Chapter 10 - The Second Key
The cold metal of the second key felt heavy and sharp against Leo’s palm as he pulled it free from the thick grease lining the interior of the power station pipe. He paused, his breathing echoing loudly in the enclosed space, and held the small object up toward the faint amber glow filtering through a vent miles ahead. The same mayoral crest was stamped into the head, but unlike the pin on his blanket, this key had fresh tool marks scratched across its teeth, as if it had been duplicated only hours before.
“Leo? You still moving?” Arthur’s voice drifted up faintly from the bottom of the pipe, muffled by the rising roar of water behind them.
“Yes!” Leo called back, slipping the heavy key into his pocket alongside the waterproof flashlight. He didn’t mention the discovery. Something in his gut—a survival instinct sharpened by months of hiding—warned him to keep the duplicate key a secret from everyone, even Arthur and Evelyn.
He resumed his crawl, the steep incline burning the muscles in his small arms and legs. The air grew hotter and drier, smelling intensely of old coal dust and burning electrical insulation. The rhythmic, heavy thudding of massive pistons echoed through the concrete walls, shaking the very pipe he was inside and making the puppy whine softly against his ribs.
“Don’t be scared,” Leo whispered again, his voice cracking with fatigue. He pulled the oversized jacket tighter around the animal, sharing what little body heat he had left.
After what felt like hours of agonizing movement, the pipe leveled out, ending abruptly in front of a heavy iron grating covered in thick cobwebs and soot. Beyond the bars, a vast, cavernous hall stretched out into the gloom—the abandoned turbine room of the municipal power station. Massive rusted iron generators loomed like prehistoric skeletons in the dark, their dead wheels silent monuments to a bygone industrial era.
Leo reached the end of the pipe, pressing his face against the cold iron bars. True to Arthur’s instructions, a heavy brass padlock secured the latch. With trembling fingers, Leo pulled the gold pin from his blanket and jammed the tapered end into the locking mechanism, using the leverage of the bars to twist it hard.
Crack.
The soft brass of the pin bent under the pressure, and the old padlock swung open with a dry, metallic pop. Leo pushed the grating outward, slipping through the gap and dropping silently onto the dusty concrete floor of the turbine room below.
As he landed, a sudden beam of white light cut through the darkness from the upper catwalks, accompanied by the cold, sharp click of a rifle bolt being pulled back.
May you like
“Well, well,” a voice echoed down from the heights of the metal stairs. “Looks like the rat found a way out of the maze.”
---
