The elevator to the surface is dead. The shaft is a twisted ruin of melted steel and pulverized concrete, blocked by the collapsed ceiling of Sub-Level 2.
We have to climb.
It takes twenty agonizing minutes to scale the emergency maintenance ladder, a rusted, narrow spiral of iron that groans under our weight. I go first. My left arm is dead in its sling, my ribs taped, my lungs burning from the subterranean dust. But I climb. I am the Luna. I lead.
Behind me, Kade follows. He is stripped to the waist, his chest heavily bandaged, his left arm hanging limp and useless at his side. He moves with a stiff, agonizing grace, his jaw clenched so tightly I can hear his teeth grinding. Through the frayed, bleeding edge of our merge, I feel the sheer, blinding agony of his shattered ribs shifting
