Frank moved with the economy of a man who had done this before. His boots found the shadows between streetlights. His breath came steady, controlled, even as his hand pressed harder against his side, where something warm and wet had begun to soak through his jacket.

The door appeared without warning. A narrow, unmarked slab of metal set into the brick of an alley wall, rusted at the hinges, half-hidden behind a stack of rotting pallets. The kind of door that was never supposed to be opened.

He forced it. The lock gave with a dull, wet snap. The door swung inward.

Darkness. Stale air. The smell of dust and old concrete.

Frank stepped inside and stopped.

His eyes adjusted. A shape. A silhouette, standing ten feet away, motionless, barely visible against the deeper black of the room beyond.

For several seconds, neither of them moved.

The sirens grew louder outside. Closer.