Chapter 9: MACUSA's Net
The sound of Tina Goldstein's frantic knock was not just a signal; it was the sharp, metallic clang of the inevitable. The relative safety of the small, temporary safehouse they had found had evaporated, leaving behind a cold, exposed vulnerability. The air inside, which had been merely heavy with must and the sweet, waxy scent of burning candle smoke, now felt thick with ozone—the unmistakable, metallic tang of concentrated magic and impending, violent conflict.
Sam didn't hesitate, wrenching the door open to find Tina. Her face, usually set in lines of crisp, professional authority, was pale and fractured by genuine alarm.
"They're coming. Percival Graves is leading a team. They swept the entire Lower East Side. They've closed the net," she whispered, slipping inside with the wary, tensed posture of a hunted animal. She quickly secured the door, not just with the standard lock, but with a desperate, layered spell that shimmered faintly before dissolving.
"Graves? Already?" Sam muttered, running a weary hand over the abrasive stubble on his jaw.
" He's too fast. Too thorough. This isn't just a MACUSA arrest; Grindelwald is taking this personally and throwing resources at it. "
The sheer speed of the response was dire. They were trapped in a tightening coil.
"We need a plan that's less 'running away' and more 'vanishing,'" Sam said, his voice flat with calculated pragmatism. He scanned the room, ignoring the nervous fidgeting of Jacob and the quiet, intense focus of Newt. He needed an exit no one, especially not a MACUSA Auror, would bother to catalogue.
" Efficiency. The laziest way to survive is to solve the problem permanently, not temporarily. "
"I hate this feeling."
He felt the familiar, invasive pressure in his mind as the System registered his spike in heart rate and adrenaline.
" Oh, good. The System thinks I need to move faster to match my anxiety. "
[SYSTEM: +1 Agility. Debuff: Stress Spike.]
[Assessment: MACUSA pursuit probability: 99%. Recommended Action: Tactical Evasion. Failure to comply results in mandatory interrogation by a very handsome, very evil man.]
Galvanized by the adrenaline and the System's snark, Sam channeled a minuscule dose of his luck, letting it subtly filter toward structural weaknesses in the room. He moved across the floorboards with desperate, strategic intensity, his eyes fixed on the geometry of the room.
His boot pressed down on an old, rickety floorboard near the defunct fireplace. A pronounced, almost theatrical creaking sound echoed under his weight, louder than it should have been in the sudden silence. He pressed again, the sound now a low, promising groan.
Sam knelt instantly, running his fingers along the edge, feeling a barely perceptible, dust-choked gap between the wood and the brickwork. With a quick, powerful shove, the board slid aside with a squeal of rusty nails, revealing a small, black trapdoor leading to the dark, forgotten space below—likely a choked sub-level or a direct sewer connection.
"There," Sam said, pointing into the dark hole. "A hidden route. The older the construction, the more secrets it keeps. Graves won't expect us to go down."
Tina stared at the gap, her brow deeply furrowed, a flicker of reluctant, grudging respect warring with her terror. This discovery of an utterly anomalous escape route, driven by Sam's absurd, relentless luck, was the only thing that could save them from the net.
Before they could descend, a faint, saccharine scent—jasmine and sugar—preceded a soft pop. Queenie Goldstein had apparated silently into the room, her timing as impeccable and unnerving as always.
Her appearance brought an immediate, almost hallucinatory soothing presence, her floral perfume momentarily cutting through the tension and the acrid candle smoke. The others were focused on the trapdoor, but she walked straight to Sam, bypassing the immediate, physical danger.
She placed a gentle, warm hand on his forearm, her bright eyes suddenly clouding with profound empathy.
"Oh, honey. That little head of yours is just swimming with stress," she said, her voice a tender, melodic lilt that seemed too soft for the looming crisis.
"You're carrying the whole world on your shoulders, aren't you?"
Sam felt utterly exposed, his private fear and calculation laid bare for her gentle inspection. He tensed the muscles in his arm, a micro-reaction he couldn't control.
" She's not reading the System. She's reading me. "
" The me that's terrified of being caught by a powerful sociopath. The me that's trying to be a cynical rock for these people. "
Queenie squeezed his arm gently, her eyes sparkling with the playful teasing that was her unique form of affection.
"It's alright, lucky boy," she said, her smile wide and slightly conspiratorial.
"But you are hiding something. Something big. And I think that something has a beautiful, glowing chain underneath that shirt."
She tapped the spot over his chest where Merlin's Locket was hidden, her non-verbal action an acknowledgement of his powerful, untold secret. Her empathy, despite his desperate secrecy, only deepened their fragile bond. Sam knew, with a certainty that calmed his racing heart, that she was a confidante he desperately needed, even if he couldn't yet reveal his entire, bizarre truth.
" "
" A quiet moment of absolute emotional vulnerability. Great. I need to be calculating, not emotionally bonded. This is highly inefficient. "
There was no time for further reflection. The clock had run out.
"Move! Now!" Sam commanded, his voice raw.
Newt and Nagini quickly dropped through the trapdoor first, their movements quiet and practiced. Jacob followed, letting out a muffled, frantic yelp as he disappeared into the blackness. Sam and Tina brought up the rear.
Just as Tina was about to follow Sam into the hole, the heavy oak of the front door splintered inward with a shattering crack. The Aurors had arrived. A powerful burst of blinding, azure light from a stun spell flashed through the room.
Sam, already halfway down the hole, channeled a final, explosive, chaotic burst of his luck, not into dodging the spell, but into the structure itself. It was a calculated risk of maximum effort for minimum future consequence.
With a deafening, terrifying roar, the entire inner wall nearest the front door spontaneously buckled and collapsed inward like a broken dam. Dusty rubble, pulverized mortar, and splintered wood rained down, followed by the heavy, echoing metallic clang of a detached water pipe.
The Aurors were momentarily stunned, engulfed in a choking cloud of grit and confusion, giving Sam and Tina the necessary few seconds they desperately needed.
Tina stared at the massive, gaping wound in the wall, her face slick with sweat and powdered with white debris. Her lips formed a silent, shaky "What was that?" of utter disbelief.
"A lucky construction flaw. Get down!" Sam yelled, already dropping into the darkness.
They landed hard in the cramped, dripping tunnel below. The sound of the pipe he'd just burst above them suddenly manifested below them as well: a pipe carrying sewage burst comically, not far from where Jacob landed. The baker let out a strangled, furious cry, his clothes instantly saturated.
Jacob shouted from the darkness, his voice dripping with frustration and, well, other things.
"I am never getting used to this!"
This final, absurd twist of luck—a chaotic, humiliating baptism—solidified Jacob's fate as the comedic, long-suffering punching bag of the group.
Despite the mess, the escape—driven by pure, pragmatic survival—was successful. Tina, dusted in debris but breathing hard, looked at Sam with a new, complex level of reluctant respect. Her growing trust was now based entirely on the fact that following him seemed to be the only—if often unpleasant—way to survive.
They crawled through the cramped, dripping sewer tunnels for what felt like an eternity, guided only by the relentless, forward-surging, desperate pulse of Sam's luck.
Finally, they emerged, coughing and sputtering, into the cold, fresh night air of a quieter, desolate district. They stripped off their outer robes and coats, trying to shake off the lingering, heavy damp stench of their passage.
As they stood there, momentarily safe, a sound cut through the city's muted, distant roar. It was the high, powerful, majestic, yet despairing cry of a Thunderbird, a sound of raw, wild, untamed magic. Sam looked up instinctively, his gaze drawn to the eastern sky, his entire being pulled, like a magnetic force, toward a new, unavoidable mission.
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