The flashlight beam was a white spear cutting through the thick, ancient dust of the tunnel. Vedika felt the cold dampness of the stone walls pressing against her shoulders, but the coldness she felt inside was sharper. Behind the glare of the light, she could see the silhouettes of three men. They weren't soldiers in uniform; they were ghosts of the insurgency, wrapped in dark wool and shadowed by the heavy barrels of their weapons.

Abhimanyu didn't flinch. Even with his back to a dead-end and his sidearm down to its last few rounds, he stood like a monolith. He pushed Vedika behind him, his arm a solid iron bar across her chest, pinning her into a small alcove in the masonry.