1.10: Between a Hard and Rock PceI had already lost. That much was obvious by the way I trembled inside the elevator, clutching myself as the rattling metal box lurched upward like a dying mechanical beast.

  Eight floors.Just eight floors.Eight floors in a deathtrap designed by a misanthrope.

  As the gate cnged shut, the elevator jerked violently. I gasped and instinctively checked whether the loli dragon’s earlier kick had obliterated my genetics forever as I suspected. Once I’d confirmed that they were somehow intact… barely… I fumbled for my phone in the fanny pack.

  A crack ran across the screen.

  “Crap!” I hissed, holding it like a wounded pet before tucking it away again. The pack rested awkwardly on my hip, but I wasn’t risking another fall on it.

  The elevator groaned and rocked like something out of a horror film. Metal scraped metal in long, torturous shrieks. At one point I was convinced the whole thing was just… grinding itself apart. Like it wanted to take me to the afterlife with it.

  When it finally reached the eighth floor, it shuddered so violently I thought it might shake itself free from the cables entirely. The gate rattled open with a banshee’s wail.

  If I didn’t leap now, I was going to die.

  So I leapt.

  I unched myself in a full frog jump out of the elevator, my knees spyed, my arms fpping for bance, my body springing upward in a squat-to-unch kind of a motion like a panicked amphibian making a desperate leap for freedom.

  I nded with a skid that took me straight into the door at the end of the short hallway.

  THUD.

  I y there, cheek pressed against the door through my helmet, heart thundering, lungs burning.

  That should have been the end of my shame for the day.

  But then the door opened.

  And I fell halfway inside like an idiot.

  “Oh…haha!!! Detective-sensei! At least I hope…” I blurted, fpping my hands like a malfunctioning robot. “Please forgive the dramatic entrance. I… I have a major problem! I’m here to beg…”

  I stopped.

  Because I saw who was inside.

  It was her.

  The violent loli dragon.

  She delivered a savage kick directly to my head.

  I flew backward to careen across the hallway like a red rubber ball.

  CRASH

  … to sm into the elevator with a thunderous crash. The elevator reacted as if I’d insulted its ancestors.

  SLAM

  SCREECH

  It grated and cnged around me, the floor trembling beneath my boots.

  I scrambled upright, shrieking, “Nooooo! Don’t kill me!!”

  I bolted for the office door again. One quick look confirmed the custrophobic horror… there were no other exits on this floor. It was just me, the murderous tiny girl, and a hungry elevator I refused to die inside.

  The pque on the door was barely readable, worn and scratched:Shinohara Spiritual Detective Services.

  Of course. It was the only office on this whole cursed floor.

  I rattled the doorknob. Locked.

  Panic hit instantly.

  My fists hammered the door before I consciously decided to move.

  “PLEASE LISTEN! I’M SORRY ABOUT BEFORE!”“I BEG YOU!”“I’M DESPERATE!”“PLEASE HELP ME!”“UWAAAAAAA!”

  My voice cracked, every time I shouted.

  The door untched.

  Slowly.

  Menacingly.

  And there she was again… this time holding a baseball bat casually over her shoulder like she was about to settle a turf war with me.

  She stepped out just enough to size me up. Her brown eyes flickered with pure, distilled homicide.

  I raised my hands. I even clutched between my legs, because Fort Winky would not survive a second siege.

  “P-Please, no— I—I’m a victim! A yokai victim!” I sputtered, my voice jumping three octaves.

  She didn’t look impressed.

  “Hmmm.” She stepped closer, tapping the bat against her free palm. I shivered so hard I might as well have been vibrating. I stepped backward, but so did she… matching me. Step for step. Threat for threat.

  My heel touched the lip of the elevator.

  Instant recoil. I yanked my foot away like it had brushed hot coals.

  Nope. Not dying in there. Not today.

  I made my stand against the wall instead, trapped between a girl who could murder me with a flick of her ankle and a lift that wanted to devour my soul.

  I swallowed.

  She raised the bat.

  …

  She swung…

  …

  And tapped the office sign with its tip.

  “Obviously you’re an illiterate. Baka,” she sniffed. “Ft, indeed.”

  Then she turned her back to me, stepped inside, and smmed the door with authority.

  I stood frozen in the hallway.

  Shaken.Terrified.Recovering from my fifth near-death experience of the day.

  And somehow…

  This was still better than the train.

  ???益??? Violent Loli Dragon ???益???Courtesy of MajorKerina author of Mecchen House, an old favorite of mine.