E L A R A

The hallway explodes with noise before either of us can breathe. A shrill alarm wails somewhere above us, lights flicker, one, two, and then the entire corridor drops into this ugly, stuttering half-dark, like the island is gasping. My pulse is still lodged in my throat from what we were about to do, my shirt crooked, my underwear halfway on, and Adrian’s hands still ghosting heat over my hips when the second alarm hits.

“Shit,” he mutters behind me. His voice is still wrecked, low from kissing me, from begging me to say yes. My legs shake. Not from fear.

“Medical to all stations,” the PA crackles, broken and stuttering. “Power loss.. backup systems unstable.. repeat, unstable..”

I shove past him before my brain even catches up. Muscle memory. Duty. Whatever instinct saves lives better than I save myself. Guests spill out of rooms, half-dressed, confused, some laughing, some panicked. Someone yells that the elevator stopped mid-floor. Someone else swears the emergency stair lights didn’t come on at all.

“Move!” I shout, pushing through bodies. “Stay calm, stay close to the walls.. don’t run!” My heartbeat is doing the same frantic rhythm it was doing against Adrian’s mouth a minute ago, and I hate not knowing which part of that is lust and which part is adrenaline. Behind me, he catches up, steps fast, breath uneven.

“Elara..”

“Not now,” I snap, even though every inch of me remembers his hands, his mouth, the way he almost lifted me into him like he couldn’t get close enough. The island is falling apart around us, and I’m still burning from him.

A generator coughs somewhere deep below the floors, one of those low, mechanical groans that means something’s wrong with its heartbeat. The emergency lights flicker again, weaker this time. People gasp. A child starts crying. Panic spreads like heat, fast, stupid, contagious.

“Out of the center!” I call louder. “Form a line along the walls! walk, don’t run.” I gesture to two resort staff who look seconds from bolting. “You! blue shirt, go door to door and check for mobility issues. You! tie your damn shoelaces and help him.”

They listen. Thank God. Adrian’s radio crackles sharply. “Control to Valcrosse! backup grid isn’t responding. We’re reading multiple relay failures. Security requests Dr. Quinn at the generator wing! possible injuries.”

My stomach drops. “Generator wing? That’s..”

“Underground level two,” he finishes, jaw tightening. “If the main relay blew, there could be pressure injuries. Or burns.”

“Or poison fumes,” I mutter. “Or structural damage.” A man stumbles through the crowd, waving his phone like a dying torch. “My wife, she tripped on the stairs! she can’t see anything… please!”

“I’ve got it.” I squeeze past Adrian. “Stay with the crowd. Keep them calm. Move them toward natural light.” He grabs my wrist. Not hard. Not gentle either. “I’m not letting you go alone.”

For one second, just one, my body remembers the way his hands felt holding my thighs apart in the dark. My breath stutters. His jaw flexes like he hears it too. Focus, Quinn.

“You’re security,” I tell him. “I’m a doctor. We both go.” He releases my wrist, but the ghost of his touch clings to my skin. We head toward the stairwell, and every step feels like walking into a throat closing around us. The stairwell is a nightmare.

The emergency strip-light flickers like someone shaking a flashlight with dying batteries. People cling to the walls, inching downward, some terrified, some furious, all loud. Heat builds too fast, blackout heat, stale and trapped.

A woman grips the railing. “Is it a fire? Should we be running?”

“No fire,” I assure her. “Just electrical failure. Keep moving… slowly.”

Someone behind her shoves. Someone ahead panics. A ripple of bodies sways like a human wave, and for a breathless moment, I imagine all of them tumbling down the steps like dominoes.

“STOP PUSHING!” Adrian’s voice hits the crowd like a wall, freezing the motion. It works. He positions himself on the landing, anchoring the flow.

We reach the bottom. A security guard rushes toward us, pale and sweating. “Doctor. thank God! you need to see this. Now.”

“What happened?” I ask, jogging to keep up.

“The generator panel… it didn’t fail naturally.” He swallows hard. “Someone cut into the housing. There were tools left behind. And…”

“And what?”

He hesitates, voice dropping. “There’s blood.”

My stomach tightens, not fear. Preparedness. My hands find my med kit before my brain does.

“Show me,” I say. We push through the metal door into the humid, metallic stink of the generator wing. As my eyes adjust, the truth tells itself. The panel’s not blown. It’s carved open. Deliberately.

The room feels like it’s breathing, slow, sick breaths rattling the metal around us. I kneel by the open panel, trying to keep my hands steady. Some of the trembling is adrenaline. Some of it is leftover heat from being pinned against a shelf with Adrian’s mouth on mine. I force myself to focus. The cuts are too clean to be accidental, too deliberate to be anything but sabotage.

“This wasn’t a power surge,” I say quietly. “Someone did this.” Adrian crouches beside me. I can feel him, his presence, his heat, even without touch. Then his hand settles on my back. Barely a touch. But enough. My breath leaves me in a rush. I hate that I lean into it for half a second.

“Elara,” he murmurs.

I shake my head. “Don’t. Not here.” My voice is thinner than I want. Something clatters out of the panel as I lift it, a sharp metal tool. Warm. Warm means recent.

I pick it up carefully. “Adrian… someone was just here.” He swears under his breath. I shine the light deeper. A smear of dark red streaks the housing. Blood.

“Adrian,” I whisper. “We need to move before they make it to guests.” Ethan’s voice crackles over the radio.
“No visual on the suspect. Possible movement in generator corridors. North wing lights are failing.”

My pulse spikes. “They’re still down here.” I follow the blood trail, footprints dragging, dust disturbed, a smear along the corner where someone braced themselves. The trail pulls us toward the back corridor, where the coolant tanks hum like low animals in the dark.

The deeper we go, the worse the air gets, humid, metallic, sharp at the back of the throat. My flashlight slices through it, catching pipes, tank valves, the slick sheen of fresh blood.

“There,” I whisper. The storage alcove near the tanks is half-open, shadows pooling thick behind it. I move closer, step by step, flashlight raised. A sound breaks the silence, a quick, sharp inhale. Human. Hurt.

“You’re injured,” I call softly. “Let me see..” Something shifts behind the metal door. A hand grips the edge, bloody, trembling.

“I can help you,” I say. “But you need to come out where I can see you.” Another ragged breath. Then a voice, strained and low:
“Don’t come closer.” My heart slams once, hard. They’re cornered. Wounded. Desperate. Which makes them dangerous. I take one careful step forward, raising the light. And the figure lunges out of the dark.