I don't know. I expected him to react a little more, but the new split in his forehead just bleeds without changing anything else.

  I headbutt him again. This time, in the sternum.

  It happens without any conscious thought. I can tell, because I'm back here, up here, doing the conscious thinking, and the rest of my body is just moving.

  He gets two laughs out of a cackle before I headbutt him a third time in the nose. That one gets him to back off, but only for a lurch, a tiny split second. He starts pushing right back into it.

  I feel so weak. Pathetic. I'm a combat-trained animal made to hunt criminals, I'm the top of every gym class evaluation, and a middle-aged man with equipment from Home Depot is getting the better of me.

  The spikes are growing denser around us, a metal coffin squeezing tighter with every second. Black thorns sprout from the fence behind me, from the ground beneath us, from the air itself, it seems. The space between Shrike and me narrows, compresses.

  You fucking pussy. Look at you. Pathetic. You should've just sank to the bottom and died. Look at all the trouble you've caused.

  Your parents are going to be so fucking mad at you. Can you just imagine? They told you so many times to just stop, and you couldn't stop, and here you are.

  What are my hands doing?

  Look at all the lives you've ruined. Kate. Your parents. Liberty Belle. The DVDs. You let Maya Richardson become a city councilmember. You owe a favor to terrorists.

  Deathgirl wouldn't have attacked the Chernobyl trial if you weren't around. This is all your fault.

  Just give up and die already.

  You've done enough.

  Quiet. QUIET!

  I scream. It's not a sound that human lungs are designed to make. I can feel something inside of me shredding at the force, all the air leaving me in one disgusting hiss, like rancid meat. My skin burns as teeth erupt everywhere at once - not just my knuckles, not just my forearms, but across my entire body. A cascade of sharp, pointed daggers across every surface, flat where I need defense, sharp where I need to hurt. My face is covered in white in an instant, and my vision narrows to slits. Perfect porcelain.

  Shrike's eyes widen, a flash of surprise breaking through his feral mask. "What--"

  I slam into him with hysterical strength, while the whiny baby part of me screams and rattles the bars of her cage in my head. Survive first. Excoriate yourself later. I shake and rattle, thrashing back and forth like a dying eel, trying to work my teeth into his body from any angle I can find.

  "GET OFF ME!" he snarls, pressing the rail harder against my chest.

  My teeth rip into the rail, scraping metal, searching for purchase. I wrench it sideways, the force of my movement carrying both of us away from the fence.

  We crash to the ground, a tangle of limbs and teeth and blood. The rail clatters away, sliding across dirt and disappearing under a cluster of spikes. He tries to reach for it, fingers stretching, but I'm on top of him now, a knee on his chest, grabbing his wrists and pinning him down. I raise my fist.

  "DIE!" he spits, blood flecking my face. Beneath us, spikes burst from the ground, aiming for my back, my sides, intercepting the hammer blow before I can even bring it down on his shoulder. I roll, taking him with me, away from the erupting metal. We tumble across dirt and debris, each fighting for control. He grabs my throat with his gloves and tries to squeeze while I slam my knees into his inner thighs, his crotch, his belly, trying to shred anything I can. Ripping past layers of cloth and padding underneath for that precious lifeblood.

  He reaches, and squeezes, but my armor has never been this complete before. His fingers catch in enamel as my muscles tense, trying to bite him for me. I grab his wrists and teeth in my palms dig into bone. I avoid, more out of instinct than desire, cutting anything on the underside of his arm. Harder to fix.

  He howls in pain but doesn't release his grip. If anything, he squeezes harder, his eyes bulging with effort. The black canopy of spikes above us descends lower, the walls press closer. We're being entombed together in a shrinking metal sarcophagus.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  I feel a voice in my head go totally black. Lights out.

  "LET ME OUT!" I scream, though I'm not sure if the words actually leave my mouth or just echo inside my skull.

  I buck upward, throwing Shrike off balance. As he tumbles sideways, I roll on top, pinning him with my weight. My armored hands find his shoulders, forcing them into the dirt. Blood streams down his face, his neck, his chest - a constellation of wounds from my tooth-covered body.

  "Just lie down and die!" he howls.

  I scream back at him, bloody spit spraying against his face. I don't think I could use language right now even if I wanted to.

  The space grows smaller. Spikes curl inward from all sides, closing in like petals. A tiny pocket in a sea of thorns.

  "We're both going to die here," he wheezes, grinning through the blood. "Isn't that perfect? Poetic, even?"

  Somewhere in the fog of panic and rage, a thought forms. The cabinet rail. Where did it go? There - half-buried in dirt, just beyond Shrike's reach. If I can just--

  He sees the shift in my attention and follows my gaze. His eyes widen, then narrow. We both lunge for it at once.

  His fingers reach it first, but I slam my weight onto his extended arm. Something snaps beneath me - his elbow, now - and he screams. The sound is raw, animal, pure pain without performance.

  I grab the rail before he can recover, swinging it in a wide arc that connects with the side of his torso. The impact reverberates up my arms, jarring my shoulders. Shrike's body snaps sideways, going momentarily limp.

  But only momentarily.

  He surges upward, teeth bared in a bloodied grimace, one arm hanging uselessly at his side. With his good hand, he grabs for my throat again, a spike extended from the palm of his glove. This time, I'm ready. I drive the rail into his sternum, using it to keep him at bay.

  "STAY DOWN!" I scream. There's no other volume. There's no other air - all the space is occupied by flesh, costume, blood, and a single cabinet rail holding us apart.

  "Never," he spits. "I'll kill you if it's the last thing I do."

  The enclosure shrinks further. I'm hyperventilating, my vision swimming with black spots. Not enough air. Not enough space.

  He looks at my panic, notices my breathing accelerating, and shoves back on the rail, twisting my wrist. It slams my arm into metal and then goes further, breaking a bone in my palm.

  Something hot and wet trails down my face. Tears? Blood? Both? I can't tell anymore.

  He spits on me, and slams his glove into my stomach, shattering a layer of armor. My body lets a weird hiccup out. A sob? I don't know. I don't do the emotional processing part. He gives another palm thrust and I feel a white hot coldness spread through my stomach. I know that I've just been impaled. I struggle against the cabinet rail, but he twists his torso and it rips clean from my rapidly weakening hand.

  We're both at our limit. There's nothing left.

  He gets in close, raising his broken arm to try and press it to my throat again, just to try and close it out. Every part of my body is tensing, trying to stab at him. My good hand rakes across his side, shredding cloth and skin. He gets face to face.

  Not smart.

  No, not smart.

  I lash out with my neck, clamping down on his forearm with my jaw and biting hard enough that I feel bone snap almost instantly. He lets out a horrified, rage-filled shriek and tries to whip me off, but I hang on tight. My good hand grabs for his wrist, clamps, and tears, turning the hole in my stomach into a massive gash in my stomach instead.

  I let go with my teeth, spitting out cloth. Then, I swing. I'm sure in my muscle memory, it's trying to be a punch, but it ends up being something more like a wild clothesline, hitting his temple with a loud CRACK!. He stumbles for a second, and then goes down, slamming his head into one of his thorns and crumpling onto the ground in a heap.

  Armor starts to fall off of me in chunks. I prop myself up by the fence, barely able to hold on with my fingertips, breathing, waiting for him to get back up.

  Waiting.

  Waiting.

  He doesn't.

  Slowly, the black spikes surrounding us begin to tremble. One by one, they start to disintegrate, crumbling into metallic dust that rains down like black snow. The canopy above thins, letting in slivers of night sky. The walls recede, opening space that wasn't there before.

  I fall to my knees beside Shrike's unconscious form. His chest still rises and falls, but each breath is shallow, labored. Blood pools beneath his head where he hit it falling. More blood soaks his suit, his skin, marking each place my teeth tore into him.

  My own teeth are falling off now, hitting the ground like little shards of glass. The Instant Armor dissolves, leaving me trembling and exposed. I'm aware, distantly, that I'm bleeding from dozens of wounds. That I've been torn apart like a prey animal, like a rabbit getting shaken to death by a stray cat.

  None of it matters. It's over. He's down. I'm alive, still.

  The last of the spikes dissolve, leaving us in an open clearing littered with black metallic dust. Beyond, I can see police lights, hear shouted commands, the pounding of approaching footsteps. Help, finally arriving.

  I roll off Shrike's body, collapsing onto my back beside him. The night sky spins above me, stars blurring into streaks of light. My blood sense shows me Shrike's heartbeat - weak, erratic, fading.

  He's dying. Not from what I did, but from everything. The accumulated damage, the blood loss, the Hypeman burning through his system. He fought until his body had nothing left to give. Just like me.

  I turn my head with effort, looking at his face. The manic rage is gone, replaced by something almost peaceful. In unconsciousness, the hate has drained away, leaving just a man. Was this what he wanted all along? To die in battle rather than return to a cell? To become a martyr?

  I don't know. I'll never know.

  My vision tunnels, darkness creeping in from the edges. I hear voices. Then, I don't hear anything at all.