Noooo. No no no no no.

The light of Laramee's Iriguchi blast fizzled out, leaving me alone with the stench of ozone and a sinking rock in my gut. “Matt!” I screamed, my heartache thickening into a ragged shriek. He'd come back for me—and died for it.

My fingers were hooked like claws, rage building into a bonfire inside me. My body shook against the steel. Laramee would fucking pay.

I was on my feet. And then I found myself vaulting from the top of the HVAC unit, right at him.

“Behind you!” Athleisure shouted from across the roof, his voice a hacksaw.

My skin prickled as I fell through the night air—my heart screeching to a stop as Laramee slow-motion rolled onto his back, his Iriguchi coming round like a clock striking midnight.

Gripped by a nameless dread, every muscle tensed, I plummeted toward him. Radiant particles swirled from his hand cannon as its barrel swung to meet me.

I thrust out my robot hand, my lips peeling back—and aimed for his throat.

But the hand cannon roared, its luminous blaze shattering the night.

Pain lanced through me, and then I smashed into the roof. I rolled onto my back, coughing from the smoke. Wait, no. Something was wrong with my neck. The rising whine had vanished, replaced by a shrill ringing in my ears.

Movement flickered in my peripheral. Oh … no no no. I squirmed away from him, panic closing my throat, the roof coarse against my skin.

Soundless, shimmering footsteps came toward me. Slow, deliberate.

Decided.

Fuck! There was nowhere to go. I craned back to face him, my knuckles pulled tight, dread sitting on my chest.

Laramee’s pulsing silhouette floated into view above me—his Iriguchi raised to finish what he’d started.

This was it. I choked out a scream I felt more than heard, tears flowing freely, my hands outthrust.

But Matt’s radiant outline charged into view from behind an HVAC unit near the stairwell, loosing a silent war cry with his fire extinguisher raised.

And he swung, his body twisting like an Olympic shot-putter—clocking Laramee so hard in the back of the head that flecks of spittle sprayed forth, the cop puddling to the roof.

My heart leapt into the stratosphere. Oh my God, Matt was alive.

His face drifted into view upside down, his bare feet beside my head, a piercing flashlight flooding the visual spectrum. Finally I could see more than just outlines.

Matt shouted, tense with concern—but no words came out.

It was too bright. I turned away, my head full of fog. Matt’s empty sandals still peeked out from behind the shot-to-hell stairwell door. Ohh! He’d snuck out and left the sandals behind before Laramee even got close. It was all a trick. That blood-curdling scream—the quarter Matt spent in Drama was good for more than a weed connect.

I was laughing silently, big rolling belly laughs. Shit, I was cracking up. But pain cut through the hilarity, my neck throbbing with danger, my fingertips coming away wet. Something else was wrong too. On my other hand, a hole was bored through the wrist where my metal fingers connected. I flexed, and only three of them responded.

Matt shouted soundlessly at me, the hand cannon leveled at Laramee. The cop clutched the back of his head, blood pattering his uniform. Behind him, a luminescent dumpster borne by silent drones blotted out the sky—drawing within a hundred feet.

Panic fluttered in my chest as I stood unsteadily. Whining drones faded back in, layered onto the ringing. “What?” It was so hard to hear anything.

“… the gun,” Matt said, waggling the Iriguchi. His fire extinguisher was dented, discarded beside him on the roof.

Laramee looked up at the barrel of the hand cannon with unfocused eyes.

“What?” My hand was pressed wetly to my neck.

“Take the gun,” Matt shouted, his body wound tight. “I need to get a look at your neck. You’re losing hella blood.”

The dumpster’s writhing light show floated toward the helipad as Aiden’s high-pitched play barking rang out from across the roof.

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I gulped. It was like I’d taken a hot fire poker to the throat. But if it was an artery, I wouldn’t be standing. Right? I clapped a blood-slick hand on Matt’s shoulder. “Thank you.”

He nodded solemnly, extending the Iriguchi.

“That’s not yours to give,” Laramee said from his crouch on the roof, scowling up at us. His words were rounded off. Slurred.

I ignored him, taking the hand cannon. And as my few still-working robot fingers closed around the Iriguchi, it spoke aloud in a timeless accent: “BrainLink integration activated.”

The hand cannon felt welded to my hand, an extension of my body. An overlay sprung atop my vision, thin target boxes limning every object I might want to shoot—and several I didn’t. Lines extended outward from all targets, converging on the Iriguchi’s muzzle.

Woah. Robot fingers had some benefits.

Matt tilted his flashlight at my neck until his shoulders loosened. “You’ll live. Probably. I just wish I had some gauze.”

Oh, thank God. I pressed my sleeve to the wound and scanned the sky. The dumpster lost altitude with every beat of the drone’s rotors, getting way too close for comfort. Hopefully by now, Aiden had neutralized Athleisure.

But an Iriguchi roared behind the HVAC machine across the roof—followed by a clipped canine yelp of pain.

Matt gave me a look of confusion.

I shivered in my red-streaked hoodie. It was a wonder Aiden’s “box doggy” had distracted Athleisure so long before he’d destroyed it. Aiden had bought us time, and for that I was grateful. Now his little dome would be safe in my backpack.

I trotted forward, my chest tight, training my hand cannon on Athleisure's HVAC unit. “Hey!” I shouted. “We’ve got Laramee. It’s over.”

“He can still sell the Talisman on the other side,” Laramee said, still slurring. Probably concussed. His eyes dimmed under Matt’s flashlight. “It’s what I would do. At least he won’t have to answer to Otokotronics ever again.”

“Would be a real shame,” Matt announced loud enough for Athleisure to hear, “if something happened to Laramee’s brain.”

Wailing drones and the ringing in my ears throbbed with a syncopated beat. The dumpster would be here soon. I scanned Athleisure's HVAC unit with my infrared, but the residual heat masked his presence.

“Don’t listen to them!” Laramee called out, struggling to stand.

Matt laid a heavy hand on his shoulder, sitting him back down with a thud. “Take a load off. Sir.” Then he pulled out a pair of fuzzy, leopard-print handcuffs from his back pocket, deftly snapping one end around Laramee’s wrist and the other onto a gas pipe.

He met my questioning look with a shrug. “Thought I might need them for you. You know how you can be.”

No time to unpack that now. I ducked behind an HVAC unit while Matt took cover nearby with his extinguisher hefted, leaving Laramee to clutch his head in peace.

“How’re you gonna see your family now?” I called out to Athleisure.

He peeked around his glowing HVAC machine maybe twenty feet away, his answer the roar-sizzle of a hand cannon directed right at us. The roof jumped with debris.

Sweat slid down my back, despair welling inside me again. We wouldn’t get the Talisman in time.

“He can’t leave without the dumpster.” Matt’s eyes burned with righteous conviction. “Shoot the drones.”

“There’re too many!”

“Ko.” He leaned in, searching my face, the lines of his jaw fixed. “Just trust me on this, okay? I’ve got your back.”

Something caught in my chest. Something new.

So, tongue outthrust, I trained the Iriguchi on a lawnmower-sized drone, a target box chasing its approach maybe fifty feet out.

One heartbeat. Two. Then, neck throbbing, my throat slick with blood, I squinted into the writhing whorls of color and held the trigger best I could—the weapon somehow shifting my hand to correct my natural for-shit aim.

A roar of sinuous gas erupted and the damaged drone whined angrily. I let off the trigger so as not to chew through ammo.

Athleisure’s shadow crept from his HVAC unit, dashing toward us and ducking behind another unit ten feet away. “Do that again, I’ll gut you before you die instead of after.”

Blood crashed in my ears. I shifted my stance, emptying another volley into a second drone’s target box.

Something went pop and the dumpster listed sideways, the whine from above kicking into high gear.

Four drones to go. Definitely too many. My arms hurt from tensing and my neck screamed for attention. The dumpster would flatten us all if it didn’t fall soon.

“What would your daughter think?” I shouted at Athleisure.

“It doesn’t matter. I’m a dead man anyway.” He made a break for Laramee. The cop was still behind us, nursing his head wound and tugging on the cuffs.

Matt stepped from cover with a fierce frown and a raised extinguisher—loosing a vast spray of flame at Athleisure.

Tongues of fire licked at the bot, the roof lit like day. He let out a yelp, leaping back.

My gaze met Matt’s. He was crouched there barefoot with his flannel pajamas and stupid extinguisher, his face bruised and cut, literal fire in his eyes. I was clutching my Iriguchi in three robot fingers, my lifeblood draining from my neck, a cacophony of pain hammering away. And the dumpster, almost on top of us now, was about to give Athleisure his escape.

But in that moment, with the two of us fighting side-by-side in the dancing firelight, none of that mattered, and my heart swelled three sizes. We were a team—and a goddamned good one.

The moment didn't last. Sprinting from cover, Athleisure dove out of the dumpster’s flight path toward the roof. The hulking metal container gave up the last of its altitude too eagerly, tearing into the roof’s lip with an awful wrenching boom—before bouncing off the building and flipping backward into a starless sky.

Athleisure craned over the edge, his posture betraying horror and awe at what he’d just dodged.

My heart rumbled. Fire crackled in my periphery. This was our chance. I stepped out with Iriguchi raised, a bloodred BrainLink target painted over Athleisure’s head. But when I pulsed the trigger, a sad uh oh tone sounded, and my heart seized in my chest.

Athleisure whipped back toward us with a knowing grin, his skin singed and blackened, his sweatshirt clawed to ribbons.

And trained his lit-up Iriguchi on me faster than I could blink.