The robotics graveyard was cold, quiet, and a perfect place to bleed. I’d been curled behind a stack of rusted chassis for ten minutes, waiting for the sirens to fade, when Handy’s voice buzzed from my wrist.

  “Nikki. I’ve bypassed the local server lockdown. There’s a terminal in the main control room, thirty yards from your position. It’s downloading a massive data packet to a Pandora server off-site. This could be big.”

  My gut screamed trap. Everything about this was too neat. But he was right. This mission wouldn’t be a waste of my time after all.

  “Okay,” I whispered, my voice still raw. “Get me in.”

  Now, my fingers hovered over the keyboard of that same terminal. The green cursor blinked. Too easy. Handy’s cheerful little loading bar zipped across my wristband, displaying sixty percent to seventy percent.

  “Something’s wrong,” I muttered.

  “What? Is there something wrong with the download-”

  The shutters dropped.

  Every exit, every window, every vent slammed. Reinforced steel, the kind you need plasma cutters to scratch. Like God himself slamming a coffin lid on the factory floor.

  My stomach dropped.

  “Oh.” Handy’s synthetic voice went flat. “Oh no.”

  The emergency lights flashed on, glowing the space into red. My shadow spread across the floor, about fifteen feet long.

  The rusted assembly line machinery suddenly wasn’t a graveyard of defunct robotics parts. It became a cage.

  I yanked the connector cable from the terminal and spun around, already calculating. Northeast corner, there’d been a service door. Sealed. The loading bay to the south. Sealed. Ceiling grates, maybe if I could shift and—

  “Nowhere left to run, Nova.”

  The voice came from the darkness between the assembly stations. Flat. Cold. Professional.

  Brick Crusher stepped into the light.

  The plasma rifle on his shoulder gleamed with the kind of polish you don’t see on government-issue hardware. That was Pandora tech. Sleek, custom, and probably cost more than my uncle’s house. It also looked like it could melt a car engine. He didn’t point his weapon at me because he needed me alive.

  Great. Cornered by a tough hunter with a grudge. Just what I needed.

  “Leave me alone.” The words came out sharper than intended.

  Crusher widened his eyes and laughed. “So the furry can talk. You’re not a dumb animal after all.”

  That one word—animal—lit a fuse in my spine. Heat flooded my face. My hands curled into fists, claws itching to answer him.

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  “How did you escape from that tunnel?” I asked, praying his monologue would distract him.

  “Luck, baby,” Crusher said, grinning. “A good gallon of synth milk kept my bones strong. And my clients loved me so much, they picked up my distress signal and gave me a good makeover.”

  My eyes tracked the space. Forty yards to Brick. Twenty-foot ceilings. Corroded I-beams overhead, hydraulic lifts frozen mid-extension, piles of scrap metal creating blind spots. No windows. No vents big enough for a house cat, let alone a werewolf.

  “You’re sweating.” Brick shifted the rifle slightly. “I can tell your heart is racing. Pupils dilated. You’re running the math, aren’t you? Wondering if you can cross the distance before I pull the trigger.”

  “The thought crossed my mind.”

  “Don’t.” He smiled, not too wide. “I’ve got twelve rounds. You regenerate fast, but not that fast. If I clip your cute legs, you’re done. Game over.”

  He was right. And I hated it when the bad guys made good points.

  “So what now?” I raised my hands slowly, trying to buy time. “You shoot me, collect your paycheck, go home and sleep like a baby?”

  “Something like that.” He circled left, keeping distance. Smart. “Pandora wants you alive, but they didn’t specify what condition. Missing a kneecap builds character.”

  “Nikki,” Handy whispered, “his rifle’s charge pack is aftermarket. Less stable. If you can—”

  “—get close enough to hit it, sure. While he shoots me. Great plan.”

  Brick’s finger moved to the trigger guard. “Who are you talking to?”

  “Myself. Bad habit.”

  “Last chance. Come quietly, this doesn’t have to hurt.”

  A growl rumbled in my chest, low and ugly. The wolf wanted out. It clawed at the inside of my ribs, a desperate, hot pressure. I bit the inside of my cheek, grounding myself in the sharp sting of pain. Not yet. Not yet.

  “You ever wonder who you’re working for?” I lowered my hands to my sides, fingers flexing. “What they’re really doing in those labs?”

  “Don’t care.” He raised the rifle. “Turn around. On your knees.”

  “They killed my uncle, and they will kill you too because you are expendable.”

  “Three seconds.”

  A chunk of metal the size of a dinner plate lay near my right foot. Old gear housing, jagged edges. Not much, but—

  “Two.”

  I dove.

  Not toward him—he expected that. Sideways, rolling behind the nearest assembly station as plasma fire screamed through the space where I’d been standing. The concrete floor erupted in molten chunks. Heat washed over me, singeing hair.

  “Nikki, motion sensors behind you—”

  Already moving. Brick wasn’t alone. Of course he wasn’t alone. Two more heat signatures, flanking positions. Stun batons, probably. Close-quarters pacification.

  The factory floor became a maze. I scrambled through mechanical corpses, over conveyor belts frozen in perpetual stillness. Brick’s boots rang out behind me—measured, patient. He wasn’t chasing. He was herding.

  Toward what?

  The answer came as a section of floor beneath my feet clicked.

  Pressure plate.

  A net exploded from the walls—industrial-grade, electrified judging by the crackling blue sparks. I twisted mid-air, barely clearing it. Landed wrong, ankle screaming protest.

  “Getting tired yet?” Brick’s voice echoed across the walls. “You’re fast. I’m thorough.”

  Another plasma bolt seared past, close enough to singe the sleeve of my jacket. A third sliced across my forearm, a line of heat that vanished as fast as it appeared. The pain was gone in a second, replaced by the sharpened senses of the wolf: oil, rust, ozone, and the cheap deodorant Crusher wore, forty feet northwest.

  “Okay,” I growled. “Fine.”

  If I couldn’t run, couldn’t hide—

  I’d fight.

  I extended my claws as my muscles shifted.

  Brick rounded the corner and spotted me.

  His rifle came up.

  I was already airborne.