The other EMT poked Jonesy’s arm with a needle connected to a tube. He attached it to a bag of clear fluid. Painkillers, she hoped. The other man continued to examine the armpit wound and scowled, his face anxious.
“You did good back there, Red. Seriously. You have what it takes.” He grimaced.
She shook her head. “No, I don’t. I didn’t see that shooter until it was too late. I could’ve shot him and you’d be fine.”
“Don’t be so fucking greedy, Red. You took a bullet for me, which was a real dick move, by the way.”
“Well, you took seven for me. If taking one makes me a dick, then seven—”
“Makes me a real fucking asshole.”
“You’re not an asshole. You’re my friend.”
“Oh, cut the Hallmark crap. We’re not friends.”
“Yes, we are.”
“We’re not friends. I don’t want to get a fucking tangerine martini with you for Christ’s sake. We’re teammates…we’re partners.” He fell into a coughing fit.
“I think we have internal injuries here,” one of the EMTs said. “His BP is dropping rapidly, and the blood I can see from the side wound isn’t enough to account for that. How they could stay so calm when a man was bleeding out in their hands was utterly beyond her comprehension.
“We’re more than friends, Red. How many of your friends have you taken bullets for?”
“I don’t know. A couple?”
A joke was the wrong move. He laughed and the EMTs cursed as the bandage under his armpit shifted and he lost the pressure he’d attempted to apply.
“You need to lie still and stop talking.”
“Fuck you, you fucking pissant. I’ve seen enough men die to know that I am completely and irretrievably fucked.”
“Jonesy!” Kristen gasped.
“You thought I was gonna make it? Maybe you are the fucking rookie.”
“Jonesy, stop talking.”
“No way. Fuck you and fuck them and fuck everyone.” He laughed again. “You took a bullet for me, Red. That’s what a team is all about. We look out for each other, take care of each other, and take bullets for each other if that’s what it takes to keep each other safe.”
“But you’re not safe.”
Jonesy smirked. His bloody teeth made her shiver with real fear that she struggled to keep at bay because losing him was unthinkable. “But you are, and we both know you’re the only one who can save the rest of our team.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“I knew you’d say that, but don’t worry. I won’t make you. Remember, though, the team needs you… You need to…go to them…to keep them safe… Only…only—” He coughed and it was bad this time. Flecks of blood tinged his spittle. It was only then that she realized one of his lungs must have ruptured. That was where the blood was coming from.
“Only what?”
“Only don’t get shot again… It…it fucking… It fucking sucks…”
He exhaled, his chest fell, and it never rose again.
For a moment, Kristen heard nothing but a high-pitched blare. She realized after a moment that it was the heart monitor to tell the EMTs his heart had stopped.
“We’re sorry, officer,” one of the EMTs said but she couldn’t hear him. She couldn’t hear anything beyond the sound of her failing Jonesy and the sound of his heart stopping. Her own heart had pounded in her ears in mockery while his had ceased. It was completely unfair. He shouldn’t have done that. If he hadn’t have done that—
An explosion rang out and sliced through the sorrow that threatened to grasp her by the throat and never let her go.
The people who’d killed Jonesy were still in that warehouse.
Her team was in there with them—vastly outnumbered, pinned down, and to quote Jonesy, fucked.
Kristen dragged in a breath and looked around. The SWAT teams outside the building were preparing an assault. They didn’t have time to prepare. They needed to act and do it now. Her team was in there, surrounded by a horde of damn lunatics, and the rest of the police force was out there talking about taking prisoners and zones of defense?
She wanted to scream that didn’t have time for this nonsense and needed to act.
But it was pointless. They wouldn’t, not in time.
Only she would.
Her sorrow blossomed and burned away. Rage swept in behind to fill the space. It came from the loss of her friend and it pointed itself at the bloodthirsty morons who thought they could take a city—her city—from the people who lived there.
As her fury grew, she balled her hands into fists.
It settled into an implacable determination—she wouldn’t allow these assholes to take her city, but she wouldn’t let her anger blind her, either. All those months of training had readied her for this moment. She channeled her white-hot fury into what she knew and let it cool and harden into ice.
A moment later, she ran back into the warehouse to save her friends.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Someone had closed the door to the warehouse, but it didn’t matter. Kristen kicked the giant metal door with enough force to dent it and force it off its hinges.
Voices cried out in surprise, then fell silent.
Good. She’d already snuffed out the lives of two of these murderers and wounded a few others. Let them see she was unafraid.
A moment of silence settled over the space as every gun turned to aim at her. That was also good. The more they focused on her, the less they’d focus on her team.
She didn’t want to think about what she’d do if they hurt anyone else. God help them all if it was anyone on her team, but if they hurt Butters… Well, she simply wouldn’t let them.
A moment before every weapon opened fire, she sprinted forward to a stack of crates. Two hostiles were hidden on the far side. She ducked around it, picked one of them up by his throat, and let his allies shoot him in the back while he shielded her from their bullets. Despite the fact that she used one of their own as a shield, the barrage didn’t even slow. She swung his corpse at his ally with enough force to hurl them both through the crates they’d huddled behind.
Part of her wondered vaguely at the strength needed to do it, but people were trying to kill her and she let the thought leave her mind.
Her cover was destroyed, so she snatched up the lid of one of the crates and raced deeper into the building. She wielded it like a shield to intercept bullets intended to kill her. Oddly enough, she could feel that she moved faster than she’d ever done before. She couldn’t dodge bullets but she knew enough about how people used guns to keep out of their way as she sprinted toward her team.
To confuse the enemy, she alternated between direct burst and zig-zag maneuvers, which brought her closer and closer to her destination while she held the lid of the crate between her and the army of thugs. Occasionally, small jolts of pain made her think of the airsoft range. Surely getting shot hurt more than this? Maybe she had merely been grazed.
An unfamiliar instinct inside her told her to keep going. She felt a power she’d never felt before. Whatever it was, it was fueled by the loss of one of her friends and the threat of losing more. She wouldn’t let that happen. The power inside her told her that she didn’t have to.
Something caught her squarely in the chest and Kristen whirled to careen the lid of the crate across the arena. It spun, easily as fast as a circular saw, and decapitated a man. She felt nothing at the carnage. He’d tried to kill her team and got what he deserved. It had been quick, at least, which was more than she could say for Jonesy.
Two men bounded into her path, both armed with shotguns. Kristen flung herself aside, rolled, and came up behind another stack of crates. The two men tried to come around either side—she could somehow hear their voices over the gunfire—so she shoved the entire pile of crates and toppled them to crush both men and kill them instantly.
Hexagonal nuts spilled from the broken boxes and for the briefest of moments, she wondered how she
’d been able to move them. Each one must have weighed close to a ton. She’d heard of people being able to tap into reserves of strength in situations like this, but it seemed beyond what should be possible. There was a power inside her, though—the same power that had always been there and that had propelled her through the police academy and had earned every trophy on her wall. Only now, she really used it.
She wondered how she knew it was there or even how to tap into it, but that wasn’t important. Not now. Her team was still in trouble and she’d use this strength she hadn’t known she’d possessed without asking unnecessary questions.
Gunshots ripped into the wooden crates she’d been hiding behind in almost the same moment that she broke from cover and ran toward the conveyer. She reached it with a headlong sprint through the middle of the warehouse and located her team. They were still crawling under the belt, following it as it snaked through the now deadly warehouse floor. They had barely made it twenty feet, and Keith was still bleeding.
“Hall, get the fuck under here,” Drew said.
“Get ready to run,” she replied and kicked the entire conveyer belt—metal frame and all—over onto its side to give the team a shield that protected them from half the warehouse as they made their exit. She would protect them from the other half and the twenty hostiles on that side.
“There are still people on the other side,” Hernandez protested. “We’ll never make it.”
“They’re mine.”
“You’re not a one-man army,” Drew blurted.
“You’re right. I’m not a man,” she replied.
Something between fear and awe entered his eyes. “We’ll go for it. Butters is still up top but we’ll be back with reinforcements to get him. Hall, you cover us and follow us out.”
“Go,” she said, took Hernandez’s assault rifle, and fired at the enemy who could still target her team effectively. They retaliated but the constant barrage of gunfire seemed to have slowed. They’d realized they couldn’t hit the redheaded warrior, so had changed tactics. That was fine with her.
Drew, Hernandez, and Keith stumbled out of the warehouse, over the damaged doors, and to safety. “Hall, come on!”
Kristen looked at the sunlight streaming into the warehouse and considered it. She might have to leave. There were too many of the criminals, and she didn’t know where Butters was. She could kill more of them—surely she could—but she didn’t know how many. What mattered wasn’t vengeance—not yet. What mattered was saving Butters.
Then, she saw the man with the rocket launcher.
He’d already aimed at her—he must have already aimed at her team—but now that she had kicked the conveyer belt on its side, he had an easy shot.
Before she could move, he launched the rocket unerringly at her. She leapt over the conveyer belt and tried to use it for cover, but barely a half-inch of steel and less of rubber padding might be able to slow bullets enough to make them non-lethal, but it wouldn’t do a damn thing against a rocket.
The last thing she saw before the heat from the explosion forced her eyes closed was her scanty barrier blown to bits and she was engulfed in flames.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Kristen Hall stepped from the flames. She had thought being hit by a rocket would have hurt more but she had hardly felt it.
Curiously, she looked at her arms. The sleeves of her shirt had burned away and her skin was visible but it was different. It gleamed like polished chrome. She turned her hand and stared at it from all sides. Every speck of it was the same—shiny, gleaming metal. She looked at her chest. Her body armor was still there and her police belt, although they too were now made of steel. Her pants were mostly intact, although her shoes were gone. Steel toenails reflected a face made of metal.
I did this. Somehow, she’d turned herself and her clothes to metal. Well, most of them anyway. Obviously, she’d let the sleeves of her shirt and her shoes get burned in the explosion.
What did this mean? What was she?
A bullet struck her in the chest and her moment of self-reflection was over.
It didn’t hurt, not at all. In fact, it didn’t even dent her steel skin but it reminded her why she was there. The pathetic excuses for human beings in this warehouse had killed Jonesy.
She flinched when something struck her face. It was like being sprayed with a water hose—annoying, distracting, and uncomfortable. She held a hand up to block whatever it was, looked through the torrent, and realized it wasn’t water, but bullets. Someone was firing a mounted machine gun and its ammunition felt like water to her.
Kristen smiled. Vengeance would come easy this day.
Roused from her distraction and spurred into action, she raced forward. Her metal body didn’t slow her in the least. She didn’t feel heavy or sluggish, either. In fact, she felt great. Reflexes honed in the last few months kicked in and she moved easily as the barrage of gunfire tried to pin her down. They couldn’t even hit her, not that it would have mattered.
When she reached the vehicle with the mounted machine gun, she punched the hood simply to see what she could do. It crumpled like aluminum foil.
“Get me the fuck out of here!” The woman operating the weapon yelled and was immediately lifted into the air by a pair of chains connected to a platform. The machine gun went with her.
Kristen vaulted upward but fell short and landed on the vehicle. Her steel body crushed its roof.
More bullets pounded into her from behind and she turned to face the men on the floor. They were on her level. She’d kill them all, then get up on the catwalk and finish the job.
Someone fired another rocket.
It missed her but impacted the truck beneath her feet instead. When the crate of explosives in the bed blew up, she knew that had been the intention.
The blast was much larger than the last one. It catapulted her through the warehouse and into another pile of crates. These splintered when her steel body plowed into them and scattered their contents on the hostiles who’d hidden behind them.
They tried to flee, but they still carried their weapons. If they managed to scurry away, they’d be a threat to her friends. She struck each only once and the force of her blows was enough to end their fragile lives.
More shots ricocheted off her and she sprinted toward their source.
“We surrender!” one of the men who’d fired at her seconds before shouted.
She hesitated for a moment, unsure how to take a prisoner in the middle of this mess. The man used the opportunity to draw a pistol from the back of his waistband.
He never had a chance to fire it. She surged forward, picked him up by his shirt, and flung him across the room. He careened into another woman who’d been firing at her. She didn’t know if they’d live and honestly didn’t care.
When another volley was released from above, she looked up and located a ladder to the catwalk.
Quickly, Kristen ran to it, stepped on the bottom step, and felt it shift beneath the weight of her steel body. It held, fortunately, so she climbed steadily.
At the top, the man with the launcher attempted to load another rocket. His nerves obviously had the better of him, though, and he shook and cursed as he tried to shove the missile in place.
She picked him up as if he weighed no more than an insect and pitched him off the platform. He screamed as he fell but abruptly went silent.
Her gaze settled on the rocket and she picked it up and considered crushing it in her hand.
“Don’t. Someone might be able to use that to understand who was behind this.”
Startled, she looked at Butters. She had completely forgotten he was there and that he was the reason she had come back in. Vengeance had blinded her and almost cost her the life of a teammate. He was all right. She smiled. He was all right. A surge of relief washed over her and in a moment, her skin flickered from steel to flesh. “Where’s Beanpole?” She immediately felt guilty for not asking sooner.
“So, this is weird,” th
e man said and peeked over Butters’ shoulder.
At another flurry of fire, the two men both dropped to the platform and yelled at her to do the same. She ignored them—she was impervious to gunfire, after all.
Except she’d transformed from steel to flesh once again.
She held up her hand to stop the barrage of bullets and as soon as the hot slug of metal met her skin, her body transformed. Instantly, she was made of steel and the bullet bounced off.
“Stay here,” she said. “I’ve cleared the back of the warehouse. I’ll finish the job.”
Kristen expected Butters to protest but instead, he pointed ahead and to the right. “Whatever machine they have that’s blocking the radios is over there. We tried to get to it, but we’re not…uh…well, we’re not made of steel.”
“Here.” Beanpole thrust his assault rifle in her hands. She hadn’t realized she’d lost Hernandez’. She took it with a nod of thanks.
Once she’d moved past Butters and Beanpole, she watched them start down the ladder and she continued her assault on the people who’d killed Jonesy and tried to take her city from the people who called it home.
Armed with an assault rifle and protected by her steel skin, she was an unstoppable force of destruction. She turned toward every shot that struck her and returned fire. So much of her SWAT training had been about firing at hostiles while remaining behind cover but now, she didn’t have to do that. She simply turned, took aim, allowed bullets to glance off her, and fired at her attacker. Even though her aim wasn’t perfect, she found her marks after a few attempts. After all, they ducked constantly behind crates and the ruined conveyer belt and craned their necks up to see her. She stood still and breathed carefully like she was at the shooting range.
She continued forward to a branch in the crosswalk and turned to the right. Ahead of her lay a strange machine and one of the mounted machine guns. She approached while the man operating the machine gun released the full force of the weapon against her.
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