The first thing to come back was the water. A filthy, gritty mouthful of it that his body threw out in a single, tearing cough. He was drowning in the dark.
Yin Lie's head slammed against something hard as he fought his way up. Air. Cold, stinking air that tasted of rust and shit. He was alive. For now. His whole body was one big, screaming nerve, pinned under a buckled sheet of metal that felt like it weighed a ton.
The roar was gone. In its place was a wounded, gurgling quiet, the drip... drip... drip of the city bleeding out around him. A single emergency lamp flickered somewhere nearby, throwing spidery shadows across a junkyard of shattered concrete and twisted pipes. It looked like the inside of a dead thing.
He felt empty. The wolf was a shivering lump of misery in his gut. The ice? Gone. Just a memory of power. All that was left was a man, cold to the bone and hurt in places he didn't know he had.
With a grunt that felt like it ripped something loose in his ribs, he shoved the metal sheet off. He got to his feet, swaying, his senses coming back online one painful piece at a time. A low moan cut through the dripping.
Thorne.
The scientist was curled up by a ruined pump, shaking like a leaf. A gash on his forehead had painted one side of his face in a dark, sticky mask.
"Move," Yin Lie rasped, his own voice sounding alien. He grabbed Thorne's arm and hauled him up. The man was dead weight, his eyes glassy.
"It's over…" Thorne mumbled. "We're buried…"
"Not over," Yin Lie growled, a spark of pure, animal stubbornness catching fire in his chest. "Not 'til we're dead."
As if he'd said a magic word, a new sound echoed in the cavern. A heavy, grating noise. Metal dragging on concrete. It was slow. Deliberate. Wounded.
Scab.
Yin Lie froze, every muscle locking up. He shoved Thorne back into the shadows. The sound came again, closer, followed by a low grunt of effort. The flood had done a number on him, too. But a cornered beast is still a beast.
"I can... smell you, pup," Scab's voice rumbled out of the darkness, thick and full of gravel. "Smell your fear. Smells like... victory."
A huge shape limped into the flickering light. Scab was a walking demolition site. His clothes were shredded, one arm hung limp, and the metal on his fists was cracked and dead. But the hate burning in his eyes was brighter than ever, and it was all for Yin Lie.
No power. No tricks. Just a man against a monster. He was dead.
"Broke my favorite toys," Scab grunted, flexing the fingers on his good hand. "Boss ain't just paying for the professor now. Killing you is the bonus."
He charged. A clumsy, limping bull rush, but it had the weight of a truck behind it. Yin Lie didn't have the strength to meet it. He threw himself sideways, his boots sliding on the slick ground as he dodged and weaved through the junk. He was faster. He had to be. He ducked under a fallen pipe just as Scab's fist tore through it, spraying rust and metal shards everywhere.
This was it. A deadly game of tag in a steel graveyard. His brain was working overtime, screaming at him to find a weapon, an angle, anything. Then he saw it: a length of rebar, sticking out of a slab of concrete, its end sheared off into a wicked point.
He feinted left. Scab lumbered after him, swiping at the air where he thought Yin Lie would be. But Yin Lie was already dropping low. No thought, just pure, cornered-animal instinct. He scooped up a handful of thick, gritty mud and flung it right in Scab's face.
The roar of fury was deafening. Scab clawed at his eyes, momentarily blind. It was the only chance he'd get.
Yin Lie lunged for the rebar, yanking at it with a strength born of sheer desperation. It tore free with a shriek of metal. He spun, the makeshift spear held tight, just as Scab cleared his eyes and charged, screaming.
Yin Lie didn't try to be a hero. He braced himself, aimed low, and let the monster's own momentum do the work.
The sound was wet and horrible. The rebar punched straight through the thick muscle of Scab's thigh. The impact threw both of them to the ground in a tangled heap of limbs and pain. Scab bellowed, a raw, inhuman sound, trying to pull the spear out of his own leg.
Yin Lie scrambled back, every part of him wanting to finish it, to drive the point home. But he was done. He could barely push himself to his knees.
Then he froze.
Two figures stood in the shadows at the edge of the ruin. They were clean. Untouched by the water, the mud, the blood. The twins, Feng and Lin. They weren't even looking at the downed Scab. They were looking right at him.
"The transaction is complete," Lin said, her voice a calm, impossible note in the chaos. "You have proven your value."
"And your resilience," Feng added.
They moved like smoke. Feng drifted toward Scab, who could only glare up from the floor, helpless. A single, sharp strike to the back of his neck, and the big man went limp. Lin walked to Yin Lie and Thorne, opening a medical kit as if they were in a sterile clinic.
"Mistress Su anticipated the Directorate's failure," she said, her eyes clinically cataloging his every injury. "She also anticipated that Qi Yan's hounds would be more persistent. She prefers to invest in assets that survive."
Yin Lie just stared. It all clicked into place with a cold, bitter understanding. The chase, the fight, the flood… it had all been a test. An audition he hadn't known he was taking.
"She has what you need," Feng said, gesturing into the new tunnel the flood had carved. "A way out. A place to heal. A chance to understand the key you are protecting."
He offered Yin Lie a hand. Not a rescue. A contract.
Yin Lie looked at the offered hand, then at the broken scientist, and then back at the endless darkness of the city's guts. He was out of road. He had run from the wolves, fought the bear, and now the spider was inviting him into her web.
With the weight of the world on his shoulders, he took her Guardian's hand.