Ravela left the Safe House in a better mood than she had entered. She spotted the Mulages making their way toward her or, more accurately, the Safe House. 'One of the first families to prayer, I see.' Ravela noted their zealousness. She judged it not as a purely good trade.

The greeting between Ravela and the Mulages seemed rather cold, but Ravela tried not to take it to heart.

But she couldn’t help but notice the glare that Melle threw her way while passing by. When had she earned the girl's ire?

Shrugging, Ravela walked back through the town. Her current situation weighed down on her enough not to bother with the glare for more than a second.

She passed a constant trickle of town folk streaming toward the Safe House. She wondered if this religion was as prevalent on the rest of the planet as it was here. The people all looked eager for direction in their life. Ravela understood their enthusiasm on some level. For her, there had to be a path toward a fulfilled life.

Once Ravela reached the park, she aimlessly wandered its paths, lost in thought. Her plans, her dreams, her future. Where should it all lead? She needed a goal. Life as a keeper was out of the question for her. Ravela laughed out loud. No, she enjoyed adventure too much. Life needs to be meaningful from now on.

Ravela stopped in front of a bed of blue cornflowers. “What’s my calling in life?” she wondered lethargically. What to do with the powers she had? She had told her pupils, about the responsibility that came with their abilities, but those words suddenly rang hollow to her.

Did her words fail because they lacked conviction behind them? Ravela spotted a man on a bicycle as she walked toward the lake. A new face, and more importantly, green tattoos on it. She felt goosebumps creep down her neck; something was different. Something had changed. The air suddenly tasted of danger and brewing tragedy.

Walking deliberately slowly to not garner the attention of the man on the bicycle. The way through the park suddenly felt much longer. Once Ravela reached the lakeside, she sped up toward Ma Stone’s house.

She unlocked and opened the door in such a hurry that detective Gell stood up when the door flung open. Gell relaxed when he saw Ravela standing in the doorframe.

Ravela closed the door behind herself and locked the door. After turning around, she saw Gell’s eyes narrowing.

“Green tattoos, man on a bicycle. I just passed by, and I’d never seen him before. I think your operation here may have been had.”

Detective Gell’s eyes widened he immediately ran toward the kitchen. Ravela slowly followed him, and by the time she entered, he was already on the phone telling presumably Detective Thorn about their situation.

“-and I’ll call headquarters too. They found us. We got to move our witness now. Yes, I am telling Stouts now.”

Ravela looked at the breakfast waiting for her on the table. Ma Stone and Laena weren’t home. They were probably currently en route to the Safe House. Ravela decided that eating her breakfast was the best she could do now.

Detective Gell, meanwhile, ran up the stairs to tell detective Stouts to be ready for anything and the witness to pack his bags.

Ravela just sat there eating her breakfast. After a few minutes, detective Gell returned to the kitchen. His leaving the door open wasn’t a good sign. Ravela deduced that he was expecting trouble.

The front door got unlocked around the time Ravela finished her breakfast. She heard the voice of detective Thorn announcing himself and saw detective Gell relax visibly. Thorn hurried past the kitchen door and up the stairs. Detective Gell walked out into the hallway and closed the kitchen door.

Ravela shook her head and put her used plate into the kitchen. The moment Ravela came back to the dining room, it happened.

*Crackboom*

The rumbling came from the front door as someone rushed through the hallway. From beyond the door, Ravela heard shots. Reacting quickly she ran to the door, to the hallway. She positioned herself, pressed to the wall, and listened.

More shots rang out. Heavy footsteps rumbled toward the source of the gunfire. Whatever came down that hall didn’t care for the bullets coming their way. A loud curse could be heard on the other side of the door, and then-

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*Crablaow*

Detective Gell flew through the door. No, he and the door crashed into the room together. The impact destroyed the dining table. Detective Gell lay motionless in the wreckage of the door and table. Shots came from the top of the stairs, and curses were hurled. She never heard Stouts utter a single word beyond ‘blessed morning’ and was thoroughly impressed by his extensive barrage of expletives.

The heavy footsteps made their way up the stairs as a second gun joined the futile attempt to stop the monster haunting this house. Ravela noticed lighter footsteps. A man of a much smaller frame followed the bruiser, he stopped at the gaping hole that once was the doorframe to the dining table. There was some rustling and Ravela watched as the barrel of a submachine gun entered the room followed by the man holding it.

He walked relaxed and without care. The gun was firmly aimed at the wounded and unconscious man on the ground. ‘An execution squat!’ Ravela moved quickly. Only a gasp escaped the man’s mouth and he dropped his gun, as she jumped on him closing a headlock around his throat.

The pressure Ravela applied to his torso with her locked legs and the hold on his neck felled the man quickly. She had to control her strength to not kill him outright. The shade of red on the man’s face contrasted strangely with his blue tattoos.

Once he had passed out she made sure the man couldn’t run away, if he came to, by breaking his legs. Ravela then proceeded to toss him back into the hallway. She felt disgusted to have touched this piece of filth.

She picked up the submachine gun. The drum magazine was still full.

Upstairs a crash and a scream could be heard. Ravela hurried out to the hallway where she saw a burly man run toward the witness’ bedroom. She heard wood splinter seconds later and more shots rang out.

Ravela jumped to the top of the stairs, looking to her left she saw Detective Stouts slumped against the door of her room. The wood was cracked and the man, a good man, was heavily injured. Ravela felt anger rise from deep inside her.

Turning toward the room of the witness Ravela saw detective Thorn being flung against a wall. She began running toward the room and the burly man came into view as she ran. He was preparing to ram down the door of the bathroom. Probably expecting the witness to hide in there.

Ravela reached the doorframe in seconds and flung the bed with her telekinesis up between the meathead and herself. She pushed it as hard as she could toward the man. To her surprise, the man caught it with his body and hands. She emptied the entire drum of her gun on his exposed lower body while keeping the pressure on the bed.

The, admittedly, gigantic man stumbled back under the pressure of the bullets. Ravela looked out the window behind the man and dropkicked the bed with a good measure of force as well as another surge of a telekinetic push behind her enemy's legs. The criminal burst back through the window and wall taking the bed with him.

She could hear sirens coming closer outside and a mighty *Thud* as the object of her ire got buried under the bed. Ravela looked out of the hole in the wall. The burly man didn’t do more than twitch a little. She hoped he wasn’t dead, but the headache he would get would make him wish he was.

Turning around she sprinted to the unconscious son of the sheriff.

“Benoles, come on man wake up,” Ravela said concerned, shaking his shoulder. He groaned and with a flutter, his eyes opened.

“Wh-where- Urgh.” He tried to get into a sitting position.

“Nonono. You stay on the floor and do not move till the ambulance is here. The guy is out cold on the front porch just stay down. We don’t know how bad your injuries are.”

“Gell and Stouts? The witness!?” Thorn gasped.

“Stay here I will check on your colleagues. The witness is fine.” Ravela stood up and knocked on the bathroom door. “Hey, are you okay?”

The man on the other side of the door yelled back, “Yes, what happened? Is it safe now?”

“Stay in there till the sheriff comes and gets you, okay?” Ravela didn’t wait for more small talk. She was off to look at the condition of the other detectives.

Detective Stouts was breathing, and Ravela carefully lifted him from a sitting position into a lying one. He still had a pulse, but she didn’t doubt that waking up would mean a world of hurt.

But at least he’d be alive. Ravela got up and hurried down the stairs. While passing the criminal whose leg she broke, the man showed signs of coming to. Ravela gave him a kick in the ribs for his troubles. She had precisely zero qualms about kicking a killer when he was down.

In the kitchen, detective Gell lay motionless in the wreckage of wooden splinters. Ravela knelt beside the man and realized he wasn’t breathing. Panic set in for Ravela. She searched for a pulse and was unable to find one.

“No, no, no.” Ravela used her powers to pump air into the man's lungs and compressed his chest. She carefully massaged the heart. “Don’t die on me, detective. I didn’t save you from getting shot just so you can die now. Come on!”

Outside police sirens were blaring, and Ravela could hear tires come to a screeching halt. Detective Gell’s eyes fluttered, and Ravela stopped using her powers. He was breathing on his own and had a pulse again.

Voices outside coordinating with each other got Ravela’s attention. Detective Gell suddenly jolted back to consciousness as she tried to stand up. Ravela felt his hands grab her collar. Turning her head, she found herself nose to nose with the man she had just saved. The wide, wild eyes looked directly into her own. He opened his mouth and tried to speak, but only half-formed words came out. She felt the man’s grip on her collar loosen, as he once more gave in to unconsciousness.

Ravela checked the man's pulse and made sure he was still breathing. To Ravela’s relief, detective Gell did. She heard footsteps in the hallway and got up.

“Sheriff's office, make yourselves known!” A man called out. Ravela could almost hear their hearts hammering in their throats.

“Over here! In the kitchen, one officer is injured. The guy passed out in the hallway is one of the attackers,” Ravela called out. Two deputies barged into the room, their revolvers drawn. She could almost smell the adrenaline pumping through them.

“Hands where I can see 'em!” The older deputy ordered in a tense tone. “How many attackers are there?”

Ravela answered with her hand in the air. “Two, the guy outside waltzed through the door and tanked every shot the officers fired at him. That weasel in the hallway came in behind him with the submachine gun. He was about to shoot officer Gell here when I stopped him and put him on his ass.”

“So the house is clear? What about the other officers and Ma Stone and her girl?” The older deputy inquired while cuffing the man in the hallway.

Ravela pointed at the stairs and said, “The two other detectives are up there. They both need immediate medical attention, just like detective Gell here. The Stones are at the morning service, and a witness is hiding in the upper bathroom.”

More people entered the house and were sent upstairs promptly. Ravela was escorted outside by the younger of the two deputies. She kept looking back, wishing she could do more to help, but Ravela knew she had to protect herself from now on. Everything she could have done she did already.

Once outside, the deputy split and ran over to the arriving cars in a hurry. Ravela watched from the sideline as ambulances arrived, and an armored truck took away the meathead in heavy metal restraints.

She felt like someone had just moved her to the sidelines and now she watched as everyone streamed around her like a river washing past her. The events now unfolding untethered from herself.