Sends out the fragile one to grab and restrain a woman

I floated to the side, placing the gun on the stairs before crouching on the underside of the gun.

The woman looked at us with eyes that were red from corner to corner. Thousand yard stare.

I didn't recognize her.

As she met my eyes, the scream in my head seemed to escalate, until everything I was seeing seemed to vibrate. I glanced away, to break the effect, and she bolted into motion.

I remained where I was, but the Fragile One was ready, jumping forward to grab the woman by the wrists. The woman jerked, partway into a pounce down the extended set of stairs that acted as the backbone of the facility, her arms stuck behind her.

She screamed, raw and full of rage. The scream joined the screaming in my head, and a noise that would have been bad enough to make me wince before became a hundred times worse because of the context.

"Calm down," Cryptid growled.

"Is that you?" Sveta asked, looking at me. "Holding her?"

The lights went out. The outlines that were drawn out in gold momentarily traced the Fragile One, naked and many-armed, with a chest splayed open. Then, like the cameras in our eyes remembered that they weren't supposed to be capable of seeing the Fragile One, they stopped tracing her.

"Yeah," I said. "I dunno if you saw her in the night vision lens, but…"

"I saw her," Sveta said.

The woman screamed again.

***

The woman screamed, struggled against strength that could lift a cement mixer, and then she disappeared.

- Last 20.4