And I’ll do the right thing again now.
The commander gestures. “Restrain them both. Command wants them for interrogation.”
Two soldiers move toward us. Flanking approach: one from each side, weapons lowered but ready. One reaches for Ember’s arm.
I explode into motion.
Not at the commander. Not at the leader of this threat. Straight at the soldiers closing on her.
Training takes over. Centuries of combat experience overriding exhaustion and blood loss and the rational voice screaming that this is suicide.
I tackle the nearest operative. We hit the cavern wall hard enough that I feel something crack; his ribs or mine, doesn’t matter. I grab his weapon. Twist it free with strength I shouldn’t have left. Fire twice.
The first shot drops one soldier. The second forces three others into cover.
Chaos erupts.
Shouts. Energy discharge from tasers sparking blue-white off stone. The smell of ozone and burned air.
I create space between Ember and our attackers. Fighting with everything I have left. Close-quarters knife work. The kind I learned in alleyways across six continents before guns made distance killing easy.
My body is failing. Hip screams where something pulls wrong. Vision tunnels at the edges, blood loss catching up. Breath comes ragged, each inhale not quite filling my lungs. Without dragon strength, I’m just human. Fast. Trained. But human.
A bullet tears through my shoulder.
The vest deflects most of the impact, but not all. Heat blooms across my upper chest, shocking in its intensity. Then wet warmth spreading down to my ribs. Blood, fast and profuse, soaking through fabric. The slug clipped a vein. Hopefully not an artery.
Shit.
Without dragon healing, this could kill me.
I keep moving anyway.
Three soldiers converge. I take the first one down with a strike to the throat; brutal, efficient. The second catches me with a hit to my wounded shoulder.
White explosion of pain. I stagger.
While I fight, two operatives flank Ember from the other side. Moving while I’m distracted. Professional teamwork.
One grabs her wrist.
She jerks back, terrified. The second operative moves to restrain her from behind.
I can’t reach her. Too far. Too many bodies between us.
Ember screams.
Raw. Primal. The sound of someone who’s never been hunted before, facing the moment they become prey.
Fire erupts from her hands.
Not controlled flame. Not the careful magic I’ve seen her practice at the Aurora facilities. A wild burst of gold-white heat that fills the cave with light and the smell of burning.
What the hell?
When did her powers return?
The operative holding her wrist releases with a shout. Stumbles back, clutching his hand. The flame dies as quickly as it came, guttering out.
