The Night

As time passes, details fade. I have a dragon’s long memory for detail, but still, the edges soften as the memories get further away, like soft focus on a camera. For some memories, that’s good. They can’t fade and blur fast enough. If I could wipe them from my memory like an ugly stain, I would in a heartbeat. For certain memories, though, every loss of vivid detail, ever single second that blurs together with the second before and after it, is a loss. Like a grain of sand, taken by the wind, slowly turning my beautiful sand castle into a shapeless lump on the shore. Time keeps stealing those seconds from me, from that night. The longer I wait, the more I lose.

I can’t let that happen. No matter how much it aches to live it moment by moment again, at least I know that if I write it down now, no more seconds will slip away from me.

So, here goes.

Not long after dinner, everyone went home, except for Brad, Ma, Jack and me, since we were already home, and Donovan. He went back to his monitors, looking freshly determined to keep me safe from my unknown enemy.

With Jack, Brad and I all helping Ma, cleanup was quick and easy.

Brad hugged Ma before he went to bed with suspiciously watery eyes, and said, “Thank you, maam. That was the best Christmas dinner I ever had.”

It occurred to me in that moment that I didn’t know much about Brad. I hadn’t known him at all before he moved in, and I hadn’t really learned all that much, since he moved in. Brad wasn’t a big talker, especially not with women. I mean, I knew what brand of beer he preferred, that he could eat an entire box of cereal for breakfast, and that he not only had a full pelt of back hair, but moles in odd places under the pelt. What I didn’t know was anything at all about where he came from, his family, his life before he became my unintentional roommate. At this point, I didn’t even know what he did for a living.

Jack knew a lot more than I did, although even he was mystified by Brad’s new job. If there was one person on earth Brad talked to, that was Jack. The fact that Jack had taken him in when he didn’t even know Brad’s name had earned him a LOT of points with the big guy. It didn’t hurt that Jack was just the kind of guy people talked to. He had a sort of approachable air that just made people trust him.

I trusted Jack, practically from the first day I met him, and I have some serious trust issues.

As Jack and I walked up the stairs, holding hands, I asked him, “Why don’t I ever hear anything about Brad’s family?” I realized, somewhat belatedly, that he hadn’t had so much as a cousin send him a present, or come to dinner.

“Brad doesn’t have any family,” Jack told me. “He was turned over to the system when he was barely a toddler. Apparently, his parents were normals, and they had no idea how to raise a supe with his level of abilities.”

“Where was he raised?”

“In the Box.”

I stopped half way up the stairs. “He was just a baby!” The Black Box was a euphemism for the ultra-maximum security prison where the worst and most powerful supervillains were housed. It was definitely, without a shadow or trace of any doubt, no kind of place to raise a kid. 

“He got his powers pretty much at birth. He doesn’t remember, and no one ever told him, but it’s possible he might have killed someone, or seriously injured them, when he was too young to control his strength.”

“But that’s … that’s just … barbaric. You can’t put a baby in prison for life.”

Jack shrugged. “There’s a section for juvenile detention, for supe teenagers who get in trouble mainly, but some kids like him, too. It’s not like they tossed a toddler into general population.”

“But it’s a temporary thing for the kids in juvy. Most of them have a home to go to once they’ve served their time.”

“Brad didn’t. It wasn’t like they could just place a kid who could pick up and chunk the family car if he had a tantrum into any old foster home.”

“So, my roommate was raised in prison, surrounded by juvenile delinquents and a stone’s throw from the most dangerous criminals on this continent. Kind of explains his lack of social graces.”

“Yeah. Pretty amazing that Brad turned out as decent as he did, when you put it that way.” Jack squeezed my hand and we finished our climb to the second floor where his bedroom was. We’d gotten into the habit of walking each other home each night. If he went to bed first, I’d walk him to his door, and we’d kiss good night. If I went to bed first, we’d do it the other way round. “He said some of the guards were really nice to him when he was the youngest kid there, but he was raised more by the older kids than anything.”

As we walked, I leaned into Jack’s warmth. It made me feel cold to think of a little boy having to grow up like that, just because he was born different. Novak’s childhood hadn’t been much better. His mom died in childbirth and his dad never knew he existed. He grew up in the foster system, not getting adopted because he was “deformed.” The man who finally took him in secretly despised him, and refused to even let the young dragon he raised refer to him as family.

My dad was murdered when I was little, but I’d always had Ma. She’d always made sure that I felt loved and wanted, even when I accidentally tore the car door off its hinges, or crushed Ma’s brand new cell phone back when those things cost as much as a month’s rent. She’d shrug and say that they were just things. Things could be replaced. “I forget how lucky I am sometimes.”

We stood in front of the door to Jack’s bedroom. He smiled with enough warmth to melt quartz crystals and pushed a stray lock of dark hair back from the side of my face. “Don’t we all.”

I’d have had to be made of stone not to kiss him right then.

Our lips touched gently at first. We’d gotten the hang of kissing over the nearly two years we’d been dating. Our lips knew each other as well as we did. I tilted my head just a little and he did, too, as if we’d choreographed it. It was a dance we knew the steps to intimately, from hours of passionate practice.

Without thought, our bodies moved closer, our arms enclosing each other in warmth, swaying and shifting together to find the perfect fit. Our mouths opened in the same moment, and the familiar taste and texture of his tongue touched mine.

I moaned softly. It just got better. Our first kiss had been awkward, with bumping teeth and blushing, and one hand barely touching my arm. With every time we practiced this dance, we moved together more smoothly, and it got so much better.

His arms around my waist pulled me in close.

I melted against him and felt exactly how much he was enjoying the dance.

He twirled me around and pushed my back up against his bedroom door, trailing hot kisses down my jaw and neck. One hand buried itself in my hair, pulling it away from one side of my throat and ear so his tongue could work magic unhindered.

I threw my head back and ran my hand down his back to squeeze his tight backside. I wasn’t the only one that had put on muscle from firefighter training and Krav Maga classes. He would never be bulky, but Jack’s body was a work of art that would shame Michelangelo.

My hands plunged under his Dragon Ball t-shirt and up the skin of his back, nails tracing along the skin.

He shivered and moaned into my mouth, goosebumps rising on his back, and pressed harder against me. Jack’s leg slipped in between mine. His body matched mine perfectly from hip to chest. I don’t know what ever made me think our height difference mattered.

This was going way beyond a simple good night kiss.

The hands I knew so well ran up the smooth, human skin on my sides that still felt strange to me, thumbs caressing just under my bra, silently waited, asking if I wanted to take the next step in the dance.

Oh, I did. I so did.

I “Mmmph,”ed a yes, and pulled him harder against me in case the message wasn’t clear enough.

His hands cupped my completely human, normal, unarmored breasts, thumbs rubbing across both nipples.

My knees got warm and squishy like they didn’t have any interest in holding me up anymore, not that it mattered. Jack’s body held mine almost painfully hard against the polished wood of the door. I panted like I’d run a marathon. “Jack,” I whispered. “I want …”

His mouth that had been burning a trail down my throat from my ear, kissed the mound of my right breast and I forgot how to speak. All I could do was make little keening noises.

Jack leaned his leg into me, and I rocked my hips against him instinctively, shuddering at how indescribably good that felt.

“Jack!” I gasped.

He looked into my eyes from inches away. His eyes had turned from deep brown to black as midnight as his pupils blew wider than a drug addict’s. One trembling hand came up and cupped my cheek. “Are you sure you’re ready?” His voice was gentle, and ready for my denial, even while his body pressed me against the door like he wanted to go through me.

I’d never gone beyond this point, with anyone, ever. I licked my kiss swollen lips. I hadn’t planned for this to be our night. I’d been thinking about Christmas and dinner and people coming over and helping Ma and getting people the perfect presents. “I’m not wearing the right underwear,” I wailed softly.

Jack chuckled. Most guys would have taken that as a no, but fortunately Jack spoke fluent Dee. “You can wear the green lacy ones next time.”

Next time.

I touched his face. I pushed his shaggy bangs back from his forehead, feeling the fever heat in his skin. I traced his dark eyebrow and cupped his cheek in my hand, thumb stroking the sharp angle of his cheekbone. There would only be one first time, but I thought maybe, like kissing, it would be something we just got better and better at as time passed.

It was the next step in the dance.

Jack was the one partner who made me truly want to finish the dance. I trusted him completely. And I wanted him completely. I nodded. “I’m sure.”

Jack’s hips bucked a little against me, and his eyes fluttered shut. He swallowed hard. His eyes opened, and I’d never seen anyone look so … hungry.

He kissed me like he was drowning, and needed my mouth to breathe.

I rocked my hips on his leg again, craving that electric heat I’d felt before.

His hand slid down and cupped me through my jeans.

“Oh!” I gasped again. I grabbed onto his shoulders as I my knees actually gave way.

He turned the knob on the bedroom door, so I lost my support. His strong arm took its place behind me. Jack would never let me fall.

My sexy firefighter hooked his other hand under my thigh and lifted me, our bodies still fitted perfectly to each other.

When my hips rocked again instinctively, I rubbed directly against the hardness that strained the zipper on his jeans, and he groaned right along with me.

He carried me to his bed.

We fumbled and giggled as we added these new unpracticed steps to our dance. There was even a little pain, since this was all new to my completely normal human body, but Jack made it all perfect.

Jack made that night the best night of my life.

D Dragon

Charity at Gun Point

I spent a fair amount of last Saturday begging on a street corner. Not really what I thought I’d be doing when I became a firefighter, but it was for the Breast Cancer Resource Center.  It’s a great charity that helps women who have breast cancer with things insurance companies never think about, like a babysitter for their kids while they have chemo treatments, or things as simple as a special pillow so they can sleep more comfortably. If I had to stand on a corner holding a rubber boot to support them, then I’d stand around holding a boot.

Being an EMT for the fire department means I get 48 hours off after each 24 hours on duty. It’s an odd schedule, but I’m used to odd schedules. With all that free time in big blocks, I can see why Novak chose this as his other job. It’s the perfect job for a superhero. I can’t fight crime anymore, but Liberty always says giving to charity makes everyone a hero. So, I’ve been using the extra time to volunteer for a local charity Halloween event that also benefits BCRC. "Helping to put the Boo into Boobies" I got a t-shirt that said that right across the chest. Made me chuckle.

I was actually doing the boot holding thing on duty. The whole department was out. We had our trucks parked in a shopping mall on the corner, and radios on, so if an emergency call came in, we could still do our jobs. Novak, Jack, Tamara and I were on the four sides of the busy intersection of 183 and I35 in North Austin.

Donovan’s pickup was parked under the overpass on the concrete shoulder. It annoyed me that he kept following me around, but he just sat in his cab with the windows down, enjoying the pleasant fall weather and the latest John Ringo novel. I couldn’t get rid of him, but at least he knew how to stay unobtrusive.

I really used to think me having a bodyguard was silly. Not so much anymore.

A big forest green Dodge van pulled up to the red light. The driver, a Mexican woman in her early thirties wearing bright red lipstick, waved me over with a twenty in her hand.

As I got right up to the window, the driver smiled, pulled out a .45 and stuck it in my face.

“Are you kidding me?” I got really indignant. I think maybe I channeled my mother for a few seconds. “You should be ashamed of yourself. There’s like $200 in this boot, and it’s slated to help some poor woman who's fighting for her life. If you can afford gas for this hulk, then you sure as heck don’t need this money more than the charity does.”

The woman looked at the boot with distaste. “Leave it. Get in the van or I’ll blow your head off.”

A side door opened. A guy with huge biceps and a familiar tattoo pointed another gun at me. He grabbed the front of my uniform shirt and dragged me toward the van. 

I dug in my heels and threw the boot at him. I'd rather get shot right there than get into a vehicle with those guys. I tried an arm up, twist move that Tamara had taught me to escape choke holds, but the big guy lifted me off my feet before I got going.

An all too familiar white guy with curly hair, a broken nose, and the same tattoo reached toward me from the back of the van, with a folded white cloth in his hand.

I pushed the button on the radio on my shoulder. “Crap. I’m being kidnapped. The guys from the nuclear plant!”

Big Biceps kept me from wriggling away while Curly Hair shoved the cloth in my face.

I took a little nap after that.

D Dragon

Bomb Dogs and Biology

We got a call that there was a bomb threat at UT yesterday. Some guy called the campus cops, said he was with Al Qaeda and 90 bombs were planted on campus. Our unit got called along with three other fire trucks, the supe squad, ten bomb sniffing K-9 units, and Detective Long.

Liberty, Jupiter Joe and Alrek, the dragon who looked just like Agmund, my great-great grandfather, also came.

We parked our fire truck by the biology ponds, on Inner Campus Drive, right in front of the clock tower in the center of campus. I love that spot. Under normal circumstances, the pigeons and the squirrels are so tame as to be practically pets. I’ve gotten them to eat out of my hands and let me touch them at quiet moments in the past when this campus had been my home.

Now, the birds were all scattered from the tension and noise of the huge unfamiliar vehicles. One squirrel griped at us from the branches of a huge spreading oak. But the glassy ponds with their blooming water lilies and turtles sunning on rocks still managed somehow to look peaceful. It made me smile a little until I saw another vehicle pull in behind us and park off to the side.

Donovan followed the fire truck, in his pickup. His long strides closed the distance rapidly.

“I’m supposed to be rescuing people and putting out fires. I don’t really need a bodyguard,” I told him.

Donovan shrugged. “If you don’t, I don’t know anyone in the world who does. You’ve still got a black eye from the last time you snuck out without telling me.”

“I didn’t sneak out.”

“No, of course not. You just left an hour before you usually get out of bed, without informing anyone, including your bodyguard, that you were changing your routine.” He glared at me.

I ignored him.

It sort of defined our relationship.

The entire campus was evacuated. Everyone was afraid that it was the same guy who blew the highway, the hospital and the Erwin center. I kept waiting for the muffled thump of bombs and for the stately old buildings around me to start collapsing.

Detective Long called me over to the clump of superheroes and cops and asked me if I had any personal relationship to UT. Novak came over with me.

“I went to school here,” I told Donovan, “but that was forty years ago. I doubt anyone remembers but me.”

The detective grinned slightly. “I forget how old you are sometimes.”

“You think it’s ‘Him’” I did air quotes with my fingers. “The yellow striped skull guy?”

The tall, broad-shouldered detective straightened his vivid maroon tie and shook his head. “He’s never given us a warning before. He seems to prefer for the people to be IN the buildings when he blows them up.”

I shuddered. Not a cheery thought, but accurate.

I wondered why Jupiter Joe and Alrek showed up with Liberty.

“I’m surprised you’re even still in town, Joe, since the triple-A sent you to recruit me and I’m no longer a supe.”

Jupiter Joe tipped his hat. “I believe, as Liberty does, that your powers will return, Dee. But my superiors do not have that level of patience. I told them I was trying to recruit a dragon instead.”

I looked at Alrek, eyebrows raised. “You thinking of becoming a superhero?”

Alrek chuckled as if that idea was pretty funny. “Joe is using me as an excuse to remain in Texas. I believe he is in no hurry to return to the Alliance headquarters in Chicago.”

Joe grinned, and shrugged, not denying it.

“What brings you to Austin, Alrek?” I asked him. I’d been pretty freaked out when the Erwin Center came down around my ears, and hadn’t really had a chance to talk to him since.

“I saw a news film of a dragon who was sighted here, a large Red with black markings. I think, perhaps, he is an old acquaintance. I had hoped to find him.”

“You and Fafnir are friends?”

He smiled, showing teeth. “I knew Prince Fafnir a very long time ago when he was no older than you are, young Damson. Is he a friend of yours, your mate, perhaps?”

I snorted. “Jack is my boyfriend. Fafnir is more like my mentor. He’s a little old for me.”

“Jack.” Alrek blinked, his golden-bearded Nordic face a wash of shock. “The small dark-haired human we saved from the bombed performance hall?” He looked over at Jack, who stood way too close to Tamara, chit-chatting and laughing while they waited to have something useful to do.

“He’s a dragon lord. His family were emperors, with dragon ancestry a few generations back.” I’m not sure why I felt the need to defend Jack, but I did. Alrek had such a sound of disbelief in his voice when he found out my boyfriend was human.

“He is a son of direct royal lineage then.” Alek nodded as if something made sense to him.

I was about to object that his lineage didn’t have a heck of a lot to do with anything when frantic barking made all of us look up. Apparently, one of the bomb detection dogs had detected something.

A uniformed officer waved at us from the front door of the biology building.

Actually, he was probably waving at either the police detective or the two costumed superheroes standing next to me, but Novak and I ran with them and no one objected.

Donovan ran a little behind us, watching our backs, because that’s what Donovan does.

I noticed that Alrek limped when he ran, but didn’t have a chance to ask him about it.

We had a little argument at the door to the building.

“Stay here, Dee,” Novak said. “Let us handle it.” When he said us, he nodded toward Liberty and Joe, and somehow also included Alrek.

I realized something. Two Protectors, a nationally famous Alliance hero, and an elder dragon stood next to me. In this group, I wasn’t one of the gang anymore. Being normal meant I was the one who was different. I was a civilian to be protected.

I was about to get in Novak’s face when Liberty put a gentle hand on my arm. “Just until you get your powers back, Dee. It would be best if you tried not to go into any more buildings that are likely to have bombs in them.”

Donovan nodded agreement. “It would make my job considerably easier.”

It was a conspiracy.

“But Detective Long isn’t a supe, and he’s going in.” I objected.

The detective patted me on the back. “Don’t pout. When you learn how to defuse bombs, we’ll let you come in, too.”

He chuckled and they all ran into the building, leaving me and Donovan on the front steps.

“I wasn’t pouting,” I told Donovan.

Donovan didn’t crack so much as a hint of a smile. “Of course not, boss.”

It turned out it was a false alarm. The dogs were trained to identify certain chemicals, like sodium nitrate and potassium chlorate, since they can be used in explosive compounds. In the biology building, those chemicals were just stored in jars in the biochem lab along with bunches of other chemicals.

The whole bomb threat turned out to be entirely a false alarm.

It was probably just some student who desperately wanted to get out of an exam who called in the threat.

So, there was no real danger, this time.

I kept thinking that if it had been the real deal, I’d have been standing outside waiting and hoping, not in the middle of things helping. I’d spent far too much of my life already, waiting and watching instead of doing.

Sometimes being normal sucked royally.

D Dragon

Nuclear Meltdown

This was my first week as an official firefighter, and I didn’t fight one single fire. We fought a lot more fires in the academy. Car fires, tall building fires, oil fires, weird chemical fires, brush fires. Now, I feel like I’m back working for the hospital. We just have a much bigger vehicle to answer emergency calls. They won’t let Jack drive yet, because we’re rookies, but Sam Martinez, the guy who does drive, is a kindred spirit with Jack.  There isn’t an ambulance driver in town that’s going to beat us to an emergency call.

I’m just glad I made it. We almost didn’t become firefighters.

I almost didn’t anyway. Jack was fine.

I had two demerits, and only two days to go. All I had to do was make it through those last two days without getting another demerit. Thursday morning, I took my Jeep, and left a little early, rather than ride to work with Jack in his Toyota. I wanted to stop and get him a graduation present. I didn’t tell Jack that, of course.

I got him a new watch, the old-fashioned kind that doesn’t need batteries and winds itself when you move your arm. I’d already ordered it on line. I just needed to pick it up from the jeweler. I had “That’s why” engraved on the back. I figured that way, even if I forgot to say it, or we were apart for a while, all he’d have to do was look at the watch and I’d still keep my promise.

With my luck, I half expected the jewelry store to get robbed while I was there, which made me maybe a little more paranoid than usual. It was really early. The sun wasn’t quite up yet. I wanted to be there the minute the jewelry store opened, get the watch, and get to the academy with time to spare. No way was I taking a chance on getting that last demerit with only two days to go.

I used the old section of 1325 as a shortcut to avoid the new toll road, like I usually do. I only take the toll if I’m in a huge rush. That took me past the University of Texas science center where they have that little mini nuclear reactor that they use for research. It’s a pretty non-descript boxy building, surrounded mostly by a big open field, and a tall chain link fence. It’s not really what anyone thinks of when they think of a nuclear reactor. People drive by that little section of campus every day for years and never realize there’s a nuclear plant there. UT used to offer tours to students. That's the only reason I knew it was there.

I saw three cars parked by the side of the road and thought that was a little odd.

That was when I noticed something that really worried me. A stylized cloaked figure with a big scythe was spray painted on a telephone pole near one of the cars. It was the symbol of the Death Dealers, but they generally didn’t bother leaving any kind of calling card. Dead people sliced up, missing eyes, ears, and other body parts were generally enough to identify where they’d been.

I knew immediately what I’d just seen. Whoever had been blowing up pieces of my city and blaming it on other known villains was about to blow the nuclear reactor. It didn’t even occur to me to think I might be jumping to conclusions. I’d seen the devastation of the last three blasts. If that wasn’t what was happening, then I’d be a little red-faced, but if it was, I had to do something.

I passed the cars, until I was out of sight around a corner, found a wide spot on the shoulder and parked right behind a big black pickup that looked very familiar.

What the heck was Brad doing out here in the wee hours before dawn? I realized I’d parked right behind him. Crap. He’d probably seen the same thing I had, and done the same crazy thing I was about to do.

I took the time to call Detective Long’s direct line. It’s kind of cool having a police detective on speed dial. Unfortunately, I got his voice mail.

“It’s Dee. Our bad guys are at the UT nuke plant. Get here fast.” I whispered into the phone. Not sure why I was whispering. It just seemed like the thing to do. I called Liberty next, but her voice mail said she was in Washington DC until Monday. Wonderful. TakeDown’s number also got voice mail, and I thought that guy never slept. I dialed White Knight in desperation, but apparently at this time in the morning, no one answered their cell phone.

I badly needed someone with superpowers, or a badge, or both. I didn’t have either, but I couldn’t just do nothing.

Brad’s big truck made it clear that he was here. He wasn’t a superhero, but he had some pretty intense supe abilities. Having spent some time with Liberty and White Knight and Jupiter Joe, I now clearly understood the difference.

I didn’t really have a plan, but if I could find Brad, the two of us might be able to do something.

I dialed 911 and left the phone in the car. I figured if they didn’t hear anything, they’d trace the GPS in the phone and send someone. I didn’t want to stay long enough to explain. If that plant blew, it could do incredible damage to my city.

At least, this target didn’t seem to have anything to do with me. It was just a nasty way to hurt as many people in the area as possible. It was a relief in a way. I was just being paranoid before. Whoever the bad guy was, he wasn’t targeting me in particular, just my city in general.

I crept along, just outside the chain link fence that surrounded the plant. The weeds were knee high, and seemed to be largely made up of thistle that kept catching on my pants, but at least the thick grass didn’t make much noise as I moved through it. The grass was mowed inside the fence. No place to hide in there.

I spotted a guy from a fair distance in non-descript jeans and t-shirt painting a few poles. He wasn’t really who I was worried about. I wondered where the guys planting the bombs were. I also wondered where the cameras were. I spotted a few hung from the power lines. They were small, inconspicuous, and wireless. No telling where their signals were being sent to.

Det Long told me he’d chased that angle. Whoever set the cameras up had a first class computer hacker on their side. The signals bounced through so many proxies, the final destination might have been in Beijing. I didn’t care where the signal went right then. I was just worried about who might spot me with those things and warn the bad guys.

I tried to avoid them, but really, I had no way to tell if I succeeded.

The cut and bent back chain link fence section near the guy with the spray can told me exactly where the guys with the bombs had gone.

I backtracked to my Jeep, pulled it right up next to the fence, and climbed on the roof. The barbed wire at the top of the fence was nasty. I still had the old leather jacket I used to use as superhero garb in the back. Throwing that over the barbed wire gave me a safer way over.

I was probably also in full view of whatever security the plant itself had, but that didn’t bug me in the least. If they saw me and it put them on alert, so much the better. But I suspected the security had been neutralized in some way by the bad guys.

Sure enough, as I got closer to the building, I saw standard security cameras in the eaves. The telltale red LED lights that should have been glowing on each one were dark.

I’d nearly turned my ankle a couple of times getting across the field. I missed my dragon vision.

A metal side door with a substantial-looking lock stood ajar a few inches.

I peered inside, glad the lights were on.

No sign of bad guys, just a stairwell with down as the only option, and a door opposite. I tried the door, but it was locked. The bad guys must have gone down.

I tip-toed down the metal stairs, glad I was wearing my Sketchers. The stairs led down to an open metal mesh walkway. The whole area was essentially a huge open room with metal mesh walkways all around and a deep swimming pool in the center. Down in the bottom of the pool, I could actually see the bright glow of the mini nuclear reactor.

I’d gotten the tour before, so I wasn’t shocked or anything, but it was still pretty awesome looking through a few feet of clear water straight into the glowing heart of a nuclear fire.

I could see guys setting little devices with wires around the edge of the swimming pool. There were two guys, one practically under me, the other on the other side of the pool. The one under me was a black guy with a baseball cap turned backward, probably not much past a teenager. The guy on the other end of the pool was white with dark hair spiked up on top and a navy blue polo. Even from here I could tell that guy was big. His biceps strained his shirt sleeves.

I couldn’t see behind the room-sized concrete housing for the cooling and fueling mechanisms on one end of the pool.  There was another section of building around the corner where the monitoring station was. I couldn’t see in there either, although there was a window up a level that looked down. Anyone in there could probably see me.

So, there could be more bad guys. And they could already know I was there. If not, the moment I did anything, they would know.

Well, no point in being subtle then.

I jumped off the metal walkway, landed right behind the black guy with the cap. He was crouched down on the edge of the pool that kept the reactor from overheating messing with a nasty little device. I considered just knocking him into the pool for a second. He’d probably get enough of a radiation dose to kill him eventually, but in the meantime, he’d just be wet and really mad. And I didn’t see any guns, but I’d have been stunned if those guys weren’t armed. He could shoot me from the pool and I wouldn’t be able to do a damn thing about it.

So, instead, I did my best hammer fist strike to the back of his neck, putting my full body weight into it like Tamara had taught me. It didn’t take him out, but it dropped him to hands and knees. I drew back and kicked him in the face. That took him out.

He lay on his back, eyes rolled back in his head, and didn’t look inclined to move again for a while.

I ran as fast as I could around the edge of the pool.

The other guy looked up from what he was doing just before I rounded the corner. His brows crinkled a second like he wondered who I was.

I closed half the distance between us.

He glanced over where his buddy was sprawled unmoving on the concrete.

I was six feet away, running full out.

His eyes widened as he reached behind his back, lifting the edge of his polo shirt with his other hand.

I hit him with a full body tackle just as he got the gun out of the back of his waistband and started to bring it around. The gun went clattering out of his hand, slid along the concrete, and splashed over the edge into the pool of heavy water.

So, he wasn’t going to shoot me.

He was, however, twice my weight with biceps as big as my thighs. He wrestled me over onto my back, grabbed me around the throat with both hands, and squeezed.

Not good. But not as bad as it could have been. Tamara spent a fair amount of each class on what she called ground fighting, ways to defend yourself even flat on your back. Breaking choke holds was basic level. I tucked one foot up under my butt, trapped the big guy’s leg with the other, and bucked hard, while yanking the guy’s hands outward.

He flipped over until I was on top. I shoved his hands down with my full body weight on top of them, and added a hard knee to his groin to discourage him. No matter how big a guy is, a knee to the groin gets attention. 

That knee made him cough and curl up. I followed it with adrenaline fueled punches to his face, belly and groin again. I’d never gone up against an opponent who was stronger than me in a real fight before, except that one time when I punched Brad with everything I had. He accused me of tickling him.

I punched and kicked and elbowed until the guy was curled into a little ball, arms over his head, begging me to stop.

I might have taken it a bit far, honestly, but I was seriously scared. If I failed, not only would the guy kill me, but he might kill my whole city.

I had my feet back under me by the time it was clear that this bomber wasn’t going to kill me or anyone else today. I was starting to feel a little relieved. I’d done it. I’d stopped them.

That was when I felt the gun barrel against the back of my head.

“Don’t move, bitch.”

I froze. Tamara had showed me a few moves that would disarm someone who had a gun touching me. One of them fit this scenario exactly. But all gun defense moves were incredibly risky, only to be used in extreme circumstances.

Preventing a nuclear explosion and meltdown in a city with a million people seemed pretty extreme to me.

“Did you think you could stop u..”

The guy never finished the sentence. While he was talking, I twisted to the side, leaned back, and swung my arm up and around.

His arm ended up tucked under mine, the gun safely aimed away from me. He had a tattoo on his forearm of a black skull with large staring eyes and a thick stripe of yellow across the upper half of the face, like a superhero mask.

I hit him in the nose as hard as I could with an elbow. I felt bone crunch. It was a good hit.

Something harder than flesh slammed into the back of my head.

What my training hadn’t covered was if the guy with the gun had a buddy I didn’t know about, with another gun.

I dropped to one knee, blinking to try to get the world back in focus.

My grip on the first guy’s gun arm loosened.

The two men stood over me, both of their guns pointed at my head, but not close enough for me to do anything about it.

I managed to get their faces in focus. One guy had curly, bushy dark hair and a spectacularly bloody nose. He looked really pissed off. The other was older and shorter with Hispanic dark skin and a scarred face that looked like fifty miles of bad road. Danny Trejo would look pretty next to this guy. His thick-veined arms had the same black skull with a yellow stripe tattoo.

In the frantic fight with the man with the big biceps, I’d barely noticed it, but he had the same tattoo.

I hadn’t seen it, but I’d be willing to bet money that the black kid in the cap had one too.

That was some brilliant detective work there, which wasn’t going to do me a bit of good with a bullet hole in my skull.

“You can’t stop Him, stupid bitch. He rules over all the ages of man.” That was the curly-haired guy with the bloody nose.

The “Him” was definitely capitalized. You could hear it in the way he said it.

I looked up, and fought to keep my face from showing my surprise and relief. There was someone tip-toeing up behind the two bad guys with the guns pointed at my face. Someone huge, hairy, ugly, and wearing a Crippen Steel gimme cap. Brad Spiers would never be mistaken for Brad Pitt, but right then, he looked just as gorgeous to me. Brad can move surprisingly quietly for such a big guy.

I wasn’t sure if Brad was bullet proof, but I knew that no punch these guys could throw would so much as phase him.

I said, “Well, whoever “He” is, he clearly needs to hire better help. Three out of four of you got taken out by one lone unarmed girl. You guys are the lamest henchmen ever.” If I kept their attention on me, Brad could get to them without getting shot.

Unfortunately, their attention came in the form of a cowboy boot to my temple from the ugly Hispanic guy.

I kind of took a little nap there for a few seconds. I vaguely remember some shouting and a scuffle.

Next thing I clearly remember was Brad carrying me out of the building.

Then there were some sirens and some flashy lights.

Cops pointed guns at us, but I waved at Detective Long and they stopped.

Apparently, he got my message.

He insisted that I go to a hospital, something about a concussion. That meant that I didn’t make it to my second to the last day of firefighter training.

After ten weeks of hell, I failed two days short of the goal.

I protested, but the fact that I wanted to puke every time I sat up, and I kept seeing two of everything made it pretty much impossible for me to convince anyone I was fine and needed to get to the academy.

Detective Long threatened to arrest me if I didn’t go to a hospital.

They discharged me later that same day.

Jack and Ma took turns staying up all night with me, waking me up every few hours, which was a truly miserable way to spend a night, I have to say.

The kicker of it was, all the bad guys were gone when the cops went into the building. The bomb squad disarmed the bombs, so the nuclear reactor didn’t blow up or melt down, but the bad guys got away.

I told Detective Long about the striped skull tattoos, and the bad guys referring to “Him.”

It was a little more than we knew before, at least.

I also told him that I was relieved that this attack didn’t have anything to do with me, personally. So, that shot my paranoid theory about the bomber targeting me.

Detective Long nodded like he agreed, then said, “So, why were you there?”

“I just happened to be driving by. The jeweler where I picked up the present I ordered for Jack is just up the street.”

“Did you order that present on line? Like you ordered your concert tickets?”

I felt really stupid. “Yeah. I did.”

“We’ve already established that whoever we’re up against, he’s got an exceptionally skilled hacker working with him.”

“Crap.”

Detective Long nodded. “Watch your back, Dee.”

He sent a police escort with me to the hospital. Officer Flynn stood outside my room the whole time they did CAT scans and such on me at the hospital. When I got home, Flynn briefed Donovan.

I haven’t been able to go anywhere since then without an unmarked police car and Donovan’s Ford crew cab F250 both shadowing me.

I rode in Friday with Jack. I’d blown it, but I still wanted to see Jack graduate from the academy.

When I got there, I got a bit of a surprise. The mayor gave me a firefighter’s medal of valor.

Dave laughed when I told him I thought my last demerit meant I was out. He told me that saving the city from a nuclear meltdown was the best excuse for missing a day he’d ever heard. Under the circumstances, my demerit was excused.

D. Dragon