Jeremy had no reason to trust her, and plenty of reasons not to. As best he could tell, she was the closest he'd ever come to figuring out what happened to Rallsburg. Everything about her screamed suspicious. He wanted to sit her down in an interrogation room and keep her there until he felt satisfied.

  On the other hand, she sounded a lot more confident than he did. Her self-assuredness was infectious. Jeremy made a split-second decision to do as she asked. She'd made him a promise, and he had to pray she kept it.

  Unless I can just catch her with the army I've got outside. That's always an option.

  Jeremy stood up suddenly, catching the eye of the gunman next to the girl's table. He strode confidently at the man.

  "Hey."

  "Go back," he grunted.

  "I was hopin' you had a light?" Haven't smoked in twenty years. "Trying to calm my fuckin' nerves here."

  "Look, man..." he started, turning away from the girl's table. His gun followed, leaving her wide open. Jeremy tensed up, ready to dodge out of the way. He expected her to blindside the man, leaving Jeremy free to snatch up his weapon. From there, he'd have to dive into the nearest booth to take cover.

  Girl's gonna get me shot.

  The girl's hand flew out. Her lips moved, but Jeremy couldn't hear her anymore. A handful of light grey dust flew out of her hand. It dissipated into the air, vanishing from his sight in an instant.

  A thick cloud billowed into existence. Jeremy would have sworn it was from a smoke grenade, except that it apparently came out of nowhere, and deployed way faster. White smoke poured into the bar, without the expectant hiss—or any sound at all really. It may as well have been a thick fog bank that rolled in. In fact, Jeremy could feel sudden moisture in the air. He was pretty sure it was a fog bank.

  The fuck?

  Jeremy dove to the side and landed heavily on the nearest bench. He twisted around to get eyes on the gunman. The girl darted out from her seat and plowed into him. She slugged him in the chest with a single fist. With the weight difference between the two and the strength of the punch, he should have felt it for sure, but he wasn't going anywhere.

  The gunman flew backward ten feet though the air into the nearest wall. He crumpled to the ground, wheezing. His gun clattered to the floor.

  "Shit!" Jeremy gasped.

  Gunshots rang out, pouring into the fog. Jeremy stayed in cover, as bullets snapped by and cracked into the wall. They're fucking blind firing!

  A hazy shape moved through the fog, up near the ceiling. The bullets were all whizzing low, where they expected her to duck or take cover. The fog doubled over in density. Jeremy's world became almost pure white. He could barely make out anything more than a foot or two away from him.

  More gunshots, interspersed with the clicking sound of an empty gun. A thump and a crash. Men were groaning in pain. A hostage was screaming.

  "Ashe? Ashe, what the fuck is going on?"

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  Apparently the jammer had been broken or turned off somehow. Jeremy fumbled for his radio key. "Stand by," he coughed, feeling a pain in his chest from how he'd landed.

  "Fuck that!" cried the lieutenant. "We've gotta get in there!"

  And fuck up my only lead! "Stand the fuck by!"

  The gunfire cracking by his booth had stopped. Jeremy rolled off the bench and stumbled to his feet. The fog was dissipating, blown away by the bar's ventilation little by little. As it cleared away, Jeremy saw gunmen scattered against the walls. Several had arms twisted completely around, clearly broken. The actual guns had been thrown to the far wall, gathered in a pile well out of reach of anyone.

  The girl was standing at the doorway, panting. Across from her stood the leader with the shotgun, an old man held tight as a human shield.

  "It's over, bitch," he growled.

  Jeremy started to move toward them, while the leader's attention was entirely on the girl.

  "You guys want to die out here?" she asked him.

  "If we take you out, yeah. That's worth it."

  Jeremy only had a few moments left of the half-fog cover. He barreled down the bar. Come on, girl. Take this opportunity. Don't you dare let me get shot.

  The leader fell for it. He glanced at Jeremy for just a moment, his shotgun moving for just an instant.

  The girl sprang forward. She didn't have any sort of technique. No fighting style whatsoever. She just leapt and put her fist straight into the guy's face.

  He flipped over backward, groaning in pain. His nose exploded in a pool of blood. The hostage fell away and ran for the far end of the bar.

  The girl didn't waste any time, sprinting into the back room. Gunfire echoed out, but Jeremy doubted any of them managed to hit her.

  A moment later, he had to dodge out of the way as a bundle of guns flew by, landing near the first pile. Jeremy bolted across the room to pick one up, while the erstwhile hostages gawked at him. Or they're just gawking at the girl who just flew across the fucking room and took out eight guys with guns on her own.

  What the hell did I get myself into?

  "Is that it?" asked a shaky voice. A young guy, just inside the store room. The girl helped him walk out, carefully stepping over the guy she'd just dropped onto the floor, currently soaking up the pool of blood.

  "Yeah, that's all of them," she answered, patting him on the shoulder. Their quiet footsteps were suddenly the only sound through the entire bar, while everyone left watched them walk through the place. "Come on." She glanced up at Jeremy. "That's it, right?"

  Jeremy glanced around. "How the hell did you do that?"

  She shook her head. "Not here."

  We won, damnit. No one even got hurt. Answer me. "What about—"

  A gunshot pierced the silence. The girl and her friend fell to the ground, followed by Jeremy a split-second later. A few more shots followed, all going wide. He awkwardly raised the gun from where he'd dropped and fired.

  Jeremy got him twice in the chest from only a few feet away. The ninth man, who'd come to investigate after hearing the fight from the back door, dropped dead.

  "Zack? Zack, come on!"

  Jeremy glanced over, expecting the worst, but to his surprise the guy looked totally fine. A faint trail of smoke drifted up into the air near the kid, issuing from a completely flattened bullet on the ground near him. Nothing had struck him. Zack looked shell-shocked, but unharmed.

  The same couldn't be said for the old man who'd so recently been a human shield. He'd taken one to the face and was slumped back against the wall. The girl spotted him, and her face fell.

  "Oh god…"

  "Nothing you could do," Jeremy grunted. He walked over to the nearest gunman and knelt down, checking for a pulse. The guy was still alive. "I'm going to call in the troops now."

  "Wait."

  "These guys aren't going to stay down forever. It's gotta be now."

  "Let us get out of here first."

  He laughed. "Girl, this place is fucking surrounded. You're not getting out of here."

  "How am I gonna get your message to Jackie then?" she whispered, though Jeremy heard it plain as day.

  "She saved us," murmured a woman behind Jeremy.

  "Let her go."

  "She didn't do anything..."

  Fucking hell. Popular support. The girl glanced around at the people slowly rising to their feet. She adjusted her glasses, which had fallen askew in the fight. "Let me go," she repeated firmly.

  Jeremy didn't get a chance to decide. The radio in his earpiece squawked out a panicked "Incoming!"

  The front door of the building exploded.