The rumbling engine outside wasn't just a sound; it was a vibration that rattled the loose windowpane of the Chelstone flat. It was the sound of a hunt ending.
"Auntie, get in the back room. Stay away from the windows," Leya commanded, her voice surprisingly steady for someone whose heart was trying to leap out of her throat.
Musi looked panicked, his eyes darting toward the door. "They followed me. I tried to shake them, but they're using the ZIA tracking beacons on my phone. They think the backup is in the wood, Leya. They'll smash that cello to splinters to find it."
Zazu grabbed the heavy wooden table and shoved it against the door. "Is it true? Is there something inside?"
Leya looked at the cello case. She remembered the day her mother had handed it to her at Heathrow, right before the police took her away. *"Never let it out of your sight, Leya. It's your voice. It's the only thing that will never lie to you."*
She knelt beside the case and unlatched it. With trembling fingers, she reached inside the f-hole of the cello. She felt the smooth, resonance-treated wood of the interior. Nothing. She reached deeper, toward the tailpiece.
Her fingernail caught on a tiny, almost invisible sliver of silver.
She pulled. A small, micro-thin strip of vellum—not a flash drive, but a hand-written map of coordinates and a series of numbers—slid out from a hidden groove in the tailpiece.
"It's not digital," Leya whispered, her eyes widening. "My mother knew they'd try to hack or delete a drive. This is... it's a physical ledger. A location."
**CRASH.**
The front door didn't just open; it splintered. A flash-bang grenade rolled across the linoleum, blooming into a blinding white sun.
"GO! THE KITCHEN WINDOW!" Zazu roared through the ringing in his ears.
He didn't wait for her to move. He grabbed the cello case with one hand and Leya's arm with the other, dragging her toward the back of the flat. Musi was already halfway out the narrow window, dropping into the muddy alleyway behind the building.
Leya scrambled over the sill just as two men in tactical gear burst into the living room. They didn't look like police. They looked like shadows—silent, professional, and lethal.
"The case!" one of the men shouted in a thick, foreign accent.
Zazu vaulted over the ledge last, his feet hitting the mud with a wet thud. "This way! The market is three blocks over. If we can get into the crowds, they can't use their tech!"
They ran. Not the elegant, athletic sprint of the ZIA track team, but a desperate, lung-burning scramble through the narrow gaps between houses. The scent of woodsmoke and stagnant water filled Leya's lungs.
Behind them, the sound of heavy boots echoed off the concrete walls. A red laser dot danced across the mud near Leya's feet.
"They're aiming for the cello!" she screamed.
"They won't fire! Not if they think the data is fragile!" Zazu yelled back.
They burst out of the residential alley and into the main artery of the night market. It was a chaotic symphony of colors—blue tarps, yellow light from paraffin lamps, and the deep red of the charcoal embers. The smell of grilled maize and dried fish hit them like a wall.
"Split up?" Musi gasped, his expensive jacket now covered in Chelstone mud.
"No," Zazu said, his eyes scanning the crowd. "They'll pick us off. We stay close. We need to reach the 'Old Guard'—the ones who used to run the security for the mining unions. They're the only ones who hate the Consortium more than my father does."
They ducked behind a stall selling second-hand clothes, the heavy fabric muffling the sound of their frantic breathing.
Leya looked at the vellum strip in her hand. The coordinates weren't for a bank. They were for a cemetery.
"Zazu," she whispered, showing him the paper. "It's not in a vault. It's in Leopards Hill. Section 12."
Zazu's face went pale. "Section 12. That's where the 2012 memorial is. The mass grave for the miners who died during the audit protests."
The black car lurched into the market square, its headlights cutting through the smoke like twin searchlights. The crowd began to scatter, shouting in Bemba and Nyanja.
"They're here," Musi whispered.
Leya gripped the neck of her cello. She looked at the two boys—the one who had betrayed his family for her, and the one who had betrayed his father to save his own soul.
"We can't go to the police," she said. "We go to the grave."
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