Robert Crane - Untouched

“You’re dangerous. I like it.” He smiled and grabbed a table of his own as I rolled to my feet and he chucked it at me. It skipped off the floor, a hubcap of spinning death that grazed my shoulder as I dropped below it and heard the shattering of glass behind me. He threw another, then another, and I dodged them, executing some gymnastic evasions I wouldn’t have been capable of even a month ago—before my powers manifested. I looked around for a weapon—any kind of weapon—that might be effective against a hulking slab of metal.

He stomped toward me, malice in his eyes. I met his attack, ducking his punch and grabbing his arm with my ungloved hand as he started to pull it back. I gripped onto the slick metal and held tight, waiting for a reaction; it was cool in my grasp. The big jackass looked at me, then down to my hand, then back at me and split into a broad grin. “Your succubus trick only works on flesh.” He pulled his arm back, yanking me off balance and lifting me from the ground. I managed to hold onto him, but only just.

A second later I realized what he was doing. As soon as he pulled me toward him, he set me up for a punch with his other hand. His fist made contact with my midsection and I felt all the air leave my lungs in a rush, worse than any physical pain I’d felt since Wolfe had near-gutted me. I flew through the air, landing with a crash on a metal chair that promptly upended. I heard more things break when I landed and this time I knew it was me, not the furniture.

I sat up, clutching at my ribs. There was blood in my mouth, the metallic taste unpleasant enough that I spit it out. Clary stalked toward me from across the room; his punch had thrown me almost a hundred feet, from the middle of the cafeteria to near the kitchen.

“Any suggestions to keep us from getting pummeled?” I muttered the words under my breath, but Wolfe was silent. If ever there had been a time when I could have used the help of the world’s most brutal infighter, this would have been it. I looked around and my eyes widened as I remembered something, a possibility. I made for the kitchen, hobbling as fast as my wounded frame could carry me, Clary not far behind.

I jumped over the cafeteria line and the serving stations with one good leap. As I reached the kitchen doors I heard Clary crash through them behind me. “You can run girl, but you can’t hide!”

“You can spout cliches,” I said, “but you can’t find a woman who’ll enjoy your company.”

I plunged into the kitchen and heard the screams of the serving ladies, who had all run inside to hide after the altercation started in the dining area. There were a half dozen of them, all wide-eyed. “Get out!” I said as I pushed past them. I stopped next to the freezer and swung the heavy door open, then checked my placement. He would have to charge through a preparation station in order to get to me, with an obstructed view, and if he wasn’t paying much attention (which I assumed was his usual state) he’d go charging into the freezer where with any luck I could shut the door behind him.

Clary stopped at the entrance to the kitchen. “Come on, now, girl.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” I said, holding my arm. It was actually the least of my pains, but the others weren’t easily reached and pulling it closer seemed to ease the torment in my chest.

“Have it your way, then.” He lowered his head. “I’ll let Old Man Winter decide what he wants done with you once you’re good and out.” He barreled toward me, not bothering to use the aisles, charging right through the prep station, tearing the vent hoods out of the stove, destroying a cook top and counters, metal flying in every direction.

I watched him for as long as I could, but once the debris started flying my way I dodged sideways, behind the heavy door of the freezer. I hit the ground and my chest and side screamed at me. I watched him run past me into the freezer, hit the wall and bounce off, then heard the crashing of a side of beef and cartons of God knows what hitting the floor. I kicked the freezer door and it swung closed. I wrenched myself up and yanked the pin off a shelf nearby and plunged it into the lock.

I took two steps back and fell down, breathing a sigh of relief. Everything still hurt, but at least that idiot was contained where he couldn’t do any harm—

That thought lasted less than the second it took for the door to the freezer to come exploding off its hinges. It flew through the air above me, skipping across my left shoulder and leaving a gash over an inch deep. I was pretty sure it broke my collarbone, but it was hard to tell among all the other agonies.

“Nice try.” Clary sauntered over to me as I squirmed on the floor. I heard a hissing that I thought was in my head until I realized that the idiot had severed the gas line to the stove when he charged through. “Ain’t nothin’ can hold me.”

“I think you’ve confused ‘can’ with ‘want’,” I said through gritted teeth. “For example, a woman ‘can’ hold you, but none of them ‘want’ to—”

He grabbed me in a clawlike hold around the neck and picked me up in a manner that reminded me of the way Wolfe had manhandled me, beaten me, abused me. Clary’s piggy eyes leered at me from behind his smug smile and I hated him, wanted to crush him, but now I couldn’t breathe.

The eyes.

I stared down at him. Sure enough, Wolfe’s voice was right—his skin was metal but his eyes were the same white as always, the blood vessels visible on the sides.

My fingers lanced out and I stabbed him with my thumb right in the socket. I did not hesitate nor pull my strike and he screamed in uncontrolled misery. I fell to the ground, unable to catch myself. A lancing pain ran up my entire upper body after the impact, and I floundered on the floor, holding onto my sides.

“YOU BITCH!” Clary stomped and I bounced a few inches into the air before landing again. It hurt more. “YOU TOOK OUT MY EYE!”

“Honestly, it wasn’t one of your best attributes,” I muttered. “Not that you have any good ones.” I managed to get to my hands and knees and looked for something to use as a weapon since it had become obvious that he was unlikely to present me with an opportunity to stab out his other eye. There was a ringing in my ears that went along with the hissing. I saw a fire extinguisher and it dawned on me that it was probably a better choice than anything else. I grabbed it and crawled along on my hands and knees, trying to avoid his blind rage behind me.

I had reached the door when he finally realized I wasn’t near him anymore. “Hey! Where do you think you’re going?”

I used a countertop to pull myself up and turn back to him. “Me? I think I’ll go for a quiet drink somewhere. Care to join me?”

He had started towards me but stopped, his head snapping back, his jaw opening slightly. “Really?”

I grimaced. “No. Not really. I’m going to get medical treatment. You? You can burn in hell. Literally.”

He stomped his foot again and his jaw made a scraping noise as he ground his teeth together. “Damn you, girl! What am I supposed to do with one eye?”

“You could be huge in the kingdom of the blind.” I reached back and flung the fire extinguisher with all my much-vaunted metahuman strength.

And it missed him.

He smiled as it sailed by. “You missed—”

It hit the side of the metal countertop, hard, and sparked. I had the intense satisfaction of seeing him look back, confused, before the fireball blew me out of the room.

“You!” I awoke to the sound of Dr. Perugini’s less-than-dulcet tones. I stared up at her when my eyes opened. Her dark complexion was flushed, her eyes on fire as she glared down at me in the hospital bed. I took in the medical bay around me and saw Clary in the bed next to me, a bandage over his eye. Scott Byerly was across the way, Kat at his side, casting the occasional furtive glance at me.