(AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN…) ROUND AND ROUND WE GO

Lung did not look the way Taylor had expected him to.

He was massive, certainly. Even seated, he carried a size that made everyone else nearby seem smaller by comparison, his frame broad enough that the chair beneath him looked almost inadequate. The tattoos on his arms disappeared beneath the sleeves of a dark shirt stretched tight over thick muscles, the kind of build that looked capable of breaking bones casually.

But still, that was it?

Taylor stared at him from across the room while the ABB members who had escorted her in moved toward the walls, giving their leader space without seeming to realize they were doing it.

This was Lung, the man the PRT treated like a catastrophe waiting to happen.

And yet, she found herself struggling to feel much of anything standing in front of him now.

He looked like a man. A very dangerous man, admittedly, but after everything she had experienced recently, the sight felt strangely underwhelming. Maybe her sense of self-preservation had finally faded somewhere along the way. Or maybe after dying repeatedly, after being cooked alive, nothing short of another horrifying death could really surprise her anymore.

Either way, she kept those thoughts far away from her face.

The memory of fire still sat too close at the forefront of her mind for her to risk insulting him accidentally.

“You are with the PRT.”

Lung’s voice rolled through the room in a deep rumble, enough that Taylor almost felt it more than heard it. That, at least, matched expectations.

Still, she resisted the urge to sigh.

“Not really,” she answered.

One of Lung’s brows rose slightly. “Explain.”

Taylor shrugged.

“They sent me here to figure out what you’re planning,” she said. “So they can capture you again.”

Several of the ABB men near the walls stared openly at her now, expressions caught somewhere between disbelief and concern, though none of them looked nearly as incredulous as Lung himself.

“You?” he asked, almost sounding insulted. “They sent you?”

Taylor nodded.

“Why?”

Another shrug.

“They trust I can do it.”

Lung studied her in silence for several long seconds after that, dark eyes fixed on her face with an intensity that made the rest of the room fade slightly into the background. Taylor could practically see the thought process happening behind his expression.

She did not look threatening.

She looked exhausted, honestly. A skinny, teenage girl with messy hair and the general appearance of somebody who had not slept properly in days. Nothing about her screamed dangerous.

But capes rarely looked the way people expected them to, and Lung knew that better than most.

Slowly, he leaned back in his seat, one massive arm settling against the side of the chair while his gaze never left her. The caution in it became easier to notice after that.

Taylor waited, but Lung said nothing.

Finally, she exhaled through her nose.

“So are you just going to tell me your plans?” she asked, shifting her weight slightly as her stance had become uncomfortable. “I’d rather get this over with.”

Still, nobody else spoke. 

Then, after a second, she added reluctantly:

“Please.”

One of the men near the wall made a strangled noise that might have been a laugh he killed halfway through.

Lung did not react.

The silence stretched again, and slowly, irritation began pushing through the lingering exhaustion and fear sitting inside her chest. She had spent hours wandering through ABB territory, gotten robbed, suffered a complete mental breakdown in an alley, and burned to death for this.

The least he could do was cooperate.

Taylor frowned. 

“I’m getting answers one way or another,” she declared.

Then she started walking toward him.

Several men shouted at once while Lung surged to his feet in a single smooth movement far faster than somebody his size should have been capable of. Scales had already begun spreading across his skin before he fully straightened, dark and jagged against flesh while the air in the room grew noticeably hotter.

Taylor ignored all of it and broke into a run.

Lung’s arm moved, his claws lengthening, but at the very last second, Taylor twisted sharply past him. Confusion flashed briefly across Lung’s face as she sprinted straight toward one of the armed guards stationed near the wall.

The man barely had time to react before Taylor slammed into him, his gun coming free from its holster in the same motion.

Several people shouted, someone lunged toward her, but they were all too slow.

Taylor jammed the barrel against the side of her head and flashed the stunned guard a bright, almost cheerful smile.

Then she pulled the trigger.