Night made the godown into a held breath. Lines of moonlight fell through the broken skylight in thin ribs. Outside, Delhi rehearsed the same bad song—sirens cutting, dogs arguing with ghosts, the occasional shout throttled down to a whisper the instant it left a mouth.
They'd bought a few hours. They spent them like poor people spend money: carefully, knowing it wouldn't be enough.
Riya tightened the bandage on Shivam's upper arm and said, "Hate me later." He grinned and did, a little, which meant she'd done it right. Kartik sat with his back to a crate and turned the chisel over and over in his hands like he was warming it. Lucky kept checking the knots on a loop of wire he'd tied, checking again, then closing his eyes and holding his breath as if that might rewire the last twelve hours.
Ananya eased Nikhil down against a pillar and draped a jacket over him. He fought sleep for ten seconds like every child does before he remembers it's allowed. It took him without an argument.
Ajay stood under the skylight with his palms up, the way a man tastes rain. His head tilted. "Grid hum's wrong," he murmured. "Heavy draw, south to north. They're spooling something up."
Leon paced the inside of the door, counting heartbeats, stopping on every fiftieth because a man who has stood on too many doors has taught his body to keep time. Drake's dog tags tapped a quiet metronome against his chest.
Ayush walked the wall with his hand on the cold, feeling for places stone wasn't honest. He found one by the office—a seam painted over quick and cheap. "That's our door if we need it," he said.
"I'll owe the building a bill," Ajay said, running his fingers along the same seam. "I've got a jack and a length of rebar. It won't be pretty."
"Pretty's gone," Suraj said. He was already stacking pallets against the main door in a way that forced a body into a narrow path. "We make them walk where people can be wrong."
The radio in Ananya's pack pulsed once. Twice. Patient.
[Uncrowned King]: Joel. Column approaching Delta. Do not descend. Hold for extraction. Confirm readiness to separate on contact.
The words sat in the room like fumes. Everyone smelled them even if no one moved toward the bottle.
Leon's jaw set. "Minimal collateral," he said, very soft. The term had stopped being code and started being a confession.
Ayush slid the radio out and turned the volume down until Uncrowned's voice became an insect rubbing legs. He typed with his thumb.
[Joel]: Negative. Unit intact. We move together.
No dot blinked. Of course it didn't.
A small sound at the door made Suraj lift one finger without turning his head. The sound came again: two knocks, pause, three. Not random. Not quite the same rhythm they'd heard at Pinefield. Close.
Leon's eyes flicked to Ayush. Ayush gave the nod that said let me look first.
He eased the door bolt a whisper and put his eye to the seam. The lane outside stayed in shadow. A figure stood four feet back, hands clear, hood down. The face was clean-shaven, steady. Familiar without being a comfort.
"Ethan," Leon breathed, and something tight pulled up into his throat.
Ethan lifted his chin. He didn't raise his voice. He didn't have to. "Joel," he said. "On me. If you come now, we leave the others. No one dies tonight who doesn't choose to."
Ananya put a hand on Ayush's sleeve. It wasn't a warning. It was a question only he could answer.
Ayush opened the seam a hair wider. "You came alone?" he asked.
"No," Ethan said. "I came first."
The click of a safety carried in the lane. Not loud. Loud enough. Flanks.
Inside, Ajay's head tipped farther. "Company," he mouthed.
"Give me him," Ethan continued, not bothering with the code-name this time. "I'll call the column off your grid. You live. For today. Tomorrow, if you're lucky."
"It's always tomorrow with you," Leon said before he could stop his mouth.
Ethan's eyes flicked. Seeing. Measuring. He let the glance rest a heartbeat on the dog tags at Leon's chest. Drake's nicked metal, remembering secrets.
"You made your choice," Ethan said, not cruel. "Now make his easier."
Ananya leaned to Ayush's ear. "I can give them heat at the back wall for thirty seconds," she whispered. "We push them to the wrong door. We buy our own."
"Back wall's our exit," Ajay said under his breath. "We turn that into theater, we've got no stage left."
Ethan's voice cut clean through—calm, trained, bearing an exhaustion that makes men more dangerous. "Joel. I won't ask another time."
Ayush looked at Leon. Leon looked back like a man staring over a cliff at an ocean he used to own and seeing only tide.
"Let me talk to him," Leon said. "Five feet. No guns. No tricks."
"That's three lies," Suraj muttered. "But he's not wrong."
Ayush slid the bolt. The door came open to a slit a hand's width wide. Enough to let words in. Not enough for a man.
Leon stepped up into the slot. Ethan stood very still. His two flankers were shadows with rifles. Ethan lifted his empty hands shoulder-high and opened his fingers.
Leon put his head forward into the light as if his friend were a confessional. "Stand down," he said. "They will kill them. I won't be part of that. I hear you in my ear. You hear him in yours."
Ethan's jaw flexed. For a second, there was a man under the orders again—the one who had once made jokes about camps and bad food and how the best way to cheat a run was to slow down first and speed up last. Then Uncrowned's grammar slid over him like a hood.
"Priority extraction," Ethan said. The words sounded like a story Leon had told once and watched get twisted. "Separate clean."
"Clean's a lie now," Leon said, and his fingers trembled in a way his trigger never did. "Tell him 'minimal' means human beings and shut up."
The radio on Ethan's shoulder hissed. Uncrowned's tone came through flat and almost gentle. "Neutralize resistance."
Something in Leon's face broke. Something else held.
Ananya felt the room tilt toward spilling. She tugged the foil ribbon on the antenna rig she'd taped along the far wall. Heat-coated signal bled toward the wrong corner of the building. Outside, one of Ethan's flankers cut a glance that way. Good. Not enough.
"Last time," Ethan said. His voice didn't raise. It lowered. "If I ask any quieter, that's me forgiving you."
"You can't do that," Leon said. "Not anymore."
Ethan's hand eased toward his rifle—hesitation first, training second. In that beat, Ayush saw what would happen six moves down. He saw Ananya's name written on unforgiving paper. He saw Nikhil's hands cover his ears. He saw blood.
He drew the Glock low and kept the barrel down and out of sight and said the only true thing left at the door. "Ethan—please."
Ethan's eyes flickered. It was the half-second mercy leaves you when it wants to see what you'll do with it.
Leon moved.
He shoved the door with one shoulder, hard enough to jar Ethan off balance without breaking the seam. He stepped into the slot, jamming his own boot as a wedge—no way to get a rifle through without kissing wood. Ethan's flanker raised. Leon grabbed the barrel and shoved it up, angle snapping skyward. A shot thudded into plaster above the door and the ceiling coughed dust.
The godown woke up. In the lane, someone shouted. Farther away, an engine revved. Ratcheting in lockstep: consequences.
Ethan's rifle came up again, not his choice—orders pushing his hands. He swung it into the gap, not to shoot—to aim at the easiest pressure point. The sight line found Ananya.
Leon didn't decide. He'd already decided days ago.
He went under Ethan's arms and through with his shoulder and brought his own rifle butt up and into Ethan's face, a brutal, ugly movement that works because skulls were designed before men invented rules. Ethan's head snapped. His hand clenched, not on purpose; his finger tensed. The rifle spat once, tore through air, splintered wood.
Leon dropped, pivoted, and fired center mass.
Everything got quiet except for the sound Leons have been hearing since men invented betrayal. Ethan staggered back, eyes wide with a shock that wasn't theatrical. He wasn't ready to die here. He wasn't ready to die anywhere. He fell without dramatics and hit the lane like a man who had loved and been loved by at least one person in this world.
For a long second the godown hung on the thread of who we were just before and who we are now.
Nikhil sat up with a small cry he tried to swallow. Ananya grabbed him before he could see, pressed his face into her scarf, let him listen to her heartbeat instead.
"Move," Ajay said, not loud. He had the jack under the seam by the office door before the word finished.
Outside, Ethan's flanker went for his mic, panic and protocol smashing aloud. "Asset down, asset down—"
Uncrowned's voice came through four places at once: Ethan's radio, the drone overhead, Ananya's pack, the speaker on a truck that had taken a corner too fast. "Clean the grid."
Not extract. Not prioritize. Clean.
A hundred yards south, an engine note changed from idle to intent. The lane vibrated under boot and fall. The air thinned in that way cities do when men with permission plug oxygen out of rooms.
Suraj hit the pallet stack hard enough to free the wheel. It rolled into place and jammed. Shivam took position at the funnel and became the wall that makes mouths into smaller problems. Kartik filled gaps because being small is a skill in a fight. Riya rolled Ethan's dead weight gently toward the lane with her sleeper hand and then stopped herself, because there are acts you cannot commit and still be able to look yourself in the mirror with a child standing next to you.
Leon was on his knees and didn't remember deciding to be. He pressed his palm once to Ethan's chest and got back blood that steamed in the night air. He whispered "I'm sorry" to a man who couldn't hear it and to a room that could.
Ayush dragged him by the vest with a motion that wasn't cruel and wasn't kind. It was necessary. "Now," he said. "We're leaving. You come with me."
Leon got up because his body still took orders even when nothing else did.
The jack bit into the seam. The office wall gave like a mouth losing teeth. Ajay set the rebar and leveraged. The bricks sighed, parting in a staccato of quiet pops. On the third push, a section went with a shudder and spilled dust and the thin smell of another room. Enough.
"Through," Ajay said.
Ananya took Nikhil on her back and ducked into the new dark. Riya slid through with the med pack. Kartik and Lucky followed, one with his lip between his teeth so he didn't say something he couldn't take back, the other with his jaw set to keep something in. Shivam backed through last, iron up. Suraj went sideways, never showing his shoulder to a doorway if he could help it. Leon hit the opening and paused. Ayush didn't wait. He hauled him. Leon came.
On the far side, empty office space, peeled paint, a calendar from two years ago with gods in gold. A broken window shoulder-high. Ajay popped the latch with a shove. The iron bars outside were old and cut by some thief in another life. The hole was uneven and swung hysteria-spikes. A person could get through if they allowed their clothes to be ruined and their arms to pay.
They allowed it.
In the lane behind the godown, a loudhailer carried the clean order: "Eight bodies inside. One asset. Civilians remain in place. Joel in blue shirt—hands up. Step out alone. Do that and no one else dies." The voice was the kind picked for calm. It made the lie sound like decent work.
Suraj went first through the bars and dropped into a slice of shadow. He turned and put his hands up for Ananya, took Nikhil like you take something someone loves more than anything else and pass it back instantly. Kartik threaded through like wire. Riya squeezed and grimaced and let it pass. Leon came, dog tags catching on a burr, metal ringing softly. He reached back and caught Drake's tags before they slid off and clenched them until the metal made dents.
Ayush waited at the hole. He put his hand back without looking. Ananya's fingers slid into his, a bright pressure. "Two minutes," she said. "Then we need to be in new air."
He nodded and sent her through.
They ran the alley like a vein and hit another wall. Ajay leaned into it like it owed him money. It owed him a door. The jack complained. The wall gave another mouth. They crawled into a narrow passage behind a line of shuttered tenements, the kind of slot the city keeps between houses for pipes and gossip. They slid along it in single file until it spit them into a courtyard where a scooter lay on its side painting oil on thirty years of dust.
A voice above them said: "You keep choosing him. Good." Rahul, from a balcony. He had a hand on the rail, Aliya's hair tie around his wrist, casual and precise, a cat not hungry yet. He watched them the way men watch games they've bet on. He lifted a small stone and placed it on the parapet beside two others. He nudged the middle one half out of line.
Ananya looked up at him without flinching. "You're not a god," she said, not loud, just true. "You're what's left when you decide you don't have to love anybody."
Rahul flashed teeth in a long, almost fond grin. "And you are what happens when you decide you have to," he said. "Let's see which wins."
He stepped back into the apartment and shut the door. No lock turned. He didn't need one.
They moved.
The lane behind the courtyard ran parallel to the main road. Two trucks rumbled past the opening—one armored, one a civilian lorry with men in mismatched gear standing in the bed, faces turned to the godown. The loudhailer bleated again. "Joel. Come alone."
Leon's face went spare. "He won't stop," he said, not about Uncrowned. About the part of himself he'd just shaved off in the doorway.
"No," Ayush said. "Neither will we."
Shivam swayed. The bandage had bled through. He didn't say it. Riya said it for him. "Stop pretending not to be made of meat," she said. "Sit for sixty seconds. We can afford sixty."
They ducked into the mouth of a workshop that smelled like rust and old auto oil. Riya re-wrapped the wound with a strip torn from a shirt that meant nothing anymore. She slid a clove between his molars. "Chew," she ordered. "Pretend it's terrible gum."
He obeyed and made a face that made Lucky actually laugh, a soft exhale that loosened the tight shape he'd been wearing.
Ananya wiped sweat from her hairline and looked at Ayush over Nikhil's sleep-tangled head. "We still have to get him back to the kid," she said. Not Ethan. Lucky. The vow had shifted. It had teeth.
"We will," Ayush said. Ananya nodded once and believed him, for now.
They took a chain of back lanes that Ajay knew by the change in smell and the way the ground challenged ankles. The city's noise moved behind them like weather. In front of them it was quicker: pots clattering, a woman hissing children inside, a door closing with apology.
They reached the river edge where it widened like an indecisive animal. The textile godown's cousin—another long rectangle—slouched against the bank, back wall braced with old steel and good luck. Ajay knocked twice on the side door and pushed. It swung without comment.
Inside: looms covered in sheets, shadows thick and flat. A crane block hung from a beam with a single, polite sway that meant no one had moved in here in a day. The river ghosted through a broken storm grate ten feet from the back wall. The air tasted old and the way safety tastes when it's provisional: better than outside.
They let their shoulders drop. Only an inch. Enough to count as a win.
Leon leaned against a loom and slid down until the floor told him he had to stop. He set the tags in his palm and turned them, lips moving without noise. Ayush crouched and touched his shoulder. For a second, Leon looked like he would allow the hand to keep him tethered. Then he looked away because some griefs have to be held without two hands around them or they spill and drown.
"Say it," Ayush said anyway.
Leon dragged breath backwards. "I killed him." Not argument, not justification. Just the invoice you pay at the end of something.
"You saved her," Ayush said, meaning Ananya, meaning all of them. "You saved the kid. You saved me."
"I could've—" Leon started.
"No," Ananya cut in, straight and unkind the way kindness sometimes must be. "You couldn't have." She put her hand over the tags and closed Leon's fingers around them. "If you make this about what makes you feel right, you'll die when we need you alive. Put his name somewhere better than your mouth."
Leon let his head tip forward. "Okay," he said, and the word sounded like he'd had to unlearn a lifetime to say it that way.
Ananya turned and found Lucky on the edge of a crate, elbows on knees, head dropped. She crouched so her eyes were level with his. "You didn't do this," she said quietly, because boys make themselves the center of every disaster before they learn to love any other way. "He did. You tell me next time you want to ping the sky. You don't do it and hope."
"I wanted… help," Lucky whispered.
"So did we," she said. "We're learning how to be that."
Ajay came from the back wall with gray dust in his hair. "The grate goes to a tunnel," he said. "It'll take you under the road to a yard that used to store cables. You can live there for a day if no one tells it stories about you."
"Which one of us are you not saying 'you' to?" Suraj asked.
Ajay's mouth tilted. "You. Me. All of us," he said. "Or none, if you finally decide to stop breathing at the same time."
Outside, the loudhailer moved down a street and lost interest. The drone made one last lazy etch over the roof and then angled north toward a grid where the war was either easier or a better show. The city swallowed the noise and kept its own.
Ayush slid down the wall and let the concrete press a line between his shoulder blades. He smelled the oil and the river and a ghost note of cloves. He heard the eight breaths in the room and the ninth—his—and the tenth he wished he could pretend he didn't hear—Rahul's, somewhere, always in some direction, steady, measured, patient.
"We keep not dying," Kartik said from his spot by the loom, half joke, half tired pledge.
"We keep choosing," Ananya answered, automatic and adamant.
"Tomorrow," Riya added, like a refrain that has learned melody.
Ayush opened his eyes. "Tomorrow," he said, and the word for once didn't feel like debt. It felt like a small weapon.
On the embankment outside, under a sky that had decided to be black again after admitting red, someone arranged three stones in a line and left them where boot soles would brush them away without noticing. Six feet farther, someone set one stone by itself and stood it upright like a bad tooth.
Rahul watched the river shoulder the city and the city shoulder him back and smiled, not cruel, not kind. "You'll bring him," he told the water. "You'll bring him to me anyway."
The river didn't answer. It moved past the looms and the men and the door with the dust on it, kept a secret, and went on.
End of Episode 11: Broken Loyalties