The tall one’s smile died in stages.

First the corners of his mouth, then the crinkle around his eyes. By the time the expression was gone, his finger had already slid to the trigger, and I realized he wasn’t going to give a warning.

He had labelled Zero as a threat in the space of a single breath, and the smart play in his head was to shoot first and deal with whatever was left after.

He was fast. Unfortunately for him, Zero was faster.

I didn’t even see her move. One second she was in front of me with her hands loose at her sides, and the next she was halfway down the corridor, closing the distance like the space between had simply stopped existing.

The rifle went off, but she wasn’t there anymore. The blue energy round punched through the far wall and left a smoking hole the size of a dinner plate. My ears buzzed as my eyes couldn’t keep up with what was happening.

Her hand closed around the barrel.

The metal crumpled like paper in her grip.

’What the fuck—’

The tall one’s eyes went wide, his brain finally catching up to what his instincts had been screaming about. He tried to let go of the weapon, but Zero’s other hand was already on his throat.

She lifted him one-handed, as if he weighed nothing at all. His boots kicked uselessly above the concrete. Then she slammed him down into the floor as the concrete cracked under the impact. His body bounced once and didn’t move again.

The gauntlet-woman moved first out of the three left. Perhaps training or maybe it was the reflex that kicked in when your brain refuses to accept what it’s seeing. She lunged with both hands out, the fields around her knuckles shrieking.

Zero caught her punch easily like catching a toddler’s fist. The field flared against Zero’s palm and did absolutely nothing. The gauntlet-woman tried to pull back and pivot into her second strike, and realized a half-second too late that her wrist was still locked in Zero’s grip.

Zero twisted it. The sound was wet and final. She stepped into her, used the broken wrist as a handle, and drove her face-first into the steel door of the secondary vault behind me.

The door dented inward from the force.

The woman didn’t scream anymore.

’Oh my god. Oh my god.’

The chain-whip guy was next. To his credit, he didn’t run. He whipped the electrified chain around his head in a tight arc and lashed it forward, sparks flying, the current howling through the air.

Zero caught the chain in her bare hand.

I heard the electricity hiss as it grounded itself through her palm. I saw the blue arcs crawling up her fingers and she didn’t even flinch. She just looked at the chain, then at the man holding the other end, and smiled.

She yanked.

He came flying toward her with a noise that wasn’t a word in any language I knew. Her other hand came up, and her palm connected with his chest in what looked like a light shove.

His ribcage caved inward instantly and he hit the far wall hard enough to leave a body-shaped dent, and when he slid down he left red behind him.

The last one dropped his sword and turned to run. Unfortunately, Zero was already behind him.

I didn’t see her cross the corridor as my perception couldn’t keep up with her. One moment she was standing over the chain-whip guy’s crater, and the next she was at the stairwell with her hand on the back of the runner’s jacket.

She lifted him off his feet mid-stride, his legs still pumping in empty air, and turned around casually to face me.

"What do you think, darling?" she called, bright and cheerful like we were deciding on a restaurant. "Should we let him run? But then he’d tell his friends. Headache. Or finish it? Much cleaner."

The man in her grip was crying. Actually crying, babbling about his family and his kids.

I looked at him, then at Zero, and realized my hand was shaking around the Core Stone, not from fear of her really. Zero wouldn’t hurt me. I knew that in my bones.

But I was afraid of what she was. Of the gap between what I’d thought she was and what I was seeing now. Because the woman at the end of the corridor with a grown man dangling from her fist like a grocery bag wasn’t just superhumanly strong.

She was something else.

Something I didn’t have a word for yet.

’Zero... what the hell are you?’

"Lukas?" she prompted, tilting her head. "Waiting on a verdict, sugar boy."

I cleared my throat. "If we let him go, the whole Black Snake comes down on us before we’ve even cracked the vault."

"Mm. My thinking exactly."

"But I’d rather not watch you—"

"Say no more, darling."

She turned her wrist. A small, dry crunch and the crying stopped. She dropped the body and walked back down the corridor, stepping over the tall one’s corpse without a glance.

She stopped in front of me. Her eyes searched my face, and for the first time since I’d met her, I saw something like uncertainty in them. A crack in that endless confidence, as if she was waiting to see what I’d do now that I’d seen what she could really do.

Or part of what she could do. I wasn’t stupid, far from it actually. All of that had been too casual for her, which meant there was more. A lot more.

"Sugar boy?" she asked softly, her voice cracking a bit.

I swallowed and met her eyes. "Remind me to never, ever make you mad."

She laughed, and relief flashed across her face before the teasing warmth came back. She had actually been worried about what I’d think.

’She’s scary strong, and she cares what I think about it. Man, why am I so downbad for crazy women?’ I wondered looking at her smile.

"You’re not running," she observed.

"Where would I run? You’d catch me in two steps."

"True."

"Also I like you too much to run." I smiled and took her hand.

She stepped in and brushed concrete dust off my shoulder, her fingers lingering. "Smart boy. Come on. Let’s see what our guests were carrying."

...

The haul was good.

The rifle was scrap thanks to Zero’s grip, but she pried the energy cell free. The chain-whip still worked. The gauntlets were beyond salvage, but the Core Stone sword was undamaged and Zero slipped it into her harness like she’d been looking for one.

"Keep it," I said. "You’ve earned commission for saving my life three times in two days."

"Four, but who’s counting."

"Four?"

"I’ll tell you later, darling."

Their pockets gave up the real prize. Two D-rank Core Stones, both smaller than mine but unmistakable. "Gang inventory," Zero said, handing them to me. "A house each, maybe a bit less."

’Three houses in one day...damn I’m rich.’

They also had a busted radio, a hand-drawn map of Sector Three patrol routes, two medical kits, and a bundle of worthless post-collapse scrip.

And then there was the key.