They didn't slow until the pressure in the building settled into something readable again.
Julian stopped near the next junction and turned back the way they had come. The corridor was empty now, but the pattern they had broken still lingered in the structure. It no longer felt like a chase. It felt like a design that had been interrupted.
"They pulled back," he said.
Lucian's gaze moved once through the space, confirming it without needing to test it. "Yes."
Julian let out a slow breath. The tension in his chest hadn't eased, but it had shifted into something more controlled. The attacks had been precise, the movement planned, the timing deliberate.
None of that mattered as much as one thing.
"They knew the layout."
Lucian didn't respond immediately.
Julian continued, steady now. "Not just the building. The movement inside it. They knew where we would be, when we would reach certain points, and how to intercept without triggering alarms."
