It was a cold, rainy afternoon in the Nation's Capital. Jan was about to leave DC for the drive back to her home in a posh Baltimore suburb, but she just had to stop and get a smoothie. It was cold outside and wet, but Jan loved a good smoothie. She sipped at the last of it as she headed to get on the freeway, but something caught her eye.

She was heading through a part of town that wasn't usually on the Washington DC tour. There were plenty of those areas in DC. Jan thought she saw a flash of light off to her left. There was a thunder clap a moment later. Jan looked at the sky. There was an off and on drizzle falling, but no lightning. She slowed down when she saw another flash then another. Then she saw shapes. It looked like an urban assault exercise. Jan had taken part in several of those, but she realized that this was something else.

She parked her new car down the block and decided to be nosy. She left her jacket in the car and went to the corner of a building so she could look down the cross street. Jan regretted not bringing her jacket, but she wanted to get a look around the corner before she went back to the car. She was about to poke her head around the corner when she heard gunshots from an automatic weapon. Jan frowned and realized too late that she had left her gun at home. She heard women screaming and then she heard tires squealing. She wasn't sure what she was looking at. Then she saw another flash of light and heard a deep buzzing sound, and then a car at the end of the street exploded. Men fired guns and cursed. Some had pieces of glass in their faces while others were burning. Jan had to pull back when stray bullets hit near her head. She looked again and her mouth dropped open. A young boy stood in the middle of the street. There were several men in strange suits laying near him. There was shooting, and the boy still stood in the middle of the street. Jan couldn't believe it. She glanced down the street and took off after the boy.

There was another buzz and flash of light. The area got so bright Jan had to close her eyes for a moment, but she kept running. She felt bullets zipping past her. She came at the boy from behind. She slowed, bent down and reached her long arms around the boy to lift him. She didn't get a chance. She felt a hot wave of pain pass completely through her body. It felt like she had exploded from the inside. Jan exhaled and her eyes closed as she fell to the ground.

Jan awoke and opened her eyes slowly. When she focused she was staring at the face of a young bushy haired boy.

"I'm really glad you're not dead", the boy said flatly.

Jan shook her head. "Yeah, me too. What just happened?" Jan looked around and saw that she was in a narrow alley between two buildings. The ground was dry because the roofs of each building kept the rain from this area.

The boy looked a little embarrassed. "I realized too late that you weren't one of them. I didn't see that you didn't have a suit on. I gave you a pretty good jolt."

Jan frowned. Her head pounded fiercely. "So those flashes of light were you?"

The boy nodded and held his hands about a foot apart. A moment later electricity began arcing from hand to hand and finger to finger. The lightning twisted into ropes and played back and forth. The space between the buildings lit up with the light from the electricity. The boy closed his hands and the space went dark again.

"So that's why those men were after you then."

"Yeah, they've been after me for months. They won't catch men though."

Jan looked at the boy's face. He was a really cute kid with mocha colored skin and black curly hair that needed brushing. He had big doe like brown eyes that looked sad. Jan hadn't noticed at first, but there was a deep sadness there. "You've been fighting those men off for months?"

"Mostly I hide, but sometimes they find me. They didn't used to, but now they wear insulator suits so I can't electrocute them, but I found a way past that." The boy pulled out a steak knife that had the wooden handle broken off. "I stab them with this and then send the current down the blade. They barely feel it before they die."

"I beg to differ young man", Jan began as she stood up. "If they feel what I felt then it hurts like hell."

"They deserve it anyway."

Jan felt a dull ache in her arms. She looked down and saw that her normally unblemished skin had been burned and blistered. She sighed and looked down at the boy, who looked up at her with those big brown eyes. "Let's go. I'm not leaving you here." Jan made her way to the edge of the alley carefully. She saw fire trucks and police cars down the street. He must have dragged her she thought. Jan turned her head and saw her car right where she left it. She motioned for the boy to follow her. He did, but stopped.

"Come on!"

"I can't. Everybody who tries to help me ends up dead", the boy said plainly.

Jan frowned. "I am not leaving you here. Besides, you tried to kill me and here I am. What makes you think I'm scared of those men?"

The boy looked at her, tilted his head and frowned. "Why aren't you dead anyway?"

"Get in the car and I'll tell you."

The boy started coming closer. "Where are you going to take me?"

"I know some people who can protect you. There are some people who work for the government who can find out who those men are."

The boy stopped again. "I thought those men were from the government."

Jan paused. She hadn't considered that. She didn't think so, but she couldn't put anything past the government either. "You might have a point. I'll have to find out, but still you're coming with me. Now get in the car."

The boy thought about it, but he finally did. He sat down in the car and instantly put on his seat belt. Jan started the car and then they were off. Jan turned the radio off. She didn't feel like listening to anything.

"So why aren't you dead?", the boy asked once they were on the freeway.

Jan looked over at him. The boy was so cool, almost cold. He seemed to only have one emotion. "That's not the first time I've been electrocuted. I've been shot, stabbed, burned, and just about every other thing you can do. Here I am to tell the story.", Jan answered.

"Interesting. So you can regenerate tissue quickly?"

Jan frowned and looked down at the boy. "Yeah, amongst other things. Now, let's start out like this. What's your name?"

"Thomas Jackson Lee, and you?", he said quickly.

"Janet Elise Caufield", she answered with a chuckle. "You can call me Jan."

"Call me Thomas. I hate Tom."

Jan laughed. She looked down in time to see the boy smile a little. It wasn't much, but it was the first time she had seen him smile and the last for a while. "OK, why were you on the street running from a gang of men? Where are your parents?"

Thomas' face went back to the way it was before. "They're both dead. Murdered by the men who are chasing me."

"Go ahead."

Thomas took in a breath. "Last summer my father accepted a job at an engineering firm here in DC. They do work for the Pentagon. We moved here in May from Columbus, Ohio. My mother was a high school physics teacher. She was going to start teaching at a school in DC. Dad didn't want her to. He wanted her to teach at a suburban school, but she said that city kids needed to learn too. The stuff started after a few weeks. At first the men called the house. They said that I was accepted into some academy for special kids. My parents thought about it and said no. Then they started harassing us. They would flatten tires and stuff. They would take stuff. They would call the house and threaten my parents. Then one day our dog went missing. A week or two later they broke into the house. I remember they had a gun to my mother's head. I just sat there crying. My father started fighting. My father stabbed a man and took the gun from him. The other man pointed the gun at my mother's head. He yelled for my father to stop, and he was about to pull the trigger. I couldn't let him kill my mother so I killed him. My father shot the other man."

Jan looked down at Thomas. His face still hadn't changed. He told the story like it had happened to someone else.

He continued. "We ran then. We went from hotel to hotel. Sometimes we stopped on the side of the road in the woods and stuff. We hid for about a month, but then they caught up with us when my father went to a market to buy us some food. They surrounded the car and shot him over and over again. I couldn't do anything to help him. He wanted my mother to keep me safe. We made it out. My mother and I hid out for another month, but they caught us again. She told me to never let them catch me. They killed her too. I was on my own. I've killed 14 of them since then, and they haven't caught me."

Jan felt a tear come to the corner of her eye. She reached out and took Thomas' dirty little hand in her's. "You're not alone anymore. I'm going to help you. You aren't going to have to run anymore. I'm going to find out who's doing this to you and make sure it ends."

They drove the rest of the way in silence. Thomas didn't look interested at all until he saw the houses on either side of the street as Jan approached her home. Many of the houses had very nice landscape lighting and the rain only enhanced the effect of the lights. Jan turned down another road where the houses were even bigger. The automatic gates to the Caufield house, unlike any of the other houses, were always open. Jan pulled up the brick and stone driveway to the front of the house. The Caufield house was lit up too, but not nearly as much, since it could hardly be seen from the street anyway.

"Nice house", Thomas said simply.

"Yeah, I still like our old house better, but this one is bigger." Jan lead Thomas inside. He looked around the large open planned house. He saw himself in the mirror in the foyer and suddenly felt out of place. His hair was a mess and his clothes weren't nasty, because he changed them when he got a chance, but they were dingy. Jan called out to her parents. They came in together. They looked at Jan and down at Thomas. They didn't even have to ask.

"Mom, Dad, this is Thomas. He's been alone in DC for the last six months. Both his parents are dead and some sort of organization is chasing him. I had to bring him here. I couldn't just leave him there. I couldn't do that."

"No", Jack Caufield began. "You did the right thing. How old are you young man?"

"I'm twelve, sir."

"Do you have any other family?", Carol Caufield asked.

"Yes, ma'am, lots back in Ohio, but I don't want to call them. I saw my mother and father murdered and I don't want anything to happen to the rest of my family. They probably think I'm dead and I want to keep it that way if I could." Thomas' face had not changed since he came into the house.

Carol looked at Thomas really hard for nearly 10 seconds before she looked at Jan. "Who's chasing him and why?"

"I don't know who, Mom, but I think Thomas can show you why."

Thomas held his hands apart again and made the electricity dance between his hands. This time he sent balls of tiny lighting back and forth.

Both of Jan's parents jumped back a little. "That's mighty impressive, young man."

"Mom, Dad, we have to help him. Thomas thinks the men chasing him might work for the government. I don't think so, but I can't be sure right now. We have to help him."

Both her parents nodded. "Thomas, do you trust us?", Carol asked leaning down.

Thomas looked up at her. "Yes, ma'am, I do. Just as long as you don't put me in a rubber room."

Carol laughed. "No, we don't have one of those. Jan, take Thomas up stairs to a bedroom and a bathroom so he can get cleaned up. See if you can find him some boy clothes around here somewhere."

Jan nodded. She lead Thomas up the stairs and around to one of the four bedrooms the house had that the family never used. Jan left the room as Thomas got ready to go into the bathroom. He was well past the age of undressing in front of other people. Jan heard the water start running and then walked out into the hall way to try to think where she could find some clothes to fit him.

After nearly twenty minutes, she had found some. Jan found some clothes that an 8th grade classmate of her's had left after a sleep over years ago before the Caufield's moved from Baltimore to Howard County. They smelled a little like cardboard, but they were clean. Jan showed them to her mother.

"Those should fit fine."

"Are you sure?"

Carol laughed. "One skill a mother never looses is being able to fit clothes on a growing child, and you were not easy because you wouldn't stop growing." Jan laughed. Jan was just under 6'1, but it shouldn't have been a surprise since Carol herself was 5'10" and Jack was 6'4". "You should probably check on him. He's been in there a while."

Jan knocked on the bedroom door before opening it. She tossed the clothes on the bed and went past the bed to the bathroom door. She didn't hear any water running. She knocked on the door. It opened. The room was still steamy. Thomas turned the light off before he walked out. He had a towel wrapped around his waist, and seemed pleased to be clean.

"Sorry, it took so long, but I had a hard time getting the kinks out of my hair." His curly hair still stood all over his head, but at least it wasn't tangled anymore. Thomas looked at the clothes on the bed."

"Do you have a brother?"

Jan shook her head. "Those clothes are from to guy named Danny."

"Does he want them back?"

Jan laughed. "Danny is a freshman at West Point now. I don't think he misses them. They're all yours, Thomas." Jan stopped for a moment. "Mom, is almost finished with dinner. Come down as soon as you're dressed. You've got to be hungry." Thomas' face didn't change. He looked up at Jan and then over at the clothes. "Oh don't worry about the clothes. We can go to the store tomorrow and get you some more."

"You don't have to", Thomas said. "I can't stay here. I'm leaving in the morning."

"What? Why?"

"I told you. Everybody who tries to help me gets killed. They killed our next door neighbor who tried to help me and my mother. I can't stay."

Jan got down on a knee and took Thomas by the shoulders. "I told you that you aren't going to run anymore. You don't have to. Let us help you. We're not afraid. None of us. Thomas, let us help you. Please."

Thomas looked at Jan with those big brown eyes. His face was the same as always, but then his eyes began to water. His bottom lip trembled and he started to cry. Jan pulled the still damp boy to her and hugged him tightly. "I'm so sorry. I wish I was just normal. Then they wouldn't have wanted me. Mom and Dad wouldn't be dead. I just don't want anybody else to get hurt. That's all I want." Thomas cried against Jan's shoulder for a long time. He finally slowed down, but the tears still dropped from his watery eyes.

"I'm sorry, Jan, for crying. I got your shirt all messed up."

Jan smiled at him. "Don't worry about that. There is nothing wrong with tears on a shoulder. I'm a big cry baby myself. Besides I was starting to wonder if you were a Vulcan."

"You like Star Trek?", he asked.

Jan held up her right hand in a "V" shape. "Live long and prosper", she said. They laughed together. "Now, get dressed. Dinner's probably ready by now. Jan left the room and went downstairs. Thomas got dressed. He felt better than he had in a long time. He had a strange feeling. He still felt the sadness, but there was something else inside of him stronger than the sadness and the fear, but he didn't know what it was. It was a strange feeling that he couldn't quite name. The feeling he had was hope, but it had been so long that he couldn't remember what it felt like.

Later that night after dinner, Jan went to her room and called her friend and college roommate Sara Hewitt.

"Oh, hey. Are you enjoying the umm, Naviore International Studies Project? There near your home. Which is still not fair." Sara chuckled on the other end of the line. She sat down on the bed in her dorm room.

"Its not so bad really. It was kinda boring the first couple of days, but you would actually like it. You should apply next year, but that's not why I called. I need to talk to Alisha."

Sara frowned and looked at her cell phone. "But, Jan, you called me."

"I know. I need to talk to you both, but not on the phone."

There was pause. "Oh, ok." Sara hung up the phone, and closed her eyes and searched out with her mind. Sara Hewitt was one of the most naturally gifted telepaths alive and she was about to do something that many other telepaths didn't even know was possible.

"Can you hear me?", Sara asked Jan with a thought.

Jan heard Sara's voice like she was in her head. "Yeah", Jan thought back.

"Let me get Alisha."

Alisha von Edder was very nearly sleep in her dorm room at Georgia Tech. She had left the physical therapy of her roommate Miranda Bailis earlier in the evening. She opened her eyes quickly when she heard Sara in her head. Sara had to concentrate. It wasn't all that hard to talk to Alisha. She was just a few miles away, but Jan was a few hundred miles away. It was hard to maintain the link.

"Alisha"

"Yeah, Jan", came Alisha's groggy reply.

"I have a situation." Jan spent the next several minutes explaining what had happened. "So that's why I couldn't use the phone. Nobody can listen in on this conversation. At least I don't think anybody can", Jan thought. The phones the girls used were given to them by the US Government and had special security, but Jan didn't want to take any chances on the Feds listening.

"Not that I know of", Sara thought.

Alisha sat up in her dark room having a conversation with her two best friends although no one's mouth was moving. "So you want me to check around and see if old Uncle Sam has a team after Thomas Lee?"

"You got it."

Alisha sighed then thought, "You must really like this kid."

"He needs help. And he's just the cutest little thing. He has big Bambi like eyes. But that's not the reason. I'd help him even if he was the funniest looking little kid I had ever seen."

Alisha laughed. "The hell you would. You would have left him there in the middle of the street!"

"That is so mean!", Sara thought.

"Yeah, but it was funny. Ok, I'm going to get back to you in the tomorrow. Or something. I guess I have to go through Sara. I don't know how fuckin' reliable you are, but you're the most secure line we have."

Sara laughed out loud. "I'm going to let you go back to sleep. You're in rare form tonight, Alisha."

"Fuck yeah! You shouldn't have woken me up in the first place."

The next day was Saturday and Alisha had all day to search government computer systems. Alisha had always been good with computers and after more than a year of training from the US government she was even better. She was more than good enough to break into the government's own computer systems. She searched and searched with the data Jan had given her. She got in touch with Jan through Sara, and told her that according the Federal Government Thomas Jackson Lee was a missing orphaned child. His family in Ohio had hired people to look for him, but they had come up with nothing, and there was no active hunt for him as of present. Now Jan knew it wasn't the government, but had no idea who it could be.

Jan work up early to check on Thomas. She opened the door quietly. She had a sinking feeling that she would open the door and see an empty bed, but she saw him in the bed still asleep. She shut the door and went down stairs and grabbed a water bottle from the fridge and started her morning jog. It was cold morning. The sort of morning where the air stung the lungs a little. Jan's face got a little red, her nose got numb, but she enjoyed her jog. It gave her time to think alone. She wondered who was chasing young Thomas, and she wondered if this same group of people were trying to chase other special people. She was coming up with no answers. She decided to let it go for a while. Perhaps a solution would present itself. Jan turned around finally and started the 3 and a half miles back to her house. She waved at some of her neighbors as she went back, most of the people who waved at Jan were older. The younger men looked at her running while debating in their minds if they were staring or not, and if their wives were looking. Jan was almost home. She was about to turn into the gate of her home when she stopped running. Her breath came in white puffs, but she knew what she was going to do. She was going to get proactive.

Jan got dressed and drove back to DC to the same neighborhood where she had found Thomas the night before. She hoped the men would be looking for him in the area. They wouldn't know that he was miles and miles away. Jan got lucky.

A slate gray late model sedan drove around the blocks. Jan parked her car and just watched. The car made a circuit every half an hour like clock work. The car went past the little markets and down most of the alleys. Jan took notes. There were three men in the car she could see. One of them either had a computer or a communication device in his lap because he rarely looked up. Jan wondered if there was some way to track Thomas. She hoped not. Jan wanted so bad to jump out and make those guys give her answers, but she would have to be patient. She drove a few blocks away. She saw another car, same color and model. This time the car was stopped in front of a market. A man in a dark suit exited the market just as Jan pulled up. He got back in the car and it left. Jan waited then got out and went inside. She went in the back past the rows and rows of beer and malt liquor and took out a Coke. She grabbed a bag of chips on the way to the counter.

"Did you know that guy who left before I came in?", she asked the cashier. The man shook his head quickly. "Did he ask you anything?" The man shook his head again and hurried to ring her up. "He didn't buy anything. Did he come in here for some other reason?"

"$3.27. You ask many questions", the man said in accented English.

"I need to know."

"He said he works for the government and he is doing an investigation. What's it to you?"

Jan reached down in her pocket and pulled out a tanned leather wallet and laid it open on the counter. Her badge reading US Department of Treasury was on one side and her ID card was on the other. "That man doesn't work for the government. I do, and I want to know what he asked you, and what you told him."

The man swallowed hard and leaned over to look at the badge. "He showed me a picture of a little black kid and asked if I knew him. I told him that the kid comes around from time to time. He's real polite. I've even been teaching the kid a few words of Farsi. Nice kid, usually short of money. I haven't seen him since day before yesterday." The man paused. "Is he in some trouble? Am I in some trouble?"

Jan put $20 on the counter. "No, you're not in any trouble, but those men might be trouble. Here's my number. If they come back, you call me. Any time of day or night, my phone is always on." The man nodded. Jan took the paper bag and started to walk out. "Thanks for the information. Keep the change."

Jan stayed in the neighborhood for another hour before heading back home. She had several pages worth of notes and she was going to share her thoughts with Sara and Alisha later on. Jan went straight to her room and put the notebook on the bed. Thomas knocked on her door a few minutes later.

"Jan, I need to go back to Washington. I didn't think I was going to stay, but I left something down there. I have to get it."

"Thomas, I just came from there and those men are still looking for you. They're going door to door looking for you. The least safe place in the world for you is DC."

Thomas came closer. "Jan, I have to go back. Its worth it. I have to go back. Please take me back."

Jan thought about it, but decided to take him. She told her father where they were going and then she got on the road to head back to the District. Thomas lead Jan down some side streets and then finally had her stop. Jan parked her car around a corner. Thomas lead Jan through an unlocked window in an old factory building. The lights were out and Jan had to put her hands out to make sure she didn't bump into anything. Thomas took care of that a moment later. He opened his hand and a ball of electricity danced over his palm. The area lit up with a pale blue light. Thomas lead Jan around dusty old machinery.

"Stop here for a second." Thomas leaned down and reached his hand into a small area near the floor. He pulled a 2" thick electric wire up where Jan could see it. The wire had been cut and the thick black insulation had been pealed back nearly a foot. Thomas pulled on the exposed copper and tried to move it from the walkway.

"Is that live?", Jan asked.

Thomas smiled. "Oh, its very live." He touched his index finger to the exposed copper and pulled it away slowly. A thick buzzing arc of energy went from the wire to his finger. "This is the main line that used to run all the machinery in this room. I used it to keep out people. Probably wouldn't kill you, but anybody else would have had no chance." Thomas finished moving the line and lead Jan further back to the place where Thomas had been living. She saw clothes neatly folded, little grocery bags of trash neatly tied up, and an old mattress with lots of blankets. Jan knew that Thomas didn't come back for any of this, and she was right.

Thomas went back in the corner. He pulled the cover off a main junction box. Four large busbars were in the box. Thomas reached into the box casually. He brushed the bars, but nothing happened. He picked up a box at the back and pulled it out slowly. He wanted to make sure it didn't touch the busbars. He set it down on the floor. It was a small plastic safe. He put in the combination and opened it slowly. He had a big smile on his face.

"What is that?", Jan asked.

"This all I have left. Here look." Jan squatted down. Thomas opened the box. Jan saw the box full of different papers. "This how I remember who I'm am. Here's my birth certificate; my social security card; my last report card." Thomas shuffled through the papers. "Here's my shot record."

Jan reached into the box and pulled out a photo. "Is this your mother? She's really pretty."

Thomas laughed. "My dad used to say that he out-kicked his coverage when Mom agreed to marry him."

Jan pulled out two more pictures. One was of Thomas' father. He looked so young. The other photo was a recent family picture. It was a family of three just like Jan's own family. They looked so happy together. She felt her eyes getting moist again. She put the picture back in the box quickly. "Come on, Thomas lets go." Jan had a bad feeling. She hoped they hadn't stayed too long. Thomas closed the box and then pulled out his little knife. Jan took it from him and threw it off into the darkness.

"No more of that. Trust me."

Jan climbed out of the window first and helped pull Thomas up. Jan moved quickly, but quietly down the alley towards the main street. The light was getting low and the street lights were just about to come on. Jan wanted to be on the road before dark. Jan came to the corner and peaked her head around the corner. Everything looked clear, but it wasn't.

As soon as Jan and Thomas came out of the alley and into the open three men wearing gray insulating suits came seemingly from nowhere. Two men quickly grabbed Jan by the shoulders and pulled her jacket down around her arms pinning them momentarily. They pushed her forward and before anyone could react they had slapped handcuffs on her wrists. They ran their hands down her body and found her Custom Springfield .45 pistol right away. They tossed it on the ground. Another man had taken Thomas by the back of the neck, and put cuffs on him too. Jan looked over at Thomas. She almost had to look away. There was so much fear and panic there, but it was the last emotion that made Jan's own emotions sink, betrayal. Without his knife he couldn't hurt the men in the suits and they knew that, but there was one thing they didn't know.

Two cars came around the corner at the end of the street hurrying to capture their prize. Jan looked at Thomas and she smiled. "Hey, Thomas, remember when I said that there are other things that I can do?"

Thomas tried to get away, but the man held him too tightly. He looked up at Jan who was about ten feet away and nodded, still full of fear.

"Watch this!" Jan closed her eyes and brought her wrists together. She could hear the cars getting closer. She knew that each car had three men in it and that was just going to be more fun for her. Two men still held Jan by the shoulders, but she rolled them forward and her lats flared out. They flared out further than they looked like they would. Her jacket became tight around her body, but most importantly she put tension on the chain of the handcuffs. Jan pictured in her head what she was about to do. She tensed her entire body. The men holding her felt the change. They looked at each other and before they could react, Jan growled and threw her arms apart. The chain snapped in two and her jacket split down the middle. She put her leg back and with mighty heave threw the two large men holding her over her shoulder. Both men landed in the street. Jan took two quick steps and sent her right leg flying. Her muscle fibers were so quick and so strong the kick was a blur. She kicked over Thomas' head and hit the man holding him in the headgear of his insulator suit. The helmet twisted and he fell backwards towards the sidewalk. Jan didn't let him fall. She sent a kick at his midsection. Her long shapely legs sent the kick so fast the man stopped falling and instead flew the other way. His back slammed against the brick wall of a building. Jan was on him a moment later. She ripped off his headgear and looked the man in the face.

"Who do you work for?", Jan demanded. The anger and rage she felt made her voice even louder. Blood dripped from the corners of the man's mouth. He mumbled something in a foreign language. It sounded Italian or something, but that wasn't good enough. Jan held him up with her left arm. Her triceps were jagged and striated as she lifted this large man and his suit off the ground with ease. She coiled up her right arm and sent her big fist at his midsection this time from the side. Her fist hit the man in the middle of the ribcage and even through the suit the sound of his ribs shattering could be heard. Blood poured from his mouth. Jan dropped him to the ground. She felt two sharp pricks her back. She turned quickly to see one of the guards holding a tazer gun in his hand. He had pulled the trigger and couldn't figure out why she wasn't getting shocked. Jan glanced over at Thomas who gave her a thumbs up. Jan reached behind her and pulled out the barbs and lunged at the man. Her long legs covered the ground quickly. The man dropped the tazer, but it was too late.

Jan grabbed him by his suit and lifted him in the air as high as she could. His feet kicked near her knees as she held him there. The cars were getting near now. The man clawed at Jan's hand, but she didn't even notice. She waited for the right moment. Once the cars got a little closer, she spun the man 90⁰ , her powerful forearm was all it took. Jan brought her right hand up and grabbed one of the man's ankles. She squeezed so hard she tore tendons and fractured a bone. She raised him even higher. Both cars raced directly at her. Jan held the man steady and then threw him at the windshield of one of the on coming cars. The impact sounded horrible. Parts of the man's body hit the glass and went threw it, but one arm and a leg didn't. The bones shattered and broke at odd angles. He bounced back down the hood of the car then onto the pavement. Jan didn't get a chance to see. She jumped straight up in the air as the cars got to her. She landed on the hood of the undamaged car and ran off the back. Two men jumped out while the driver threw the car in reverse. He didn't get a chance to hit the gas.

Jan screwed up her face, raised her powerful leg, and sent a kick at the back of the car as hard as she could. The rear of the car smashed in like it had hit a pole. The driver's head had hit the steering wheel the impact had been so hard. Jan pulled her feet from the twisted sheet metal.

The six new men surrounded her. She didn't wait for them to attack; she attacked. Jan went after the closest one. She faked a punch and instead kicked the man in the stomach. He doubled over and started retching in his insulator suit. Another man had a police style baton. He swung it as hard as she could. He aimed for her head. Instead of moving away, Jan moved towards the blow. She knew the blow was coming and prepared herself for it. The baton hit her right above the forehead. Jan didn't even flinch. Her head was down with the baton still resting against her it. She slowly raised her head and looked at the man who had hit her. She wore an evil smile as she reached up and took the baton from his hand. He was so stunned he didn't even try to resist. He should have run. Jan sent the baton down in an arc faster than the man ever could. It whistled as it flew through the cold Autumn air. The baton broke against the side of the man's knee. His knee dislocated and broke with it. The man went to the ground screaming. Jan kicked him in the head for good measure.

Jan turned around slowly. The four men still standing got no closer. All of them had batons out, but didn't make a move. Jan looked at them, but didn't move. There was so much she wanted to do to them she didn't know where to start. She looked to her left at the man puking. He had thrown off his headgear and the white puffs from his breath floated up from his mess covered mouth. He turned and looked at Jan. Jan sent a kick at his head. Her super strong muscles flexed so hard and so quickly. The kick sent the man flying onto his back, breaking his jaw and knocking out all but a few of his teeth, and fracturing his skull.

"Not so brave", Jan taunted. She breathed deeply, her muscles swelling with each breath. The anger and rage fueled Jan. She fed off of it, but these days she knew how to control it better than at any point in her life. She knew how to use the rage. The men wouldn't have believed it, but she was holding back. Jan decided that she was going to need some answers. She was going to have to leave one guy able to talk. She started walking towards the men. They backed up and would have run, but there was nowhere to go. One man finally disobeyed an order and pulled out a pistol. That was a mistake that would cost him his hand.

Jan paused as the man raised the gun. Thomas was ahead of her. Jan felt her hair pull towards the man. She watched as smoke started to come from the end of the barrel, suddenly there was a flash and an explosion. All the bullets in the gun exploded at once mangling the man's hand beyond recognition. The man closest to him caught a stay bullet in the neck and went to the ground. The other two men had been close, but were only dazed by the explosion. Jan attacked the one closer to her. She punched him in the stomach hard. He bent over and she wrapped her long arms around his head and squeezed. Jan's biceps always got attention when she flexed them. Usually Jan's arms were toned and hard, but when she flexed them her biceps grew to dual headed peaked and striated monsters. That ripped peak cut into the man's neck choking off blood flow. Jan squeezed so hard he thought his head was going to pop off. The muscle fibers of Jan's delts flexed back and forth as she squeezed the man. Finally she let him go and he dropped to the ground barely alive. The other man started running, but he had no chance. The suit slowed him down and Jan was fast, very fast. She reached out and grabbed the back of his suit. She snatched him off hisfeet and pulled him to her. His back hit her chest and she wrapped her long arms around him. She arched her back and bear hugged him. A real bear would have been proud. Jan's hard muscles got even harder. She didn't waist time prolonging the suffering. She poured on the power from the beginning. She heard things start to pop and she felt bones start to give. Some of his ribs broke, but she didn't stop. She squeezed even harder. Blood poured from the man's mouth, nose, and ears as Jan slowly crushed him to death. She closed her eyes and one final squeeze. Her muscles swelled with power. She heard his spine break and air leave his lungs. Jan dropped him. He took in a very shallow breath as he hit the cold asphalt.

Jan turned around and went to the man with one hand missing. She strode up to him with purpose. She lifted him off the ground and went back to the sidewalk. Jan set him down on the sidewalk against the building. She took half of her ruined jacket from the ground and tied it tightly near the man's elbow.

"I know you're in pain. Tell me what I want to know and I'll make sure it gets no worse." The man said something in Italian. Jan shook him. "In English. I know you speak it. Who do you work for?"

"We work to bring about a new future", the man said through the pain. "I work for the future." He smiled up at Jan with phony courage. Shewasn't impressed.

"Give me a name!" Jan heard sirens in the distance. They were getting closer. "Give me a name!", she yelled again.

The man looked up at her and smiled. "Fuck you bitch!", he spat at her. "Fuck you! The boy will be ours! He WILL BE OURS!" Jan punched the man in the chest. She punched him so hard that his sternum shattered and his heart went into arrhythmia. He convulsed and fell to the ground. She was going to kill him, but killing was something she had learned wasn't always easy after the fact. She stood up and took her half of coat off the man's arm. She took the other half up and rolled it under her arm. She picked up her gun then went to Thomas who cradled his box in both arms.

"You were so great! You are the best ever! You ... you! Thomas put down the box and hugged Jan tightly. He didn't know what to say.

Jan patted him on the back and pushed him back. She looked down at him. "Can you set these cars on fire? We need to keep the police and fire department busy?"

"Of course." Thomas looked at the cars and at once Jan could smell the unmistakable scent of an electrical fire. Smoke came from under the hoods and started filling the inside of the cars. Flames shot from the dashboards a moment later. "You want me to explode the gas tanks? Both these cars have in tank pumps?"

"Yeah." The two moved away from the cars and a moment later two huge fireballs went up into the sky. The first fire engine was just pulling up as Jan and Thomas ducked around the corner. Jan got back in her car and got out of the neighborhood before the cops blocked all the roads. Jan and Thomas made it home in time for dinner. Thomas learned quickly that the Caufield family didn't keep many secrets from each other as Jan told her parents what had happened. Jack and Carol Caufield took it in stride. They knew what they had gotten themselves into, but they also knew that Thomas was worth fighting to protect.

to be continued...
This is a chapter in the ongoing story "Power and Fury"!  Check out the earlier chapters here:

Chapter 1 -- Chapter 2 -- Chapter 3 -- Chapter 4 -- Chapter 5 -- Chapter 6 -- Chapter 7 -- Chapter  8 -- Chapter 9

Check out the next Chapter online now!!!!