The fat made a sharp sound and splatted out into a thin slime, which promptly ignited. One plexiglass riot shield was on fire now.

She kept one eye out for D.J.’s hands. She counted both wrestling with the commander’s own hand and foot, a targeted attack that was aimed at the one person without the riot shield. It served to separate him from the others, which exposed him to Nailbiter.

But Disjoint was occupied, which meant he couldn’t do much as one of the men with the riot shields raised his rifle, aiming it around the shield. Sidepiece had to run for it, hurling herself to the ground. There wasn’t much cover there, she was a sitting duck, and she knew she made a better target than some, given her proportions.

But she was near some of the wounded Patrol officers, and the man with the rifle wasn’t willing to risk hitting them.

She hadn’t even seen Love Lost start moving, but she saw the middle and end of the movement—a shape along the wall, hair and dress flapping, claws sparking as they hit stone and brick, and then the plunging descent, feet planted squarely on the captain’s shoulders, driving him to the ground.

She leaped forward from there, and her claws scraped the plexiglass riot shields as she slipped between them.

Without turning around, she reached back to scratch both men. Ragged cuts—one at the side of the leg, the other from thigh to armpit.

Love Lost panted as she turned around, surveying the fallen, her mask dangling with one side attached at the right side of her jaw, the other unclasped. The pants weren’t normal ones, either—there was a note of something in them.

Almost a whimper, or the pained intake of breath between screams, except the screams had been a minute or two ago, not a second ago.

With the attachment of the mask, she composed herself in posture, straightening to her full height. Her claws ran through hair, a stroke of the back of the hand smoothed out the dress.

The look in her eyes took longer. Wild, almost crazed.

Then calmer. A perpetual glare.

“Would it make your evening better to know we got some really fucking good intel?” Sidepiece asked.

Love Lost pointed a claw at one of the guns that lay on the ground. She held up a finger.

“That first. Got it.”

Sidepiece bent down to grab some of the guns off of the men. Seeing Nailbiter extend an index finger, threading through multiple rifles by the trigger guards, Sidepiece picked up an assault rifle and flung it into the air.

Nailbiter stabbed out with two fingers. She caught the gun between them, like she was holding it with chopsticks.

“Don’t be a pain,” Nailbiter said.

Sidepiece winked.

Nailbiter’s index shortened until it could pass through the trigger guard, and then the two elongated ‘chopstick’ fingers withdrew.