"Wha doyou want?", a woman with a thick Latin accent asked through the door.
"I'm looking for Juan Carlitos!", Sgt. Quiddly yelled back. "Open the door."
Officer Marie Pressbach sat dutifully in the car like her more experienced trainer ordered. She was a rookie alright, but she wasn't stupid. Sgt. Quiddly needed help. Marie had traveled outside of Macon more than her superior had, and she knew that there was a brand of international criminal that didn't respect or fear the badge the same way home grown crooks did. Marie made sure her seat belt was out of the way, and that the shotgun was loose in its cradle. Sgt. Quiddly had told her to leave it where it was, but Marie was nervous. She'd lock it down before he got back. That way she wouldn't have to listen to how she was so green that she didn't even know when to be nervous. Marie could hear her boss giving orders to someone inside. When the door opened, she relaxed a little. Maybe this warrant would go as smoothly as the others they had served over the last couple of days.
Sgt. Quiddly was thinking the same thing when he saw a man come towards the door after an older woman had opened it. The young man sauntered towards the door attempting to maintain his macho persona even when he knew the cops were at the door. Sgt. Quiddly had seen it all before. He knew there must be other young wannabe bangers in that house, but he was only there for one. "Juan Carlitos?", Quiddly inquired in his official police business voice.
"Yea, that me", Carlitos replied in broken English. He stopped short of the door, and smiled at Quiddly. The police sergeant realized too late that something was wrong. Juan Carlitos raised his right arm without any preamble and leveled his pistol at the cop's chest. He pulled the trigger of the revolver twice. Sergeant Quiddly went down with two smoking holes in his shirt, but there was no blood.
"Chaleco", the old woman told her son.
Juan Carlitos raised his gun at an angle and pointed at the dazed cop's head. Their eyes met in the instant before Carlitos' finger curled around the trigger. Quiddly had never seen eyes so devoid of mercy in all his life. He didn't even have time for his life to flash in his eyes before he heard the BOOM! Blood sprayed all over the door, the floor, and all over Quiddly's face, but it wasn't his. Juan Carlitos' foot hit Quiddly in the head when his dead body fell. The sergeant turned to see Officer Pressbach with the shotgun. He felt like he might live. The old woman screamed as her youngest son breathed his last bloody breath. She called half a dozen names. Quiddly heard men shout and doors spring open. Weapons were being cocked. He reached for his pistol. He had to cover Marie as she came to save him, but when he looked at her again, he saw her running around the front of the car.
"No", he cried weakly. "You bitch", he moaned in despair. He heard that rookie start the engine of the patrol car. He let his fingers go limp on the handle of his pistol. There was no hope. The men in the house were about to turn the corner. Quiddly lay there helpless and hopeless. The V-8 of the police car redlined as that rookie cunt of a partner made her getaway. A tear escaped Sgt. Quiddly's eyes and there was hate in his heart at his partner leaving him, but then he felt the ground rumble behind him. The men came around the corner and looked at their dead friend and at the wounded cop. All the men pointed their guns at him, but they heard that engine getting closer. They didn't even have time to swear before the front of the squad car rammed the front of the house.
Bricks, wood, dust, shingles, and people flew all over the place as the car broke through the wall. Officer Pressbach leaned over in the seat and threw open the passenger door. She could hear coughs and creaks. The floor struggled to hold the front of the car, and the people tried to get their bearings. "Get in!', Officer Pressbach screamed to her trainer. She reached her right hand out to him. Quiddly struggled to get in the car. Their hands met, and Marie pulled as hard as she could. He was almost in, when she felt a red hot hammer smack against her left shoulder. She knew that she'd been shot. She lost her grip on the sergeant and picked up her pistol instead. She fired blindly though the passenger window and the windshield while Quiddly managed to get his legs in the car. He pulled the door closed, and Officer Pressbach threw the car into reverse. The tires dug two holes in the dirt before finding some grip and pulling the car out of the house. Her left arm was useless as she drove through the grass. Four men aimed guns and emptied clips in her direction. Pressbach cried and prayed when each bullet hit the car. She was so scared she couldn't think about anything except getting away. When she was on the road, she had to try twice to get the car into drive, but when she did, she didn't stop until the pain and loss of blood from her injured shoulder forced her to.
For her gallantry, she was decorated and given lots of credit for what became the largest drug bust in the state's history. The cops who swarmed the house found drugs stacked from the floor to the ceiling in an enlarged basement. Quiddly and Pressbach had unknowingly gone to a house that served as a major hub in the drug trade. There were so many drugs in that basement that it would take a semi trailer to hold it all. They'd found the mother lode of drugs for the East Coast. The cartels had hidden the drugs in plain sight. After the euphoria wore off, all the law enforcement wondered what to do with all those drugs. There was only one place in the state that could hold that much, so the locals decided to transport the drugs to Atlanta. They were going to move hundreds of millions of dollars worth of heroin and cocaine right out in the open, taking a page from the cartel's play book. It would take a few days to get it together, but it would be worth the trouble. The cops set a date for the transportation. All they needed now was complete security and secrecy. It would have all worked, but there was always a weak link. In this case the weak link had a name.
Everybody knew Slim. He was the mechanic for the police motor pool. He'd had a prosperous wrecking business, but too much booze and a nasty divorce had taken all that away from him. He now toiled away on everything in the Macon fleet, and he did side jobs for city brass. Slim was always in the background, so it figured that two high ranking city cops didn't even notice him when they talked about the shipment of drugs that would be going to Atlanta. They didn't notice him when they mentioned parts of the route and the exit where the convoy would get off the interstate. Even if the men had noticed him, they believed that Slim was one of them. He wasn't. He put their information together with the repairs he had recently done on a new vehicle in the Macon lot. Slim had everything he needed, and it didn't take much soul searching for him to make up his mind at what to do.
He found the closest banger and got a face to face with the jefe in Atlanta. He stood before several men and women scared to death, but he was more scared of living the rest of his life like a peon. Slim gathered the courage to look the ruthless drug man in the eye and say, "The information I have is worth two million dollars cash."
"The hell you say", Jose, the LA born drug man challenged in plain English.
"The cops are moving your drugs to a secured Customs warehouse in Atlanta next Monday. If they get them to that warehouse, you can kiss your shit good-bye, but I know the route, the location of the warehouse, and the method for transport. Give me 500 grand right now, and you'll get your drugs back. I'm sure your bosses will like that." The cartel man eyed Slim hard, but the mechanic's face never changed. This was his ticket out. He'd rather die trying to punch that ticket than die as a nobody.
"Ok, esse, you got your fuckin 500 grand, but your information better be worth it. If those drugs aren't where you say, I'll personally cut your stinking heart out."
Slim sat up in his chair, and
began talking. "They're moving the drugs on the 21st, the
Monday before Thanksgiving, but that ain't even the half of it. Let me
tell you how they're gonna transport it…"
The morning after her birthday was lazy and sunny just the way Jan wanted it. She'd woken up and started stretching for her early morning jog before brushing it off with a scoff and a shrug. Instead she made a bowl of cereal and lounged on the sofa in the living room. She lay, leaning to one side, watching The Early Show, with the sound turned very very low. Jan didn't need much volume since her hearing was perfect, but she did have to concentrate when the sound of crunching oat clusters filled her ears. They had gone into a serious report about powerful drug cartels operating in American cities. Jan paid a little extra attention when they mentioned both Atlanta and her home town of Baltimore. She didn't want to think too much about it, and was glad when they went to something lighter after the commercial break.
It wasn't long before a door opened down the hall. Jan knew at once that it wasn't Sara, even though it was Sara's door that had opened. Sara rarely woke up this early. After a short detour their guest Cassidy Redwine stumbled into the living room still wiping the sleep from her eyes. She took a look at the sofa, but Jan's six foot frame had it completely occupied. She settled on the love seat instead.
"Good morning", Jan garbled in greeting, her mouth full of oat clusters. "Did you sleep well?", she asked after swallowing.
"It wasn't bad", Cassie began, then leaned back onto the soft cushion. "Sara doesn't snore or anything."
"I know. We slept in the same room for a year. If she'd snored it would have driven me crazy."
Cassie grinned and went to the kitchen. She took a large glass from the cabinet and filled it from the filtered tap. She came back in with a quarter of the water already gone. They had a good filter, but she had to remember that she was in Atlanta. In Chicago the tap water was ice cold this time of year. She went back to the love seat instead of going to get some ice. She drank some more, leaving the glass less than half full. Then she looked over at Jan. "So, how are your powers?", she asked like a doctor to a patient.
"Right where they're supposed to be", Jan was happy to report. She had been having problems utilizing her strength for a while before Cassie had showed up. Somehow Cassie had fixed the problem, or more accurately had allowed Jan to fix her own powers. Jan once again felt like she could take on all comers. She was curious as to how Cassie had linked the powers, but she would let that rest. She didn't really want to get into a serious discussion this morning. She just wanted to chill, and so far so good.
While they lounged, Cassie looked over at Jan's morning attire of a light pink halter with darker pink pajama bottoms. Her long athletic form was impressive even when she wasn't doing anything. The top rode up her abdomen exposing Jan's lower abdomen. Her unreal abdominal revealed themselves for a split second when she moved higher on the couch. Jan's body hid its strength, but Cassie knew where to look. She wasn't flexing, but the shape of Jan's long arms was spectacular. Cassie had always admired Jan's muscles. Some people built their muscles but Jan sculpted hers. Every muscle group complimented the other, and the shapes flowed perfectly down her tall frame. Jan's proportions and symmetry were so perfect that it made Cassie have that mix of jealousy and appreciation that she'd gotten the very first time she'd seen Jan working out back in high school. Jan's muscles were complementary to her extreme facial beauty while they were relaxed, but Cassie knew what happened when Jan flexed her muscles. She had pop in her flexes like Cassie had never seen. A single cold flex from Jan could expand her muscles 20% or more, she'd seen it with her own eyes, and when Jan's muscles were pumped they were truly something to behold. She could become a muscle goddess, and one night in a dark lust filled moment, Cassie had worshiped Jan's muscles just like Jan had worshiped hers. It had been a singular time in their lives. Cassie got a little embarrassed thinking back on what she had done. It had been quite passionate, but she had overstepped her bounds.
"Speaking of powers", Jan said after she downed the last of her milk. "You can control emotions right?"
"Umm, yeah, that's right", Cassie managed while she pulled herself out of her reminisces.
Jan turned towards Cassie. "So you could make me happy or sad or giddy?"
"I sure can", Cassie answered.
Jan's eyes narrowed, and she twisted her mouth a little. "What about lust? Can you do that too?"
Cassie face turned as red as it could. "Umm, yeah... I can do lust."
Jan kept up her gaze.
"Okay, it was me!", Cassie blurted. "I should have told you a long time ago, but that night in the gym back at Livingston was my fault. I saw you working out, and you were all sweaty and your muscles were hard and flexing. I'd never had a lesbian moment like that before, but good grief I love well toned bodies and yours was like a dream. Plus-", she started then sighed. "I was horny", she admitted more quietly.
Jan laughed then threw her legs around to the floor. "That explains a lot. You should have told me though."
"I thought I would have to explain the idea that people could even have special powers before I actually explained to you what my power is. As it turns out, my fears were unfounded, but what are the chances that you would be gifted too." Cassie was glad to get this off her chest. "Don't worry it won't happen again", she added.
Jan stood up and grinned. "No, it might ruin the memory of the first time", she said to Cassie surprise.
Jan came back with a glass of water for herself and another one for Cassie. "I heard you gave Brian your number last night."
"Yeah, I did. I even looked up some of his work on the web before I went to sleep. He's pretty good."
"Yeah, he is. He's got a great eye for detail and angles."
Cassie frowned. "But you refuse to pose for him, and you give him a hard time."
Jan snickered. "It's my role. Brian expects it."
"I think I'll let him do a shoot of me. If he plays it right that is."
Jan idly rubbed her birthday necklace from Thomas while imagining Brian drooling over Cassie's muscles. Alisha's door opened down the hall. "Good morning to you both", Alisha called out as she entered the living room. She walked over in her short sleeping boxers showing off her shapely legs and a loose fitting t-shirt that did little to hide her wonderfully large gravity defying bosom.
"Good morning", Cassie greeted her.
"Good morning, Cassie", Alisha began with a smile on her face. She looked at the chair then to the sofa. "Move over." Alisha slapped at Jan's legs. Jan groaned, but shifted around making a little room. Alisha settled down then turned towards the recent birthday girl. "Welcome to the land of 20 somethings", she said to Jan, who pretended to ignore her.
"Jan, I meant to ask you this earlier, but what we felt last night, is it like that for you all the time? You know, the way you have to hold your power back."
"It's not nearly that bad most of the time, but yeah I have to hold it back. It's only as bad as last night when I'm mad or scared or something like that."
Alisha shook her head. She couldn't even imagine. She looked over at Cassie. "Are you still tired?", Alisha asked about the experience of the night before.
"I'm fully recovered", Cassie assured her. "It was hard work, but as you can both see", she stretched up her arms and gently flexed her biceps. Twin muscle balls rose up. "I'm in tip top shape."
Alisha rolled her eyes. "You're as bad as Jan." Jan opened her mouth to protest, but Alisha put a hand over it then turned to Cassie. "You never did explain what you did last night. I understand that you can control emotions, but what about the linking of the powers? Is that part of that ability too"
Cassie sat up and took a deep breath. "No, its not. That comes from my mother's side. All the women in my family can do it. It has nothing to do with the power that I got from my father. Like I said last night, all powers are connected, and my family is one of the hubs.
"That is so cool."
"Yeah, I've just started learning about this stuff. Each woman in my family has to learn the knowledge so we can pass it down to our daughters and so on."
"I always wondered about these powers", Jan began. "Like why do we have them, or how did we get them."
Cassie shrugged. "I just started learning, but I will say that groups of powers tend to run in families. I don't know how it all works, but I'm eager to learn more."
They could have talked about that subject for hours, but Alisha was interested in something else. "Back to the emotions thing… Last night when we were all linked up, it felt like you could make tiny little changes."
Cassie sat forward on the love seat. "I can do little tiny things and really strong emotions too."
"Yeah, like lust", Jan put in with a smile.
Cassie looked annoyed, but Alisha got interested. "Lust huh, like what?"
Cassie grinned slyly, causing her hazel eyes to narrow to slits. "Like an orgasm."
"You could make me have an orgasm right now?", Alisha asked, her interest piqued. Cassie nodded, keeping the same look on her face. Alisha adjusted herself on the sofa next to Jan's curled legs. "Ok, I'm ready. Do it."
"What?", Jan nearly shouted.
"Yeah, an early morning orgasm. I can't think of anything better. Okay Cassie, lay it on me."
Cassie giggled then laughed. "Most people turn me down, but here goes. One orgasm coming up."
There was no outward sign at first of the pure bliss going through Alisha's body. In the span of a few seconds every thought in her head was focused on that bliss. "Holy shit", she moaned and grabbed her breasts. Neither of her hands were big enough to encapsulate her tits, but Alisha worked them, paying close attention to her erect nipples. Then her hips started grinding. Jan moved her legs giving Alisha more room. Then Alisha thrust a hand between her legs. She squeaked and closed her thighs around her hand while her fingers gently brushed at the material of her pajama shorts. Alisha thought this was it, but Cassie had just started.
"You like round one?", Cassie asked.
"Uh huh", was all Alisha could manage. Then her lips uttered a desperate sex filled moan. Her hands and hips stopped while an erotic explosion went off from the top of her head to the soles of her feet. Every part of her body became an erogenous zone. "Ohhhhh", Alisha cried and worked her hands harder. She threw her head back against the sofa, her long hair fanning out along the back. Then she whipped it from side to side. "Ohhh more more", she moaned. She needed it now. It wasn't a game.
Jan was amazed, and amused. She'd been down this road with Cassie once before. Of course Alisha had asked for it and Jan hadn't, but it didn't matter. Jan gave Alisha more room on the couch before she finally stood up. Alisha's face was beyond flushed and her eyes were closed so tightly that it looked as if she would never reopen them. She rose and fell on the couch, her swimsuit model legs and butt rose and fell while her right hand worked between her moist legs. Jan turned away quickly when a door opened behind her. Sara walked slowly out wiping her eyes. Jan rushed and took her wrist. "You have to see this, Sara."
"See what", the drowsy blonde asked. Jan just pulled her into the living room. Sara's eyes opened wide. "What's she doing?" Jan leaned down and whispered in Sara's ear. "No way!" She put her hand over her mouth and giggled.
Alisha was lost in the passion. Her shirt was pulled to the side exposing one of her beautiful breasts while she fondled herself. She was close to a massive orgasm, so massive that she felt ready to burst. Alisha was lost to the world completely. Cassie had turned her into an animal hungry for sex and nothing else.
Jan and Sara were waiting on Alisha to cum. Both girls knew of Alisha's sexual prowess so neither was holding their breath for this to finish quickly. Their heads turned when a key entered the front door lock. Cassie, Jan, and Sara looked at the door, but Alisha was well beyond the point of no return. She panted and moaned and worked her hands between her legs like her life depended on it.
"That's my cousin with his fiancée", Sara exclaimed. "Make her stop."
"No no, please don't", Alisha managed between desperate pants. "Let me finish."
The front door swung open as a breathless moan escaped Alisha's lips.
"Intercept him", Jan urged Sara.
Sara tore her eyes away from Alisha's one woman show and hurried to the door. "Hey, Avery", she greeted her cousin with a big smile and a hug.
"You're up early."
"Yeah, I know. Here let me take that bag for you." Sara looked around the door and gave Cassie a hard look.
"OK", Cassie mouthed. She felt bad as she looked at Alisha. She was having so much fun. "I'm sorry, but I have to do this, for both our sakes." The ocean of passion and rising tide of sexual bliss drained away as quickly as they had come, leaving Alisha lying on the sofa partially nude without an ounce of pleasure left.
She collapsed onto the couch and pulled down her shirt. She tossed hair from her face and exhaled. "That was so wrong, Cassie. Now I know what blue balls feels like."
Cassie chuckled. "I'll make it up later."
"You better", Alisha warned her with a smile on her face then went to the bathroom.
"Hey, Avery, let me introduce you to my friend Cassie", Sara said once Alisha was out of sight. "She's visiting from Chicago."
Avery's eyes inadvertently swept up Cassie's body, from the marble hardness of her exposed calves to the round caps of her delts and traps, to her pretty face, all covered by her radiant skin. She was the very definition of health. "Pleasure to meet you, Cassie. I've heard a lot about you."
"Thanks. Nice to meet you too", Cassie said as her hazel eyes looked straight into Avery's blue-grey ones. He was a dream of a man, cover boy good looks with a hunk's body. Melissa was a lucky woman. "You and Sara look a lot alike."
"We get that often", Avery said in his south Louisiana accent.
He was about to say something else, but Melissa came in and saw Cassie for the first time. She kept it from her face, but Cassie felt a burning jealousy and threat response run through Melissa. Sara had another hot friend! This was getting to be too much for Melissa to take. Cassie had to work to keep her own emotions off her face. She could feel how much Melissa loved Avery, and how much she felt the need to protect her place in his heart. She should have known how little she had to worry. Avery's heart belonged to Melissa. It was too bad Cassie couldn't tell her. Instead she just smiled and extended her hand. "You must be Melissa."
"That's me", Melissa responded with a tight forced smile.
Cassie took a breath to say something else, but decided to let it rest. Instead she took a step back. Cassie had never fallen in love and could only imagine how hard things were on Melissa. Because of hurricane Katrina, she'd been forced to leave her home and live in an apartment hundreds of miles away with her fiancé's cousin and her two gorgeous roommates. Melissa knew that could be a recipe for disaster, but Jan and Alisha had gradually earned Melissa's trust. Now here was another threat. She didn't know Cassie. All she saw was a perky young woman with a body built to perfection. It was enough to make her want to box Avery up and ship him away. Cassie knew there was nothing she could say to make Melissa worry less.
"I would have stayed another day", Avery was telling Sara, "but Melissa has to work today so we had to leave yesterday. We spent the night in Columbus. I was too tired to drive the whole way."
"Sure blame this all on me", Melissa yelled to the bedroom. She came into the living room. "Oh, Sara, I might have to work late. I know it's my turn to cook, but I might not have a chance."
Sara twisted her face.
"That's right the five of you switch off cooking duties", Cassie began then tilted her head trying to imagine Alisha cooking edible food. "I'll cook tonight. It'll be my treat."
"Oh that's nice of you", Melissa said, hardly meaning it. Looking at her rock hard body, she guessed that Cassie only ate rice cakes and skinless chicken breasts.
Cassie smiled at Melissa's skepticism. "I'll need a ride to a couple of stores though."
"No problem", Sara offered. "I have to stop at Emory anyway."
Just down the road from the apartment Slim sat in
a foreman's chair in a construction trailer. The B&W Construction
Company was working on the newest midrise condo complex in this trendy
Atlanta neighborhood. The construction crew was on vacation,
but luckily for Slim and his new cartel cronies, the
construction equipment was all on site. Slim had expected to be home in
Macon getting ready for his one way trip to a non-extradition country,
but the cartel had other ideas. Jose, the boss, was going to make sure
that Slim's information was correct. If it wasn't then Slim would never
go back home. So he sat there with the rest of the braintrust for this
operation. They had plenty of weapons and stood ready to get their
drugs back, while Slim tried to not look scared.
An hour after the construction trailer had been taken over, a blue Hummer H3 carrying two co-eds drove by it. Sara and Cassie might have noticed something wrong, but both had other things on things on their minds.
"Why haven't you guys told Melissa about your powers?", Cassie asked out of the blue.
"We tried one time, and she freaked out… literally. I thought she was going to need a sedative. So, Avery had me cloud her memory. I made her think that what she'd seen was a dream. It worked. I didn't want to do it, but Avery was afraid that it would harm his relationship."
"So Avery knows?"
"Not about you, but he knows about me, Alisha, and Jan. I don't think it would be a good idea to try and tell her. I'm just leaving it alone."
"I wasn't going to tell her. It's just that I could explain some things to her if she knew what I could do."
"Explain what?"
Cassie looked out the window. "Nothing", she avoided the question.
After getting back from the stores, Cassie spent the rest of the day in the kitchen. She tuned the XM radio to her favorite station and jammed every now and then. Mostly she sliced, mixed, baked, fried, and steamed. People came in when they had to, but made an effort to stay out of her way. She looked to be having too much fun. They had no idea what she was cooking, but it smelled terrific.
That evening when Melissa got home from work, she walked into the apartment and her nose was filled with some of the best smelling food she could remember. There were so many wonderful scents for her mind to sort out. "Hey babe." Avery kissed Melissa quickly. "We're in for a treat for real. It seems Sara neglected to tell us that Cassie is Jeremy Redwine's daughter."
Melissa frowned. "You mean that big time chef guy?"
Ten minutes later, everyone was at the table. Cassie brought out the plates, lovingly presented like at the restaurant. The group dug into a meal of pan seared amberjack served over authentic couscous with steamed vegetables in a pecan sauce.
"Cassie, I can't even describe this. This is absolutely wonderful", Sara gushed.
"Thank you all. I still have a lot to learn, but I'm glad you all like it."
"Cassie, I've eaten all over the world, and this is up there with the best", Alisha told her friend, meaning every single word. "I didn't even know food this good could come out of our kitchen."
Cassie just smiled and took another bite. She was fairly satisfied with how it had turned out.
"I guess your father can rest easy. The next generation will keep up the quality of his restaurants."
Cassie chuckled. "He doesn't rest often. All of his kids have something on the menu at the restaurant. I could have told you last night but that squash you ate yesterday Jan is my brother Russell's recipe, and the spinach you had Sara is Monica's, and the minted sautéed sweet potato you had Alisha is one of my recipes." Everyone was quite impressed.
After the main dish, Cassie jumped up from the table. "Time for dessert!"
"She made dessert?"
Cassie came out with a platter of profiteroles. "Oh my goodness", Jan uttered as soon as she bit into the chocolate and caramel covered pastry. "You baked these too."
Cassie nodded vigorously. "And I made the filling and the topping. I have to admit the filling's my brother Bradley's recipe, but it's so darn good."
"That it is."
After the wonderful dessert, the group moved to the living room. Melissa sat next to Avery, or more accurately, she sat on top of him. Cassie wanted to talk to her so bad, but she couldn't. The after dinner party laughed at a story Sara told about a trip she and Jan had taken to watch Cassie compete in a figure show.
"I didn't know you were a professional. I can tell it though. Your look is amazing", Melissa said after a sip of wine.
"Thanks. I work hard on keeping my symmetry as good as I can. We can't all have natural proportions like Jan over there."
"Oh please I am over six feet tall. Being in proportion isn't easy. I used to be a lanky teenager once."
"I have a hard time believing that", Alisha put in. "I think you had guys slipping you their numbers when you were being pushed in your stroller."
Jan rolled her eyes, and Melissa went on. "I have to admit, Cassie. I had you pegged wrong. When you said you were going to cook for us, I thought we'd be eating diet food for dinner."
Cassie laughed. "I do eat my fair share of lean protein, but the trick is to not let myself like it too much. We only get to live once, and food is one of the best things on this planet. If God didn't want us to enjoy food then we wouldn't have 10,000 taste buds. I just have to know when to treat myself and how much to eat when I do."
"You're a better woman than me", Melissa said. "If I could cook like you, I'd be as big as a house." She stood up to take her wine glass to the kitchen.
"Shit!" Avery stood up quickly, and everybody looked his way. "I have to mail a letter tonight. The damn thing has to be postmarked today. I have to go to the damn main post office for that." Avery hurried to his bedroom and grabbed the large envelope, his keys, wallet, and cell phone. "It's going to take me forever to get across town, but I have to do it."
"Aww, you're such a hard working man", Melissa teased him while taking him by the collar.
"I gotta bring home the bacon", Avery countered with a smile. "Don't wait up for me, baby. I might be back late."
"Oh, let me get that book out of your car before you go then. I want to finish it tonight."
Melissa followed Avery down the steps to his car, commenting on the food and on what a nice young woman Cassie was. She left out the part about her being jealous and instead remarked that for spoiled rich kids, they were all decent people. Avery tried to tactfully say that Melissa was too quick to judge sometimes.
"Maybe I am", Melissa admitted as Avery handed the book out the window.
"See you later", Avery said and pulled out of the parking space. The complex gates opened up, and he went down the street many called surgeon's row because so many of the homes on either side of the street belonged to the area's top doctors. Avery came to the intersection and had to stop at the light. Nothing was out of the ordinary, but he thought it strange that the construction crews were working so late. They must have a deadline he thought to himself. He checked his watch. He had a deadline too. He wanted to be in bed next to Melissa in forty minutes.
A heavy duty Kenworth W900 barreled down the freeway carrying an oversized load. A Chevy Suburban with tinted windows paced the truck while another Suburban trailed. Their yellow lights flashed to alert traffic to move out of the way of the big heavy load, but they had more than yellow lights for protection. Each Chevy was full of swat cops from the Georgia Hw Patrol and the Macon police department. The blended group of swat officers was fully loaded for whatever might be thrown their way. They had even added armor plate to the big rig just in case it came under attack. The rig was pulling an elongated flatbed trailer with a huge hollow concrete cube on the back. The hollow concrete block was meant for the sewer plant in Macon, but that project was months behind schedule. The police were using it to hid the tons and tons of drugs they had seized.
Everything had gone to plan. They had pulled out of Macon an hour and a half earlier with not even a blip of interest from the public or the media. Nobody thought that this was anything other than a construction delivery for a big project in Atlanta. The Atlanta cops were prepared for the move though. They had marked cars everywhere, and unmarked units waiting close to the route. They didn't want to give anything away. They even had a helicopter unit ready. There had been no compromises during the planning of this mission. It was too bad that it was already compromised.
The leading Suburban got off at the exit with the rig and trailing vehicle behind him. They stopped at the traffic light getting off the interstate. They thought it better to observe the rules of the road instead of having cops block traffic and make this load look somehow special. Besides they were almost home free. They were going to pass through one of the city's wealthiest neighborhoods, then turn down a long industrial road that lead to the Customs warehouse. The cops were alert though, looking for anything out of the ordinary, but what they saw was so ordinary that they dismissed it out of hand.
At the second traffic light, their light was green so barely slowed. They noticed very bight working lights off to their right and a single sedan stopped at the cross street to their left. There was one guy in the sedan, they ignored him. They paid more attention to the bright lights to their right, but then they saw a construction project underway complete with heavy dozers, font end loaders, dump trucks, and all the other things that built a big building. They went through the intersection and past the construction site.
Jose gave the signal over his phone as the trucks moved passed the big construction site, a tracked bulldozer started moving. The engine came to life and it started towards the road. It sped up as it came closer, but it was still on the construction grounds. The cops all but ignored it. It wasn't even heading their direction. It was going right at a 110' tall basswood tree. The cops didn't know that the trunk and root system of the tree had been damaged by a storm. The contractor was trying to save it, but these cartel men had a different use for it. The dozer gathered speed and hit the tree. The branches shook violently, but the tree that had stood on that spot since before Sherman had burned Atlanta, didn't want to go that easily. The driver of the dozer kept his head. He backed up a few feet and hit it again. The tree shook, but didn't go over. His window was about to close. He knew what would happen if he didn't do his job. He panicked and pushed the bulldozer as hard as it could. The tracks threw dirt and muck back thirty feet, but finally the basswood tree lost its fight to stay upright. The fall started slowly and painfully, but it gathered so much speed that eventually the upper end of the tree fell like a blur.
"Halt! Halt!", the swat guy in command of the lead truck yelled over the radio. The tree had fallen only a few feet from the hood of the suburban. A few more feet and the tree would have crushed them. They turned towards the construction site. Someone had just tried to kill them, but they were wrong. The tree wasn't to kill them. Two more bulldozers were coming their way. These were already off the site and on the road. Their seven foot tall tires dwarfed even the big suv's. Cops shot their guns out the windows, but the bullets pinked off the thick steel blades. The men running those bulldozers didn't have anything to fear from small arms fire.
"Get out! Get out!", the cops yelled at the top of their lungs as the steel blades of the machines bore down on them. One of the men on the driver side managed to get his door open, but that was all before the dozer hit the suv sending a shower of glass to pavement to be crushed as the dozer crushed the Chevy. It's tired skidded and shredded as they tried in vain to hold the vehicle in place. Finally they ruptured and the rubber was torn from the rims. The axles broke; the fuel lines ruptured, but worst of all, the bulldozer pushed the men until the other side of the vehicles were pressed against thick concrete walls on the other side of the street. The men inside the two suv's were trapped. That wasn't enough though. The drivers of the bulldozers pushed the throttle to the floor, slowly crushing the men inside.
The trailing suv suffered a similar fate as the first except that a car had been caught up by the unstoppable bulldozer. Avery had been trying to cross the intersection to get away, but the driver of the second Suburban had swerved right into Avery causing neither man to be able to get away. Instead the bulldozer had hit this SUV and pushed it all the way across the street. It didn't matter to the big machine that there was a sedan stuck to the front of the Suburban. Both vehicles hit the wall that helped keep the noise of the highway out of the posh neighborhood. Now the concrete was being used as an anvil. Avery was dazed and disoriented, but he was well enough to notice the front of his car getting smaller. His driver door was mangled and his passenger door was pinned to the driver door of the Suburban. "Shit shit shit!", Avery yelled as the first bit of dashboard began pressing in on his legs. His fingers fumbled for the seatbelt release. He pushed it, and jerked the belt over his head. He only had enough time to jump into the back seat. That saved his life because the bulldozer just kept pushing until the front of his car was unrecognizable.
While the bulldozer drivers were laughing and crushing cops, other cartel men ran up to the big rig with their rifles ready. Some fire shots, but they couldn't penetrate the steel plates that had been welded to the inside of the doors. The truck driver felt safe in his rig until he saw two men toss something under the bottom of his truck. He threw the door open and jumped out to the ground. The two grenades exploded before he'd even hit the pavement. The concussion and flying shrapnel hit him in the face and body. He looked a bloody mess, but only one of his numerous injuries had been fatal. A piece of steel the size of a pinkie nail had gotten into his chest cavity and pierced his aorta. He bled out on the street in a manner of seconds. Just to make sure, two cartel men stood over him and fired into his torso and head. The shooting stopped and the men got to work off loading their drugs. They used the big scoop of an excavator to pull a couple tons of cocaine and heroin out at a time. They took the drugs out of the hollow concrete block and put them in dump trucks that they had stolen from another job site down the street.
Jose looked on from the relative safety of the construction trailer. "Good job", he told Slim. "Looks like you've earned your money. Just sit tight, and when we get out of here, you're going to be a fucking rich man." Slim clapped his hands and smiled. It fell away a little when he heard sirens getting closer. It sounded like a dozen cops cars coming all at once.
Jose shook his head. "Don't be a fucking pussy. You don't think we planned for this? Like the fucking pigs were going to let us get our dope back." He laughed and picked up his phone to give more orders.
The cops came down the main road, but the cartel men had taken up cover behind the fallen tree. The cops didn't know what to make of the tree across the road. The branches were so dense and big that they could hardly see what was going on behind the tree. All they knew was that fellow cops were in trouble, but as they approached the tree, a wall of lead came at them. The cartel men opened up with automatic rifles. The bullets ripped the fronts of the cop cars to shreds. They darted left or right to get out of the killing zone, but the cartel men followed them. Three out of four cops in the lead two cars died. The fourth managed to get out and run to a overpass support for cover from the withering fire. The cartel men had set up a roadblock going in three directions. They would load each dump truck with the drugs and then use the fourth way to get out. They only had to go one block before they ran to another major intersection. Once the dump trucks got on that road, they would go in different directions. The cops couldn't cut off every road out of town. Even if one or two trucks got caught, so fucking what? They'd have 80% of their drugs, and that was better than 0%.
At the apartment, Alisha helped Cassie load the dishwasher. Cassie was commenting that loading the dishwasher was the first job her father had let her do at his flagship restaurant in Chicago. While they finished, Jan had stepped out onto the terrace for some fresh air. It was a cool night in Atlanta, but not as cold as it had been a few days earlier. She looked off in the distance, but kept hearing something strange, or rather out of place. It was really far away, and hard to pin down. The courtyard created by the separate buildings of the complex did funny things to the sound. She went to the front door landing to try and figure out what she was hearing. Then the phone rang, complete screwing up her dialed in hearing.
Sara came out of her room and picked up the receiver in the living room. "Oh, hey Charles", she answered after hearing her brother's voice.
"Hello, Sara", Charles uttered, but he was distracted, like he'd been for the last several weeks. "I was calling to check on Avery. Is he with you?", he asked, but already knew the answer.
"No", Sara began, "he had to go to the post office. He should be halfway there by now."
"Umm, could you check on him… you know what I mean, how you check on people. I'll talk to you later."
Sara hung up the phone and tried to decipher what her brother had meant. She sighed and dialed Avery's phone number. She would have used her gift, but Avery wasn't very used to her communicating with him that way. She didn't want him to run off the road. He was used to cell phones though.
Jan frowned and tilted her head towards the sounds. She heard engines and tire squeals and gunshots! Why was she hearing gunshots? And now she heard helicopters.
Sara frowned because Avery wasn't answering his phone. She put the receiver on the cradle and decided to use her gift to check on him. Just then Cassie came in and turned on the television. "Oh my goodness, guys look at this!", she called out. The rest came back into the room and looked at the 50" plasma. The scene on the screen was chaotic. The reporter was doing his best to give the situation.
"We have police officers out gunned and pinned down by this unknown aggressor!", the reporter exclaimed. "They're shooting at anything that moves. We were forced to pull our own news helicopter far away from the scene because automatic gunfire was coming in our direction. The police captain sent to take charge of the scene has been shot and wounded, plus we know that there are civilians in the area, including a child care center." The camera panned around the scene from a distance using the telephoto lens.
"That's right down the street", Melissa exclaimed as she saw more of the area on the television. It was hard to believe that all of this was happening only a couple miles from where she was watching it.
All of the sudden, Jan inhaled sharply when she saw a group of pinned down police officers. They were behind the smoking shell of a squad car, huddled together trying and failing at dodging the rifle fire. Jan recognized one of those faces. Jim Brucks was a cop who had stopped her from making a big mistake. She couldn't just let him die. Without a word, Jan ran for the door. She threw it open and continued onto the landing. She hopped to the metal railing, planted then launched herself out into the air. One push from Jan's powerful leg was enough to propel her over the lawn and the parked cars. She landed in the middle of the parking lot. She went to a knee when she landed, over a hundred feet from the front door. She didn't have her keys, so she took off at a super powered sprint. Jan's strength flowed to all her muscles. She loved the feeling, but she couldn't focus on that. She only had one purpose. She ran much faster than any normal human could have. Jan didn't have to remind herself that wasn't normal. She was super again, and as more power flooded out she felt her body harden. She came to the eight foot black iron fence surrounding the complex and didn't even hesitate. She jumped over it without breaking stride then faded off into the darkness, moving like a blur.
Melissa turned to face the others, mouth agape. Sara and Alisha wondered why Jan had taken off like that before they remembered that Melissa was going to wonder how Jan had taken off like that.
Alisha was trying to figure out how to begin to explain what had happened when Sara's face turned three shades of pale. "Avery."
"What?", Melissa asked with keen interest.
"Avery's out there", Sara mumbled, trying to convince herself that she wasn't imagining this. "I have to get down there!"
Sara started towards the door too. "Wait!", Alisha yelled. "First tell Jan. She's already on the way."
That was a good idea. She found Jan's mind in fraction of a second. "Jan, Avery's down there in the line of fire. He's hurt in some way! Save him, please!"
"I'm on it", Jan thought back. "Don't worry, Sara. I'll get him out of there."
"Thank you", Sara said out loud.
"What is going ON!", Melissa yelled, but no one answered.
"I have to get down there." Sara started for the door again.
"Wait", Alisha called out again. "Take me with you." Sara and Alisha ran out to the landing, but they didn't jump and run like Jan did. They simply floated away.
It was all too much too soon. Melissa looked from the door to the television screen. It looked like a battle ground out there. Melissa's eyes rolled in her head, and she fainted.
A couple miles down the road, Jan was getting close. She saw men in various states of distress. Bullets whizzed near Jan, but she didn't flinch. She charged ahead. The bright construction lights lit up the scene like a movie set, but the cries and screams of wounded men was real. Jan could smell the gunpowder and the blood. She stopped running looked around. Avery was somewhere in this chaos. She saw the rear of a car sticking out the side of that concrete wall. She ran up. There was more concentrated gunfire, but Jan went towards the twisted rear of the car with a Louisiana license plate. "AVERY!", she yelled then put her ear to the trunk. The sound was faint, but she could make out banging. "I'll get you out of there! Just hold on tight."
Jan put her hands on the rear of the car and pulled up. Blood rushed to Jan's muscles to do her bidding. Her muscles swelled and the entire trunk lid ripped off the back of Avery's sedan with one loud sound. Jan tossed it to the ground and grabbed the rear seat support. The soft steel had no chance. Her grip alone crushed it, and one pulled broke it loose. The back seat fell back and Avery's upper body fell into the trunk. With the crushing pressure off his chest, he finally took a deep breathe.
"I've got you", Jan said as she took him gently around the shoulders.
Avery's face was red and a trickle of blood ran from his lip, but he seemed to be mostly unhurt. He pulled and tugged on Jan's arms in a frantic attempt to get out of the trunk. "I'm stuck! I'm stuck!"
Jan pulled on his leg a couple of times, but the front seat was smashed all the way to the rear seat. She had to get him free without tearing his foot off. Jan looked up to see the bulldozer idling with its blade pressed against the concrete wall. Jan's anger rose, and she rushed away from Avery's side up to the black and yellow dozer blade. She put her hands on the top of the blade. She had to bend her body to get her feet against the concrete wall. There was a moment of status quo, then Jan's muscle erupted in one quick burst of super human power. Her face was one of tortured effort as she pushed her body more than it had been pushed in months. She could feel her own vascular muscles flexing up to their inhuman perfection. The dozer began to move backwards. Jan could feel it inching away, giving more space to whatever was trapped in front of the blade. Her eyes were closed in concentration, so she hadn't yet seen what was right below her. Jan's body straightened more and the tires were heard to squeal as her legs pushed with huge force against the wall forcing the metal beast back. She was going to do it, and her body was still a couple of feet from straight. With her long arms and legs, she could push the blade pretty far away from the wall, but she didn't know that there was anyone in the crew cabin of the bulldozer. There was. He had been shooting at cops across the street, but he turned around when he felt himself moving backwards. He put his foot on the accelerator and the diesel went from its rumbling idle to a roar of activity. The tires dug into the asphalt and pushed forward reversing all of Jan's early gains.
"Shit", Jan grunted under her breath. "Ok, you want to play… let's PLAY!!", she yelled as she once again pushed with all of her considerable might. Her muscles grew at her command, tearing stitches and seams of her clothes. The engine took on a labored whine as Jan's muscles powered against it. A sheen of sweat formed on Jan's skin in the cool night air as this one young woman fought off tons of construction machine. Jan grunted and strained until her beautiful face was turning shades of red and her muscles were harder than coffin nails. Inch by laboring inch, Jan pushed the machine back. The engine was game for the fight, but the tires just burned rubber against the pavement. Smoke billowed from the exhaust of the vehicle, but Jan was already counting her victory. She finally managed to open her eyes and look down. She was shocked. There was an entire SUV beneath her. Her keen blue eyes took it all in at once. Men were in that flattened car. "Oh my God", Jan breathed. She couldn't believe it, but they were still alive. She could see men moving. "I'll get you out of there! Just hold on!", Jan yelled down to them. Her rage came out in its full fury at seeing those trapped men fighting for their lives. A sustained labored grunt escaped Jan's lips as she pushed for the final time. The guy in the machine was seeing himself losing ground no matter what he did. He was about to jump out of the cab, and he should have because the worst thing that could have happened for him did.
Jan's ruined sneakers were pressed against the concrete wall at the front of the neighborhood. So far it had withstood both the bulldozer and the super powered young woman, but it couldn't take them both for long. A big chunk of it broke with a thunderous crack. Jan lost her footing. The dozer surged forward pushing Jan over the wall and back twenty feet. She landed on her butt. She grimaced when the blade of the bull dozer slammed into the wall once again trapping those men, and squeezing Avery's car. She looked over at him, still trapped in his car. He was in pain. He had managed to move his leg a little when the pressure had been off, but now it was back with a vengeance. He was pinned in an uncomfortable position.
Jan'd had enough. She planted and jumped to the top of the concrete wall. She paused just long enough to find the control cabin of the bulldozer. The cartel driver saw the shape of a woman appear out of the corner of his eye. By the time he looked, she was on him. She jumped in the air fifteen feet and landed right outside the glass and steel encased control area bursting through it with her anger and rage. She took the driver by chest and shoulder. At that moment she hated him so much that she didn't even want to touch him so she threw him away like a piece of trash, neverminding that the steel and glass frame behind him was intact. His body broke through the frame fracturing both of his arms, a leg, and his back. He hit the road 80 feet away then bounced and slid across the pavement. Jan found reverse. The bulldozer started back at an idle. Jan jumped from the cab and climbed over the blade next to the ruined Suburban. She saw at least four men inside fighting for every breath they took. Her face showed how urgently she wanted to save them. She put her right hand under the bottom of the vehicle then the muscles of her left forearm tightened when she dug her fingers into the steel for a grip. She stood up like she was lifted a big box instead of a three and a half ton vehicle. The men inside the Suburban had never seen anything like this. Their brains didn't want to believe what their eyes were telling them. There was a gorgeous woman carrying them in arms that looked impossibly hard and ripped.
The cartel gunmen, who were well covered, turned when they heard one of their men scream like a banshee while flying through the air. They saw him sailing from the cabin of the bulldozer. His arms and his legs were broken at strange angles. He hit the ground and skidded along it for a good way, taking off skin as he traveled. When he stopped, he looked more like road kill than the man who had just been one of them. They turned their guns towards the bulldozer as it moved backwards.
A bullet grazed Jan's leg, but she couldn't afford to flinch with 7000 pounds above her head. Bullets hit the SUV. Jan had planned to carry it around the wall, but her triceps flexed like pythons when she tossed the Suburban over the wall. She followed behind it quickly. "You guys alive in there?", she asked through a misshapen window.
"We need to get out of here! We can't breathe!"
Jan took big handfuls of steel and ripped the driver door off. She then put both hands on the vertical support. She grit her teeth and bore down, crushing the steel between her fingers as hard as she could, using all the power and strength that her body had been without for so long. The steel bowed and bent to her will. Jan's awesome back flexed and her lats flared as she pulled the rent the support. She pealed the roof back and folded it on itself. The men started spilling out. "I'll be right back, I promise."
She ran to Avery's car. He was still partially out of his trunk. Bullets were hitting the front of his car since it was on the bad side of the wall. She took his car by the rear clip and lifted it up. Avery's eyes bulged almost as much as her biceps as she curled the weight of his sedan like a warm-up set of dumbbell curls. She dragged his car around the back of the wall then went to the passenger window. She reached one hand inside and completely ripped the passenger seat out. Avery was free and pulling himself out when Jan took him by the shoulder and pulled him the rest of the way out. She didn't put him down, instead she cradled him while she took him far away to safety behind another basswood tree.
"Are you hurt?", Jan asked him.
"I don't think so."
Before Jan could say another word Sara and Alisha landed on the grass behind her. "AVERY!!!!", Sara yelled and rushed to her cousin.
"I told you I'd get him", Jan told her friend. Jan took one more look at Avery before she rushed to SUV. She helped the final two men out of the Suburban. It was a miracle that all the men were alive. The front of Avery's car had allowed room enough for these men to survive. One man though, was badly hurt. She hoped he would make it, but there was no way to get to the paramedics. They were on the other side of this battleground.
"Thank you so much, whoever you are", one cop said shaking his head in relief and disbelief.
"What the hell is going on here?", Alisha asked as she ran out of the darkness towards Jan and the rescued cops.
"I have no idea, but there's more cops pinned down. We have to help."
"Yeah, I know we have to help."
"The other SUV", a cop managed. "There's men in that other SUV over there." Jan and Alisha turned to see a bulldozer pushing against the other half of the concrete wall on the other side of the street.
"I have to get to Brucks." Jan was torn.
"I'll get Sara to help with that one up there. You get to Brucks. Go on!", Alisha said. Jan nodded then sprinted away. The cops were wowed again at Jan's speed. Alisha was just glad Jan was back at 100%. After a moment she looked down at one of the cops. "Sir, can I borrow that?" She pointed at his M4 carbine. He was too stunned to deny her.
Sara was in Alisha's head and she explained the situation. Sara left Avery behind the tree to help Alisha, who had run across the street to get an angle on the bulldozer. Alisha knelt at the back of the intersection and took careful aim down the sights. She took a breath, held it, and pulled the trigger without hesitation. A three shot burst of 5.56mm ammo hit this bulldozer driver in the side of the head. That stopped the pressure on the lead Suburban. Alisha rushed forward with Sara fifty feet to her left. As they ran, Sara saw Alisha disappear. Alisha ran to the side of the bulldozer, exposing her to gunfire even if she was invisible and climbed into the cab. She pulled the dead cartel man out of his seat then put the big machine into reverse. Once the bulldozer had rolled back enough, Sara picked up the SUV with her telekinetic power. She set it on the safe side of the concrete wall while she and Alisha pulled men from the twisted wreckage. Only three out of the five men inside this vehicle would live.
Jim Brucks had been hit in his thigh by a ricochet and in the shoulder by a direct shot. He was bleeding, hurting and praying. To make it worse, his partner had been hit somewhere in the upper torso. Brucks couldn't get close enough to render aid. Bullets from the cartel tore through the side of his car like it wasn't there. It was certain death to move away from the wheel well where he was protected by the thick axle. Through his sweat and fear, Brucks saw a familiar shape. Jan came out of the shadows and smoke right for him. "How you doing, Sergeant Brucks?", Jan asked like they were passing on the street.
"Jan? What the fuck are you doing? Get your ass out of here before you get killed!" Brucks tried to move to the side, exposing himself, so he could put her to his safe place in the wheel well.
"I'm here to save you." She put her arms around him.
"How the hell are you gonna do that?", the big policeman asked incredulously.
Jan pulled his 275 pounds off the ground and turned away from the kill zone. A bullet grazed Jan's side, but she'd rather it hit her than Sgt. Brucks. She ran him all the way to the police perimeter.
"You have to get my partner!", Brucks told Jan. "I don't know how the hell you did it, but go get my partner!"
Jan smiled at him and patted his shoulder. "Get those wounds taken care of, and I'll be right back." She left him and ran towards the gunfire again. A minute later, she ran back out with a full grown man draped across her arms like a baby, but as she came close Brucks saw that it wasn't enough to call them arms. Jan's arms were some of the most defined and beautifully muscled he had ever seen. Each movement caused pops and bulges of either biceps or delts or both. It was amazing. "This man needs help now! He's lost a lot of blood!" She took him to a trauma line that had been set up. Jan dropped the man off then found Brucks. They were already working on his injuries.
"I think I'm gonna make it", he told Jan with a smile when she walked up next to him. This was the same girl he had seen a few days ago, but something was different. She was impossibly strong and powerful. She wore that power like a halo all around her. Her power demanded a certain reverence and respect even when she looked at him with a caring smile on her face.
"Glad to hear it. You take care of yourself. Oh, and please don't tell anybody my name or even that you know me. I'll explain later." Jan ran off towards the gunfire again. She had more work to do.
"Something's happening", Slim breathed and stood up to look out of the windows of the trailer.
"Sit yo bitch ass down!", Jose yelled. "I ain't told you to stand up. We've gotten three trucks loaded. You don't leave until all seven are loaded. Got it?" Slim nodded meekly.
On the other side of the gun battle, a dozen cops were running low on ammo while they fired at several cartel men who were protected by a fallen tree. The tree was much too thick for anything to go through it, while the cartel had already cut down two cops. The men were looking to retreat when at once, the shooting stopped. They were too afraid to stick their heads out, but their overloaded minds wondered why it was suddenly quiet. They had no idea that it was the work of one 20 year old. Alisha was projecting a torturous illusion to the eight cartel men behind the tree. It was the most horrible insanity inducing image that Alisha had ever come up with. Men scream and writhed in torture. While Alisha held the illusion, Sara disarmed the men. When Alisha finally released the men they were too shaken to move. They cowered beneath the branches of the tree, some of them mentally scarred forever. They had just broken one side of the cartel's front. When fresh cops came in and overran the tree hide out, they found eight men who offered no resistance at all.
Jan was finding quite a bit of resistance and loving every minute of it. The cartel men had dug themselves a bunker. From that bunker they were able to put merciless fire on the out gunned cops. The bunker faced east so Jan came in from the south and west. By the time a cartel man saw her, it was too late. One man turned and fired a shot that hit Jan in the side of her stomach. The bullet tore through her blouse and skin and muscle and out her back. Jan landed next to him and her fist tore into her chest, breaking every bone and crushing his heart while it pumped. One blow was all it took. Another man turned and fired. This shot ripped through her neck, but she didn't even slow down. She took him under both shoulders and tossed him straight up. He screamed as he rose like a rocket. Jan grabbed the barrel of the next man's machine gun and snatched it from his hand while he'd been firing at cops. He pulled out a long knife and plunged it into Jan's stomach. It went in several inches, but this tall bitch smiled at him and casually dropped the machine gun on the ground.
She held up three fingers. "Three, two, one", she counted off then glanced up. He couldn't take his eyes off of this woman to look up, so he never saw the cartel man coming down at 100 mph. Jan frowned and moved the man over a few inches in the instant before the 200 pound man fell back into the bunker on top of his buddy. Both men died instantly. Jan pulled the knife from her stomach and bent the blade until it broke. "That hurt", she told the dead man as her rage fueled power healed her body. Jan could see the cops in the distance looking beleaguered, but they started to make their move.
At the apartment, Melissa woke up to see usually bubbly Cassie looking very serious. "I'm glad you finally woke up", Cassie said after a sigh. "Now we can get going."
"Get going where?", Melissa asked and sat up. Cassie had put her on the sofa after she had fainted. "You mean down to that!" Melissa pointed at the screen.
"Yes, we have to get down there, and now that you're awake I don't have to go through your purse to find your car keys."
Fear ran wild through Melissa, and she felt faint again. "Are you crazy, why would we go down there!!!!"
Cassie stepped closer and looked hard at Melissa. "So I can stop this stuff before more people get killed."
"How the hell are you going to stop all that!!!!"
"That same way I just took your fear away."
Melissa opened her mouth to yell something else, but realized that she wasn't scared anymore. She wasn't even the least bit afraid. "How did you do that?"
"Never mind the how. Get up and get your keys. It's time to go!" Melissa did what Cassie ordered, and they were on their way to the battle area in Melissa very tidy Honda Accord.
"Why isn't everybody shooting!?!", Jose yelled into his phone when he looked out the window of the foreman's trailer.
"Something is taking our men out!", one of his lieutenants yelled back. "And it ain't the cops!"
Jose didn't have time to try and figure out what that meant. He saw two armored swat vehicles moving towards the dump trucks that they were trying to protect. "Okay these bastards what step it up. We can step it up too. Get out the shit", Jose ordered the men in the trailer.
The six men went to the cases and pulled out two of the rpg-29's that they'd brought. "Load them bitches", Jose ordered. He took one of the launchers and aimed it out the open window at one of the armored vehicles. This rpg wasn't the cheap crap used in the Middle East. This was one of the finest anti-tank weapons made. It was one of the few things that could knock out an American M-1 tank. Jose aimed it at the armored vehicle and fired. The launch tail broke the window opposite him and nearly burned Slim, but it flew right at the armored vehicle. The back end exploded in a shower of sparks and shrapnel.
"Fuckin A!", Jose shouted. "That should make them back the fuck up." It did. The other armored vehicle pulled back immediately, and then to show the cops who was boss, Jose took a shot at the helicopter. The rocket missed, but barely. The helicopter made a hasty retreat. Jose had planned to use these rockets to blow his way out of town, but he could spare a few. He and his men started shooting machine guns out the windows to let the cops know to keep their distance.
"Holy shit", Alisha said for the other two girls after they met up. "We have to get to that trailer."
"Yeah, but with the cross fire its too much open ground for you to cover even invisible", Sara said, her mind working for a solution.
Jan snapped her finger. "I have an idea." She explained it.
Sara shook her head. "If you were anybody else, I'd say that you're crazy, but ok get ready." Jan readied herself while Sara's power gathered around her. "Ok, here I go." Jan felt Sara's immense power tighten around her and then Jan rocketed into the air like the drug man she'd thrown. Jan tried not to scream as she first flew 100 feet up then started down. She tried to right herself so she could see where she was falling, but she couldn't. She just felt the impact as she went through something and then something else before she hit the ground.
"What the fuck!!", Slim yelled and jumped back.
Jose turned and looked at the hole in the roof and the floor. "Those fuckin cops are trying to shoot some big shit too. Well their shit don't work like ours. Get another one of them rockets ready."
Jan tried to shake the cobwebs from her head as she sat up in the space under the trailer. She'd fallen straight through it. Sara might have to work on her delivery, but her aim was pretty damn good. Jan listened while Jose's men loaded another rpg and readied to fire it. She had to do something. She thought about bursting through the floor, but while she looked around, she got another idea. She had to hurry before these guys fired another rocket. She turned her body and put her shoulder against the main support of the trailer floor. She extended her arms for balance then the insanity began.
Jan unleashed her strength and her muscles surged forcing her clothes skin tight against her body before they burst through the fabric like growing landscapes of rock hard female might. The metal supports groaned and sagged from the pressure of Jan's shoulders pressing against them. The steel bent around her traps and delts while her legs went up like pistons. Jan's vascular quads hulked out of her pants as she lifted everything and everyone in that trailer. She didn't use leverage or anything else, just pure muscle bursting strength to life that trailer off its foundation. Dust flew and her feet sank into the dirt, but Jan's powerful muscles would not be denied.
"Its an earthquake!!!", the men inside the trailer yelled as it lurched violently. They lost their footing and fell to the ground. The rpg fell and started sliding along the moving floor.
Jan powered upward until she bore all the weight of the trailer on her able shoulders. Then her arms got into the act. She gritted her teeth and strained her muscles to the utmost just to feel the sensation of the power. She had missed it so much. She had tried to forget what this felt like, but she relished doing the seemingly impossible. She raised her arms up and up and up. Her muscles were cut like granite perfection, so hard and so strong that the weight of the trailer became nothing. She pushed her arms higher. Her face was determined and so were her muscles. Finally she had the entire trailer up. She held it for a second or two, just to feel the weight pressing down on her body, but knowing that her body was pressing upward even harder. She could have stood up to her full height, but she didn't have to. She leaned forward and the trailer started over. She let it fall, but gave it a gentle shove as it went over on its side. It landed in a cloud of dust and dirt. The men inside were disoriented.
"Show off", Alisha whispered in Jan's ear as she and Sara ran up to help clean up the men inside. Both of them were invisible to anybody but Jan.
"You guys ready to finish this?", Jan asked as they started in to the trailer.
Sara and Alisha nodded. This was going to get a little grizzly, but they were ready to do what they had to do.
Cassie jumped out of the car when she reached the intersection. Cops were still being shot at by the men loading drugs into the dump trucks, and there were other stiff pockets of resistance. Cassie knew that no one else had to die. She formed the emotion in her mind and then projected it out. After mere seconds, the shooting stopped completely from both sides. Cassie walked over to the nearest cop. She watched as the tension fell from his face. "You can order the bad guys to come out."
"What?", he asked placidly. "I didn't understand you."
"Order the bad guys to come out. They'll do whatever you say."
The man shrugged his shoulders and picked up his megaphone. He ordered everybody to come out with their hands up. Cassie was pleased when she saw cartel men walking out from their cover, then her three friends came out looking listless. "Oops", she said under her breath and quickly excluded her friends from her projection. Their emotions became their own once again. Alisha used her power to hide the three of them while they ran over to Cassie.
"You mean you can influence this many people at once?", Sara yelled.
Cassie nodded. "Numbers don't matter to me as much as distance, now hold on one sec. This isn't easy." Cassie kept her control of everyone's emotions until the cops had handcuffed every bad guy. "I'm sorry I couldn't have gotten here sooner then you guys wouldn't have been in danger."
"It's okay. We're just glad you came when you did." Jan, Sara, and Alisha looked around the scene at all that had happened and at all they had done. It finally dawned on them that there had to be dozens of men who had seen at least some of the impossible things that they had done. Cassie felt their concern.
"We better get out of here, or we'll have lots of explaining to do." They headed to Melissa's car because Cassie had the keys. They piled into her Honda, and hurried to the complex. The cops were too busy to notice the car. Melissa stayed with her fiancée while the paramedics tended to his very minor wounds, and while the police took his statement. Avery was one of the only witnesses to not mention one or more mysterious young women. Avery scoffed when the cop mentioned a tall young woman who many had seen, or a shorter blonde girl.
"It was a stressful situation", Avery began, "but I know what I saw and what I didn't see."
Reporters were finally allowed back in the area. They talked to everybody they could, but a nice police officer gave Melissa and Avery a ride to the complex. They entered the apartment and never before had it felt so warm and comforting. By the time they walked in, Jan, Sara, Alisha, and Cassie had showered and changed clothes. They lounged around the living room trying to decompress from all the action of the night. Jan, Sara, and Alisha had explained that they had at one time been Federal Agents, which is how Alisha had learned how to shoot. Cassie found it all fascinating, and wondered how she could have missed all that at Livingston. Melissa and Avery walked in holding each other and sat down in the midst of them. There was awkward silence for a few seconds until Melissa broke it.
"So the four of you have super powers?" Avery had told her all he knew while they had been waiting at the scene.
They nodded. "We all have different abilities", Sara answered.
"Are you mutants or something?"
Jan, Sara, and Alisha looked at each other, but Cassie laughed. "Mutants? Are you serious? No, we are not mutated anything. Powers are in our genes, and they run in families. I would wager that Avery, being Sara's first cousin, has half of what it takes to be gifted."
"I don't understand. Are you saying that Avery's like you all?"
"No, you have to have two halves to make a whole. Genetically we get half of the genes from our mother and the other half from our father." Cassie stood up and took Avery's hand in hers. Her eyes partially shut for a moment then she let go. "He does have half, the half that you got from your mother Sara."
Sara's tired face brightened. "So you mean he can feel the linking?"
Cassie nodded. "Not fully, but yeah he can be linked."
"Oh man Avery, we have to get Cassie to link us. It's the most amazing thing ever."
Melissa's face turned very red. Cassie slapped her hands on her thighs to everyone's surprise. "You have to stop that!", Cassie yelled at Melissa.
"Wha… what?" Melissa was confused by Cassie's outburst.
"The jealousy. You have to let it go. If you knew what I knew, you wouldn't worry about Avery's feelings about you as much as you do. I've rarely felt a man as devoted to a woman he hasn't even married yet, as Avery is to you."
"I don't know what you're talking about. I'm not jealous at all."
"How can you let that lie slip past your lips. I can feel emotions remember, all of them, and you can't hide them from me. I can feel your emotions as closely as you do."
Melissa blinked back a tear and looked at Avery. "I can't help it."
Avery pushed some of Melissa's hair from her face. "I don't know what I can do to prove myself", Avery said, blinking back his own tears. He loved Melissa so much. He couldn't understand how she couldn't see it.
"I think I can help you with that", Cassie put in. Everyone's eyes asked how. "You have some gifted people in your extended family somewhere because you have a part of what it takes to be gifted, Melissa. I felt it when you fainted in my arms. It's on a completely different power tree than Avery's, but I think its enough."
"Enough for what? How does that help us?"
"Because I can do this. Give me you hands." They joined hands and Cassie let loose the energy that was passed down in her family. She quickly linked the two of them to her. They could feel what the members of the circle had felt the night before. Then Cassie opened them to her power. They couldn't feel it as completely as a truly gifted person could, but it was good enough for Melissa to finally understand how Avery felt about her, and for Avery to do the same. Melissa started crying, and as soon as Cassie closed the link Avery and the love of his life embraced. They stayed in the living room for a long time and talked, the other four left the room to them. They were all tired anyway especially Jan. She was sore like she'd been run over by a steamroller. She hadn't used her body like that in months and it was getting payback.
The next morning was one for travel. Avery and Melissa headed to Baton Rouge for Thanksgiving with her family. She didn't mention anything about special powers at all, although she did thank Cassie one more time for allowing she and Avery to connect. Jan, Sara, Alisha, and Cassie were heading to Chicago. They left on a chartered business jet, and didn't have to wait in the lobby with the rest of the people at the world's busiest airport. If they had of waited for a few minutes one of them might have noticed the headline on the newspaper.
'Superheroes in Atlanta?'
'Wounded Cops swear to it'
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