When she reached the bottom of the pit, she confirmed that Jim had been right. Massive screws spiraled to churn the garbage and break it into tiny pieces. She had no doubt that they would do the same thing to a human body—grind it up beyond its constituent parts.
Fortunately, her body was not human. She’d already activated her steel skin to make her descent faster.
Having reached the bottom of the pit, she rotated herself so her feet pointed down and jammed her steel-skinned legs between the screws.
The pressure was immediate, like the world’s worst shiatsu massage chair. Her skin held, though, and didn’t break. She hadn’t thought it would—she could withstand bullets, after all—but a wave of relief surged all the same. The screws continued to grind against her body but failed to damage or dislodge her and after a long moment, an odd pop sounded from somewhere hidden in the walls of the pit and the pressure stopped. She had done it. Her intervention had prevented them from being crushed into fuel for the incinerator.
“Kristen!” She heard them call, their voices muffled through the trash. Their obvious anxiety spurred her into action, and she dragged her arms through the garbage in an effort to clear the surface away from her head. With her legs still trapped, she had to dig her face clear rather than simply scramble through. Bags split and rained muck on her and she grimaced but hauled herself upward. Still, the trash in her hair and on her face was worth it when she felt a hand catch hers.
Another pair of hands and another appeared in her vision, digging garbage furiously away from her. After a moment, she could see again. Drew, Keith, Butters, and Jim looked at her and grinned like fools.
“Steel Dragon? More like trash snake,” Keith said.
Everyone groaned.
“That was a golden opportunity, and that’s what you did with it?” Butters joked and slapped the Rookie on the back of the head.
“If it was such a good opportunity, let’s hear what you have,” he countered.
The sniper paused. Everyone laughed despite almost being crushed. He had nothing.
“I thought Princess Leia was tough. She has nothing on the Steel Dragon,” Jim quipped.
Everyone smiled and nodded, Kristen included, but no one laughed. They’d laughed once in the face of death because they’d had to. Almost dying on the job regularly brought out the gallows humor in people, but to do so twice seemed downright arrogant.
“Not to bring the mood of this trash party down even further, but we’re still stuck in a garbage pit,” Drew said and didn’t release her hand. “Do you have a plan to get us out of here Miss Steel Dragon?”
“I do, actually. Do any of you see an extension cord?”
Keith, Jim, and Butters didn’t have to look far to find the cord that had caught her and given her the idea. The Wonderkid located it first.
“We can use this to climb out.”
She nodded and winked, which caused some kind of slime to run out of her hair and into her eyes.
“The only problem is that both ends of this are stuck.” Keith grimaced. Despite his complaint, he’d obviously worked out how to solve this particular logistical problem, although he seemed determined not to voice it. She did it for him.
“One of you tough SWAT boys has a knife on you, right?”
Drew and Keith both reached for theirs.
“Well, get down there and get us this repurposed rope,” she said.
His expression resigned, Keith nodded. He didn’t want Drew to let go of Kristen any more than the team leader did.
“If you guys keep calling me Rookie after this, you can all go fuck yourselves.” And with that, he dove into the garbage.
They waited for what seemed like forever before he reappeared with one end of the extension cord. Somehow, he’d managed to get it with the plug still intact.
“It was wound around the metal screw.” He said every word while exhaling and obviously tried to keep as much filth out of his mouth as possible.
“Halfway there, Rookie,” Butters said.
“Listen, you fat fucker, why don’t you get the other half? Whales are supposed to be able to hold their breaths for like an hour, right?” the man retorted with a solid dose of vitriol.
No one laughed harder than Butters.
Keith grinned. He’d obviously prepared the joke but he didn’t press the point. With a deep breath heavy with resignation, he dove back into the garbage. He surfaced maybe twenty seconds later with the other end of the extension cord. This one, he’d had to cut with the knife.
“Nice,” Kristen said. “Now, find a piece of pipe or something, tie that cord around it, and throw it around one of those handrails up there so we can climb out.”
He nodded and he and Jim went to look for a pipe. They found a piece of PVC without too much work, ran the cord through it, and knotted it. Thereafter, they took turns to hurl the makeshift grappling hook up toward the handrail. After a few attempts, the Rookie managed to loop it around.
With a triumphant, “What do you think of that Wonderkid?” He climbed up.
It almost came loose once, but he did a weird little flip trick with the cord and it held. Once at the top, he held it so Jim could climb up. His teammate wasted no time and his experience in the military was obvious in the way he raced up the cable.
“You next, Drew,” Kristen told him.
“If you think I’ll climb out of here while your foot is still trapped in there, you’re fucking crazy.” Drew shook his head.
“You have to. The Wonderkid and the Rookie will be eaten alive without you, Drew.”
“We’re all dead without the Steel Dragon.”
“It’s okay. I have a plan.”
He took a deep breath and his face soured at the smell, but he nodded and released her. She had been a little worried that she would be yanked back into the twirling screws despite hearing something that had sounded like the motor had broken. There was no way to be sure that was the case but either way, her steel legs did far more to stop the screws than him holding her hand had and she didn’t move.
The team leader ascended and looked like a veteran rock climber every step of the way.
Only Kristen and Butters were left.
“All right, then, Miss Steel Dragon. What’s the plan?”
She swallowed and forced a smile.
“You don’t have a plan, do you!”
“Not exactly, no. But I think I can get out of here. Go ahead and climb up and I’ll meet you there.”
He folded his arms and shook his head. “We both know that cord won’t hold me. For our team to survive, you have to make it up before I try.”
Kristen nodded. She’d tried not to think about that, but he was right. It was a small miracle the wire had held Drew. She very much doubted it would hold Butters.
But that didn’t solve the more immediate problem of her steel legs being stuck between the massive screws. When she tried to jiggle them, they didn’t move an inch. She tried flexing, twisting, kicking, and every movement she could think of, but nothing worked. Without a doubt, she was trapped.
“Kristen, not to rush you but…uh…” Keith didn’t have to finish.
Flashes of light were visible through the windows to the facility. Shadowstorm was summoning a storm. She didn’t think his control was enough to actually strike any of her team with lightning bolts or anything so dramatic, but she also had a feeling that she’d had only a glimpse of his power.
The thought of hurricane-force winds coalescing on downtown Detroit came to mind. He could bring wind damage, lightning, and maybe a blizzard given the conditions outside. His extreme weather could destroy the city if she didn’t get her leg unstuck. What was worse was that she didn’t understand his powers any better than she understood her own. What if she defeated him but took too long and the storm lingered? Maybe once he set it in motion, it would be self-sustaining. If that was the case, she really was out of time.
“Kristen, what do we do?” Butters asked.
&n
bsp; She knew what she had to do. The answer was obvious. Stonequest had tried to get her to do it and her father had said she needed to. Even Butters must know she had to become the Steel Dragon. She had to transform.
The problem was she didn’t know how.
Perhaps if she concentrated and thought about how she was stuck and how if she could transform, she could simply break the machinery and be free… Despite her focused attempt, it didn’t work.
“Come on, Kristen!” Drew yelled. “Something started rattling down below. We need to go.”
A little panicked now, she tried again but with no result. She remained stuck, which meant Shadowstorm would have free reign over her city. He’d be free to hunt her family and kill her father, her mother, and Brian, for no reason beyond their relationship to her. But he wouldn’t stop there. He’d kill her teammates one by one, no matter how hard they tried to fight him. She knew they wouldn’t be able to stop him. He was simply too powerful and would take everything away from her.
“Yes, Kristen! Yes!” Butters shouted.
Something shifted inside her. Suddenly, her leg was no longer human but something with power unlike anything she had ever experienced.
There was no time to consider it, though, as she realized her legs were free. She moved quickly and climbed to the top of the garbage pile, grinning like a fool. Something had changed and she’d activated a power she’d never used before. She looked at Butters, expecting to be congratulated.
Instead, he frowned and studied her human body with disappointment and without apology. “That was, uh…anticlimactic.”
“Whatever.” She shrugged and waded toward the cord.
Butters followed, chuckling. “What did you do—make your leg into a tiny dragon leg or something?”
“Like you’d even understand. Foolish human,” she joked.
“Oh! Perhaps you have become a dragon then,” he called after her as she clambered up the orange extension cord. She reached the top without issue. Jim and Drew caught her arms and pulled her up beside them.
“All right, Butterball, try not to let your greasy fingers slip,” Keith called down to their teammate.
“Hardy-ha-ha. You know, I may not be the strongest, pound for pound, but if you think I can’t climb a rope you have another think coming. In fact, I once singlehandedly climbed the rope hanging from the bell in the church’s steeple because the preacher said we couldn’t eat until it chimed and a swarm of paper wasps had taken up residence. The things were damn surprised when—”
The cable snapped.
He plummeted into the garbage.
“Butters! Kristen called.
“I’m all right. I’m all right. But I landed funny on my—oh, dear God. Why?” He gasped when he rolled over to find he’d landed on his rifle and had snapped it in half.
“Are you okay?” Drew asked. He had to raise his voice as something in the facility had begun to make considerable noise.
“I’m fine. I’ll live, but I won’t be much help now. I broke my baby. Oh, cruel mistress Hostess and unfair Colonel Sanders, why must you taste so delicious?”
“Are you blaming twinkies and fried chicken for your fat ass?” Keith hollered.
“Can’t a man have a moment to grieve?” he protested.
“No,” Drew said and drained the humor from the moment. “It’s getting hotter in here. I think Shadowstorm activated the incinerator.”
“Butters, you have to hurry.” Jim was looking around the top of the garbage heap from up on the ledge. “There has to be another cord down there—a rope, some clothesline, something.”
The sniper shook his head. “You need to leave me here. Without my rifle, I’m not much good. You need to hurry and stop Shadowstorm before this storm gets out of control.”
“We can’t leave you here.” Kristen’s words emerged as a growl and she was surprised at the ferocity of her own voice.
“You have no choice. Besides, Hernandez will find a way in here. I’m sure she’s already placing explosives. I’ll be fine. But you have to end this tonight.”
She nodded. While she hated herself for it, she understood the wisdom of what he argued for. She had to leave him behind so she could save him.
“Is there anything you want me to tell Shadowstorm for you?” she asked.
“Tell him he’s a plucked turkey.”
That teased a grin from them all as they left their friend in the garbage pit.
It was difficult not to think about the missing three when she turned to the remaining members of her team. Had this been Shadowstorm’s plan? To stop her teammates and eliminate them as allies so she would be forced to face him alone?
But no, it couldn’t be. He would definitely have planned to kill her friends, not keep them away. Which meant she was winning. And if she wasn’t? Well, she had to believe that she was.
“Do we have a plan?” she asked the others.
“He’s not anywhere in the facility. I checked the offices and don’t see anywhere else he could be hiding,” Drew stated.
“There’s a ton of places in here he could be!” Keith protested.
The team leader shrugged. “True, but you really think that’s his style? He’ll simply hide behind a trash compactor and pop out at the perfect moment?”
“No way. Not with his ego.” Kristen scanned the room to try to determine where he would have gone. The incinerator ran at full capacity now and made the room hot. Steam began to build in pressure and seeped from leaks in pipes throughout the room.
“The tunnels.” As soon as she said it, she knew that was where he’d gone.
Shadowstorm had been in Detroit for a long time. He undoubtedly knew more about the tunnels beneath the Motor City than most. In addition, he’d probably also had more than enough time to boobytrap them.
“If he’s down there, it won’t be easy to find him,” Jim pointed out.
Kristen closed her eyes and felt for Shadowstorm’s presence. It didn’t take long before she touched it. It was a white-hot presence, a ball of fury and hate hotter than the steam from the boiler that issued into the room.
“I have him.” She looked across the facility and immediately located a grate in the floor. It didn’t take a detective to guess that it would be conveniently unlocked. “But you guys can’t come with me. Shadowstorm wants to kill you all so I’ll lose focus. It’ll be better for everyone if y’all stay here. Get Butters out and get to safety.”
“And give Detroit to the winner of a dragon battle? Fuck that!” Jim protested.
“Yeah, that’s bullshit! I want to cap this motherfucker.” Keith slapped the side of his assault rifle. “It would be fucking awesome to have that on my resume.”
Drew only stared at her and silently challenged her to tell him to go away again. She was brave but not that brave.
“All right, then. Let’s move.”
They descended a staircase to the floor of the facility, approached the grate with their weapons raised, and found—unsurprisingly—that it wasn’t locked. Keith pulled it open while the others trained their weapons on the entrance.
Nothing emerged and, after a few moments of waiting, they entered what was surely Shadowstorm’s greatest trap.
Chapter Sixty-Nine
The first few minutes in the tunnel were almost tedious. Nothing attacked them and nothing fired at them or threw sparks or anything like that. The lights even worked on that first level.
To navigate, Kristen followed the seed of rage she felt she knew could only be Shadowstorm. Her aura couldn’t make her a map of the maze of tunnels, but that didn’t matter because mostly, she could sense that he was below. Down was therefore the main direction in which they went.
They followed the tunnel to a stairway and descended there, then traversed that one to another stairway and went down again.
“You can feel the weight of the city on our shoulders,” Keith murmured.
“That’s why we call you Rookie, Rookie,” Drew murmured in reply. “
You should feel that weight every time you put your badge on.”
“I don’t know, Drew. I like working under pressure, but this is something else,” he said and sounded like he wanted to say more.
“We have action.” Jim was all business.
The lights above them went out first and plunged them into darkness. Kristen didn’t mind it as she could see with her dragon abilities, but everyone else activated the lights on their guns.
They froze in readiness but nothing attacked. Instead, one of the pipes along the sides of the tunnel rattled as if some beast had passed through it. The disturbance moved beyond them and before it reached the stairs they’d come down, it burst out of the pipe.
They simply stood and stared in something close to astonishment at a jet of steam that had emerged rather than the expected attacker.
“He doesn’t want us to leave,” Kristen said.
“No, it’s fine. It’s only a little steam. Haven’t you ever been to a sauna?” Keith let his gun drop to his side and extended his hand. There was something dreamlike to his tone of voice.
“No, Keith!” She tried to flash her aura to make him fear the steam, but she was too late. He stuck his hand into it and screamed.
“Fuck!” He yanked his hand out quickly and the dreamlike tone of voice was gone. When he grasped his weapon, he cursed. He’d burned his palm. “I’m sorry, you guys. I don’t know what the hell happened. I had this feeling like I used to when I was a kid and we’d all go to the sauna and I… I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t’ be.” She squared her jaw. “It was Shadowstorm. He used his aura on you. It’s my fault. I should’ve been able to protect you.”
“From my own feelings?” Keith—for the first time since she had discovered what she was—looked terrified to work with the Steel Dragon. He didn’t understand what she was becoming. No one did.
She gritted her teeth. “We have to keep moving.”
They crept down the narrow passage and the steam billowed behind them until they reached another stairway. This one took them down to another tunnel that immediately opened into a three-way intersection.
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