The Labyrinth Keys

Chapter 16: Treasure Map

Maki, however, isn't so easily convinced. "The hell we are! I wanna—"

I cut her off, keeping my voice calm. "I don't care what you want. Rin and I have been through hell today. It's time we rest."

Maki stares at me for a moment before dropping it. Her eyelids are already half-closed. She flops onto the couch, exhaustion finally catching up to her. I don't know what running a gang is like, but it can't be easy. She looks just as drained as us.

I start making dinner—something simple. I'm too tired for anything extravagant. I settle on meatloaf, following a recipe I found online. My hands move through the motions, but my mind drifts elsewhere.

Leona.

Finn's sister had blonde hair, unlike him, and sky-blue eyes. She was always such a sassy girl. She and Finn got along like oil and water, always bickering, but beneath it, they were closer than most siblings. When their parents died, Finn stepped up to take care of her. They balanced each other perfectly. I still remember her snapping at Finn when he scolded her for dyeing the ends of her hair pink. She told him she wasn't a kid anymore, that all her friends were doing it.

But she was a kid.

No brother should have to bury his sister at eight years old.

A ding from the oven pulls me back to reality. I take out the meatloaf, cut it into portions, and set out some plastic plates.

Maki, only half-awake, perks up when I place a plate in front of her. Rin, lost in thought, barely acknowledges hers as she sifts through files.

Maki takes a bite, then suddenly sits up, fully awake. She stares at me in disbelief.

"The fuck? Are you some kinda gourmet chef?"

I snort. "Demon of perfection, remember?"

Maki looks at me with renewed awe. "Damn. Convenient power, man."

The meatloaf is amazing, but I barely taste it as I watch Rin working. Her mind is running a mile a minute despite her exhaustion. After a little while, I see a text document open up, and Rin suddenly yells, "Hell yeah!"

I stand up and peer over her shoulder—Maki does the same.

Rin smiles up at me like a child waiting to be praised. "Got it. The text is decrypted."

I look at the text document. There's a two lines written down. I read it out loud:

"The yellow path is not walked, but descended. In the city where ash drifts like dying embers and fields fade into hollow ground, deeper than lost souls and nameless graves. Seek the path that does not rise, but falls—for the heart of the earth is where the maze was born."

Maki raises an eyebrow. "That's some cryptic bullshit if I've ever heard it."

Rin tilts her head, eyes scanning the words like they might rearrange themselves if she looks hard enough. "Yeah, but it makes sense in a way. 'Not walked, but descended'—it means underground. And if it's talking about the heart of the earth, that probably means the labyrinth is in the center of the city."

I nod. "The city where ash drifts and fields fade is most definitely referring to Ashfield." I exhale, rubbing the back of my neck. "Ashfield is our home. We grew up here. We know this place inside and out—or at least, we thought we did. If the labyrinth is here, it must be hidden deep beneath the streets."

Rin glances at me, then back at the screen. "Think about it—there's a reason Ashfield feels... wrong. This city's old, built on top of itself over and over again. Underground tunnels, collapsed infrastructure, entire districts abandoned or sealed off. What if it's always been right beneath us, buried under layers of history?"

A chill runs through me. She's right. Ashfield always had this eerie quality, like something was lurking just out of sight. People have vanished. Places changed overnight. There were stories—urban legends about tunnels beneath the city that led to nowhere, doors that opened to empty voids.

Maki crosses her arms. "So, what? We just start digging?"

Rin snorts. "There are underground parts we can look up easily. Underground maps are accessible online."

Sure enough, with a couple of clicks, Rin pulls up an entire map.

Maki frowns. "How the hell do we know where to narrow it down?"

I look at the map namely at the center of the map, and spot something I recognize. I point to the screen, glowing faintly in the darkened room. "What about the old subway tunnels?"

The abandoned subway line beneath Ashfield—it was shut down years ago after a series of unexplained cave-ins. No one ever reopened it. No one ever really talked about why.

Rin furrows her brows. "You think that's it?"

I nod slowly, grinning. "If I had to bet, that's where we'll find our way in. Given our history of living underground, we even know an easy way in."

Rin looks at me nostalgically. "Then we should sleep and go at first light tomorrow."

Maki grumbles but doesn't argue, her eyes flicking toward the kitchen in a way that suggests she's about to complain, but decides against it. Rin, on the other hand, seems to finally recognize the effort that went into the meal that is now sitting cold. With a soft grunt of approval, she eagerly shovels the meatloaf down, her hunger getting the better of her. Once finished, she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and gives me a grateful glance.

"Nice to have my own personal chef," she says, her tone softening. "Get some rest. And don't even think about clocking in for work on Monday."

She flashes me a tired but genuine smile before heading off to her room for the night, her footsteps light and fading into the quiet of the house. I hadn't even thought or cared about work that life feels like a lifetime ago even if it's only been two days. The comforting hum of the evening settles over me, and I feel relief as I can finally relax after such a long day. I glance out the window at the quiet, empty streets of Ashfield. The labyrinth has been beneath us all along—we just didn't know it.

With that revelation, I retire for the night. I take the couch, Rin takes Finn's bed, and Maki takes the guest room. Too tired to do anything else, I collapse minutes after parting. I quickly fade into dreams that turn to nightmares.

Sleep refuses to come easy. I toss and turn, haunted by the day everything went to shit—the day of our biggest heist. The first time we tried to rob a bank.

We planned it for months, every detail meticulously laid out. Finn was our inside man, feeding us real-time information on security, disabling the alarms and cameras. He told me everything was set, that the job would be easy.

But I saw it in his eyes.

This was his first job since Leona died, and no matter how much he insisted he was ready, I knew he wasn't. His grief clung to him like a shadow, dragging him down. I should have called it off, should have known he wasn't in the right headspace. But I was impatient. I wanted the plan to pay off.

When things fell apart—when the security guard showed up—I panicked.

I was a terrible leader that day. I should've trusted Rin to handle it. She was always faster, sharper, able to think on her feet. But instead, I let my emotions take control, charging in after her like an idiot.

The sound of a dream security alarm jolts me awake.

Heart pounding, I sit up, rubbing my eyes. It takes me a moment to register the faint glow of headlights filtering through the front window.

Then comes the sound of a car door shutting.

Someone just entered the house.

And they weren't supposed to be here.