“What’s the lounge?” the girl with broken legs asked Butters. “Is that like police talk for jail or something? Is that like…like when you chase criminals into a standoff and you’re all, like, ‘get in the lounge, you piece of poop!’” The sniper laughed and Kristen joined him. Someone’s mommy had let her daughter watch way too many cop shows.
“The lounge is where Butters gets all his donuts. Remember kids, watch what you eat,” Keith said and nodded like he was on a public service announcement from the 1950s. He looked like the archetypal strait-laced cop—short hair, strong jaw, slightly narrowed blue eyes, and folded arms. Virtually everything he’d said had sounded like he was auditioning for the alter ego of a cheesy superhero. Still, despite his stiff posture and phony smile, the kids laughed at the mention of donuts.
Kristen smiled and stood. Butters and Keith really were better at this than she was. But they weren’t the Lost Dragon or a steel dragon, so the newspapers cared little and less when they went to charity events without her.
Even there, in a ward for sick children in a hospital, her reputation had preceded her. Most of the kids knew who she was from the news and even those who didn’t seemed to recognize her face. Not that she blamed them. A photographer currently snapped photographs of her smiling awkwardly instead of the little kid who clambered all over Butters or the two kids hanging off Drew’s biceps.
The team leader wasn’t much better at talking to the kids than she was, but at least he had a plan. He used the children as weights. Already, he’d bench-pressed an eleven-year-old boy who weighed far too much for his age and currently did curls with the two giggling children. They didn’t seem to see him as human but more as a moveable jungle gym. That made sense to her. The man was massive. He stood well over six feet and had broad shoulders and a physique that indicated considerable time spent sculpting in the gym. She hoped they could keep him away from the kid in the wheelchair. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see him attempt to squat her.
“Can I have your autograph?” a little girl asked Kristen.
“Sure, of course.” She signed the cast on the child’s arm. The patient appraised the signature and finally nodded. She seemed to want to be sure Kristen hadn’t forged her own handwriting.
“Your steel means you can’t break bones, right? I’m so jealous.”
“You really shouldn’t be,” said Jim Washington, the Wonderkid.
“You shouldn’t say ‘should’ to people,” the girl stated matter-of-factly. “That’s what my mom says.”
“No, you should not,” Jim said, no irony in his voice despite her using the contraband word. Kristen had to admit the Wonderkid was good at visiting with the kids, but that was hardly surprising. He was good at all things police work, even public outreach. That was why they called him the Wonderkid, after all. Her newest teammate would be exhausting if he wasn’t so damn good at his job.
He was the black cop version of Keith’s white cop, but while Keith looked kind of cheesy trying to smile and look stern at the same time, Washington looked at ease. The perfect balance of friendly professionalism—like the big brother who told you to do your homework but helped you the second you asked.
If he didn’t keep glancing at the windows and the doorway, he might’ve looked friendly. But the kids noticed his paranoid mannerisms and mostly avoided him.
“Why shouldn’t I be jealous?” the little girl asked.
“Because if the Steel Dragon walks past a magnet, it sticks to her,” Jim said.
The girl nodded and considered this. Finally, she looked at Kristen with pity in her eyes. “Magnets are cool, miss. I’m sorry you can’t play with them.”
“Actually, as long as I’m—” She was cut off when the Wonderkid elbowed her in the ribs.
“It’s a real pity, right, miss?” He raised an eyebrow at her. With a look, he was able to tell her not to pop the kid’s bubble. Okay, so maybe he was better with children than she realized.
“Yeah, a real shame,” she said, embarrassed that she had been about to tell a kid that she could simply turn her steel skin off when she wanted to. None of these children could do that with injuries. The weight of that sat heavily on her conscience. She had to use her abilities to protect people like this—people who couldn’t protect themselves—even if she was as awkward as all get out.
The door to the visitor’s room creaked open and Beanpole, the last member of their team, walked in. He was tall and lanky and looked at the kids the way a corndog might look at a flock of pigeons—equal parts terror and utter lack of comprehension.
“They’re ready for you downstairs, Kristen.” He didn’t step any farther into the room than he had to. His discomfort made her feel better. Beanpole was an excellent SWAT member and yet children frightened him. She felt much the same way.
She nodded and trudged toward him. Despite her being awkward with kids, she greatly preferred their company to the press conferences the captain had made her do.
Since they’d driven Mr Black into hiding, the city of Detroit had experienced a period of relative calm. For the first week of the criminal mastermind’s disappearance, SWAT had been on high alert, waiting for the dragon to retaliate with another team of thugs or mercenaries, but the expected strike never came.
After a few more weeks, Captain Hansen put Kristen on public relations detail. She’d already visited the homeless shelter, the home for battered women, a whole slew of events at community centers, the police gala, and now, the children’s hospital. In all honesty, she much preferred being shot at to public speaking. At least her ability to transform into steel protected her from bullets. She didn’t know what to do about rude journalists.
As she followed Beanpole down the stairs, she tried to tell herself that it wasn’t all bullshit. She knew it was important to build goodwill toward the Detroit police department and that it was important for people across the country to see that the Steel Dragon was more committed to people than the other dragons who manipulated mankind from afar. Unfortunately, she couldn’t help thinking about Mr Black.
He was still out there, no doubt plotting another way to throw the city into chaos. She should be out there finding him. True, she hadn’t sensed his aura since Dragon SWAT had driven him out of his mansion, but that didn’t mean he was gone. She had trained with him for weeks and she didn’t believe he was the kind of dragon to simply abandon his plans.
“Are you ready for this?” Beanpole asked when they reached the first floor.
“Are you serious? Of course not. I sound as awkward as hell when I’m on TV. I’m glad they never play my whole speeches and only edit them.”
“You’re fine out there,” he said and the encouragement sounded entirely phony.
“No, she’s not. Kristen makes me look like a motherfucking poet laureate,” Hernandez said and darted out the door from the stairway and into the hallway with them.
“You know, that’s not exactly what I need right now,” Kristen said.
“Whatever, Red. I’m only trying to help. If I can make you laugh, maybe you won’t look like a damn deer in the headlights up there.” The woman stuck her tongue out.
“And you being terrified of a room full of children has nothing to do with you coming down here?” she retorted sharply.
“I’m scared of the little shits. I can admit that. I’d take a bullet for one of them but fuck, did you see the snot on that one boy? I can only describe the color as radioactive. That shit’s scarier than an M-16.”
“They’re not that bad,” she said and tried to sound like she meant it, although she failed spectacularly.
“Right, yeah, and neither is public speaking. Come on, you’ve literally taken bullets, been exploded, and fought a dragon fist to claw. There’s no logical reason why a crowd of rich fucking hospital donors who merely want to throw money around and feel good about themselves should freak you out, right?” Hernandez grinned. Oh, how she loved pestering her teammate during these events.
“You k
now, maybe you should go up there in my place,” Kristen suggested. “Getting some Latina representation up there might be good for the force. Plus, you’re a demolitions expert. You could talk about that gang we defeated. People still ask me for technical details about it.”
“Yeah…see… Fuck that. For starters, there are real advantages to saying fuck every other fucking word. Captain Hansen used to ask me to make speeches about sexism and all that shit when I first started. She had this bullshit reverse-racism angle too, but I told her I wasn’t fucking sure if I could control my shit-talking tongue and she stopped asking.”
“What about you, Beanpole? Do you want to field the questions for me? At least you’re well-spoken.”
“Well, yes, er…that is, I don’t swear like Hernandez does, but that doesn’t mean I like crowds either. I’m with her. I’d take a bullet before I take a microphone.”
“Gee, wow. You two are great at pep-talks.” She gritted her teeth as they reached the functions room in the hospital. When she had first started attending these events, she’d thought that large rooms like these in hospitals or homeless shelters were wasteful. After seeing the money pour in after gatherings like this, however, she understood that they were actually a fundamental part of doing work for the less fortunate. Getting donors was the paperwork of the non-profit world—essential if less than glamorous.
“And here she is,” Captain Hansen said into the microphone. “The Lost Steel Dragon, Kristen Hall herself!”
Scattered applause ensued. The captain had tried to combine her two nicknames, but Kristen hated the sound of it. The Lost Dragon was cool enough on its own. It reminded people that she’d grown up as a human and that there might be other lost dragons out there. Steel Dragon was also cool—and at least it was accurate—but Lost Steel Dragon made her sound like she’d misplaced something.
The Lost Steel Dragon took the stage.
“Thank you all for coming today,” she began weakly.
“How does it feel to know that Mr Black, the criminal mastermind who almost threw this city into chaos and very nearly killed you, is still out there?” a reporter yelled from the back.
She sighed, unsure of how to address the outburst. Honestly, she hated that he was still out there. It gave her a trace of comfort that she had stopped his plans and discovered that he had tried to sway her to his side, but she absolutely hated that he wandered free where he could cause more trouble. More than anything, she wanted to hunt him with Dragon SWAT. She wanted to find whatever hole he’d burrowed into and smoke him out like the pest he was.
But those weren’t appropriate talking points.
According to Captain Hansen, SWAT had done its job and gotten Mr Black, AKA Sebastian Shadowstorm—Kristen was supposed to connect the two names for the public—out of Detroit, and the city was doing better because of it. The statistics certainly backed the captain up. There had been fewer shootings and far less of the assault-rifle, explosives-driven activity that had been the hallmark of the beginning of Kristen’s career.
It didn’t matter to the captain that Mr Black was still out there. As far as she was concerned, the dragon was out of her jurisdiction simply because he was a dragon and wasn’t breaking any laws in the city. But Kristen knew that was only temporary.
She knew that Shadowstorm was merely biding his time. He’d been in Detroit for more than a century. There was no way he would abandon the city. He surely had hiding places and contacts across the entire Motor City, and considering how he saw humans as little more than cattle, she was absolutely certain that even if they did catch one of his minions, the monster would simply kill them and sever the loose end.
But the captain didn’t want her to talk about any of those details. She wanted her to talk about new crosswalks, speed traps, and how the police force would hold a fundraiser gala. While the police officer in her could appreciate where her commanding officer was coming from, the steel dragon didn’t care about any of that. She’d been to more than enough of these events.
It was time she addressed the questions people asked about the issues they cared about. Which meant that she needed to speak her mind. It was time for the world to really hear the Steel Dragon.
She cleared her throat and the microphone immediately blared feedback. Even that was preferable to the tame questions so many reporters normally asked.
The sound settled and she opened her mouth to tell the reporter that the Steel Dragon wanted to fight for her city. Before she could speak, however, pain blossomed in her left shoulder.
Startled, she looked up to where tinkling glass caught the light like drifting stars. The window above and across from her had broken even before she heard the shot.
Chapter Fifty-Three
By the time Kristen flung herself prone, she had already turned her skin into steel, but the pain didn’t go away.
She thought the actual moment of injury should have hurt the most. While she’d been shot dozens of times, it had always been while she wore her steel skin. With it, bullets felt like nothing more than mosquito bites. Still, when she’d talked to the team about it, she had the impression that the moment the bullet hit hurt the most. It seemed she was wrong.
It had hurt when it entered her shoulder but now, sprawled with her head down, it felt far worse—as if something writhed and twisted in the wound like a centipede hungry for her flesh. It wasn’t only her shoulder that hurt either. Her entire left arm and some of her chest ached as well. Her limb, especially, felt like the nerves had been replaced with sulfuric acid from a car battery and her hand spasmed inside her steel skin. The sight of her own metal hand twitching and trembling reminded her where she was and that her pain was irrelevant in the situation.
The Steel Dragon couldn’t think of herself when people were in danger.
Tentatively, she felt the wound, pulled her right hand away, and looked at her palm. There was no blood. Despite the fact that the bullet had obviously punched much deeper into her body than the skin, her ability to turn into steel was able to stop the flow of blood. Even touching the wound didn’t hurt too much.
The pain came from inside her, from the tissues that had already been damaged.
But if she wasn’t bleeding, she wouldn’t bleed out, which meant she could and must protect these people.
Grimly, she pushed herself to her feet and immediately regretted using her left arm. She wavered slightly but had no sooner regained her balance when another shot caught her squarely in the chest. It was stopped by her bulletproof armor this time and she barely felt it.
Kristen rarely wore bulletproof armor anymore. It was unnecessary given her abilities, and with her habit of drawing enemy fire, she often damaged the vests way more than a regular officer would.
She’d worn it today only because Butters had insisted that the kids would get a kick out of it. He’d been wrong. All they’d wanted to see was Kristen’s steel skin, but part of her was thankful that it was on. The bullet in her shoulder hurt so much more than expected. She didn’t know if that was because the rifle was so powerful or because there was more to the bullet than the typical lead alloy.
A moment later, the sharp report from the weapon carried into the hospital. Wherever the shooter was, he was damn far away and yet somehow, he’d managed to hit her not once, but twice.
“Butters, shots fired to the southeast,” she said into her radio. “The asshole’s gotta be way out there. The bullets arrive before the sound does.” She had to yell to be sure he’d hear her over the sound of the screaming patrons of the hospital.
Drew and Hernandez already led the evacuation and guided people away from the broken window. Kristen looked around for signs of anyone injured, but she didn’t see any blood. The sniper had targeted her.
“I’m on the roof, Kristen. I have a few possible locations. I’ll keep you posted.”
“And be careful. This guy is damn good. If you step out of cover, I’ll kick your ass myself,” Kristen told him. He had seniority over her bu
t she couldn’t help but tell him to keep safe.
“Are you all right? Drew said you were hit.”
“I’m fine,” she lied and glanced at her shoulder. There was a dimpled spot where the bullet went in but it wasn’t a mass of bloody carnage. Still, she touched the back of it and only felt smooth skin. There was no exit wound and she grimaced. This would hurt like hell later.
“Hall, get the fuck out of there,” Drew ordered.
She ignored him. The room was almost empty but one or two civilians still stumbled toward the exit in panic. She was obviously the hostile’s target, but that didn’t mean they were safe. If she left, the sniper might consider hurting an innocent to bring her back in.
Obviously, that wasn’t even vaguely an option.
The first bullet had struck in the brief moment of time before she had been able to hear the shot. The sniper must have known about her ability and planned the distance of the attack accordingly.
But now she knew there was a sniper out there, she wouldn’t drop her armor.
“Kristen, I think I have a location for the sniper,” Butters said over the radio. “Do you see a nine-story apartment from where you are? It has a big sign on the front that says, ‘move in immediately.’”
“Yeah, I see it. Straight through the broken window. He’s gotta be there.”
“Great. Good, now get out of his damn sightline. He might be a good shot but there’s no other building he can get to where he could take a shot. If you stand clear of that building, you should be safe.”
Obviously, she would do no such thing.
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