Steel Dragon Read online

  “Don’t think I want you to fail or anything like that. God knows we could always use more women on the force, but I definitely won’t do you any favors either. I’ll try to set you up for success like I have for every recruit who’s come through my office, but if you don’t step up? Well, that’s on you, not me.”

  “I understand, Captain,” Kristen said. Her smiles and shrugs had given way to a hard jaw and a stubborn look on her face.

  Juanita found she really liked this kid.

  “All right, now let’s get out of my office and go meet the rest of the squad.”

  “Yes, Captain Hansen.” She stood and followed her to the door.

  They were about to leave when the older woman cleared her throat and turned to her. “And Kristen, if you see any dragons loitering around my station, tell them to keep the fuck moving and that there’s nothing to see here.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Chapter Five

  Kristen tried to pay attention to where they were going as Captain Hansen led her through the station, but her mind wandered constantly. Why had the dragons forced the woman to take her on at SWAT? Why had she asked her about the pixies? Dragons and pixies were facts of the world she lived in, but that didn’t mean they had anything to do with her…right?

  She felt like pieces were moving and shifting all around her and yet she couldn’t see what shape they would ultimately form. It was beyond frustrating but, as the captain showed her to the squad room, she forced herself to push it all from her head. Now was not the time to wonder about dragons. She would work with the people she would meet in this room. It was their lives she would need to protect, first and foremost, and it was the people in this room who would protect her life—not any dragons and definitely not any pixies.

  “You’ve already met Sergeant Jones and Sergeant Goodman,” Captain Hansen said cordially. Jonesy only scowled at her as he put a bulletproof vest on that—despite being a vest—still managed to look baggy on him. Butters merely winked at her.

  She smiled. At least one person wanted her there.

  Captain Hansen gestured at a tall man who was even skinnier than Jonesy. “The man with the glasses is Sergeant Jared Polanski.” He currently looked through the aforementioned glasses into a book.

  “Beanpole is my spotter,” Butters said with a nod at Polanski. “And don’t let his glasses fool you. He needs them to read but has damn excellent vision when it comes to keeping me alive.”

  “I simply try to do my job,” Polanski—Beanpole—said.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Beanpole.” She assumed that if everyone was introduced with nicknames, she might as well use them too.

  “Likewise. I look forward to us working together.”

  There was at least one normal person on her team anyway. She found that to be a huge relief.

  “This is Corporal Lyn Hernandez, demolitions.” Captain Hansen pointed to a woman in a tank top who pulled a long-sleeved shirt over her tattooed arms.

  “What, no nickname?” Kristen said after a minute.

  “No. No fucking nickname,” Hernandez retorted. “Is that what you think this is? Some kind of fucking club where we all hang out with decoder rings and jerk each other off?”

  “You’ll have to pardon Hernandez,” Butters said, his calm southern accent a welcome change to the vitriol in the woman’s voice. “We think she blew her sense of humor off with C4 a few years back.”

  “Fuck off, Butterball.” She turned her back to Kristen and snapped on a belt that had a few more compartments than the standard issue.

  “Hernandez’s bark is worse than her bite,” Hansen whispered to Kristen. “But tread carefully. Her bite is fairly bad too. I’d have kicked her from the force a long time ago, but the woman has a way with forced entries. We have never seen a building she can’t get into.”

  “Or a pair of pants.” Hernandez flicked her tongue crudely at the newcomer.

  “Oh, now you’re a lesbian?” Jonesy scoffed.

  “I don’t make such distinctions, Jonesy. The flesh wants what the flesh wants.”

  “Are you coming on to me?” He smiled. Kristen found she preferred his scowl.

  “Not if you were the last lump of flesh on earth,” his teammate returned smartly.

  “You’ll get used to those two,” Captain Hansen said. “They’re both a huge pain in the ass but they mostly only insult each other so it cancels itself out.”

  Kristen smiled. Jonesy and Hernandez would be tough, but at least the captain seemed to be in her corner.

  “Speak for yourself, Captain. You don’t have to ride in a van with those two,” Butters interjected.

  “I guess there are perks to being captain after all,” his boss said cheerfully. She turned to a young, attractive man with an athletic build. He had a square jaw, a clean haircut, and looked exactly like Kristen had thought a cop should look like when she was eleven years old. “This is Corporal Keith Wentworth. He was our rookie until you showed up.”

  “Welcome to the force, rookie,” he said, proffered his hand, and proceeded to use it to attempt to crush her fingers in a vice-like handshake.

  She had been raised by a cop, however, so she squeezed right back. At first, he looked impressed. Then, he squeezed harder so she did the same until finally, he flinched and released her. He rubbed his hand surreptitiously.

  “The rookie thinks he’s my fucking shadow, so if you find yourself tangled on some clumsy fuck when you thought you were following me, it’s him,” Jonesy said.

  “Now that she’s here, you can’t call me rookie anymore,” the other man protested.

  The sergeant raised an eyebrow at him. “Red crushed your hand like the Sox do the Tigers every damn year, and you think that means your days as a rookie are over?”

  “The Red Sox do not crush the Tigers,” Keith complained. “The last game was close.”

  “Who gives a shit?” Jonesy shot back. “They lost.”

  “No one. No one gives a shit,” said the only man in the room who had not been introduced.

  “And this…” Captain Hansen walked over to the tall man with a furrowed brow and threw an arm around his shoulder—no easy task considering how short she was and how broad the man’s shoulders were. “This is your fearless squad leader, Alexander Drew. Sergeant Drew has already been briefed on the…peculiarities of your arrival, isn’t that right, Drew?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said and his gaze rested on Kristen. It was obvious to her what his opinion of her place on his team was, but at least he didn’t cuss her out about it like Jonesy and Hernandez.

  The captain removed her arm from his shoulder and addressed the room. “Everyone, this is Kristen Hall, your new squadmate. Make her feel welcome and make sure she’s ready. As of this moment, she rides with you. Someone with far more brass on their uniform than me thinks she’s hot shit, so you all better make sure she makes it through the week without being shot.”

  “What if she’s blown up?” Hernandez asked and almost sounded hopeful.

  “Then it will be your responsibility to clean up the mess, Hernandez.”

  The woman considered it. “That doesn’t sound so bad.”

  “Cleaning up messes includes paperwork,” the captain reminded her.

  The demolitions expert wrinkled her nose at that, but she only nodded. Kristen was beginning to fear paperwork.

  And with that, Captain Hansen nodded to the squad and left her with her new team.

  For a moment, no one said anything. She thought that was a good sign until she realized that everyone was staring at the team leader.

  She was about to say something to break the silence, but Drew spoke first. “The Captain showed me the orders. They made it sound like you were fresh out of the academy.”

  “Yes, sir, just graduated.”

  “Were you in extracurriculars or something?”

  Kristen had no idea what he was talking about. “You mean like…sports? I played soccer, volleyball, basketball, lac
rosse—”

  Jonesy snapped at her before anyone else could. “No! He means like were you in a marksman class? Maybe a human psychology class where you focused on talking down deranged fucking maniacs? Maybe a driving course where you learned how to dodge gunfire while one of your best friends tries to stop one of your other best friends from bleeding out in the neck?”

  Kristen swallowed. “No…no, nothing like that.”

  Butters came to her defense. “Jonesy, I dare say you hadn’t done any of that stuff before you got here either. We were all green once.”

  “Not your plate.” Hernandez snorted at her own joke.

  “Butters is right,” Drew said and inspired his team to return to silence. “Some experience can only be learned on the job. But can you tell us the difference between a covert and a dynamic entry?” He had a deeper voice than the rest of them—softer too, so he was almost hard to hear—but when he spoke, everyone on the squad stopped talking.

  She thought back to the academy. “Uh…covert means you sneak while dynamic means you break the door down?”

  “Lucky guess,” Hernandez said.

  “Do you know how to run the wall?” Drew asked.

  “That’s um…staying at a ninety-degree angle from each other when you break in?”

  “We don’t break in,” Hernandez corrected waspishly, “we force entry.”

  “And you’ve done that?” he asked and ignored the other woman.

  “Well, no, but I’ve read about it,” she replied honestly.

  “Ah. A reader. Good.” Drew turned away from her as if what he said had made sense.

  Jonesy took up the challenge. “What about sectors of fire?”

  “Or, uh…what does it mean if a room is green or red?” That came from Keith, who stood behind the skinny man and tried to look tough. Kristen thought maybe she could understand why everyone called him rookie.

  Kristen knew that one. “Red means danger and green means safe.”

  Jonesy ignored her and instead, turned to snarl at the other man. “Damn it, rookie, of course she knows that one. Anyone who has ever been to a goddamn roller-skating rink knows what red light and green light means.”

  “Wait…does that mean that Sergeant Patrick Jones of the Detroit SWAT has been to a roller-skating rink?” Butters’ grin was even more massive than his belly.

  “Of course I’ve been to a fucking roller-skating rink. Who hasn’t gone skating? Christ.”

  “I’ve never been skating.” Hernandez’s smirk said exactly what she thought about Jonesy admitting to how he spent his free time.

  “I haven’t either.” Beanpole looked up from his book and also grinned.

  “We all know that if I started skating, I wouldn’t be able to stop rolling.” Butters guffawed at his own joke.

  “Listen, you fucking smartass wannabes without a drop of class between you, pardon fucking me for not treating a lady to another boring night at a fucking restaurant and going out and doing something fun for a fucking change.”

  “That’s enough, Jonesy.” Although Drew hadn’t raised his voice, the other man practically flinched at the sound of it. He scowled at everyone on the squad and went off to polish his gun, although Kristen thought it already looked like it was extraordinarily shiny.

  That left the leader standing in front of her with a massive stack of textbooks in his hands. The muscles in his neck bulged at the weight and for a moment, she wondered if she’d be able to even lift the stack. This had to be some kind of test.

  “These are for you,” Drew said and dumped the stack in her arms.

  Kristen took a step back, caught her balance, and looked him in the eyes. He wasn’t smiling—he honestly didn’t seem like the type of person who ever smiled—but there was something in his gaze that was close to amusement. The stack of books really had been a test then, and not dropping it meant she’d passed.

  “What do you want me to do with them?” she asked and wondered vaguely if she was about to participate in some kind of hazing ritual. Despite not having bulging muscles like he did, she most definitely worked out. The building they were in couldn’t have been more than a couple of stories. She thought she could take the steps with the books in her arms.

  He frowned at her. “They’re books. Read them. Learn every word, concept, and acronym in them. You’re done when you know the information in there like your ABCs. I don’t want my team to waste time explaining how to ODS in the middle of the mission.”

  “Or KISS.” Hernandez blew a kiss to Jonesy’s back.

  Kristen looked at the stack of books she held. Her arms were fully extended so the lowest book was below her waist, yet the stack still came up to her chin. This would be enough reading to keep her occupied until it snowed. “By when?”

  Drew looked at her without blinking. She noticed his eyes didn’t shift a little like most people’s did. His simply stared and didn’t move at all, frozen and looking as immutable as stones. “Every other person in this room learned all that before they were allowed through the door to even try for a place on a team. You have some catching up to do. A ton of catching up to do.”

  She forced a smile. “So, two weeks?”

  The man did not return the smile. “More like yesterday.”

  Really? He had to be kidding, right? Kristen waited for an awkward moment. There was no way she could get through all this in a week, let alone a day. When he didn’t move or say anything else, she realized he was serious. Great welcome to the force, huh.

  Finally, she put the stack of books on one of the benches, took a seat beside it, and took the top one of the stack. She opened it to a diagram of people breaking into an apartment and clearing it room by room. At least it would be interesting reading, she thought.

  “What are you doing?” Drew asked and jerked her attention away from the diagrams.

  “Getting to work.” She looked at him and again, he stared in return, his gaze as still as a boulder. “Sir,” she added and hoped that was what he’d waited for, although she very much doubted that it was.

  “Today’s not a paperwork day,” he said.

  Hernandez cut in, “And if it was, you can bet you’d be helping your team fill out their forms, not doing your homework.”

  “I thought I needed to know all this to better serve the team,” she protested.

  “Oh, you do,” Drew said and his stony visage finally chipped to reveal the barest hint of a smile. “But you have to learn the physical part of SWAT training too.”

  “Lucky for you, we were about to train for five or six hours.” Jonesy smirked.

  Kristen simply resigned herself to the inevitable and stood. “Well, then, let’s get to it. How bad can it be?”

  Chapter Six

  It turned out there were many differences between covert and dynamic entries—far more than she’d dreamed of. Kristen worried that if they tried to do any more variations of a dynamic entry, her brain would collapse like the doors they repeatedly broke down.

  They were outside, across town and in a training area that had a few empty buildings in it. A small house, a large house, and a tiny apartment block were all surrounded by a sweltering parking lot. Much of Detroit had been abandoned, then reclaimed as the wealthy moved back into the city. SWAT could have scooped up a few abandoned houses in actual neighborhoods, but it seemed they preferred to work in the desolate parking lot.

  She knew she was merely bitter. The sweat that poured constantly was a major contributing factor to that.

  Each exercise was basically the same—break in, make sure each room was clear of hostiles, secure any hostages, and get out—and yet her new squad knew endless variations on this simple theme.

  “Breacher up!” Jonesy instructed.

  Hernandez grunted in affirmation and pounded into the door with what Kristen could only describe as a miniature battering ram. The door flung open, which meant it was time—yet again—for her to spring into action.

  She ran into the tiny house with K
eith and Jonesy at her side.

  “Living room’s clear!” she shouted.

  “Take the kitchen, Red,” Jonesy ordered.

  Without question, she obeyed, left her team behind, and entered the kitchen.

  She found Butters bent over and digging around inside the fridge, his huge butt protruding into the kitchen.

  “Butters? What are you doing?”

  “I’m a hostage,” he said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

  In the next moment, she felt the hard punch and immediate sting of a rubber bullet in her shoulder.

  “Ow! Fuck!” She yelped.

  “You’re dead.” That was Drew. He’d played a hostile, which meant he basically hid in the house and shot at her. The man really was way too good at his job.

  “The hostage?” she protested. “Butters was rooting around in the fridge. I thought he wasn’t ready.”

  The team leader stood from behind the kitchen table. “Do you expect every situation we enter to have hostages on their knees with their hands behind their heads?”

  “No, of course not, but digging in the fridge?”

  “It does happen.” The rotund man closed the fridge. “Sometimes, a hostile demands a sandwich. Do you think a barbarian with a weapon will actually take the time to spread mayo on his own bread?”

  Kristen clenched her teeth. It took everything in her power not to roll her eyes. She’d already been shot by countless rubber bullets and now, they talked to her about sandwiches?

  “Reset,” Drew said.

  “Haven’t we done enough?” She didn’t want to quit but felt like she had to. It had been a long, hard day and she was hot, tired, and wrung out. She could do more of this tomorrow, or the next day, or any time but now.

  “That wasn’t a request.”

  Wearily, she trudged to the front door. Hernandez kicked it in. Jonesy and Keith entered with her again. This time, the skinny man took the kitchen, which left a hall to the bedroom for the other two.

  Shoulder to shoulder, they moved down the corridor and kicked doors in as they went, looking for Beanpole, Butters, and Drew. In an actual dynamic entry, the first two would be somewhere nearby, probably across the street—Butters with a sniper rifle and Beanpole with binoculars to watch his back—but Drew wanted them in the building today so they could more properly fuck with her.