"Because if you're just a witness, we ditch you somewhere safe. If you have something they want... then they won't stop until they have you, and whatever you have. And that makes you my problem now."
Another hesitation. She reached inside her jacket and pulled out a small, tarnished silver locket. It looked insignificant, old.
"This," she said, her voice barely audible.
Gabriel frowned. "A locket? They're chasing us through sewers for a locket?"
"It's not just a locket," she explained quickly. "It belonged to someone important. Someone they... silenced. It holds information. Encrypted. It's supposed to expose them."
Gabriel felt a cold dread wash over him. Sparrow was supposed to give him information, coordinates maybe, for an extraction. He was a courier, not a bodyguard for someone carrying evidence against... who?
"Who are 'they'?" he asked.
"The organization that controls a lot of what happens in this city. And beyond," she said grimly. "Sparrow... he was supposed to get this to someone who could trust it. To expose them."
Sparrow. The original plan. His contact. Lucy wasn't the contact. She had the package. Was Sparrow supposed to meet her? Or was she meeting someone else, and Sparrow was just a fallback? Or worse, had Sparrow sold them both out?
"Sparrow was my contact," Gabriel said. "I was supposed to meet him at the cafe. He was late."