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As he followed behind his companions, Elijah grunted quietly. His arm was healing, but his injury wasn't the cause of the grimace on his face. The smell lingering in the dark, wet tunnels they traversed was revolting, and he was pretty sure that they were actually in a sewer.

"How did they find us?" Zoe asked quietly, looking over her shoulder.

"I don't know," Elijah muttered.

"We not safe," Enid panicked, holding Zoe's arm tightly.

"What's the plan?" Zoe asked, still looking at Elijah.

Elijah focused his senses, and as far as he could tell despite the awfully distracting smell, the detainers fell for his diversion and took the ladder up instead of down. "We follow this tunnel as far as we can," he answered, glancing at a sign on the wall which said they were under Florence Street. "We can't risk resurfacing in the city; there are cameras everywhere, and it's likely that Lyca Corp. have the police on their side."

Zoe frowned and said, "The police? They work for Lyca Corp.?"

"No, but it isn't hard to forge warrants and charges in their system; Lyca Corp. would have forged warrants for all of your arrests by now," Elijah told them, glancing down at his arm. "They got me on Nefastus' most wanted list just a few days after I escaped the lab."

"Police?" Enid asked, looking back at Elijah and then up at Zoe with a frantic motion. "Safe? Help us?"

"Not here, Enid," Zoe said, shaking her head. "The police think that we're the bad people."

Enid shook her head, too. "No, we not bad people!"

"Calm down," Elijah snapped and focused his senses again, but the kid's outburst didn't snatch the detainers' attention. "We need to get to the edge of the city and work out where to go from there."

Zoe held Enid's hand firmly. "We'll be okay. We'll still get you to your family."

"Family. Safe."

"Yeah." The girl then looked over her shoulder once more at Elijah. "Do you want me and Jake to take those bags so your arm can heal faster?"

"No," he mumbled.

She stared ahead again, and when they reached the end of the tunnel, they turned right, left, and right again, emerging into another long, straight passage.

"You're kinda quiet," Zoe said to Jake, who was indeed extremely quiet. "Everything okay?"

"What?" the pardus replied as if snapped from a deep thought. "Yeah. I'm just a little shaken is all. We've almost died how many times now? I'm starting to think we just hand this all over to your dads; they can keep us safe, and they could help find Haru."

"No," Zoe snapped irritably.

Elijah wasn't fond of Jake's suggestion, either. He didn't trust the Nosferatu, and he didn't know Zoe's dads. For all he knew, there were moles in the Nosferatu, and he wasn't about to give them a chance to hand him back over to Lyca Corp. "We're not handing anything over to anyone. Shut up and keep moving," he muttered.

They continued onwards in silence, following the tunnels beneath St. George Street, Ridgby Road, West End, and Albert Street. When they got to the end of the next passage, it forked, and they stopped, trying to decide which way to head.

"If we wanna get out of the city, I think we should keep going in this direction," Zoe said, pointing to the tunnel ahead.

"Yeah, but what about the kid?" Jake asked, nodding at Enid. "Are we dropping her off at Hannah's or—"

"It's too risky," Elijah interjected, inspecting his arm, which had healed but still ached a little. "The best thing to do would be to get as far away from here as possible and then have your cousin send someone to pick her up."

Enid frowned worriedly. "Taking me to my family?"

"As soon as we can," Zoe answered with a nod. She looked up at Elijah. "How's your arm?"

"It's fine," he mumbled as he looked over his shoulder and focused his senses. He could sense several distorted auras quite far back, but the detainers were now on their trail. "They're down here," he warned them. "Let's move."

"Don't have to tell me twice," Jake said as he hurriedly followed behind Elijah.

The demon quickly led the way, concentrating on the distant detainers. They were at least thirty minutes behind them, but they'd eventually catch up if Enid didn't speed up. "Pick up the pace," he muttered.

"Come on," Zoe ushered Enid.

"Shouldn't we get out of these tunnels now?" Jake asked worriedly. "What if they send hellhounds again? Or some other weird creature."

"Hellhound?" Enid asked anxiously. "We can't fight hellhound!"

"Shh," Elijah snapped at her, turning left into another tunnel.

"She's right, though," Zoe said. "If they send hellhounds—"

"Then we'll deal with them," Elijah argued and looked back at Enid. "You'll move faster if you shift."

The kid looked afraid, but she did as he told her and shifted into her caracal form. Then, as the demon picked up the pace even more, the kid managed to keep up.

Elijah searched every sign on the wall for a way out, but they all led to the streets. He needed to find a ladder that would take them up somewhere away from cameras and crowds. So he kept moving, and eventually, he spotted a ladder with a sign beside it reading 'Tornto Gardens'. "This way," he said, hurrying to the ladder. He stopped beside it and ushered Jake up first, Enid followed, and Zoe went after her. Then, Elijah climbed it, trailing his companions up towards a manhole.

"Things...stiff as fuck," came Jake's voice followed by several loud bangs.

"Try harder," Zoe insisted.

"Slipping," Enid panicked, digging her claws into the metal. "Slipping!"

"Hurry up!" Elijah called.

"Slippi—"

Zoe caught the caracal in her left arm and held onto the ladder with her right. "I got you," she said with a grunt as Enid cried nervously. "It's okay."

Jake's grunts echoed from above, and when the sound of shifting metal finally broke through, lamplight and rain poured down, hitting Elijah's face.

"Got it," the pardus called. "Fuck, it's raining."

"Go on," Zoe said, helping Enid climb up.

Elijah followed them up and out into a park; the manhole was behind the cover of several large bushes, so nobody saw them—not that there was anyone around to see. The park was empty, and through the leaves, Elijah watched as people ran up and down the street holding whatever they could over their heads to escape the downpour.

"Which way?" Jake asked.

The demon looked around, spotting several cameras attached to the buildings outside the park. As far as he could see, there weren't any within the park, and since it was dark and raining, they'd be able to move using the cover of the trees and bushes. He didn't know how far the park extended, but once they reached its end, he'd work out what to do next.

"Come on," Elijah said, staying low as he led the way forward, sticking close to the bushes. "Stay low and follow my every move."

Together, the four of them moved through the park, silent and unseen. Elijah kept his focus on the distorted auras, which were getting closer, but they remained underground—for now. If he was going to stay ahead of them, he needed to find a new vehicle, fast.

He stopped behind the cover of an oak tree and glanced around. Through the small gaps of a holly bush, he saw the road, empty and lifeless. He prowled forward, shifting his sights to the cameras hanging from the surrounding buildings; every car he saw was in the line of sight of at least one camera.

"We're almost to the gates," Zoe said.

Elijah took his eyes off the road and set them on the iron gates up ahead. She was right; they were almost to the end of the park. He stopped leading the way and searched the road outside again for a suitable car.

"What are we doing?" Jake asked.

"Where we go?" Enid questioned.

The demon exhaled deeply and spotted a florist van parked between a food truck and a lorry. "You can drive a van, right?" he asked Jake.

"Yeah," the pardus answered.

Elijah pointed in the direction of the van. "That's where we're going, but we need to avoid the sight of the cameras, so stick closely to me."

The three of them nodded.

"Let's go—"

The deafening boom of a rifle sliced through the relentless downpour. Elijah's senses snapped to attention, his heart hammering in his chest as he instinctively dropped to the sodden ground, mud squelching beneath him, and his companions, mere shadows in the tempest, mirrored his desperate retreat into cover.

But it wasn't the thunderous report that froze Elijah's breath in his lungs; it was the sickening scent of copper that suddenly tainted the rain-washed air. A metallic tang, unmistakable and minacious, clawed at his senses, heralding the arrival of something far more sinister than mere raindrops.

His eyes darted, searching through the murky gloom, and there, amidst the shifting shadows, he saw her.

Enid.

Her sleek fur was now matted with crimson, and a jagged wound marred her side.

Dread coiled around Elijah's heart like a serpent, squeezing tight as he watched the caracal collapse.

"Enid!" Zoe cried.

Before the girl could run to the caracal's side, Elijah snatched her wrist and pulled her away just as another deafening boom cut through the air. The bullet missed Zoe's body by a mere inch, and as the girl screamed, trying to reach Enid, who was haemorrhaging in the mud, Elijah had no choice but to tug her and Jake away.

"We can't leave her!" Zoe yelled, tears streaming down her face.

More bullets rained their way, several rifles joining the invisible sniper. Detainers emerged through the murk, firing relentlessly at them, shouting orders at one another to kill Zoe and Jake and capture Elijah alive.

The demon wasn't going to let either of those things happen. As Zoe screamed and protested, he pulled her along, sprinting towards the van. Jake haphazardly followed, wailing as he skidded along the mud, dodging the flurry of bullets.

"We have to go back!" Zoe cried as her dog yapped in her bag.

Ignoring her, Elijah pulled the girl past the iron gates. When they reached the van, he yanked the back door open and shoved Zoe inside. He climbed in, closed the doors behind him, and watched as Jake got into the driver's seat and fiddled with the wires, trying to start the vehicle.

"Fucking go!" Elijah yelled.

"I'm trying!" Jake shouted back.

The detainers' bullets clinked and clanged against the van; they were getting closer, and Elijah was starting to shake out of fear.

"Go!" he yelled again, his voice almost a roar.

The van reluctantly started as the wires Jake was fiddling with buzzed.

"I got it!" Jake exclaimed.

The pardus immediately slammed his foot on the gas pedal, and as he sped out of the parking space, the side of the van dragged along the food truck. He hit several detainers, who yelped and bellowed, but Jake kept driving, breathing frantically with a horrified look on his face.

"What the fuck?!" Jake cried.

Elijah exhaled deeply—

"Why did you just leave her?!" Zoe shouted, tears streaming down her face as she slammed her fists against Elijah's chest. "We just left her!"

"We didn't have a choice!" the demon snarled at her.

"We could have helped her! We could have—"

"There was nothing we could do!" he insisted angrily, trying to fight his own grief. "There were too many of them and I wasn't going to let them kill you or take me."

Zoe shook her head, gritting her teeth as she hit him again and again. "We could have helped her!"

Elijah didn't stop her; he let the girl take her dismay out on him while he sat there, staring at the bullet holes in the side of the van. He knew that there was nothing he could have done for Enid without risking Zoe and Jake, which he wouldn't do, but he couldn't escape the growing guilt. That girl had spent almost her entire life locked up, and not even twenty-four hours after seeing daylight again, she was dead.

It was his fault, wasn't it? He should have been paying more attention. He should have known that the detainers would call in assassins.

"We could have helped her," Zoe cried quietly, collapsing in front of Elijah, giving up her relentless beating. "We should have helped her."

He wasn't going to bother arguing with her. Whatever he said wouldn't get through to her until she calmed down. And he wouldn't be able to think straight until he got over what just happened.

But...why did it happen? How did the detainers know where they'd come up from the tunnels? How did they know where to set up their assassin? Elijah was missing something, and if he wanted to keep hold of his freedom, he needed to find out what.

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