Chapter 25

I rolled from the bed, silently opened the hall door and rushed toward the rooms at the other end. Which room was Jerome's? Nora's? It didn't matter. I opened the first door I came to and hurried silently inside.

Ah, Nora's trying on Jerome's long one for size. No, not Nora. Marsha!

"Don't make a sound, Marsha," I said quietly.

She stopped moving - bouncing - on the prone man under her and spun her head and pretty shoulders toward me. Nice tits, I thought. Weird thought, huh?

"What... ?" Marsha questioned, but I interrupted her.

"The bad guys are here, Jerome," I said, not much more than a whisper. I didn't want to be quiet. I wanted to do the opposite of what I'd told Marsha to do. I wanted to scream like a banshee.

Had Jerome heard me? Yes. He lifted Marsha off his long - very long - cock and rolled his feet to the floor, standing with a gun in his hand. Did he hold his gun in his hand while fucking?

"How many?" he asked in a whisper, grabbing Marsha by her wrist and pulling her to her feet.

"Six... I think. I'll rouse Nora."

"Wait. Can you use one of these?" he asked, referring to the gun in his hand.

Stop it! I ordered myself. Judas! He was huge!

"Yes, Dad taught me."

"It's loaded. The safety is off. Just point and squeeze the trigger."

I took the gun, moved back into the hall and opened the next door. Nora wasn't asleep. She was crying. Fuck!

"The bad guys are here," I said quietly.

Instant change. From maudlin to alert in a split-second. She, too, rose from her bed with gun in hand, but she wasn't naked. A t-shirt and cotton panties covered strategic parts. Olive drab. Leftovers from her military service?

"How many? Where?" she asked.

"Six, two on each side."

"Backup?"

"I don't know."

"Jerome... ?"

"He knows. This is his gun."

"He has more. Come," she said and moved by me.

I knew where she was taking me. Would Jason, Dad, Sara and Donna be there? Safe? The house boasted a bomb shelter. The day we arrived, we'd been instructed what to do and where to go if we were attacked. Access to the shelter was in the walk-in closet in the master bedroom occupied by Dad and Sara. The master bedroom was in the other wing of the house.

Fuck! I reached and stopped Nora from moving out of the hall into the family room. "Two of them are inside. I can hear their thoughts."

"Where?"

"Living room, but they're moving... toward the master bedroom." Please, please, let everyone be in the shelter.

"Stay here," Nora ordered, crouched, moved and disappeared.

Crouching seemed appropriate. I crouched. My hand, the one wrapped around the handle of the gun, felt clammy with sweat.

Six became eight. Two more bad guys had arrived at the front of the house. Why hadn't the alarms sounded? Pros! We're dealing with professionals. Suddenly crouching wasn't enough. I stretched prone on the carpet, which probably saved my life because seconds later, a strange man stepped into the hall with some kind of gun in his hand. I did what Jerome told me to do. I pointed and squeezed the trigger.

Kaboom! Loud! I jumped a foot. No, a person can't jump while lying flat. Maybe I bounced. I also switched off my emotional sensors. The man's pain was excruciating.

He was also down. Was he dead? Had I just taken a life? Killed someone? The idea didn't upset me. He'd not given me a choice.

More shots rang out. A burst. Not a handgun like the one in my hand. An automatic weapon. I searched for emotional signatures. Jerome was... in the master bedroom, I think. Nora was...

No! Where... ?

Ah, there she is. What about Dad? Nothing. The same held true for Jason, Sara and Donna. Marsha, too. I started to panic, but then remembered the bomb shelter was lead lined. Did lead stop my emotion sensors like Superman's x-ray vision? No, lead lined is irrelevant. The master bedroom closet is over thirty feet away. Get a grip little missy.

Did I stop panicking? Hah! My belly felt like a butter churn in action.

A strange emotional signature coming my way forced me to focus. I took a deep breath and slowly let the air escape my lungs. Suddenly, another man jumped into the framed opening to the hall and sprayed bullets everywhere.

Jesus! The noise!

I pointed and squeezed the trigger. Twice. The man fell on the other one, and his emotional signature blipped out like an exploding airplane on radar. I'd just learned something about my sensation and emotion gift. I didn't die when I was emotionally connected with someone who died. Dad would be relieved. Dad! Are you all right?

The house sounded like the inside of the Fourth of July. Explosions everywhere. I tried to ignore the raucous uproar, tried to concentrate on emotional signatures. I found Jerome. He was moving, coming toward me. Nora... oh, no! I gasped when the pain she felt struck me. I had to flip a mental switch to shut down her pain. Tears stung my eyes, and I couldn't get enough air in my lungs.

Jerome turned and moved back toward where I guessed Nora was located.

No! I bad guy was behind him.

I jumped up and vaulted the pile of bodies. "Behind you, Jerome!" I shouted. The bad guy spun toward me, started to raise his weapon, and then fell in a heap about the time my poor bare tits hit and, along with the rest of my body, skidded across the carpeted floor. The bullet from my gun struck the wall where the bad guy would've been if he'd remained standing. Was he diving for cover, too?

No. He was dead. Jerome must have taken him out, I reasoned. My mind searched. No more bad guys. I jumped up and ran toward Nora.

"Get down!" Jerome shouted.

"They're down or gone," I announced as I flashed by Jerome. He turned and followed me. I skidded again, this time keeping my feet under me until I fell to my knees beside Nora's fallen body.

Blood! My knees were in her blood. Was she dead?

No! She was unconscious but alive!

Jerome knelt beside me. Like me, he was naked. Would his long one dangle in Nora's blood? No, it wasn't that long. Weird thought, huh? My mind was rambling, I figured.

"Get the first aid kit under the kitchen sink," he said, his voice cracking with emotion.

He'd been fucking Marsha earlier when I told him the bad guys had us surrounded, but my straight-laced tender loved his partner, the brave, fallen woman on the floor. He gathered her into his arms. Was his love romantic? I asked myself as I ran to the kitchen, grabbed the kit and hurried back to Jerome and Nora. Yeah, it was. How had he hidden the love he felt for his partner from me? Probably, his thoughts suggested, because seeing Nora down, unconscious and wounded made him realize for the first time that he was in love with her.

He tore open the kit, ripped the cover off a compression bandage - his thoughts told me what it was - and pressed it to the wound on Nora's shoulder.

"Hold this!" he ordered. "Tight! The wound isn't fatal unless she bleeds to death."

I obeyed.

"Don't you dare die on me, Nora," he muttered.

"Okay," she croaked as her dark eyes opened.

"Fuck! More bad guys!" I exclaimed.

"Probably good guys," Jerome said. "I called for reinforcements. I'll check." He disappeared. Marsha was right. He was poetry in motion.

"You're naked, Katy," Nora said. "Bloody, too. Is the blood yours or mine?"

"Yours. I'm naked 'cause I'd just finished fucking when the bad guys arrived."

"Yeah, like my partner."

"Yep. He didn't finish, though. I interrupted them."

"Good." She grimaced, not because of physical pain, but rather the emotional trauma of knowing the man she wanted preferred another woman.

"He loves you," I said.

"Get outta here!"

"I know love when I feel it."

"I'll be dipped."

"It's the good guys," I said after I heard Jerome's thoughts.

"Go. Throw something over your gorgeous body. I'll hold the bandage."

For some reason, I couldn't move.

Jerome returned. He wore trousers but was naked otherwise.

"Dad, Jason... ?" I started to ask as I stood up.

"They're in the shelter."

I relaxed. Boy, oh boy, did I ever relax!

Suddenly my legs didn't have the strength to hold me upright.

I crumpled.

"Are you hit?" Jerome asked, suddenly worried out of his mind.

Nora chuckled and then gasped. Laughing hurt when you're gunshot.

"What happened to you after your first gun battle, Jerome?" Nora asked.

"Oh."

I felt so silly, like such a girl.

"I need Jason," I managed to say, and then my world went black.

When my eyes opened, two men held me, one on each side, and their emotions and arms made me feel like the rope in a tug of war. From what I gathered, and I could be wrong, Dad had arrived first and nearly had a heart attack when he saw me unconscious and covered with blood, and not just Nora's blood, I discovered later. Dad was still shaking.

Jason arrived not far behind Dad, and he'd knelt on the other side of me. As excitable as he is, he must have had a hissy fit. Both of them were trying to pull me into their arms, not necessarily a bad thing, I decided, but I also decided I should let them know I was back amongst the living.

"Whoa!" I gushed. "I'm fine, guys. Just a little too much excitement, I guess."

"I told you she was all right," Jerome stated.

"The blood!" Jason exclaimed.

"None of it is hers," Jerome said. "She's a bona fide hero and the bravest young woman I've ever known. She saved my life."

"Mine, too," Nora said. "She stopped me from walking blindly into an ambush."

Hardly, I thought. I just used my gifts.

"Jason," Nora added, "help Katy to your bedroom. She's naked. Help her wash off the blood and help her get dressed. You'll need to leave here in the next few minutes. Besides, this place is crawling with strange men."

"Yeah, Jason," I quipped. "Do you want a bunch of strange men ogling my nubile body?"

He laughed, a strange nervous sound I'd never heard issue from his mouth. Normally, I adored the sounds of his laughter.

Dad released me and scooted back. The poor man was embarrassed. With his intense fear that I'd been harmed, or worse, he hadn't noticed my nakedness until Nora mentioned the fact.

"I'm fine, Dad," I said and kissed his cheek.

Jason picked me up, and I wrapped my arms around his neck. I could've walked, but what the heck? It isn't everyday a girl's lover carries her away in his arms.

"You're dressed. When did you get dressed?" I asked.

"In the shelter. I'm wearing your father's clothes."

"Oh."

"I thought you were dead," Jason said as we moved toward the bedroom. "When I first saw you, I thought you were dead, and I didn't want to live anymore."

"Don't be mawkish, lover. I feel so silly. Just like a silly girl, I couldn't handle all the excitement and passed out; that's all."

He stopped. The pile of bodies I'd created blocked our way. He'd need to set me down to vault the bodies, and I didn't want him to set me down. I was right where I wanted to be for the moment.

"The master bedroom," I suggested. "It has a larger shower, and I want you with me in the shower. Okay?" All of a sudden, I realized I was very aroused. I'd read somewhere that a close encounter with death often caused sexually arousal. Whoever wrote down the possible but improbable fact was correct.

Without hesitating, Jason turned and moved toward the other wing of the house. We passed a few strange men en route. They looked me over. I didn't mind. Jason did. The power of suggestion?

Sara was in the master bedroom with Donna and Marsha.

"We're here to use the shower," Jason said and walked by them without further explanation.

Dad was in the bathroom when we entered, washing off the blood he'd gotten on him from my body, I noticed.

"A couple of bodies blocked our way," Jason said. "May we use this shower?"

Dad cringed at Jason's comment about bodies. "Of course. I'll have Sara get you some clothes, cupcake," Dad said, his eyes purposefully avoiding my nakedness. He turned to hurry away.

"Have her bring a set of clothes for me, too. The clothes I'm wearing are bloody," Jason said to Dad's receding back.

"Will do," Dad answered without stopping or turning.

Jason set me on the bathroom counter, and I pulled his mouth to mine. Hot! I was in serious need. I was alive! I was alive, and I wanted to celebrate the fact. "Lock the door, lover, and get naked," I whispered. "I need some sex, some fucking, and I need it now!" My whisper had increased in volume, but hopefully not enough to announce my need beyond Jason to the occupants in the other room.

While he locked the door, I hopped down and turned on the shower, adjusting the temperature a little colder than I liked it. Jason couldn't take as much heat as I. I glanced in the mirror. No wonder Dad and Jason were terrified. My face was blotched with spots of blood, blood sprayed on me by the men I'd shot, I guessed.