I tickle the sensitive hollow of Tromeo’s long neck, scratching delicately between the feathers to find the flesh beneath. He is so much softer than I imagined, and dusty.

In the warmth of the small room I call my own, we laze in comfort in the space that feels least like a cave in the entire cavern system. Face down in his chest feathers I can ignore my fears. I don’t know what I should have expected, but the reality has lived up to every idle daydream of the past weeks.

“Would you like to get something to ea-”

The door slams open with a sound like a gunshot.

“I bought you ten minutes.” Elmer throws a handful of cloth in general direction of my bed without looking in my direction. “Get him out of here as fast as you can.”

“But what about-?”

“There’s no time.” Elmer disappears into the hallway and the door thuds closed again behind him.

There isn’t even time to panic.

I shake out the bundle of cloth Elmer tossed and find dark black clothing that would probably fit a Troo in a pinch.

Tromeo blinks groggily at me and then shakes his head in a most human gesture, clearing his thoughts and putting himself back together. He takes the black clothing and puts it on as quickly as possible. I grab pajamas. It’s faster for me to pull on the drawstring waist pajama pants than to fuss with buttons or a belt.

His rumpled uniform lies in a pile on the floor of my room, but there isn’t time to deal with that now.

I grab a handgun as an afterthought and we hurry out of the room. There’s no way my husband knows his way around this dreadful warren already, so he must rely completely on following me. As far as trust exercises go, this is most definitely an extreme variant.

We run barefoot and ill prepared for the vehicle storage bay with its many exit tunnels. The massive main door is open, but that is not our best choice as an escape route. Dirk’s yellow courier jeep is parked just outside the open door. Several soldiers with rifles leveled surround it while someone I do not recognize works on removing the doors.

So far I have successfully avoided any high-traffic areas where we might be stopped by someone with good intentions. There is nothing to be done about the massive vehicle bay. We have to get across somehow.

Tromeo looks at me nervously. His sweet eyes shift from large circular pupils to tiny slits in the sudden daylight from the open door. I could stare for hours and we have barely seconds.

“I trust you,” he says in that hushed voice that emits from him without his mouth moving at all.

I nod and realize that we are holding hands.

“Go there.” I point across the room to the open portal into the far tunnel. “It’s a long way, but we can make it on foot. You’re faster without me.”

“I can’t leave you,” he protests, somewhat effectively. “I swore a vow, July.”

“I did too.” I swallow hard. My skin is still sticky with the sweat of consummating those vows. “I’m not in danger. You are. I’ll be right behind you.”

He grabs my face and presses his jaw against my lips and then his forehead against mine. I suffer from a moment of doubt.

“As fast as you can.”

I nod.

A sprinting Troo moves faster than any creature has any right to. His posture changes completely to achieve the feat - arms tucked in stiffly against his chest and body leaning far enough forward that I’d have to do some significant yoga stretching to achieve that without falling over. He sprints across the room on light feet and his bright blue tail feathers flash in the sunshine.

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It takes only seconds, and that is all he has.

The soldiers investigating the yellow jeep turn to toss some equipment out of the back of it. It looks like a black box from a vehicle of some sort. What has Dirk been up to between his message runs?

As odd as it would be for me to be out of my personal room in my pajamas, especially so caked with sweat as I am now, I need an excuse.

And I come up with an okay one when put to the test. I quickly realize that my panting for breath is fairly convincing. So I “go for a jog” and put on a happy face while I jog around the room in an indirect fashion. I know that other underground residents use this space as a loop for exercise and I can follow the path their shoes have worn in the stone. It isn’t long before I make it back to the tunnel.

I hate tunnels.

I have always hated tunnels.

Tunnels are just about the worst underground thing that isn’t also underwater and they’re everywhere.

Most tunnels in the compound are very well lit. That’s how you know they’re safe to traverse. A tunnel without lights is a tunnel you should not enter.

Exit tunnels like these are the exception to that rule. The desire to prevent light from escaping at their end and the general lack of traffic along their length makes the energy expenditure of providing illumination for the entire length of the tunnel a waste of resources.

I hate myself for hesitating.

I know Tromeo has run into that vast darkness. I know he trusted me to follow him.

I falter on the edge of the darkness.

But I did make a vow. He’s trusting me.

I can’t just abandon him in there.

I swallow my fear and start to run inside. As the light fades behind me it becomes more difficult to retain anything resembling calm.

My breathing grows quick. My heart pounds promises of a terrible death into my brain. I slow my running feet and pick my way carefully across the rough, unfinished stone.

The tool marks remain in the tunnel that have not been smoothed down for the ease of human habitation. The texture under my bare feet is sharply grooved. I find the smooth groove created by the traffic of so many vehicles along the rough floor. A crust of rubber pellets mounds on either side of the smooth groove. I have no source of light with which to find my way, but I know that if I stay in the groove I will not get lost.

Tromeo doesn’t have any source of light either. I know he will be every bit as lost as I am in here. And I also do not know what could have possibly sent Elmer into such a panic. I’ll find out eventually. I know I will.

Until then, I focus on finding my husband. It feels so strange to call him that when only yesterday he was still that mysterious Troo to which I wrote. And I love him. I have to find him.

Moving slowly, I listen for anything that might give away his position. This tunnel is more than one and less than five miles long. He can’t have just kept running and made his way to the end of it yet.

Can he?

With fearful steps, I continue forward. When I look behind me, there is only a tiny pinprick of light. When I look anywhere else there is absolute nothingness. The great black darkness weighs heavy on me like a blanket. I can’t hold back the panic any longer.

My knees buckle under me and I collapse to the ground, a sobbing, wailing mess. Beads of rubber stick to my skin and I pull at my hair as I curl into a tight fetal position upon the dirty floor.

“I’m right here.” The now familiar voice is right in my ear. “I have you.” Soft, dusty arms surround me with a cool comfort. I am lifted from the grime and carried, so carefully.

The panic crumbles into exhausted hiccups. I rest my head against Tromeo’s strong shoulder.

I don’t know how long we walk like that. It is not a short distance, and I can feel a subtle shuddering in Tromeo’s steps as he tires. But when I attempt to protest, he does not put me down. This Troo is as devoted to me as I could expect a human to be. If we weren’t supposed to be at war with each other, he’d have been the perfect spouse.

It was impossible to notice it happening, but eventually there is light in the tunnel again. It is too far away and this tunnel has too many bends for it to be directly visible immediately, but eventually there is some light.

Tromeo finally consents to put me down. His breathing sounds labored to me, and I worry that he has overexerted himself after our earlier activities. I wish we had time to clean up and introduce him to my mother. I was very much looking forward to that.

His tail brushing the floor damages its long feathers. I wonder what kind of maintenance they require. But that is remarkably insignificant of a thought to be having at a time like this.

I realize I still have the handgun. I hold it at the ready as the two of us slowly and carefully approach the bend in the tunnel.

I look around it first, since my own people will not shoot me, that is the safer option.

On the other side of the bend, Dirk sits with his hands bound behind his back. A lantern glows invitingly on the ground.

He doesn’t look up at me. I’m not sure if he’s awake, asleep, or unconscious. I’m fairly certain that he’s not dead.

Dirk wouldn’t possibly be left with a light source if he’d been left alone. I know for a fact that some of our less savory methodology involves putting a bound person in a tunnel and taking their light away. Someone else is there.

So I raise the gun and turn the corner to find out.