I came to with a scream lodged in my throat.

  I felt a weight press down on my chest. Everything hurt—ribs grinding, ears ringing, lungs filled with dust. For a second, I thought I was buried alive. I panicked.

  Moving around, I felt the weight as it shifted, just enough to let air in, and I moved. Slowly. Painfully. I clawed forward as my arms trembled, dragging myself out from beneath a slab of broken platform. My fingers scraped against metal. I looked up and saw Beta-1’s leg, still twitching.

  "Beta—" My voice rasped, broken. "Status."

  Its optics flickered, red and stuttering. “System integrity… compromised. Protective directive: complete.” Sparks flared from its shoulder as I heard a fizzle. Then silence.

  "No—no, stay with me," I croaked, trying to sit up. A bolt of fire lanced through my side. Something was cracked. Probably a lot of somethings. “Dammit” I cursed.

  Looking around me, I saw in the swirling dust Lyra crumpled against a support beam, coughing blood into her glove. Zara limped into view next to her, gun drawn. Her face was pale but determined, I could see a darkened spot forming on her side. Jax's voice echoed somewhere to the right as he shouted orders. I could hear that his voice was strained and half-choked.

  The cavern was gone—no, caved in. What used to be a platform was now a jagged mess of rock, mangled steel, and scorched air. I could still smell the fire. Hear the settling groans of fractured walls.

  See nothing of where Seraphina had fallen, where Elara had jumped.

  "Seraphina!" I staggered upright, eyes scanning the wreckage. "Elara!"

  Only echoes answered me. My stomach turned in on itself as I tasted bile. I heard Jax as he reached me, blood streaking his temple. “We’ve got to fall back,” he said. “The whole section’s unstable.”

  “She was right there,” I said, pointing with a shaking hand. “She fell—Elara went after her. They’re under that.”

  “No way through,” Lyra said, coughing up hard now. “The whole shaft’s sealed. We need evac, Alex.”

  I didn’t listen. I stumbled toward the edge, boots crunching over fractured ground. I tried to find anything—armour, hair. Something that would give me an answer. The only answer I saw was the dust rising from each footstep, mocking me with silence.

  Mara’s voice came through static, sharp in my ear. “We’re pulling out. I’m sending a search crew in once it stabilises. If they made it… We’ll find them.”

  If. Not when. Not for sure.

  I dropped to my knees as I felt my chest heaving. Beta-1's husk still sparked behind me. Around us, the team was barely standing. Burned, broken, alive—but not whole.

  “Please…” I whispered into the rubble, the taste of blood in my mouth. “Tell me they made it out.”

  Jax tried to haul me up, his arm slung under my shoulders. I nearly screamed from the pressure, pain arcing up my side like a live wire.

  “Easy—easy, dammit,” he muttered. “You’re bleeding all over my back.”

  “Let me go—” I shoved weakly at him. “They could still be down there.”

  “I know,” he said, jaw tight. “But you’re not walking out of here unless I drag your stubborn ass.”

  The rock groaned again around us, and something deep beneath the surface gave way with a rumble that vibrated through my boots. A strong wind blew into my face, caking the air thick with pulverised stone and smoke. I coughed as my sight blackened for a second.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Behind me, a spotlight cut through the dust—then another. Mara’s soldiers arrived in pairs from the upper levels, armour scuffed, and some missing helmets, but they moved with purpose. One shouted, “Command, we’ve got survivors—marking evac corridor now!”

  Mara appeared out of the haze like a ghost. Her face was streaked with soot and blood, but her voice was iron. “Fall back. All teams. Priority is the living.”

  “No!” I struggled as I felt Jax's grip on mt shoulder tighten. “We can’t leave them—Seraphina’s down there. Elara—”

  “I know who’s down there, Baron,” Mara snapped as she stopped before me. “But unless you’ve got a tunnel drill in your busted arm, you’re not reaching them. The shaft’s collapsed, structural integrity is shot—next quake and we’re all dead.”

  I turned to her, my voice raw. “Send a team. Please.”

  Mara’s eyes flicked to the wreckage, then back to me. “Once the aftershocks stop. I’ll leave a crew behind to scan the lower tunnels. But we can’t wait here. Not now.”

  Jax tugged me toward the now-marked evac line. “Come on. Help them by surviving.”

  I let him pull me. Not because I wanted to—but because I had nothing left. My vision swam. My breath caught with every step. Behind us, Beta-1’s shell flickered one last time before going dark.

  We passed what was left of a platform—twisted beams, shattered floodlights, a black scorch mark where someone had died. Lyra limped beside us, one hand pressed to her ribs, her eyes glassy as she was helped along.

  “Anyone else missing?” she murmured.

  I didn’t answer. Each time I let myself think, tears sprang up. Had I caused this? My reckless pursuit.

  Mara took point, barking coordinates into her comm, directing evac crews toward medbays and airlifts. The Spire rumbled behind us like it was mourning its dead.

  When we reached the final lift junction, I turned back—one last time. Dust still curled in the air. The ruins of the cavern were silent.

  I couldn’t breathe. “Please,” I begged silently as my vision started to fade. “Please, please tell me they made it out.”

  ***

  The hum of fluorescent lights broke through the dark.

  It was too white. Too bright. Too clean.

  I blinked. The ceiling was the flat grey-white of a what I guessed was a makeshift medical bay, all curved metal and hanging strips. My chest felt like it had been cracked open and stitched together wrong. Something beeped beside me. A steady, annoying beep that was going to drive me crazy.

  “Vitals are stable,” someone muttered. A shadow moved across my vision. “Should’ve kept him under longer.”

  I tried to speak, but my throat rasped dry as I felt a needle for an injection. The liquid burned in my arm.

  “Alex.” Jax’s voice was quiet, strained.

  I turned my head slowly. Each movement brought its own set of pain. He sat in the chair beside my bed, hands clasped tight between his knees. His eyes were rimmed red, uniform, stained and torn.

  “How long—”

  “Seven hours since the collapse,” Jax said. “They put you under after you blacked out. Cracked ribs, fractured shoulder. Concussion. Shit Alex. This list is long.”

  “And Seraphina?” I rasped.

  He looked away. “No sign yet,” he said after a beat. “Scout team swept the upper tunnels. Found nothing but wreckage. No bodies. No signals.”

  My heart jackhammered, weaker now, but still enough to hurt. “They could be—”

  I could hear the strain in his voice “I know.”

  We sat in silence. Somewhere down the hall, someone screamed—another person in pain. Was it all my doing? They were only there because of me, because I wouldn't listen.

  Footsteps echoed somewhere nearby as a figure approached, flanked by two lieutenants.

  Theon.

  The commander. He wouldn't be happy with how this turned out. I heard him as he stopped outside the room, reading off a datapad.

  “Baron Draven is awake?” His voice was cold, clipped.

  “Just now,” Jax said, rising to meet him.

  Theon pushed the curtain aside and looked down at me like I was another line item in a damaged manifest. “You’re not fit for duty. What were you thinking, Baron?”

  “Screw that.” I sat up too fast. Pain lanced down my side, but I didn’t stop. “Status report?”

  “The outer levels are stabilised. Rebels are scattered—what’s left of them. We’ve got injured across three sectors and a full comms blackout in the lower shafts. Still no visual on the ones who fell.”

  “And Reuben?” I ground the name between my teeth.

  Theon’s face didn’t move. “Gone. The explosion was his cover. His people had a fallback point.”

  I stared at him. My voice came out raw. “Marshal every available soldier. Every drone. Every scanner team. I want him found. I want him dragged back here in pieces if need be.”

  “Understood,” Theon said. “Direct capture or—”

  “Capture,” I hissed. “So he can answer for this.”

  Theon gave a stiff nod and turned on his heel. His boots echoed down the corridor like gunfire.

  I collapsed back against the pillows, trembling.

  “They’re not dead,” I said.

  Jax didn’t reply.

  “I saw her fall,” I whispered. “But I didn’t see her die. I didn’t see a body. I didn’t see anything. That means something.”

  “It has to,” he agreed softly, not wanting to give me hope. “It has to.”