Mia rolled over to escape the particularly sharp bedspring stabbing into her ribs. When had her mattress gotten so old that it hurt to lay on?

Gravel scraped against her skin with the sound of fabric ripping as her body tumbled sideways. She hit the dirt shoulder first, the side of her head bouncing off the ground.

A gasp of pain escaped her, and she scrambled to sit up, her head throbbing, her side aching, her right knee cramping with the sure signs of strain. Her face and side felt tacky, sticky to the touch, and her mouth tasted like copper.

Where am I? What happened?

She bowed her head, shut her eyes, and slowly got her breathing under control. Panicking wasn’t going to solve anything. The faster she breathed, the worse her head hurt.

Think. Think. What’s the last thing you remember?

The fight on Connecticut Avenue.

Soldiers. Sam and Karl and Stan donning their armors and jumping into battle against Jinsoku. Getting her grandfather and Gideon to safety.

Mia’s eyes flew open.

“Grandpa?” She cast a wide-eyed gaze around the room. “Gideon?”

No answer.

Had she gotten them to safety? They’d made it off the street. She’d found an alley across from the kabob shop, and following it had led them to another section of Connecticut Avenue. They’d been able to see the battle further up the street.

And then—an earthquake? Was that what had happened? The whole world seemed to shake apart, great chasms opening in the concrete like hungry mouths, swallowing cars and light poles.

She’d lost track of her grandpa and Gideon in the madness. As the street split apart, they’d been torn away from each other, and she’d fallen into the darkness beneath Connecticut Avenue.

Gently, Mia probed her fingers over the back and sides of her head. Her hand came away bloody, but she felt only scrapes and bruises.

“That’s miracle enough.”

She gazed up at the ceiling, bathed in shadow. How far had she fallen? How was it possible she’d avoided being impaled by rebar or crushed by debris?

“Don’t question it.” She shook herself and lifted her blouse to check her aching side.

The gash across her ribs was shallow but bleeding freely. She clutched her hand against it and winced at the sharp sting the pressure caused. Slowly, carefully, she lifted her left leg and bent it. Stiff and sore, but not broken.

Then, the right leg.

She lifted it, and sharp pain jolted through her knee, her thigh, her hip, all the way to her lower back.

Typical.

The right leg always hurt anyway. It had since the accident, but she’d learned to ignore it most of the time. Ten years of dealing with it had numbed her to it on all but the longest days.

“But when a street collapses under me and drops me twenty feet into an underground cavern, apparently that’s asking too much.”

This would be difficult.

She released the pressure on her left side long enough to get her hands under her backside, pushing herself up far enough to rest on her left knee. As expected, her right knee wouldn’t even bend.

“Be thankful. Don’t complain. Be thankful.” She grit her teeth against the pain. “You’re alive and breathing. So what if your knee doesn’t bend? It didn’t bend so great to start with.”

Hissing, she got her weight onto her right leg and pulled herself up, using the chunk of cement she’d fallen off of. Once upright, the tunnel spun in her vision, and she clung to the rough skin of the cement for support.

She let herself rest against the boulder for a moment longer while she squinted against the darkness. There was no light at all. Not even exit signs. Only the ineffectual spark of a loose wire somewhere above provided any sort of illumination.

How was she going to get out of this one?

Her phone was in her bag, and she’d lost that somewhere between the surface and the subway.

Where was her grandpa? Where was Gideon?

What about Stan and Karl and Sam? Were they still on the surface fighting? Did they realize what had happened, or did they think she and the others had made it back to the conference center safely?

Too many questions. Not enough answers.

She pressed her brow against the rough surface of the concrete and steadied her breathing again.

Freaking out wouldn’t solve anything. Once Sam and the others found that she was missing, they’d go looking for her. Of course, with no light and no signal and potentially thousands of square feet to cover in complete darkness, chances of them finding her were slim.

“So I’ll stay put.” She turned to lean her back against the chunk of cement. “I’ll stay in one place, and I won’t just wander around. That way, they’ll find me faster.”

She pressed her hand against the bleeding wound in her side. She’d need to find a way to bind it. Even as she stood, the blood seeped under her fingers and dribbled down her stomach. Strange how much a shallow scrape could bleed.

Assuming it’s a scrape. I can’t see anything.

But the wound didn’t feel deep. It felt bruised. Not that she could really do anything about it.

Her light blouse might have made a good bandage, but she’d neglected to wear a tank top that morning. The temperature had been so warm, adding a second layer just didn’t sound like a good idea.

Note to self: As long as evil samurai people are trying to take over the world, always wear a second layer.

Her khaki shorts were too stiff to tear for bandages. She only had two options: Bandage the wound or keep her shirt on.

It’s not bleeding that bad.

She chuckled to herself.

The longer she stayed still, the more her eyes adjusted to the darkness. She still couldn’t see, but she could make out vague shapes. Fallen segments of road. Jagged chunks of pavement. In the flash of the sparking wire somewhere overhead, she could barely see the curved tunnel walls. The walls had been designed like the metro stations in DC, a waffle-like sort of honeycomb pattern in decorative cement.

Who knew an old metro rail line ran beneath Connecticut Avenue?

Rocks crumbled somewhere in the tunnel.

Mia froze, heart pounding, wound in her side throbbing beneath her hand.

It’s unstable. Is it going to collapse more?

She tried to swallow, her mouth dry and full of dirt.

More rocks shifted in the darkness.

Then, a clank.

Clank, clank, clank. Rhythmic. Like footsteps.

Armored footsteps.

She nearly sobbed with relief and pushed off the rough chunk of cement. They’d found her. Maybe she’d been unconscious longer than she’d thought. Either that or it hadn’t taken them long at all to track her down.

Mia started to speak, but the words died on her lips.

The wire overhead flashed again, showering a rain of sparks down on the yellow samurai standing in the tunnel with her.

Jinsoku!

She stepped back, flattening herself against the rock. Mia swallowed the gasp of horror and fear caught in her mouth. Had he seen her? Did he know she was there?

Mia didn’t dare to breathe. She felt along the ridges of the concrete block at her back, searching for anything she could use as a weapon. Though for all the good it would do her, she’d be better off running for it.

She stood no chance against Jinsoku. She couldn’t even fight a soldier. If she tried, he’d kill her.

Her fingers struck something cold and metallic, loose enough to wiggle. A fractured piece of rebar. Not ideal, but better than nothing. She pulled it out of the cement where the impact had broken it loose and clutched it to her chest.

What had Uly told her about sword fighting? Her mind was a blank. He’d tried to teach her the basics soon after it became apparent that they would be sharing their home with a team of samurai superheroes. And who better to teach her than her fencing championship-winning baby brother?

All she could remember was that you stabbed with the pointy end.

Not helpful.

The rebar wasn’t all that pointy in the first place.

Across the tunnel, Jinsoku uttered a scoffing sound and began to mutter under his breath. Mia froze and breathed slowly, silently through her nose. It wasn’t something she’d heard from him before.

In the weeks since his first appearance in San Francisco, Jinsoku always presented himself a confident warrior, never shaken, never frustrated. He fought like a machine. He would kill without remorse, if the Reishosan gave him that chance. Even so, they’d only truly defeated him once.

The warlord had every reason to be confident, especially now, knowing that only Sam and Karl and Stan were in DC. Ryan and Ronnie had remained in San Francisco, and they couldn’t arrive in time. Even if Ryan and Ronnie jumped on a plane and flew nonstop from the Davalos Estate to DC, it would take hours.

All Jinsoku had to do was attack.

Sam was the best swordsman of the team, but he couldn’t use his armor. In nearly ten years, he’d yet to figure it out. Karl was the strongest of the team, but he was limited by his lack of experience. And Stan? Of all of them, Stan understood his armor, knew how to draw on its power, and could stand up against Jinsoku for longer than the rest of the Reishosan combined. But Stan couldn’t beat him alone.

Jinsoku strode across the dirt to stand at the center of the tunnel. He towered in the shadows, taller even than giant Sam Logan, his burnished yellow armor like gold in every flash of sparks.

The panic rose in her chest again, and she clutched the rebar.

Calm down. He hasn’t seen you.

Slowly, the warlord turned in a circle, ornate face plate turned upward in the darkness before his slow scan of the tunnel stopped, his hidden gaze directly upon her.

“Well, well, well.”

Mia’s heart sank.

Jinsoku had a voice like a blade against a whetstone, quiet, cold, sharp, cutting. Perhaps his armor’s face shield changed his voice to sound darker, but no technology could add the ring of cruelty to his tone.

With a clank, he paused at the center of the tunnel, the flashing sparks above him outlining his massive frame in the dark.

“Miss Davalos.” The warlord set his hands on his hips. “What a pleasant surprise.”

His tone indicated it wasn’t pleasant at all, and Mia agreed completely.

She pressed her back against the rock. “Don’t come any closer.”

Jinsoku stared at her, his eyes hidden behind his armor’s decorative face mask, but his gaze burning and unyielding in spite of it.

“And what will you do if I refuse?” He looked over his shoulder, up the tunnel, and then down the tunnel. “I do not see your fearsome band of defenders.” He tilted his helmet. “Have they abandoned you?”

Mia pushed off the cement block and held the rebar out in front of her. She limped backward, still pointing the heavy-gauge iron rod at him.

“And you are injured. Most unfortunate.”

She reached the tunnel wall and leaned her shoulder against it, the room beginning to spin once more. She didn’t drop the rebar, though her blood-covered hand made it hard to keep her grip on it.

“I may not know how to sword fight,” she said, “but I can and will beat the crap out of you if you come any closer to me.”

Jinsoku chuckled darkly.

In the blackness, he lifted his right hand. “Terashi dasu.”

The fingers of his armored hand became beacons in the darkness, filling the chamber with dim clear light. Mia glanced down and felt a wave of nausea at the amount of blood staining her shorts and her blouse. Maybe she should have opted for the bandage option, though no amount of blood loss would ever convince her to take her shirt off in front of a warlord.

The pain grew stronger at the sight of the blood, but she didn’t drop the rod.

Jinsoku took a step toward her, even more intimidating in the light emitting from his hand.

“Come now, Miss Davalos. Let us be rational.”

Mia arched her eyebrows. “Rational?”

He paused, lifting his other hand. “I am not armed. I am not threatening you.”

“You’re here. You’re a threat.”

“I am threat only to those who stand in the way of my master’s ambitions.” He uttered a sound like a laugh, a harsh, twisted noise. “If you think you belong in that category, you have vastly overestimated your talent.”

Mia didn’t lower the rebar and increased the pressure on her side. Had it always been so cold down here? It had felt so much warmer earlier.

You’re going into shock. Her mind whispered.

She shook herself.

“If you do not stem the bleeding, you will soon lose consciousness.” Jinsoku nodded at her sagely. “When you lose consciousness, you will lay in the dark of this tunnel until you die. Do not trust to hope that your friends will find you. Perhaps later. Long after you are dead, they will find your corpse. What a sorrowful day that will be for them.”

Mia narrowed her eyes and intentionally twisted her aching right knee, sending jolts of pain like sparks up her thigh and hip. The pain dulled in her side enough for her to push off the wall and take another step back. 

“You have another plan?” She struggled back until she found another large rock.

Jinsoku slid nearer, his armor sparkling in the light emitted from his upraised armored palm.

“We are both trapped here.” He bowed his head slowly before he raised it again. “Perhaps if we work together we will find a doorway that leads back to the surface.”

Alarms flared at the back of Mia’s mind.

Trapped? Jinsoku wasn’t trapped. Couldn’t he just zap in and out of anywhere he wanted? He always had. What had changed? Was he injured?

She cast her gaze over him quickly.

He didn’t seem to be damaged in any way. Of course, if his armor was anything like the Reishosan Armors, the outside healed quickly. Internally, healing took longer.

But that shouldn’t stop him from using his armor’s power. Mia furrowed her brow. Even when the guys are hurt, their armors still function.

He took another step, and Mia brandished the rebar.

“Stop.” She waved it at him. “I’m serious.”

Jinsoku held still, the red eyes of his face mask flaring like rubies in the sun.

“You’ve never been trapped before,” Mia said. “Why don’t you just do your disappearing act? Just flash—boom—you’re gone and on the other side of a wall.”

Jinsoku stared at her in silence. He held so still it seemed he had frozen.

Mia’s shoulder began to ache, the arm throbbing at the weight of the rebar and the awkward angle of how she stood. And her knee—the bone-deep injury burned and stung and spasmed at the core of the joint.

“Let us be honest then.” Jinsoku’s harsh voice had softened somewhat. “You are injured. I am able to help you.”

Mia choked on a laugh. “What?” The sudden intake of breath hurt her lungs. “You want to help me? Why?”

His gaze didn’t falter. “You may overestimate your talent, Miss Davalos, but I do not underestimate your value.”

A cold shiver wormed its way down her spine.

What was he saying? What value did he think she had?

The sparks shimmered overhead again, and the faint light caught in the bloodstained diamond on her left ring finger. Her heart twisted.

“Do you think Ryan will join you if you save me?” Mia grimaced. “You think he’d owe you a debt or something?”

Jinsoku took another step.

“That’s not how this works.” Mia shook her head. “They won’t join you, ever. It doesn’t matter what you do for them or what you say to them or what you take from them. They’ll stop you, at any cost.”

She retreated another step and paused as the tunnel wall vanished.

No, not vanished. A doorway appeared in the tunnel wall. Was the door locked? Could she get through it and close it behind her in time to outrun Jinsoku?

It only took a moment.

She looked away for a second.

And Jinsoku was close enough for her to see the intricate patterns carved into the chest plate of his armor. She gasped and swung the rebar, but he caught it out of the air and yanked it from her hand. It clattered on the dirt with a muted clang.

He reached for her with a hand the size of a dinner plate, and she dropped under him.

Mia grabbed the rebar again and swung it with all the strength she had. She felt the impact in her shoulders when the rod smashed into the back of Jinsoku’s knees.

He barked in surprise and stumbled backward.

Mia surged away from him, seizing the doorknob and flinging it open. She ran inside and slammed it shut behind her. The shutting door echoed in the dark corridor, and a rumbling sound thundered in the darkness. Cracking. Splitting. Crashing.

Jinsoku uttered a scream on the other side of the door, and Mia scrambled to her feet and ran-limped as fast as she could through the black as the ceiling came down behind her.