Iron Cyclone Bonus Chapter 3

Tony

March

“I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to crash,” Steven mumbles a step behind me. 

I nod as we make our way back to our dorm. “You really gotta find another way to show girls you’re interested in them.”

He grins. “What? Are you saying you didn’t like watching Stacy and her friends play volleyball?”

“For three hours? Definitely not.”

“But that was three hours of watching them jump around in those tiny little shorts.” He wraps his arm around my shoulders and waggles his eyebrows. “What could be better than that?” 

“I can think of several things,” I grumble, shrugging him off. “Did she at least thank you for coming to watch her tournament?”

“Amongst other things,” he responds with a wink.

“Well, I’m glad you were enjoying yourself while I was stuck talking to her annoying friends for twenty minutes,” I say with a chuckle. “At least it wasn’t for nothing.”

He claps me on the shoulder and grins again. “See. That’s why you’re my best friend. Always willing to help.”

My shoulders sag when the side door to our building comes into view. My bed is so close. 

We’ve almost made it to the door when a wall of fire forms in front of us, cutting us off from the building. I sigh, then glare at the source of the flames. “What do you want, Pyrrhus?”

Kasper glares back, but it’s Nikolai that demands, “Where the hell is Ana?”

My brows furrow. “Ana? Why would we know where Ana is?”

Kaspers closes the space between us and growls, “Because she was last seen with your buddy. Now, she isn’t answering her phone and no one can find her.”

The few feet left between us disappear when I get in his face. “And why would Xander have anything to do with that?” I ask, angling my head. I look between him and Nikolai. “Maybe she’s not answering because she finally grew tired of you assholes.” 

He shoves me against the brick wall and ignites his right hand. “Maybe hurting his best friends will finally get him to show his face.” 

Nikolai grabs Steven’s arm when he hears Kasper’s threat. Steven flinches at his touch and anger coils in my gut. I lock eyes with Kasper, then raise my chin so he has easy access to my throat. “Then do it.”

His eyes narrow, but not a single flame touches me.

“That’s what I thought.”

I shove him back, then teleport behind him and kick him into the wall. A frustrated noise is all I hear as I turn toward my best friend, prepared to help him. I find him grinning at me, with a wall of dirt now surrounding Nikolai. 

“We gotta get out of here,” I shout. 

I’m tackled from behind before I can reach him. I manage to roll over despite Kasper now straddling me and punch him in the face. 

He grabs my arms and forces them to my sides while his eyes flare in anger. “Enough. Where’s Xander?”

“I’m not telling you shit.”

When the tips of his fingers start to burn my wrists, I give him a wicked grin. “Is that your way of trying to get me to talk, Pyrrhus?” He narrows his eyes and I laugh. “Aww. How cute. Is this your first fight or something?”

“You know it isn’t, prick,” he snarls and the sting from his fingers grows sharper. 

“Eh. Agree to disagree.” 

My taunting is interrupted by the sound of Steven crying out in pain. When I see that he’s now unconscious, buried under chunks of earth, something inside of me snaps. I don’t like the look in Nikolai’s eyes as he approaches him, so I thrash until I’m able to break out of Kasper’s hold, then hurry to my best friend’s side.   

Nikolai kicks me before I’m able to check on Steven and I groan from the force of it. While I struggle to stand, he picks me up by the throat and grins at me. 

“Nik, we’re not trying to kill them,” reminds Kasper and Nikolai rolls his eyes. 

“Obviously,” he responds with a sigh. “But I also know these two. They’re not going to talk unless we start breaking them.” 

I cry out when he grabs my left arm and snaps it in two. He tosses me to the ground after that and I just lay there, trying to work through the pain radiating from my arm as I cradle it. I’m surprised when Kasper crouches next to me and lights his hand so he can get a good look at my injury. There’s concern in his eyes and I really don’t like it. There’s no reason for him to be looking at me like that.

He must realize how much pain I’m in because he says, “We should go, Nik. They’re clearly not going to tell us anything.”

“Tony will.” 

The tone of his voice has me shouting, “Don’t you fucking touch him.” I manage to sit up and reach for the dagger strapped to my back at the same time Nikolai grabs Steven’s leg. Before he can snap it like he snapped my arm, I say, “We don’t know where he is, okay? We’ve been trying to get ahold of him for hours. We don’t know where Ana is either.”

Nikolai releases Steven’s leg and smiles at me. “Now, was that so hard?” 

“Screw you,” I hiss and he chuckles in response.

“Come on, Kas. I guess we better go look for Ana elsewhere.”

Kasper shoots another concerned look my way before he stands and follows after his friend. 

Once they’re gone, I rush to Steven’s side and breathe a sigh of relief when I see he’s waking up. 

“Did we win?” he asks with glazed eyes and a stupid grin on his face.

“I guess you can say that.” I help him sit up and immediately hate the way he sways in place. “I’m gonna call Dr. Farrogow, okay? You need to be looked at.”

He nods and lays back down while I dial the only number I have on speed dial.