She blinked at him. “None of you are— What do you mean?”

“That look in your eyes, I’ve seen it before. Not a single person here now is a person to you. You’d kill any of us without a second thought.”

Shocked, Arelia stared at him wide-eyed. Her hand lifted instinctively to the bag around her chest. “I—I wouldn’t. I haven’t hurt a single person in my life. What are you talking about?”

He snorted. “You think you’re better than us, but you’re afraid of us. You wouldn’t kill a person, but you’d kill anyone here. I thought they were special. Evil. But maybe evil isn’t so special after all.”

“Who’re they? What are you talking about? Evil? Special? You’re crazy.”

“You’re the crazy one.”

Arelia gave him a look. “I don’t have to listen to you.”

Rather than fight back, Sasha walked away. Arelia huffed and turned in the opposite direction. Through sweaty, scantily clad bodies and pods of giggling friends, she pushed her way to the nearest unoccupied alley. I have a job to do. I can’t waste time here.

Music beat from the shop next door, so loud it made her skull hurt. Annoyed, she moved quickly. The sooner I get out of here, the better. She put her helmet down for a second to adjust her chestnut hair and stretched. The backpack dragged at her shoulders, and she shifted the straps and rolled out her arms. Footsteps from behind, barely audible over the beat of the music, made her roll her eyes.

“Came back to apologize?” she asked, fluffing her hair back into her suit.

“Apologize? Young lady, I haven’t done anything worth apologizing for… yet.”

Arelia spun around. A bulky man stood at the mouth of the alley. Metal beams formed a simple frame around his shoulders, arms, and hips, wound with springs and motors and sure to land a devastating blow. He clashed massive iron hands and grinned, revealing a mouth full of razor-sharp silver teeth.

She whirled back the other way. A woman with slender, black-coated legs bounded into view from the far side, blocking off the alleyway.

Immediately, Arelia activated her suit. The helmet flew over her head, and the airfoils sprung from her shoulderblades.

“I wouldn’t be so fast,” a voice warned from above. It echoed in her helmet’s speakers as well, projected over the suit-to-suit communication. She glanced up. The man in the black and silver flightsuit from earlier sat on the edge of the building’s roof. A mirrored visor hid his face, but lights flashed a smiley face over the surface, and he gave a jaunty wave.

Arelia raised her hand defensively. Electricity sparked at her fingertips. “Do you know who my father is?”

“I don’t know, nor do I care. What I want is that flightsuit. If you’d so kindly—”

Abruptly, the man fell forward. A small figure leaped after him and slammed a second kick to the side of his head. Cracks burst through his visor like lightning.

The bulky man charged Arelia, and she darted back rather than face him. Electric charges burst from her fingertips toward the man. He staggered.

A second later, he shook his head and laughed. “Is that all?”

There was a squeak, a slap of plastic on asphalt. Muscular arms locked under her armpits and around her head from behind. Arelia thrashed wildly, but the woman’s grip was solid. Shock her! Shock her again!

0% flashed repeatedly on her helmet’s screen. With a beep, it rose to 1%.

Black smashed to earth at her feet, bits of metal and glass flying. Sasha leaped off the body and kicked directly at Arelia’s head. She flinched, but the kick went high. A sharp crack sounded behind her, and the grip on her arms loosened. She wriggled free.

The bulky man scowled. “Hey, runt—”

Sasha kicked him in the gut. The air went out of the man and he bent over. Grinning savagely, Sasha jumped for the man’s head.

The man snatched him out of the air with one massive hand. Sasha struggled. The man squeezed harder. Sasha’s shoulder let out a grinding sound, and he yelped once, short, sharp.

Arelia’s heart clenched at the pain in his voice. “Sasha!”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

The man straightened up, grinning with his silver shark’s teeth. His shirt, torn open, revealed a black plastic-coated six-pack, hard as literal steel. “You really ought to pick on people your own size, runt.”

He lifted Sasha high. Sasha struggled against his grip, kicking and punching as hard as he could. The man didn’t so much as flinch.

Amidst the pounding music, a shot ran out. The man staggered and turned. Another shot. He bucked and dropped Sasha, who twisted in midair and landed on his feet. One more shot. The man stumbled and fell onto his butt, knocked down. Blood streaked his skin, but the majority of the shot landed on his armor. He shook his head. “Damn, that stings!”

A blonde woman beckoned from the far side of the man, a shotgun smoking in her silver hand, butt braced against her shoulder. “Come on!”

Arelia ran. Sasha followed, then pushed past, ducking her airfoils. She retracted them as she ran. Scared, she cast a glance over her shoulder.

The woman with the slender legs chased. Behind her, the bulky man lumbered to his feet, a deep scowl on his face.

A hand grabbed her wrist. The blonde woman jerked her out of the way of a man with an elongated, snake-like torso, who stared after them with glowing purple eye slits. “Don’t look back!”

Arelia nodded.

Sasha took the lead. “Left!” the blonde woman shouted, and they ducked into a side street. Sasha slowed, and the blonde woman darted right, then into a doorway. She hugged Arelia close and beckoned Sasha in, then put a finger to her lips. “Shhh.”

Arelia held her breath. This close, the woman smelled like gunpowder, steel, and stale body odor. It reminded her of her father’s bodyguards, and for a second, she felt reassured.

“Where’d they go?”

“I’ll go left, you take right!”

Plastic squeaked as the woman bounded by the entrance to their alley. She turned and stared down the alley. Arelia stood completely still, afraid her lights would give her away. The blonde woman rubbed her back gently. Sasha stood at an angle, barely behind the edge of the doorframe, and watched the woman, fearless.

She passed. Arelia let out a held breath and pushed away from the blonde.

“I had it under control,” Sasha grumbled, stepping out of the doorway.

The blonde nodded. “Sure you did. Who’s this?”

Sasha stared at Arelia.

“A friend,” she muttered.

The blonde cocked her eyebrow, then shrugged. “I’m June. Nice to meet you, ‘A friend.’”

Arelia nodded, slightly embarrassed.

Before she could say anything else, June whirled on Sasha. “The hell are you doing out here, anyways? I thought Tooly put enough juice in you to keep you out all night. You should be resting, letting that damn shoulder of yours heal up, not galivanting through the night with ‘a friend.’”

“Thought you were asleep,” Sasha muttered, unrepentant.

“I was, until someone started shouting on the fire escape and woke me up.”

“Uh, excuse me…”

“Listen, kiddo, you can’t just run off without me. Every time I turn around, you’re hurt or in a bad spot. When you got shot, what happened? Where did you run off to?”

Sasha’s lip curled. “None of your business.”

“It sure as hell is my business. Who do you think pays your medical bills? Who do you think—” She reached for Sasha’s shoulders. At the last second, she flinched away and hovered her hands over them instead. “Sasha. I don’t want to see you hurt. Please. Don’t run off without me.”

He pursed his lips and looked away.

“Um, guys…”

June rounded on Arelia. “What?”

She pointed behind June, toward the mouth of the side street. The woman with the thin legs stood there, staring at them.

Instantly, Sasha charged at her.

“Stupid kid, you’re injured,” June complained, raising her shotgun again. She took aim and fired a blast of lead at the woman.

The woman jumped. Her figure flew into the air, five, ten feet, feet easily passing over the tops of the first story’s windows. The buckshot splattered over the wall behind her.

As she fell, Sasha jumped up to meet her. Like a striker finding the soccer ball, he kicked her head out of the air with all his might. A crack echoed down the alley. She plopped to the ground, already unconscious.

“Hey, Dini, did something happen?” the bulky man called, too close for comfort.

June pushed at Arelia. “Run!”

She ran. Suit clattering, arms pumping, feet clacking against the asphalt, she ran. Sasha pulled ahead, eyes on the horizon, and June tailed her from behind, shotgun slung low, ready to fire. Why don’t I just fly away? There was the man with the black and silver flightsuit, of course, but… somehow, that wasn’t it. There was something about these people. Something she didn’t understand yet, but desperately wanted to.

They stopped running a few streets over. It was quieter, here, less of the hustle and bustle of the red light district and more the space of the stragglers, on their way home. The bars here were quieter, smaller affairs, and if they pumped music, it wasn’t pop. A few food stands offered late-night fare, fried foods and strange sides that Arelia had never seen before.

She glanced over her shoulder, then checked the sky just to be sure. The lights and bustle of that street seemed so far away. Out here, there was no sign of the bulky man, the woman, or the man in the flightsuit. She sighed. All the tension left her body. She shook out her shoulders and stretched a few times, exhausted, suddenly. It’s scary down here, no joke!

June pulled up to one of the food stands with no customers and passed the man a few credits. While he busied himself cooking, she turned to Arelia and Sasha. “What the hell was that?”

“She was getting mugged. I saved her,” Sasha said.

Arelia glanced at him. He didn’t look at her or acknowledge her, as if she was only an object. She pressed her lips together. “I’m very grateful for your help.”

June jumped at Sasha. Arelia startled away, but instead of attack, June mussed Sasha’s hair aggressively. He ducked away and gritted his teeth, and June scowled at him. “Hey! Who snuck out of his hospital bed and talked her into going into that street? Who abandoned her when he knew there were people following her? I was watching you. Don’t use other people as bait to start fights.”

Sasha slapped her hand away and crossed his good arm across his chest. “Shut up.”

Arelia stared, mouth half-open. Are you kidding me? “After all that nonsense about how evil I am, you deliberately used me as bait? What? Who doesn’t care about people’s lives, huh?”

Deep blue eyes bored into hers. He smirked. “I never said I wasn’t evil.”