91.

  Just one more step. Just one more, and then another one. Just put one fucking foot in front of the other and forget how much it hurts.

  I was in so much pain that I wanted to sob. The adrenaline had completely run dry, but I forced myself to carry on up the stairs, one step at a time. I gripped the railing with white knuckles. My body felt like every bone was shattered and splintering through my skin. My ribs ached, my head throbbed, and I was sure I'd been stabbed or at least cut badly at some point, with the amount of blood that seemed to be flowing from somewhere. But that didn't matter. None of that mattered. I just had to put one more foot in front of the other, climb one more step, one more staircase, one more floor, and fight just one more enemy: Brick.

  The weight of my responsibility to Sherbert gave me all the motivation I needed to push forward. I dragged myself up the next staircase and finally saw a floor number: 12. If that goon had been telling the truth, I was only two floors away from Brick. Two more floors. I could do that.

  I gritted my teeth and sucked air deep into my lungs, trying to force my mind to focus and find that calm place where I was able to create Runes. That was where I needed to inhabit now. Whatever was wrong with my body, I could sort out later. Right now, I needed to keep my mind sharp and focused. As I pulled myself up to the next landing, I took a few breaths and looked around. But the floor seemed quiet. There were no signs of any enemies, no sound of thundering shoes or screaming goons, just emptiness and darkness. Perhaps that sledgehammer-wielding behemoth was Brick's last line of defense. If he was, it was a pretty damn good line of defense.

  Just as I was about to start climbing the next staircase, the elevator dinged open. I hadn't even noticed that there was an elevator, and I was shocked that it actually worked. Even in the Mulberry Estate, most of the elevators never functioned properly. The doors slid back, and bright white light poured out of it. I limped over to the elevator, looking at it like it was about to explode. I looked over my shoulder warily. Was this an invitation, or was it a trap? I certainly knew that I'd rather get a lift up the next two floors than walk. I hesitated and then gritted my teeth and stepped in.

  There didn't seem to be any obvious traps anywhere. With a quivering hand that, now under proper lights, I could see was absolutely caked in blood, I pressed the button for the 14th floor, leaving behind a bloody fingerprint. The elevator jolted into motion, the groan of cables echoed in the confined space. I clenched my aching fists around the Knucks and energy crackled through them. Every nerve in my body was tense.

  Halfway between floors, the elevator shuddered and screeched to a stop. The lights flickered. I knew it wasn’t a mechanical fault even before I heard the clang above me.

  I craned my neck as the ceiling hatch swung open. A pair of boots descended first, then another. Three goons dropped in, filling the cramped space. No guns, there wasn’t enough room to fire without risking each other. They didn’t need them anyway. Each man looked like he’d been bred for breaking bones.

  One of them opened their mouth, probably for some villainous witticism, and I punched him straight in the jaw. Then the fight was on. Four men, well, three men and a scrawny teenager, scrapping in an elevator barely wide enough to stretch your arms in any direction, was an ugly affair. It was feral. The elevator juddered under our movements as we all swung punches, elbows banging off walls, heads cracking off corners, feet becoming tangled as we fought for just the barest space to throw a definitive blow.

  I ducked a hook from one of the men and caught a knee in the cheekbone from another. I stumbled, and then the third one forced me into a corner. They surrounded me and began raining blows on every single part of my body. I covered my head with my hands and then fired up the Zap Knucks, getting lucky as one of the men tried to grab hold of my hands and pull them away from my head, but instead, he fried himself. He cried out, falling backwards against the wall. In that moment of surprise, I lashed out at the one in front of me and created some space. I kicked off the wall behind and drove into him, smashing him into the opposite corner. I used my momentum to slam the top of my head into his face like a battering ram. It wasn't particularly hard, but hard enough to break his nose.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  A thick, brawny arm wraps around my face and neck, hauling me off of him. I choked as I was lifted bodily off my feet. Instantly, the pressure in my head grew, and my eyes felt like they were going to pop out as he arched his back, pulling me up high to get as much torque on the choke as he could. I kicked out with one of my legs and caught one of the men in the jaw, only to have the other one grab hold of my feet and hold me up. I struggled and flopped like a fish in a boat. I clawed at the man choking me, then reached back and began zapping him in the top of his head, his forehead, his temple, his eyes. Eventually, I managed to channel enough energy through the Zap Knucks to break the hold. He roared in pain and dropped me to the floor. The elevator floor seemed to be made of something even harder than concrete. The wind was driven out of me, and the man collapsed on top of me, his knees driving painfully into my guts.

  I knew being on the floor was the last place I wanted to be, but the elevator was so cramped that with two people on the floor, the other two were almost completely squashed into the corners. They tried to stomp me but couldn't hit anywhere soft and fleshy. I kicked out spinning around like a turtle stuck on its back. The man who I'd zapped shook his head, trying to get his brains back together, only for me to zap him straight in the crotch. He howled and leaped to his feet, slamming his head off the elevator ceiling and stumbling into one of the other men.

  I rolled to my feet and lashed out with a vicious left hook, and the goon I hit had nowhere to go. He tried to lean backwards to avoid the punch and ended up just sandwiching his own head between the brass knucks and the metal wall of the elevator. He slumped down, unconscious, and the other two were back on me, punching and kicking wildly, trying to force me back into the corner. Realising the power of the Knucks, they didn't want to get close enough to let me use them on them. They stumbled away from my fizzing knuckles and began throwing long limbed kicks, using their rubber-soled boots as insulators. I managed to grab hold of one of their legs and punched him in the fleshy part of his thigh. He howled and threw himself backwards, smacking his own head painfully off the walls.

  I reared back to punch the other one and cracked my funny bone straight off the elevator doors. I hissed and rubbed my elbow. The man who’s nose I broke took his chance and jumped at me. His blood splattered face was contorted in pure rage and hatred. I didn't realize I was being stabbed until the third stab. He had gone straight for the guts, his fists a blur as he jammed the dagger into my torso. The carapace held firm and saved my life for perhaps the dozenth time. He stabbed me so hard that the blade tip bent. He looked down at the blade and then at my shredded jumper and realised there was no blood anywhere. I looked up at him and shrugged my shoulders as if to say, ‘What are you going to do?’ and then I headbutted him in the nose again. He fell back, and I kicked him with the sole of my boot square in the face, smooshing him against the side of the wall, leaving an ugly streak of bright red blood behind him.

  I spun on the third man, who began to throw desperate punches. I covered up as the blows came in, then the elevator lurched to one side. The sound of grinding metal filled the space and I heard the ominous ping of something metal snapping. The goon panicked and tried to run to the side that was highest, and the elevator lurched again. We must have knocked something loose in our fighting; the only thing holding it up was the fact that it had become wedged into the elevator shaft.

  "Don't move, you idiot!" I shouted.

  But then one of the unconscious men's bodies rolled down towards the far end, and the elevator lurched again.

  "Oh shit, man, we're going to die!" screamed the one conscious man.

  "I don't know about we," I said.

  He looked at me, then leaped at me as if realising I was about to bail out. I punched him in the chest and he dropped to the floor convulsing. I placed myself underneath the hatch that they had descended from, and shot my Grapple Cord upwards, praying that it latched onto something. I felt the Cord go taut, and I began yanking myself out of the elevator hatch. Suddenly, a hand grabbed my foot. I looked down and saw the desperate man clinging to my leg. I hesitated… but only for a moment, before I kicked him viciously until his sweat and blood-covered hand slipped off my boot. I pulled myself up hand over hand until I could get hold of the metal cable of the elevator. I activated the Magnet Rune and clung to it, panting desperately.

  I looked down and saw that the elevator was stuck fast in the shaft, and as much as those three idiots might deserve it, nothing would happen to them as long as they didn't panic. That was about as much as I could do for them.

  I looked upwards and began pulling myself hand over hand upwards towards the 14th floor, and my final showdown with Brick.

  One way or another, this ended tonight.