the floodlights, attention fixed on the dark.

He crossed to the storage room.

The lock surrendered to a strip of spring steel and patience. Inside, the recovered hospital records filled two sealed cases. He had imagined carrying both. The cases were heavier than they looked, and the notebook already pulled at one side of his coat.

He opened the first case and took what would fit in his pack: assay tables, handwritten formulas, the slim folders with intact seals. The bulkier binders stayed behind.

Enough to sell, he told himself. Enough to buy filters, medicine, a place behind somebody else’s walls.

He left the door almost closed.

---

Outside, Ava turned at the small wrong sound of its latch.

She entered the command room and touched Gabriel’s boot. He woke with his hand closing on the rifle.

“Storage,” she said.

They found the picked lock, the open case, and Harrow’s empty bedroll. Gabriel pulled his mask from its pouch and sealed it before they went beyond the perimeter.

Ava looked at the place where Harrow had slept. She remembered the relief when he defended her in the garage, how gratefully she had accepted a few words from a frightened stranger. Now she wanted to go back and refuse them. It angered her that he could take that small memory from her along with the pages.

Gabriel did not waste time swearing. “North maintenance corridor. He asked about it when we arrived.”

They caught sight of Harrow at the far barricade. He had disabled one section of the perimeter alarm and squeezed through a drainage gap beyond it.

“Harrow!” Gabriel called.

The scavenger ran.

The drain widened into an old utility tunnel. Harrow turned at the first junction without slowing. Ava could have run ahead of Gabriel, but she could not see what waited around the bend. She kept close enough to hear his breathing.

They cornered Harrow in a collapsed pump chamber. Fallen pipework blocked a drainage opening behind him. He turned with a compact demolition charge in one hand and his pack over his shoulder.

“Drop it,” Gabriel said.

“You think those notes belong to you?” Harrow’s face shone with sweat. “Your carrier will lock them in a laboratory. I can turn them into food. Power. Protection.”

“For whom?” Ava asked.

“For people who can use them.”

“Name one.”

His grip tightened around the charge.

Gabriel kept the rifle trained low, away from the pack. “Put the trigger down. We walk back together.”

“Back to a cell.”

“Back alive.”

For one moment, Harrow looked tired enough to agree. Then footsteps sounded in the tunnel behind Ava and Gabriel. The outpost guard called for them to wait. Harrow jerked toward the voice, his hand closing around the trigger.

He threw the charge at the ceiling.

Ava hit Gabriel before the blast did.

Concrete and rusted pipe came down in a single grey wave. Something tore across her back. A jagged slab struck Gabriel’s leg; she heard him cry out before his head hit the edge of a valve housing.

When Ava could hear again, the tunnel had changed shape.

Rubble sealed half the chamber. Harrow’s lamp jerked through a gap on the far side. Beneath Ava, Gabriel did not move. Blood ran from his temple into the dust.

“Gabriel?”

She pushed herself off him. Her back tore against a pipe and she barely felt it. His eyes were closed behind the dust-streaked visor.

“Gabriel. Look at me.”

No answer. She wiped the visor with her sleeve, as if clearing it would make him see her.

No. I got to him. I covered him.

“Please—Gabriel, say something.”

Harrow’s light vanished.

“HARROW!”

She screamed his name into the gap. The sound scraped her throat; she dragged in air and screamed again. “Come back! You fucking coward! Look what you did!”

Amber light flooded her arms. The torn flesh of her back pulled together around grit and cloth. Something hard pressed beneath her shoulder blades, spreading them apart.

I’ll kill him.

She drove a hand into the fallen concrete. An edge broke away. Another blow, and she could get through. She could still catch him.

Gabriel’s mask valve rattled behind her.

Ava turned so quickly her growing wrist struck the rubble. He dragged in another breath, a thin, obstructed sound that bore no resemblance to the way he slept beside her.

“I’m here.” She dropped to her knees. “I’m here, I’m sorry.”

Her fingers would not fit together. She stared at them, at the light between the joints.

I need my hands. Please. I need my hands.

She rolled the fallen pipe from his leg, then forced two fingers against his throat. For a moment she could feel only herself shaking. Then a pulse moved beneath them.

“He’s alive!” Her voice broke. “Somebody help me!”

The outpost guard shouted from beyond the debris.

“The kit! Bring the medical kit!” She could not hear his answer. “Hurry!”

She bent over Gabriel, keeping the growing points of her arms clear of his suit. One breath. Then another. On the next she lost count and sobbed against her own shoulder.

“Don’t leave me here,” she whispered. “Please, Gabe. I can’t—”

She watched the valve until it moved again.

The pressure in her wrists eased, returned, eased a little more. She kept her hands where she could see them. Across the chamber the gap was dark. She did not look for Harrow’s light again.

By the time the crew opened a path into the chamber, he had begun to stir. His eyes opened without focusing.

“There you are.” Ava laughed once, a broken, breathless sound. “Don’t move. Please don’t move.”

“Wasn’t planning to.” His words slurred at the edges. “Harrow?”

“Gone.”

“The cases,” Ava said to the guard. “In storage. Lock the room. He left the binders.”

The guard relayed the message while another crew member braced Gabriel’s injured leg. Ava held the dressing against his temple.

“I thought you were dead.” She could barely get the words out. “You wouldn’t answer me.”

Gabriel tried to lift his hand. She caught it before it fell.

“I’m here,” he said.

She pressed his knuckles against her cheek, crying hard enough that she had to turn away to see the dressing. “I know. I know, just—stay.”

The guard confirmed that the remaining binders were secure.

Gabriel reached for her wrist. His grip was weak but deliberate. “Then we protect what’s left.”

When they lifted him, Ava stood too fast and staggered. A guard reached for her; she caught the wall instead, then followed the stretcher with one hand still holding Gabriel’s.

When they carried Gabriel back into the outpost, the storage guard opened the remaining cases for Ava to check. Gaps showed where Harrow had pulled the thin folders free. The binders were still there. She shut the lids and waited until she heard the lock turn.