Chapter 322
(Ethan)
The storage room smells like cardboard and old vinegar. It took hours to get here clean, doubling back twice to make sure nothing followed, and somewhere in the run from evening into night the adrenaline finally runs out and leaves the actual size of tonight sitting on my chest instead.
Gwen’s got her knees pulled up against the wall, still not talking. Jessica’s pacing the four feet of open floor between a shelf of canned goods and a mop bucket, Impmon riding her shoulder and going quiet for once. Gatomon and BlackGatomon have parked themselves by the door like it’s their job now, which I guess it is.
Jessica keeps pacing. “You could sit down.”
“I could.” She doesn’t sit down either.
It doesn’t land as a joke.
I keep replaying the roof, Sitwell’s flat little sentence about Coulson, the two agents going down, the fence tearing under Gatomon’s claws. None of it feels like something that happened to me three hours ago, more like something I read about happening to someone else, and I’m still catching up to the fact that it’s mine.
My hands won’t stop moving, picking at the hem of my sleeve, the torn one, like there’s something useful to find in it. There isn’t. Gwen catches me doing it and doesn’t say anything, which is its own kind of mercy.
Gwen’s looking at Renamon now, at the spot on her shoulder where the glancing hit landed.
“You’re bleeding a little, still.”
“It’s nothing.” Renamon doesn’t move from the door. “It’s already closing.”
Nobody pushes on it further, but I catch Gwen watching her a second longer than she needs to.
“We need cash.” Gwen’s still not looking up. “Real cash, not cards, not anything with our names on it. And somewhere to sleep that isn’t a storage room.”
Jessica checks her pockets like the number might have changed since the last three times she checked.
“I’ve got maybe sixty dollars on me. That covers a bad diner breakfast and nothing else.”
“My accounts are probably frozen the second anyone thinks to check. So are yours. Probably already are.”
That sits there for a second.
Jessica stops pacing.
“What about our families? If they’re building a case against us, do they even need a reason to show up at Olivia’s door?”
I don’t have an answer for that one. Nobody does. Gwen’s jaw does something small and tight, and I don’t push it.
I still don’t know about Fury. Could be he signed off on tonight. Could be he’s exactly as blind as the rest of us. I don’t have a way to find out that doesn’t involve walking back into the exact kind of trap we just crawled out of, so I file it next to everything else I can’t do anything about tonight and try Jessica’s phone again.
Nothing comes back from Peter, and it’s not just plain nothing either. His last real message wasn’t a placeholder, it was a location, a Shadowstone lead he’d flagged and said he wanted to check out himself. That was hours before any of this started. Since then, not even the one-line “still here, just buried” he leaves on a bad night, the kind of habit so automatic you don’t notice it until it’s the one thing missing.
“How long’s it been?” Gwen’s already doing the math with me.
“Since his last real message, hours before any of this started.” I don’t like my own answer. “Longer than he’s ever gone dark without at least a heads up.”
Jessica doesn’t look like she believes it herself.
“Maybe his connection’s just bad.”
“Maybe.” I don’t buy it either.
Gatomon’s ears flick toward the door, then settle, a reflex more than a warning at this point, all of us jumping at nothing.
We spend a few minutes turning it over, the kind of conversation that goes in a circle because none of the exits lead anywhere good. Maybe his equipment failed, or he’s just that deep in whatever he’s working on. Maybe somebody made the same call about him that Myotismon’s people made about us, and he’s somewhere right now finding that out the hard way. Nobody says that last one out loud first. I do, eventually, because somebody has to.
Jessica’s been holding this one for a while, I can tell.
“We should go check on him. Not wait around here hoping the phone does something.”
“We just got out.” Gwen’s not really arguing, more like she’s testing whether it holds up out loud. It doesn’t, not really.
I want to be the one who says we wait, that going back out is exactly the kind of move that gets people caught, that we don’t even know what we’re walking into. I run through every version of that argument in about four seconds, and every version ends the same place: waiting isn’t actually safer. It just feels safer because nobody has to move.
“If it were one of us gone quiet like this, Peter wouldn’t sit on his hands either.”
It holds.
I put the pieces together as they come.
“He flagged a location before he went dark, said he wanted to check it out himself. Some Shadowstone pattern he didn’t explain. If he’s anywhere, it’s there.”
“Fine. And once we’re inside?”
Gwen’s already on her feet.
“It’s a start.” I’ve said that once tonight already and it wasn’t much of a plan then either. It still isn’t. It’s just the only direction that isn’t sitting still.
Jessica’s already on her feet too, Impmon hopping down off her shoulder like he’s ready before the rest of us are. Renamon’s up as well, quiet, watching the door the way she’s been watching it all night, and Gwen pushes off the wall without another word, which is as close to agreement as she’s going to give right now.
Nobody says it’s a good idea. Nobody says it’s not.
We head out into the last dark hour before morning, three of us and four Digimon, no real plan past a location and the fact that sitting still stopped being an option the second we said Peter’s name out loud.
The storage room door swings shut behind us, and for a second none of us move, like the night’s waiting to see if we actually mean it. Then Gatomon steps off the curb first, and the rest of us follow her into the dark.