Pt. 089.e — Day 10 Fiona Challenge

Wind tugged at Fiona's emerald-and-black uniform before the transport light had finished clearing.

A sheet of translucent plastic snapped against a concrete pillar and tore loose at one corner. It whipped overhead, rattling the cable ties still holding its far edge to a temporary railing. Beyond it, half a city lay under drifting columns of smoke. White defensive flashes burst between the towers, too distant for Fiona to hear over the wind.

The floor beneath her boots was raw concrete. Steel reinforcing bars protruded from unfinished walls, electrical conduits hung in loops, and a row of pillars held up another slab several stories above them. There were no windows in this part of the building, only openings where the outside walls would eventually go. Someone had abandoned a pallet of drywall beside a coil of yellow extension cable.

Van stood a few feet away, looking out through one of those openings.

Fiona followed his gaze. A plume of black smoke rose from the southern district, thick enough to hide the roof of an office building. Farther west, a helicopter banked sharply, trailing a pale ribbon of vapor. Something burst against its underside. It vanished behind another tower. In the distance, a prismatic streak of color flew after the helicopter.

Van drew his hands into fists, relaxed them, and made himself look back at the unfinished floor. Fiona recognized the effort. He was doing what she'd asked of him every time they trained: seeing the threat and staying present anyway.

“You going to freak out?” she asked.

“Working on not doing that.”

She gave him a moment. His dark protective uniform looked sturdy, but no amount of reinforced fabric would help him keep his head during an Alter attack. He took a careful breath, looked once more toward the burning district, and squared his shoulders.

“I'll make it.”

“Good.” She reached for the stairwell, then caught herself checking that he'd turned with her. “Stay close to me. There are monsters down there, and I'm going to put down as many as I can before they reach anyone else.”

“Right. I can do that.”

She went first through the empty doorframe. The steel door had been removed, leaving raw hinges and an unfinished concrete threshold. Her boots rang against the stairs; Van's heavier steps followed a moment later.

The sound of them moving together brought back Cassie at breakfast, each of them rising or sitting simultaneously. Cassie had looked at her and said almost nothing. It was easier to face the claws coming up from the floors below than the questions she knew were eventually waiting when they got back.

The stairwell smelled of cement dust and damp wood. Temporary work lights ran down one wall, their cables secured at irregular intervals with tape. Fiona took the stairs two at a time, listening to the building. The deep impacts in the distance weren't close enough to worry about yet. Something nearer made a dragging sound below them, then stopped.

“What's the plan?” Van asked.

“Get downstairs. Find the Alters. Put them down.”

Fiona checked the next landing before taking it. “You stay on my left, where I can see you. If I stop, you stop. Keep your eyes up and listen for my call outs, just like in training.”

“Okay. That I can work with.” He followed her around the bend. “What about the people out there? Should we try to get to a street, find an evacuation route?”

“Once we've cleared a way out.” She took the next flight at a quick pace. “There are things in this building. I can hear them. I'm not leaving a nest of them to come down on whoever's trying to get away.”

“Fair. I’m just not sure about this whole thing. I want to help but I’m afraid the system will keep us so focused on the Alters that we don’t get the help any of the people.”

She caught the rail and turned. “You think I don't know the difference?”

“I didn't say that. I know you've been doing this a lot longer than me.”

“Then trust me to do my damn job.” She started down again, more sharply than she needed to. “I don't care what Verena wants out of the challenge. That city's full of people who didn't agree to be part of her show.”

She looked back. Van's hands were open at his sides. He had the look he wore when he knew he'd stepped into an argument and couldn't find a way out without offending someone.

“Sorry,” he said. “Didn't mean to cross a boundary.”

The apology irritated her more than the questions. On their night in the Master Suite he'd finally been able to push back. She'd respected that. Now, after half a flight of stairs, she'd pushed him straight back into the habit. Fiona opened her mouth to tell him he could disagree with her without searching for cover first.

Then she heard it again. Stone scratched against stone. Three quick, uneven clicks, a pause, and a longer scrape. Not the building settling. Claws testing a surface.

“Quiet,” she whispered.

The word carried power.

Van's next breath stopped halfway through a sentence. His mouth closed hard, as if someone else had put a hand over it. He stared at her, tried to say something, and managed only a strangled sound in his throat.

Fiona raised one hand and listened. The scrape came again, beyond the landing and somewhere to the left. More than one set of feet. She eased toward the corner, putting her weight on the outer edges of her boots.

Van caught at her sleeve.

She looked back. He was pointing urgently at his mouth, shaking his head. His lips moved without a sound. The expression on his face had changed; he was no longer looking toward the unseen monsters. He was looking at her.

She gestured sharply as if to say “Not now”.

She pulled her arm free and pointed down, trying to tell him to stay low.

He took that for something else. He stepped around her, one hand lifted in a gesture she couldn't read. His elbow struck the edge of a battered red toolbox sitting on the landing.

The box toppled. Metal sockets scattered across the stairs. A wrench hit the railing with a bright, ringing clang.

The scraping stopped.

“Shit.”

Fiona was already moving. She crossed the landing in three strides and rounded the unfinished wall with her mouth open, gathering her voice as she went.

Four Alters crouched among the temporary supports of the floor beyond. The nearest pair were narrow, long-armed things with jutting ribs and pale claws that rasped over the concrete. The other two were larger. One had a broad, flat head and shoulders armored with overlapping plates; the last was a low-slung knot of muscle that looked built to move on all fours. They all turned toward the sound of falling tools.

Fiona’s power merged with the breath in her lungs. It built as it crawled up her throat, becoming more than just air, more than just sound.

The front of the room disappeared behind a wall of force. Dust lifted from the floor in a sheet. The two narrow Alters flew backward, tumbling through a forest of dangling plastic, and out through the open side of the building. Their claws tore ragged white lines through the sheeting before they vanished.

Two gold flashes cut through Fiona's vision.

ALTER DEFEATED

+1 VP

ALTER DEFEATED

+1 VP

The remaining creatures staggered at the edges of the blast. The broad-headed one hit a support column and caught itself there. The low-slung Alter landed badly, its claws gouging the floor.

Fiona shut off the scream and sprinted towards the bigger creature. Van was at her shoulder, close enough that she heard his boots hammering behind her. Good. At least he'd understood that much.

The broad-headed creature tried to straighten. Fiona slipped inside the reach of its arms and caught it by the side of its skull. Its eyes focused on her just as she leaned close enough to speak into the slit of an ear.

“Jump.”

The command was barely louder than a breath. It carried something with less force but no less power than the scream from moments ago. The whispered command hummed with infrasonic wavelengths that transmitted the intent behind her word. It burrowed into the thick, predatory thoughts of the Alter, joined with its own thoughts and for a brief, discordant, moment her words were the only thing its mind could process.

The Alter's muscles bunched against the command. For a heartbeat it remained on the edge, claws scraping as though the instinct to stay alive might overcome whatever her whisper had found inside its head. Then it lurched forward and hurled itself into empty air. Its claws raked once across the concrete lip before it vanished.

ALTER DEFEATED

+1 VP

Fiona turned.

The last creature had recovered. It crouched by the column, head down and shoulders rolling beneath gray, hide-like skin.

She looked at it deliberately, inviting Winner's Eye to sharpen what she already saw.

Strength flooded the assessment first. More than she had. Speed followed, close enough to hers that a careless exchange could end badly. The creature was tougher by a considerable margin. She could probably batter it for a full minute without doing much more than annoying it.

And it was closer to animal than man. Its instincts guided it in a fight. There was no discipline, no intent behind its movements beyond ripping into whatever victim got close enough.

No expectation that an opponent might do anything except flee or try to hit harder. It leaned too far over its front claws, already committed to the direction it wanted to charge.

Fiona smiled. “Come on, then,” she whispered as it lunged.

She ducked forward instead of away, driving under one reaching arm. Her shoulder passed beneath its chest and her fist struck the sensitive knot of muscle and tendon just behind the jaw. The blow wouldn't have stopped it on strength alone. It didn't need to. The Alter's own forward momentum lifted its hindquarters clear of the floor.

Fiona spun as it scrambled to recover. One hind foot found purchase, but the other ankle hadn't taken its weight yet. She kicked through that leg, causing the beast to sprawl again, claws skidding wide.

Before it could gather itself a second time, Fiona planted her feet and let out a more focused scream.

The creature slid backward along the floor, battering through a heap of boards. It slammed into an unfinished wall where steel reinforcing bars projected horizontally from the concrete. Its momentum drove it onto the exposed metal.

The gold text appeared before the echoes had died.

ALTER DEFEATED

+1 VP

Fiona drew a long breath, tasting concrete grit. A length of torn plastic slapped against the nearest column.

“Four,” she said, unable to keep the satisfaction out of her voice.

Van bent over with his hands braced on his thighs. When he straightened, he opened his mouth, stopped as if checking something, then spoke.

“You didn’t have to use your Command on me like that.”

“I heard them coming.”

“I know that now. I didn't know it when you decided to treat me like an inconvenient puppet.” He touched his throat.

Fiona remembered his fingers clutching her sleeve, the look on his face. It was unpleasantly familiar. She'd let that same suggestion slip into her voice once before, in an argument with him, and had been horrified when she saw it work.

“I needed silence before they knew we were there,” she said. “I was trying to keep you safe.”

“That doesn’t pass and you know it.” He straightened his back. “You did it without thinking, because it was easy.”

She started to argue, then shut her mouth. He was still holding his throat, though the command had faded. She knew what it was like to have someone else decide what your body was going to do.

“I wasn't trying to scare you,” she said. “I should've warned you if I could.”

He lowered his hand. “I believe you. I just need you to know you can trust me without treating me like baggage.”

Fiona hooked her thumbs into the edge of her gloves and pulled them straight. “All right. I admit, it was a bad move. I’m sorry. I’m not used to working with anyone but I am going to try.”

“Thanks,” he said. “I will listen to you, I know you’re good at this.”

“Good.” She nodded toward the stairwell, waiting until he came beside her. “Let's get out of this dust before the next lot hears us arguing.”

---

They took the next flight at a slower pace while Fiona listened for movement beneath them.

“That was impressive,” Van said. “The big one could barely get a hand on you.”

“Could've snapped me in half if it had.” She caught the rail and swung around a landing. “Winner's Eye showed me where its weight was going. All I had to do was make sure to hit where it was least ready.”

“You make that sound easy.”

“Practice.” She glanced back at him. “And I was already a good fighter before I got handed the upgrade.”

He grinned briefly, but his attention stayed on the stairwell below. “Your scream carried right across that floor. Won't the others come looking?”

“That'd save me from hunting them.”

“Which would be great if I could hide behind something ten meters away from you. But I can't.”

Fiona made a dismissive sound. “I can protect you.”

“I know you can fight them. I'm saying the ten-meter rule changes how we do that.”

She didn't answer immediately. He wasn't wrong about the restriction. The gold notifications had come so readily after the first attack, though, four clean victories for doing what she'd always done. For once the Hotel's numbers had reflected something useful instead of grading her willingness to play house with the shut-in.

“We'll work around it,” she said.

Van looked down the next stairwell. “I'd feel better with an actual plan besides,” he made air quotes, “Banshee’s got this.”

The stairwell ended at the next landing. A fallen section of temporary scaffolding had wedged itself across the stairs below, tangled with plywood and lengths of pipe. Behind it, a sagging concrete beam had fractured the landing. Fiona leaned over the railing to inspect the drop. Even if they cleared the scaffolding, the next flight was half buried.

“Great.”

She tested one pipe with her boot, then shook her head. The whole obstruction shifted against the broken beam.

Van peered around her. “Can we climb through?”

“Not without bringing half of it down on us.”

“Then maybe we should go back.”

“Or find another way down.” She nodded toward a door at the end of the landing. “Building this size, they'll have more than one route.”

She pushed through into a wide unfinished service area. Pipes had been laid along the ceiling, but most of the interior partitions existed only as metal studs. A sloping passage ran past a stack of concrete blocks and disappeared into the lower levels. Somewhere beneath them, something banged against steel.

Fiona headed toward the sound and Van hurried after her. They crossed a broad work floor where temporary fencing separated the interior from the open side of the building. An orange construction chute descended in jointed sections toward a fenced yard. Someone had fixed a maintenance ladder to its support framework, with narrow resting platforms spaced down the outer wall.

Van stopped at the railing. “Fiona. There's a way out.”

She came back a few steps and followed his finger. The chute ended above a debris bin. Past the fence was a wide gravel yard and an open service gate, beyond which she could just see the street. No moving shapes. No immediate fighting. The ladder would be unpleasant in the wind, but it would hold their weight if the bolts were sound.

“We could get down there,” Van said. “On the ground we'd have room to move, and we might find people who need help.”

Fiona looked back toward the interior passage. Something thumped against steel two levels below. An Alter, perhaps several. The creatures were already working their way toward the inhabited streets. If she stopped them in here, fewer would make it out. She knew what she was doing and Van was standing there trying to make decisions for her.

“They're in the building,” she said. “If we take the ladder, what's stopping them coming down after us and heading into the city?”

“We could cover the exits from outside. At least then I wouldn't have to chase you along these floors every time something moves.”

“They'll spread out as soon as they get clear. In here I've got walls to funnel them and nowhere for them to run.” She knew how that sounded: good battlefield reasoning, even if the number of points waiting inside had made the choice easier. Why wouldn’t anyone let her choose for herself?

Van studied the ladder again. “We've already earned points. There's no reason we have to get every last one.”

She felt the old irritation tightening her shoulders. She'd spent a whole week in the Hotel and her score barely moved. Now there was a building full of actual enemies, a chance to keep some civilians alive, and a straightforward way to prove she could still do her job. Still Banshee and not whatever Verena was molding her into. Leaving felt too much like playing their game.

“Do you know how many people those things kill?” she asked.

His eyes narrowed but he didn’t let his anger into his voice. “I know the names of people they killed, Fiona. That’s plenty to understand these things are dangerous. That's why I want to find people to help. For all we know, this area is evacuated already.”

She recoiled from her own question to him before he even started answering. She knew he of all people understood how these things operate. She couldn't fault him for wanting to help others. She also couldn't bear to go down the ladder while she could still hear claws beneath the floor.

“Stay on my left,” she said, and turned toward the darker passage. “We're not done yet.”

She knew she wasn’t addressing her real problem. Her gut was a roiling knot of anger, frustration, guilt, and something else she couldn’t look in the eye just now. She felt dangerous and not in the battle ready way she used to. She felt jagged and brittle, too upset to be rational and too angry to admit it. The Alters were simple, they were safer than looking at whatever was spoiling her breakfast.

Van followed. He didn't agree, but he didn't make her call for him twice.

An Alter came out of a hallway to their right, low and fast. For an instant it was only a shape moving behind an unfinished partition. Then it crossed a shaft of daylight and Fiona saw its long arms, spined back, and broad feet scraping for traction.

She lunged to meet it.

“Fiona—”

Van's boots slapped the floor behind her. He was close, still within the restriction, and Fiona had already committed to the attack.

The Alter threw both arms wide. She stepped across its line of movement and drove an elbow into the side of its neck, then caught one shoulder and used its charge to throw it down the passage. It hit hard, rolled, and tried to rise.

Fiona pursued.

She passed a dark doorway without slowing. It was one among a dozen unfinished rooms along the corridor, the interior too dim to read at a glance.

Van followed her past it, rushing in her wake to avoid the disqualification range. Something unfolded out of the darkness of the empty doorway.

Fiona heard him shout. She looked back just as a second Alter slashed across his back with a long, hooked claw.

The blow opened his uniform but not the flesh beneath it. Instead Van lurched forward, the dark fabric gaping across his back, his shout breaking apart into a helpless gasp. He grabbed at the wall as though his knees had gone loose.

Gold light flashed above Fiona's shoulder.

MASTER PROTECTION COMPROMISED

Protection Award Remaining: 2/3 VP

She swore and turned, but the first Alter was getting to its feet beside her. Fiona caught its head in both hands and screamed directly into its face.

The burst was short, brutal, and tightly controlled. The Alter's body jerked once and collapsed, unconscious, beneath her grip.

ALTER DEFEATED

+1 VP

Van had fallen to one knee. His attacker bounded after him, snapping at the space above his head as he tried to push himself upright. He scrabbled backward on one hand, the other raised to keep the claws away.

“Van! Get clear of its reach!” Fiona shouted, already closing the distance.

Van gave her a furious look that lasted only until the Alter struck again. He caught the creature's wrist. For a moment they stopped moving. The hooked claws hung inches from his face. Van's arm shook under the effort, but the beast couldn't force it down. Fiona registered the strength he was using with a quick, involuntary flicker of professional interest.

Then she was beside them.

“Move your head!”

Van twisted away as Fiona stood over him and screamed. The Alter took the center of the blast and flew backward, arms flailing. Van was close enough to catch the ragged edge of it. He recoiled, clapping his free hand over one ear while the impact rattled through the concrete beneath them.

Fiona crossed the distance before the creature landed and drove her boot into its ribs. It struck a pillar, rolled, and dragged itself upright with a sound like a choked cough.

She reached for Van and hauled him to his feet before the creature could turn. He caught her forearm with a grip that was painfully strong even through the glove.

“Don't let them put a wall between us,” she said, too sharply. “I need to be able to see you.”

“I was trying to keep up! You ran straight past that doorway!”

The Alter recovered and sprang toward them again. Fiona pushed Van behind her, planted herself squarely in its path, and opened her mouth.

This time she held the scream. Force struck the creature from head to foot and pinned it against the concrete as it struggled forward. It took another step, then another, each movement weaker than the last. Its limbs folded beneath it. Fiona cut off the attack only when the body lay motionless.

ALTER DEFEATED

+1 VP

---

She drew breath through her nose, tasting dust.

Van stood behind her with one hand against the wall. His breathing was still wrong, too quick and shallow, the magical consequence of the claw strike hadn't simply disappeared when the Alter fell. It caused echoes of thrilling pleasure racing across his exposed skin, the breeze moving through the building felt more like the hot breath of a lover.

“Fiona, you can't keep chasing them like that,” Van said.

She turned toward him. “I finished it, didn't I?”

“Sure. But if I stay where I'm safe, I'm more than ten meters behind you. If I follow, I become vulnerable.”

“Then keep your eyes moving.”

“I've been training for a week. You've been fighting these things for years.” He steadied himself against the wall, blinking hard. “You know that's not the same.”

She did. Her first instinct was to deny how much difference it made. Instead she looked for something concrete she could give him, something that would let him contribute without requiring her to pull back from the fighting.

She glanced down the passage. A heavy sledgehammer lay among a scatter of hand tools beside a pile of broken plasterboard. She crossed to it, picked it up by the shaft, and offered it handle first.

“There. Now you've got something to defend yourself with.”

Van stared at the hammer. “That's not—”

“Take it.”

He did. His hand closed around the handle, and he tested the balance with a small movement.

“I was trying to say—”

The sound beneath them changed.

A heavy impact shuddered through the floor. Another followed, then a rapid series of scrapes and thuds. Fiona looked toward the far end of the passage.

In the wide work area beyond it, a rectangular opening had been left for some future elevator or service shaft. The metal barrier that should have surrounded it was bent flat. An Alter dragged itself up through the hole, clawed one arm over the edge, and hauled its torso onto the floor. Another climbed over its back. Then two more.

Van followed her gaze. “Oh, hell.”

Bodies spilled out of the opening. Long limbs, plated shoulders, mouths split too wide; some moving upright, others scrambling on all fours. The noise of Fiona's earlier attacks had brought them out of the lower floors.

“We need to get back to the ladder,” Van said, looking between the creatures and the corridor behind them.

Fiona counted the first few shapes and lost the rest beneath the press of bodies. “If they get out onto the street, they'll find whoever hasn't evacuated.”

“Fiona! Be reasonable, There’s too many!”

“This is what I’m good at!” She stepped forward, drawing her shoulders square. “I'll show you, then you’ll finally understand.”

She stepped into the mouth of the corridor, planted her boots, and screamed.

The first line of Alters staggered beneath the impact. Two fell backward into the mass climbing behind them. For a second Fiona thought she might sweep the whole group back into the opening.

Then fresh creatures scrambled over the ones she'd knocked down. The bodies were packed so tightly that she couldn't get a clean angle through them. A larger Alter braced itself against the wall and pushed forward, using its bulk to shelter the others from the worst of the blast.

Fiona cut off her scream as they reached the corridor.

“Behind me!”

Van retreated, dragging the hammer around in a rough two-handed arc.

The first Alter came in high, claws flashing toward Fiona's face.

Winner's Eye caught the angle. She shifted barely enough to let the strike pass her cheek, then drove her knuckles into the elbow as the joint extended. The arm folded wrong beneath the blow. Fiona caught the creature's opposite shoulder and shoved it sideways into the next attacker.

Another sprang low. She stepped around its head, struck the back of its knee, and sent it sprawling across the corridor.

The movement felt almost easy. Her body knew where to be. An opponent's weight settled on one foot, and she could see the opening before the creature had finished committing to the next strike. Its speed meant less when she wasn't where it expected her to be.

A claw scraped her armored sleeve. She pivoted a few inches, no more, and struck the inside of the wrist. The arm dropped. She used the instant to drive a knee into the attacker's middle and send it stumbling back toward its allies.

Behind her, the sledgehammer hit something with a heavy crack.

Van had retreated against the wall. He swung awkwardly at an Alter reaching around Fiona's flank, catching its forearm with the head of the hammer. The creature recoiled, and he dragged the weapon back into position, breathing hard.

“Nice hit,” Fiona said. “Make the next one count!”

It was exactly the kind of direction she might have barked on a training floor, and the sound of it made her look back. Van was working to get the hammer up again, jaw clenched. His first strike had been brave. It had also left him within reach of three more creatures, without anything like the training to read which one would move next. She should have moved them both already. Instead she turned back to the threat.

The Alter with the broken arm pushed forward again. Fiona sidestepped, stamped against its knee, and drove it toward the others. A second creature climbed over its bent back, mouth open.

Something thin shot from that mouth. A tongue, longer than the creature's arm and lined with hooked thorns.

Fiona read the movement and dodged. She turned her shoulders just enough for the barbed length to whip past her.

Directly into Van.

He had been behind her, just where she'd told him to stand. Fiona saw the tongue catch his shoulder before she could reach him.

Again, the injury failed to happen. The thorns tore through fabric. Van's whole body jerked, the hammer slipping in his hands as the Hotel replaced the damage with another surge of unwanted sensation. He stumbled against the wall, trying to hold the weapon upright.

MASTER PROTECTION COMPROMISED

Protection Award Remaining: 1/3 VP

Fiona seized the tongue before the Alter could pull it back. It writhed against her gloves, the thorns scraping the reinforced material. She drew it taut with both hands and shouted into the length of muscle at point-blank range.

The sound ripped through it. Barbs snapped away and struck the walls like thrown nails. The Alter shrieked, recoiling through the press of its allies with half its tongue hanging in ruined strips.

Fiona let go.

Van was still standing, but the wall held most of his weight. His hand kept slipping against the concrete as he tried to brace himself. Fiona reached toward him before catching a flicker of movement at the edge of her vision.

“Can you move?”

“I can move.” His voice sounded strained. “It's the rest of it. Every time one gets through, it gets worse.”

A claw slammed into the wall beside his head. Fiona caught the arm, dragged the Alter off balance and kicked it back into the crowd.

Van raised the hammer again. The head wavered before he brought it into guard, and he adjusted his grip twice before it held.

“Fiona,” Van said, “we have to get out of here.”

The work floor beyond the corridor was crawling with Alters. More emerged from the open service shaft each time Fiona drove the front rank backward. The creatures already in the passage couldn't advance through their own fallen, but they had no need to. There were plenty behind them to take their places.

Fiona glanced over her shoulder. Van's sledgehammer hung in one hand. He'd moved himself against the inner wall where none of the creatures could come up directly behind him, but he was having trouble keeping his weight under his feet. The route to the construction chute was behind them, two turns and a stretch of floor she'd already cleared.

“We can push them back,” she said.

“You've pushed them back three times. They come right back.” He caught his breath before continuing. “We can get to the ladder if you give us room. Outside we can make distance.”

The suggestion was practical. He'd identified an escape route and a way for her to continue fighting. Fiona ought to have been pleased. Instead she heard the implication that she was handling this badly, and a hot protest climbed into her throat.

“You don't know how many people they'll kill if we let them out.”

“I know what they're doing to us in here.” He shifted his grip on the hammer and grimaced. “I can't keep moving like this, Fiona. Please.”

An Alter lunged from the crowd. Fiona stepped into it, struck the base of its throat and shoved it back into its companions. The motion came easily. She knew what to do with a monster that tried to tear her apart. She could read its balance, take away its reach, bring it down. A hurt friend was another matter.

She remembered herself on the floor beside the bed in Room Four, knees drawn up, her face wet. Cassie had stopped at the sight of her. One hand had started to lift, then dropped when Fiona looked at it. Fiona had wanted her to go away and had been ashamed, in the same instant, of how badly she wanted her to stay.

The memory lasted no more than a second. An Alter dug its claws into the mouth of the corridor, and the next group climbed over its back. Fiona could see their openings, even through the tangle of limbs. She could clear the passage. The one problem in front of her had an answer she knew.

“Fiona?” Van said.

She spread her feet for balance and filled her lungs. Her chest rose under the armored panels of her uniform; her shoulders settled into the position she'd practiced a thousand times. She knew exactly how much air a full-strength attack would cost. She had enough for one long burst before she'd need to breathe again.

“Fiona, don't—”

She screamed.

The front rank lifted off the ground. Two creatures slammed into the ones behind them, and an entire knot of bodies slid back through the work area's doorway. Dust leapt off the unfinished floor. The sound struck the corridor walls and came back in a fierce, churning echo, rattling the metal studs beside her.

The first creature struck the edge of the open shaft and fell out of sight.

ALTER DEFEATED

+1 VP

Fiona held the note as long as she could. When her lungs had given up their last usable air, she cut off the scream and dragged in a breath. It came too fast, catching on dust. She coughed, swallowed the scrape in her throat, and drew again before her breathing had settled.

The monsters had lost ground. She could see the mouth of the work area again. One of them was trying to climb over the bodies jammed in the doorway.

She screamed a second time.

This burst was harsher, louder at its start and less controlled at the edges. The Alter flattened against the others, claws beating uselessly at the concrete until the force rolled it backward and dropped it out of view.

ALTER DEFEATED

+1 VP

She let the air go, took two shallow breaths, then one hard enough to hurt the muscles between her ribs. The scream had made the back of her throat feel scraped raw. She could pace herself; the training was there, as familiar as the stance beneath her. Three slow breaths, let the pulse settle, aim again. Instead she snatched what air she could and opened her mouth before her chest had finished expanding.

“Fiona!” Van called from behind her.

The third scream struck a heavy Alter halfway through the doorway. Its feet skidded across the floor, claws carving two pale trenches. Fiona leaned into the note, keeping its center on the creature as it struggled to push forward. The wall of force finally broke its stance and swept it backward across the debris.

ALTER DEFEATED

+1 VP

Nine Alters. Fiona's breath escaped her in a rough, involuntary gasp. Nine kills and one protection point still showing. Ten out of ten. Whatever Verena thought of her, she had earned every point the challenge offered.

Van spoke during the break. “That's enough. You've got it. Please, can we go now?”

Fiona heard him. The words never reached through her stubborn anger. She was doing what mattered, what she was good at. The only thing she was good FOR.

A large Alter crawled over the edge of the shaft, dragging itself past the ones that had fallen. Behind it, something else moved in the dust, and then another pair of claws hooked over the concrete.

She could leave them. Take Van down the ladder. Find defenders outside and give them time to regroup. That was what she'd tell a rookie under ordinary circumstances, and she knew it as well as she knew how to fight.

But the next Alter was right there.

Fiona sucked air into her aching chest and screamed again. The creature flew across the opening, struck the opposite wall, and fell.

ALTER DEFEATED

+0 VP

The gold panel faded. A short metallic click followed as a bolt shook loose from the overhead ducting and fell against the floor.

There were no more points to win. Fiona took another breath anyway.

“Fiona, stop!” Van shouted. “The whole floor's moving!”

The concrete beneath her boots trembled. At the junction of the ceiling and a temporary support, pale dust sifted from a thin new crack. Her voice had been filling the narrow corridor with more force than the walls were built to contain.

The sensible thing was to stop. She had time to do it. The nearest Alter was still fighting through its companions, well beyond arm's reach.

She remembered Cassie's hand lowering before it touched her. Fiona's chest seized around the air she'd just drawn. For a moment there was only the silence after the last scream, the strange helplessness of having to decide what to do next.

She didn’t need to untangle complications, the Alters were right there. She forced the air out in another attack.

The pressure hit the group at the shaft, driving an armored creature backward until its forelimbs gave out. It disappeared into the hole with a shriek that broke beneath the roar of Fiona's own voice.

ALTER DEFEATED

+0 VP

This time the scream ended in a ragged scrape. Her throat burned. She bent forward with her hands on her knees, sucking at the dusty air and feeling each breath drag against muscles that wanted to stop working. Her arms shook from the strain of holding her stance. She could still hear claws, still hear the Alters dragging themselves over broken concrete.

And behind her she could hear Van.

“Please. I can't take another one.”

Fiona turned her head. He had let the hammer fall. Its handle lay across his boot, but he was making no attempt to pick it up. One hand was pressed over his ear and the other against the wall. His legs trembled as though the floor were tipping under him.

Her scream hadn't been aimed at him, but that much sound couldn't stay neatly inside a line she chose. It reverberated through the concrete, the steel, the narrow air between them. Each burst had left Van more unsteady, his body taking the consequences that bordered on injury.

Fiona could see him trying to remain upright. She could see the path behind them. He was close enough to reach in a couple of strides.

Something scraped against the far lip of the shaft. She looked back.

An Alter with a flattened, split jaw was pulling itself onto the floor. Fiona had seen dozens like it. The thing wasn't clever. It would keep climbing until someone stopped it; it would keep tearing at people because that was what it had been made to do. At least with this there was no guessing what the right answer looked like.

Fiona drew in a breath. Her throat protested before she'd even opened her mouth.

“Don't!” Van shouted.

She screamed.

The voice that came out was raw and uneven, the note breaking at its edges as her body fought the effort. Enough power remained to throw the Alter backward. Its claws caught the edge for an instant and slipped.

ALTER DEFEATED

+0 VP

Fiona stopped to breathe. One gasp brought almost no air. She took another, chest heaving, and felt the burn reach down beneath her breastbone. A trained fighter would have stepped back, given her diaphragm time to recover, checked the structure and her partner. Fiona had spent years learning to recognize that warning in her own body. Her ribs ached and her throat was raw enough that swallowing hurt. None of it was unfamiliar. She simply refused to listen.

She didn't stop.

She heard another foot scrape on concrete. She saw a shape through the hanging dust. There were so many things she hadn't been able to put right in the last few days, and every breath gave her a fresh chance to put something down that deserved to fall. She gripped the edge of her glove until the material bit into her palm.

“Fiona,” Van said, his voice thin now. “Please.”

She didn’t look back. She almost convinced herself she didn’t hear him.

A heavy shadow rose in the work-area doorway.

She pulled air into her lungs so quickly that her throat caught and she had to fight down a cough. The muscles along her ribs cramped. She opened her mouth anyway.

The next scream came out in two broken surges. The first staggered the approaching Alter. Fiona grabbed another harsh breath and threw the second after it, pressing her aching throat against the sound until the creature skidded back across the ruined floor and disappeared.

ALTER DEFEATED

+0 VP

An anchor plate above the passage twisted loose. The attached conduit dropped against the wall with a metallic crash. Dust poured off the joint in a pale, continuous stream.

Behind her, Van made a small, helpless noise.

“Please—”

Fiona's lungs were nearly empty. She should have used the pause to take his arm and get them moving. Instead she scraped together another breath, held it painfully in her chest, and forced it out.

The burst wasn't as loud as the first. Her voice broke halfway through, and she strained to hold what remained. The sound caught the corridor's walls, hammered through the supports and rolled back over Van. She saw him stiffen against the concrete.

He cried out.

The sound cut across her failing scream. Fiona stopped, more from shock than restraint. Van slid down the wall, one hand skidding against the dust, his face twisted with the effort to withstand what the Hotel was doing to him.

Gold light flared between them.

MASTER PROTECTION COMPROMISED

Protection Award Remaining: 0/3 VP

Fiona stared at the notification, but his eyes were on her, wide with something she couldn't mistake. She lunged toward him.

“Van—”

White light filled the corridor before her hand reached his.

The unfinished walls, the open shaft, the dust and the creatures struggling beneath it disappeared. Fiona's fingers closed on empty air as the Hotel pulled them both away.