“I’m getting seized!”
I surge past them, my tail whipping out around me to strike the one going for a weapon. They’re all so close, two of them bash into each other. At least one of them is quick thinking, and dives for me, grabbing my arm. He turns me around and tries to force me into the van.
The guys on the ground are starting to get up again. One lurches forward, throwing a heavy fist at me. I just manage to slip out of the way, leaping up onto the van’s hood. He strikes the spot next to me and dents the metal.
In another step, I’m on top of the van. My wings beat hard as I try to take off, but one of them throws himself bodily against the van’s side. It shakes violently, and I stumble. The world moves, and I’m just not high up enough off the ground to glide out of it.
The distance between my face and the pavement closes rapidly.
The worst thing about falling badly is getting the wind knocked out of you. Every time. Your body hurts too much to catch your breath in the same instant you feel like you’re drowning, your every muscle screaming for air.
The breath I take in as I try to push off the ground, the asphalt biting into my palms, is interrupted by a wad of cloth pushed roughly over my face. The smell is oddly sweet, like ether.
Everything goes dark and cold and heavy. Head ringing, distantly I feel my cheek drag against the pavement, as my body is rolled over.
Down at the end of the street, I glimpse a sleek black limo, a pair of high-heeled boots stepping into it before the door closes, and the silver Steel Industries logo glints back at me.
My heart pinches something awful and not for the first time today, I just wish the heartbreak would end.
It’s not like sleeping—there’s no rest in this darkness. I’m just gone for a little while.
There’s an ache in my neck that I’m aware of before anything else. It’s like I slept on it wrong, but I don’t feel like I’m leaning on anything. I try to roll over to sleep some other way, and I can’t find anything until my palm slides against glass.
Oh, home. Ok. That’s good. I guess I was just sleeping, then.
I relax a little, feeling the bubbles from the tank run up my skin. I take a deep breath of the solution; it tastes a little different than normal. My memories feel extra hazy. How did I get home, actually?
It’s hard to wake up at first, to figure out how to open my eyes for a bit. The pain in my neck seems to be more from a bigger pain on the side of my head that is just radiating out. What happened that made Maestro and Vin just put me in a tank?
Something taps the glass. I squeeze my eyes shut like it’ll help at all. The noise cuts through the water like a shitty alarm clock going off.
Blinking awake, the dim laboratory is not the one I’m used to. For a few moments, I wonder how hard I hit my head, exactly. And then a familiar smug face comes into view.
Oh, nightmare scenario it is, then.
I recognize the man standing on the other side of the glass. Or at least the spandex suit and the power armor. Jeez, Steel Heel’s costume gets weirder every time I see it.
For a while now, I have felt like part of his getup is just a fucking codpiece, protective armor my ass. His neck looks weirdly shallow next to his shoulder pads, it feels obvious that half of what he’s wearing is just padding to make him look jacked.
It takes a few moments to remember the last thing that I saw before the lights went out, for it to settle in that I must be in the laboratory under Steel Industries. The vaulted brick work, the excess ooze growing over the walls—this is the basement level Lacey and I broke into before.
“I knew if they followed her long enough, she’d lead me to you,” Steel gloats as he swirls an amber colored liquid around a crystal glass.
Of course, it was him. The realization hits me like a headache. I don’t know why I never thought that Steel Heel would have his own henchgoons. Of course, he wouldn’t want to get his hands dirty by doing any of the work himself.
There’s an IV of something taped to my foot. I try to draw my knee up so I can grab it and pluck it out, but my ankle is shackled to the bottom, and the tank is narrow enough that I can’t reach down to it.
There’s a faint, distant sound, the barest trace of a voice echoing off tunnels, a metal reverberation as something slams into it again. A radio on the control panel crackles with words that are difficult to make out through the static, though Steel seems to understand, smiling.
“The other one that looks a bit like you has been trying to get in.” Steel chuckles to himself. “Good news, someone cares if you live or die. It’s just not going to matter.”
I think he’s talking to me, but I do my best not to react, not to give him the despair he wants. I’m a little worried about Vin taking on Steel’s guys all on his own, with no one to watch his back. I want to believe he can bust me out of here on his own. Maybe I never really envisioned myself as a damsel in distress, but I’ll swoon into Vin’s arms when he gets here if it’s required.
“If he dies, he dies. Drop him in a dumpster somewhere, I don’t know, take care of it,” he scoffs into the radio. He puts it down on the table, turning the volume down on the reply. “It’s time to get rid of Maestro, I think. He’s been useful to blame for the ooze, but I’m afraid my patience has run out—”
I close my eyes and decide I can get five more minutes of sleep in if he’s going to monologue.
“Don’t ignore me,” Steel snaps. A moment later he raps his knuckles on the tank.
