Striker knew he was bleeding from several places at once, and that wasn’t a good thing. His brain also felt fuzzy, and that couldn’t be good, either. He could remember the crash—or the blur just before it—and now he could hear the shouts and snapping gunshots from the fight. Flashes sparked on all sides. He listened to voices cry out as they either took bullets or shouted instructions. He couldn’t make out the words.

Instead, he did his best to army-crawl beneath another car. It was quiet under there. He rested his head against the road—still warm from the day—and stared across the battle zone. Dark-clothed figures were everywhere. Cop sirens blared in the distance. Blood oozed across the yellow lines.

Oh, how familiar all this was.

***

“So you’re the new guys?” the woman said.

The two young men stood side by side, squashed into close quarters with their new instructor, as per the orders from the men outside. Both held all their personal belongings in two small duffel bags, and had strapped their weapons to them on close holsters. They were nothing short of disheveled. Dirt—and the days-old body odor that came with it—hugged them and their clothes.

While they maintained fairly consistent eye contact with the woman, neither of them made any other moves or used any other body language to assert their dominance. Both knew beyond a doubt that they had none in this situation.

The woman was short—petite, even—but had a developed set of muscles on her bare arms and three massive pistols strapped to her belt. Her hair was pulled into a ponytail, away from her prominent brow bone. She was also smirking. She crossed her arms thrust and her chin high into the air so she could look down on them in some manner, at least when her height deficiency prevented otherwise.

“Well?” the woman asked, breaking the awkward, foot-shuffling silence. “You are the new guys, I assume.”

“Um, yes,” the shorter teen said. “Those men outside… uh… Jackknife and…”

“Asp,” the woman finished.

“Yeah. They told us this was our room.”

“It is. I told them to bring you here.” The woman stuck out her hand. “It’s nice to formally meet you boys. My name’s Dagger. Or Boss, as some of the others call me. Both work, I’m not too picky.”

The boys’ eyebrows went up.

“You’re Dagger?” the taller—and gruffer—teen asked.

She laughed. “What’s the matter? Weren’t expecting a proper lady to be running this gig?”

“Not really,” said the younger.

“It’s okay, I don’t take it personally anymore,” Dagger said. “Anyway, these are your sleeping quarters. Plenty of room, as you can see, so there’s no need to find things to complain about. Did Jackknife assign your names yet?”

“No,” said the elder teen.

“Well good, because I wanted tell you myself.” Dagger poked him in the chest. “You, kid-who-tried-to-take-out-my-squad-by-himself, are Striker now. And you, kid-who-stopped-me-from-killing-his-ass, are Phantom. Like the sound of ‘em?”

Striker and Phantom glanced at each other, then shrugged.

“Sure,” Phantom said.

“Good, because that’s who you are now, forever,” Dagger said. Her voice dropped a pitch. “And if I ever hear you using each other’s real names again, you’re out. It’s not just for your safety, but the team’s. I’ve got a one-strike policy, as in, one strike and you’re out. Understand?”

They both nodded.

“Excellent,” Dagger chirped. “You’ve got a day to settle in and meet the others before your first group mission. You’ve already met Jackknife and Asp, which means Saturn, Caesar, Yellowjacket, Venom, and Zealot are still out on a run. You remember them, don’t you?”

Striker grunted under his breath. He could still feel the accumulated bruises and two shallow knife wounds from the team’s counterassault. Attacking them all at once had been one of his braver moments, but definitely not his smartest.

“We certainly do,” Phantom said.

“Good. They’ll be glad to have new allies,” Dagger said with wink.

“Or new punching bags,” Striker muttered.

Dagger gave him a playful knock to the shoulder. “That’s the spirit. I’ll be in the main base for when you have important questions. Anything else, you take it to Asp. I’m not going to stand for any of that come-crying-to-mama business. Ciao, boys.”

She tromped out of the room and shut the door behind her. Striker and Phantom stood in silence, staring at the compressed room that was to be theirs for the next portion of their lives. It was gray and cobwebby and dusty. Not unlike many of the places they had stayed in before.

Phantom moved first and dumped his duffel bag on the bottom bunk.

“Call it,” he said.

Striker slung his onto the top bunk. “So, what do you think of her?”

“Dagger? She seems fine.”

“She seems kind of… normal. Don’t you find that suspicious?”

“Normal?” Phantom laughed. “You were mostly unconscious when she came out to see who was tearing up her squad. I thought we were done for. I just didn’t know she was the one in charge until now. I just thought she was a fiercely loyal teammate. Which… I guess isn’t entirely wrong.”

“Well,” Striker said. “We know now. And if she’s half as powerful as her squad insinuated during our interview, then we just picked the most dangerous person in the city to be our mentor.”

Phantom shuddered. “I get where you’re coming from, but for now, just be grateful we’re on her good side. Anyone else in this city would have shot us on the spot.”

“She almost did.”

“But she didn’t, and besides, that was your fault. If anything, you owe me to stay here and settle in, at least for a while. She said she’d teach us.”

“It’s not as if we need her, or anyone like her, for that matter. We were fine before.”

“We were surviving,” Phantom said, beginning to unpack. “And just barely. At least here, we have someone we can trust.”

Striker shot him a glance. “I wouldn’t go that far yet.”

“Key word being ‘yet’.”

“Just don’t unpack everything. I still haven’t decided whether we’re leaving tonight or not.”

“We won’t. We’re safe here.”

“You can’t guarantee that. Since when have we ever been able to say that?”

“Maybe this will be the start. Aren’t you willing to try something new once in a while? Especially when it could be a potential good start of something for once?”

Striker grumbled, rubbing his eyes. “You know, someday your optimism is going to get us both killed.”

“So far, all it’s done is save you,” Phantom said, grinning.

“Whatever.”

“Trust me. We can make this work.”

“We can try.”

“Good. And besides, we still have each other.”

“Yeah, at least there’s that.”