Nate burst through the front door and ran into the library with me still bouncing in his arms. “I’m ok Nate. Nate! Stop!” But he wasn’t listening. He threw me down on the long table in the middle of the room, knocking one of the lamps to the floor.
“I need towels and that first aid kit! We need to stop the bleeding!” I couldn’t see who he was talking to. He turned to me and reached for my shoulder. “You’re going to be ok.”
I grabbed his hands before he could touch me. “Nate, I’m ok. Really!”
He just shook his head and tried to push my hands away. “Let me look. We have to get the bleeding stopped.” He was being infuriatingly calm and ignoring me completely.
“No, Nate. Nate!” I yelled and grabbed him by the shoulders. I pushed him away as I sat up on the side of the table. He looked stunned. “I’m ok. I’m not hurt. Look.” I pulled the blood-soaked tee shirt down so he could see my shoulder. “See?”
He just started for a second and then reached up and gently ran his fingers along my shoulder. “But I saw...all this blood.”
“I’m sorry Nate.” I whispered. “I should have told you.”
“I… wait, you knew?” He was still staring at my shoulder again.
Before I could answer, Anna came running in with a handful of towels. I had forgotten there were others in the library. Everyone was staring at us. Anna stopped and looked from me to Nate in confusion. We all turned when we heard the front door open. Colin came running in, looking frantic. Sean came more slowly behind him. He was soaked.
Colin ran to where I was sitting. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine Colin, really! Look.” I touched my bare shoulder.
As Colin walked up to inspect my non-existent wound, Nate turned and walked toward the others.
“Nate…” He didn’t turn back.
“You nearly killed me!” Sean was still standing in the hall between the two rooms. A puddle was forming under him.
Colin turned back to him. “You should have gotten back in the house like I told you.”
“There was a guy shooting at us! How was I supposed to know what you could do...” He raised his hands and gestured wildly “that?”
“You weren’t. You were supposed to listen. Jemma had been shot. We needed to make sure she was ok. Didn’t that concern you at all?”
“No,” he answered. “I knew she was fine.”
Kennedy interrupted them, huffing, as he emerged from the AV room. “They're gone.” He walked over to me. “Are you ok? I saw everything.” He gestured to the open AV room door.
I gave him a small smile. “I’m ok Kennedy.”
“What do you mean they're gone, Kennedy?” Colin asked.
“The guys out there. They’re gone. The one from the woods, the shooter, he took off as soon as you let that water drop. He was able to wake up the guy David got. They dragged the other one into the car and they both took off.”
“Thank God,” David breathed from the other side of the room.
“Good,” Colin said, looking relieved.
“Good?” Sean scowled. “We are so screwed. What the hell are we going to do now?”
“Shut up already.” Ben was standing in his corner with Mel. She looked as calm as ever.
“Oh, you think they’re just going to run away with their tails between their legs? They’ll be back. More of them and more willing to shoot first after that little show.” He turned back to Colin. “You better figure out a way to defend this place or we’re all dead!”
Ben looked murderous. “You don’t know what you’re talking about…”
Colin shook his head. “No Ben, he’s right. They’ll be back and they’ll bring more next time. And I imagine they’ll be angry.” Everyone was silent.
Stolen story; please report.
“Wait. They’ll be angry? I’m the one they shot!” I pulled my ruined shirt back over my shoulder. “If anything, they should be scared to come back for fear of us retaliating.”
“I don’t think they will see it that way,” Colin shook his head. “We used force against them, and I don’t think they are going to take that lightly.”
“So, what are we going to do?” There was a note of panic in Anna’s voice and tears streaming down her face. Nate moved closer to her and put an arm around her shoulder.
“I…” Colin sighed. “We’ll think of something.” He looked spent.
Sean threw up his hands in disgust. “Great! That’s just great! You drag us all here and for what? What did you think was going to happen? They’d just let us all live here happily ever after?”
I slid off the table and stuck a finger in his chest. “Give it a rest, Sean. If you don’t have anything helpful to say, then shut up and let the rest of us have some peace and quiet to figure out what to do.” I agreed with him, but he was grating on me. “If it wasn’t for them, you’d be locked up or worse already. We’re all here now. No amount of whining is going to change that.”
Red spots bloomed on his cheeks, either from embarrassment or anger, but he just shook his head. “You’re right, angel. I’ll be at the bar. Let me know when the S.W.A.T team gets here, won’t you?”
Colin moved to stop him, but Cooper stopped him. “Let him go. He’s no use to us.”
“But he is.” I sounded more calm than I felt. “Whether or not we like it, we may have to fight, and Sean is one of the few of us that can be helpful if it comes to that. I don’t want it to come to that any more than any of you do, but what are our options at this point?”
“We could leave,” Copper said. “Get out now before they come back.”
“And go where?” Ben asked. “They’ll just track us down again and we’ll be in the same situation.”
“No. We could go to Stacy’s,” Cooper said hopefully.
“Who?”
It was Colin who answered. “That’s where we were today. Nate felt it last night. He thought it was someone else in the city changing, but the source was a lot farther out than that, and a lot stronger once we got close to it. It’s another group of changers. Stacy Cross is the one that’s been gathering them. We weren’t there long before we picked up some radio chatter that got us worried about you guys.” He looked thoughtful. “Stacy seemed like good people. We could go there. She would help us out, I’m sure.” He shook his head. “But her house is already bursting at the seams with the handful she has. I actually told them they should come here. She wouldn’t commit to anything, but they could be gone already. That’s not really a chance I’m willing to take, her showing up here after we’ve gone and getting hurt because of all this. We are better protected here, too.”
“I don’t like the ideas of being herded like that anyway,” Mel snapped.
Cooper started to pace between the chairs. “Ok, so we stay. But we can’t fight. It’s stupid. Jemma’s right. We’re not equipped for it. We might be able to hold out, but not forever. There are way more of them than us.”
“So what do we do?” Nate laughed bitterly. “Talk our way out of it?” He still had his arm around Anna, who had thankfully stopped crying.
“Yes. I think that is exactly what we should try.” Kennedy sounded as cheery as ever.
Cooper looked incredulous. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“No, really. They do not know how many of us are here or what we can do. We’ll wait for them to show and I’ll go talk to them. Maybe we can make a deal. Get them off our backs?”
Colin shook his head emphatically. “No way that’s going to work, Kennedy.”
“Come on, Colin! What do we have to lose if we try?”
“It’s not a terrible idea.”
Colin turned warily to me now. But Cooper spoke up before he could. “But you’re the one that said we had to fight!”
“I said it may come to that. But what if it doesn’t? We use their fear of us against them. I could do it, the talking I mean.” Was I seriously suggesting this? “What are they going to do, shoot me? You saw, I can’t get hurt.”
Colin stepped toward me. “You don’t know that for sure. You haven’t had enough time to figure out how that works and besides, what happens if they decide to take you in? They don’t have to hurt you to do that, but it would be just as bad?”
“I’ll take someone with me. Someone who can get us away if it comes to that. I can shield one person if need be. And you guys can watch from here. If things go bad, then we can fight. But at least this gives us a chance to get out of this without anyone else getting hurt.”
“I agree.” David said. “We should try to talk to them first. We have to do this peacefully if we can. We may be cornered, but we don’t have to act stupid.” I knew the idea of having to use his ability to hurt anyone again troubled him.
Cooper looked even more serious than usual. “This is crazy Jemma and I doubt it will work, but I think you're right. We have to try at least. Good or bad, this will come to a head for us soon. This is the best shot we’ve got of getting out of this without a full on war. A war we’ll probably lose.”
“But they don’t know that and we can use that against them,” Kennedy said.
“I don’t like it,” Colin sighed. “But I don’t see that we have a lot of better options. Stephen, you haven’t said anything. What do you think?”
Stephen was standing close behind Kennedy’s chair, looking more frightened than ever. “I could hide someone nearby while she talks. That would help if things go bad. Two people watching out. She won’t have to worry so much.”
Kennedy patted his hand. “That is a great idea.” He turned to Colin. “I don’t like the idea of sending Jemma to the wolves, so to speak. But if she thinks she can handle it, then I say we let her try. I’m not against fighting if we have to, though.” The fierceness in the usually jolly man's voice caught me by surprise.
Colin turned to me. “I guess the only thing we have to do now is wait.”