bends bars

I stepped back into Hades’ strong room and slammed the barred door closed just as Tessa came at me again. She hit the far side of the door with a violent impact and wrenched at it with her scythes but it had locked when it closed, and it held fast. She shrieked again and her scythes darted through the bars toward me. I reeled back in time to avoid perforation, and my shoulders hit the wall behind me.
“Hell’s bells!” I blurted. “At least tell me why!”
The mantis’s scythe-hooks latched onto two of the bars and began straining to tear them apart. Metal groaned and began to bend, and I suddenly felt one hell of a lot less clever. Tessa wasn’t all that big, and it wouldn’t take much of a bend in the bars to allow her into the strong room with me, without leaving an opening big enough for me to use to escape. If she opened them enough to come in, I was going to die a savagely messy death. Seconds ticked by in slow motion as the demon mantis quivered with physical strain and pure hatred.
“Why?” I demanded. My voice might have come out a little bit high-pitched. “What the hell are you doing screwing around with this mission?”
She didn’t answer me. The bars groaned and slowly, slowly bent maybe an inch, but they’d been built extra thick, as if they’d been precisely intended to resist superhuman strength, which in all probability was exactly the case. Tessa threw back her insect’s head and let out a screech that pressed viciously on my ears.


Skin Game Chapter 36, Page 301