Chapter 27 – The Commute from Hell

I pull the uniform shirt over my head.

The fabric is heavy, reinforced, designed to withstand things that normal cloth shouldn’t have to deal with. It feels like putting on armor, like I’m suiting up for war instead of just going to work. The collar sits stiff against my neck, the sleeves are rough against my wrists, and the whole thing smells like industrial detergent.

Seven days.

Seven days of mandatory suspension, seven days of sitting in my crappy house eating takeout and watching Netflix, seven days of pretending I’m a normal person with a normal life. It was supposed to be a break, a chance to decompress, but honestly?

I’m bored out of my mind.

I button the shirt, tuck it into my pants, clip the badge to my belt. The weight of it feels right, feels necessary. Like I’m putting myself back together after being disassembled.

My phone sits on the kitchen counter.

I stare at it while I tie my boots. It’s been silent for seven days straight, no texts from Loki asking me to play games, no threatening voicemails from Thalia, no status reports from Esdeath. The facility brass made it clear during the suspension hearing—no contact, zero communication, complete radio silence or I’d be fired on the spot.

So I followed the rules.

I played the good employee, kept my head down, didn’t so much as glance at the facility email. But the silence is wrong. It sits in my gut like a stone, heavy and cold and getting heavier by the hour.

Something happened.

I can feel it, that intuition that comes from spending too much time around eldritch horrors. The air tastes wrong, like ozone before a lightning strike.

I grab my keys from the counter.

They jingle in my hand, the sound too cheerful for how I’m feeling. My coffee is already cold but I take a sip anyway, the bitter taste grounding me in the moment.

Honestly?

I’m looking forward to going back. The normal world is boring, it’s too quiet, too predictable, too safe. Out here nobody needs me, nobody’s waiting for me, nobody gives a damn whether I exist or not. But at the facility?

At the facility I matter.

The monsters need me, even if it’s just as an anchor point for their obsessions. It’s messed up, it’s codependent as hell, but it’s the truth.

I’m reaching for my jacket when my phone rings.

The sound cuts through the silence like a gunshot. I freeze, my hand hovering over the fabric. The ringtone is loud, sharp, urgent.

Not the facility automated line.

Not the general admin number. This is a direct call, a personal contact. I snatch the phone off the counter, check the caller ID.

Director Esdeath.

My stomach drops. Esdeath doesn’t call, she sends memos, she schedules meetings, she operates through official channels. A direct call from her means something is catastrophically wrong.

I swipe answer, press the phone to my ear.

“Esdeath?”

There’s breathing on the other end.

Hard, uneven, like someone who just sprinted up three flights of stairs. I hear a shaky inhale, a pause, then her voice.

“Kai.”

She sounds wrong.

Esdeath is the Ice Queen, she’s calm under pressure, she’s steel wrapped in frost. I’ve seen her negotiate with reality-warping gods without breaking a sweat. But right now?

Right now she sounds scared.

“Get here. Now.”

Her voice cracks on the last word.

I’m already moving, grabbing my jacket, shoving my feet into my boots without untying them. The phone is trapped between my shoulder and ear.

“What happened?”

“Block 12.”

Two words that make my blood run cold.

Sarah. The Thing. The shapeshifter who’s been on emotional life support since I left.

“I lost control of it.”

Esdeath’s admission hits like a physical blow. She doesn’t lose control, she’s the Director, she’s the one who keeps the facility running when everything goes sideways.

“The cameras?”

“Down. All of them. Backup feeds show static or just empty hallways.”

I hear something in the background, a distant alarm, muffled voices shouting.

“The guards aren’t responding to radio.”

She pauses, and I hear her swallow hard.

“The ones I can see on the exterior feeds are just standing there. In formation. Waiting.”

My hand tightens on the phone.

Waiting. They’re waiting for me. Sarah’s been counting down the seconds until I came back, and now that the day is here she’s lost whatever fragile control she had left.

“Martinez?”

“Not responding. None of them are.”

Esdeath’s voice drops to almost a whisper.

“Kai, I tried to freeze the sector. I pushed every ounce of power I had into those walls.”

Another pause, longer this time.

“She melted it. Like it was nothing. Like I was nothing.”

I’ve never heard her sound like this.

Vulnerable, helpless, human. The Ice Queen is admitting she’s powerless, and that’s more terrifying than any monster.

“She doesn’t care about my ice, Kai. She doesn’t care about protocols or containment or anything. She only cares that you’re gone.”

The line crackles with static.

“How fast can you get here?”

I’m already at the door, keys in hand, coffee abandoned on the counter.

“Twenty minutes if I speed.”

“Make it ten.”

The desperation in her voice is sharp enough to cut.

“This is a Level 5 Breach. If she leaves the sector—”

“I know.”

I do know. Level 5 means catastrophic, means city-wide casualties, means the kind of event that gets covered up by federal agencies. Sarah isn’t just dangerous, she’s an extinction-level event if she decides to start hunting.

“I’m coming. Lock down everything around Block 12. Don’t send anyone else in.”

“Already done.”

Esdeath’s breathing is steadier now, like having a plan is helping her pull herself together.

“Kai?”

“Yeah?”

“Be careful.”

The line goes dead.

I stare at the phone for half a second, adrenaline spiking through my veins like ice water. The tired employee is gone, the bored civilian is gone. Right now I’m the Warden, the one person in the entire facility who can handle this without getting consumed.

I shove the phone in my pocket.

My jacket is on, my keys are in my hand, my boots are laced tight. The house feels too small suddenly, too confining, like the walls are closing in. I need to move, need to get to the facility, need to stop whatever Sarah is doing before it escalates beyond containment.

I cross the living room in three strides.

The front door is right there, peeling gray paint, rusty handle, the same door I’ve walked through a thousand times. I can picture what’s outside—my gravel driveway, my beat-up Volkswagen, the morning sun breaking through the trees.

Twenty minutes.

I can make it in twenty minutes, maybe fifteen if I push the engine. I unlock the deadbolt, twist the handle, pull the door open expecting to see my porch, my yard, the world.

I don’t see any of that.

The doorway opens directly into darkness.

Not the darkness of early morning, not the shadow of trees blocking sunlight. This is the darkness of underground corridors, of concrete walls and flickering fluorescent lights.

I’m staring into Block 12.

The frozen hallway stretches out in front of me, the same hallway I’ve walked down hundreds of times. The walls are lined with guards, twelve of them, standing at perfect attention. Their eyes are wrong, dark or yellow or empty. Their faces are smiling but the smiles don’t reach their eyes.

Martinez is there.

Standing right at the entrance, closest to me, his posture rigid, his expression a mask of forced happiness.

And in the center of the hallway stands Sarah.

She’s glowing, bioluminescent light emanating from her skin. Her dress is perfect, her hair is styled, her face is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen and the most horrifying.

She’s been waiting.

She didn’t wait for me to drive to the facility, didn’t wait for me to walk through security, didn’t wait for me to take the elevator down to her sector. She reached across space, bent reality like it was paper, and brought the facility to me.

Or brought me to it.

I don’t know which is more terrifying.

“Welcome home, darling.”

Her voice echoes from the corridor, from the space that shouldn’t exist on the other side of my front door.

I stand frozen in my doorway.

One foot in my house, one foot hovering over the threshold. My hand is still on the door handle, my keys are still in my other hand. The morning sunlight is hitting my back from the windows behind me, but ahead there’s only the cold fluorescent glow of the facility.

Sarah takes a step forward.

The guards don’t move, don’t blink, don’t breathe. They’re statues, puppets, living dolls arranged for my arrival.

“I missed you.”

Her voice is soft, tender, filled with desperate longing.

I take a breath.

My boot crosses the threshold, touches down on concrete instead of wood. The floor is cold, solid, real. I can feel the shift in temperature, the air pressure change, the weight of being underground.

I left my house.

I walked out my front door like I do every morning. But I didn’t walk into my yard, didn’t get in my car, didn’t drive down the road.

I left home but I never actually left.

Sarah bridged the space, collapsed the distance, brought me exactly where she wanted me to be. And now I’m standing in Block 12, surrounded by entranced guards, facing a monster who loves me enough to break reality itself.

The door swings shut behind me.

I hear the click of the latch, the finality of it. When I glance back there’s no doorway anymore, no connection to my house. Just solid concrete wall.

I’m here.

In the facility, in her territory, exactly where she planned. The commute from hell took exactly zero seconds, and now I’m standing in the middle of a Level 5 Breach with nothing but my immunity and whatever plan I can come up with in the next thirty seconds.

Sarah’s smile widens.

“You’re finally here.”