Hostage Drama [Ira/Eevee]

[rosie]

20th December, 2008

It had been almost a month since Rosie had met Ira that day and what a day it was. She had found out her brother had been killed, the one she'd been closest to, and she had been upset, and there he was, like a miracle sent from above to comfort her. It had worked too. Soon they were going for coffee, and then she'd kissed him, albeit a quick one, but it had sent shock waves through him, so much so he'd managed to turn his coffee into ice.

That was what made Ira all the more special to Rosie, finding out they both had the same ability. It was simply awesome. Rosie knew from that point onward she wanted to be with Ira, she just hoped he felt the same way. They had met up a couple of times since then however, but it was mostly just talking, getting to know one another, no heavy romance had begun as of yet.

Today Rosie was in her local bank, she wanted to withdraw some money in a cashiers cheque, because she wanted to buy Ira a gift, and didn't really want to walk around with a lot of cash on her, at least with a cashiers cheque, if anything happened to it, she could get it cancelled and she wouldn't lose her money. However, just as the teller behind the counter was printing her cheque, there was a loud crashing noise.

Rosie turned to see several men come running into the building all wearing masks.

"GET DOWN, THIS IS A STICK UP!" one of them shouted, Rosie felt her heart begin to beat rapidly in her chest. She didn't like this one little bit, and as fear took her over, her powers went into overdrive, she had no control over it at all, as she automatically froze one of the men and he shattered into a million pieces.

One of them then ran toward her and grabbed her tightly, wrapping her arms around the back in a tight lock, so she couldn't move and had his gun pointing right at the side of her forehead.

"WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU JUST DO?" he shouted at Rosie, as she began to cry, and shake uncontrollably, she really didn't know she was capable of doing such a thing.

"I...I...I...don't know" she stammered, oh god please don't kill me Rosie said to herself.

[Ira Grey]

It had been almost a month since Ira had met Rosie in the park. They had met a few times since then, Ira wouldn't really call it romance or anything yet, but they had gotten to know each other better, and Ira had started to feel more comfortable around her. He no longer found himself as tongue-tied around her--though he still couldn't stop his uncontrollable blushes.

It probably helped once Ira found out that Rosie also had an ability--the same one as him, no less. Now Ira sat at a table in the Subway restaurant, glancing at his watch, drumming his fingers absently on the table, waiting for Rosie; she was almost fifteen minutes late--and Ira had realized by now that she was almost always right on time. When he had talked to her earlier that day she had said she was going to stop at the bank before meeting him. It was just right across the street; maybe he'd walk over there and see if she was still there.

Ira stood and left the restaurant, walking across the street to the bank. As he pulled open the door, he heard shouts and swearing, and he saw fragments of ice scattered on the floor just inside the door. Oh. Shit, Ira realized, taking in the scene and stopping dead in his tracks. It was a bank robbery, a hostage situation. He saw several people down on the floor, terrified, and then there was Rosie, held tightly by one of the robbers, a gun to her head. Oh, God. Oh, God. His jaw clenched as he racked his brains wildly, What do I do, what do I do? he thought frantically. I’m not trained for this, he said to himself, starting to panic. I’m an analyst, for God’s sake; I don’t know what to do!

As it turned out, he didn’t have to think long. One of the bank robbers had spotted Ira, turning to point his gun to him. “You! Get your ass down on the ground, right now! Over there!” the guy bellowed, gesturing with his gun. “Okay! Okay!” Ira responded, and keeping his hands in the air, he moved to sit on the floor where the robber told him to. He looked up at Rosie, a few yards away from him, and looked her in the eyes, wide with terror. It’s gonna be okay, he mouthed to her, trying to reassure himself as much as her.

[eevee]

Unbeknownst to many hostages, before the cashier at the window went down, she pushed the help button that all banks carried. This sent a silent plea to the closest cop station. Unfortunately, when retrieving what video footage they could get from the robbery, the cops found that these robbers were on the top ranking wanted lists in five states. These robbers were professional, even going so far as to block out the camera footage almost as soon as they entered the bank.

And so the cops knew that this was not a normal robbery and that the local authorities could not hope to contain this threat without people dying. Still, the police efficiently set up a barrier, and guns were aimed at the entrance to the building, seeing as it wasn’t exactly an open bank: there were no windows.

Meanwhile, in New Jersey, a new-style helicopter landed on SWAT’s roof. This was one of the fastest helicopters known to man that could also carry passengers. It was already loaded with almost all of its passengers. They were just waiting on one more, the one that would control the whole operation: Evelane Sanchez.

Speaking of Evelane Sanchez, the woman was having a hard time taking everything in. “So what you’re saying, boss, is that I am in control of this mission?” The woman said, leaning on her boss’s desk. She was the only person to actually disobey courtesy and lean on desks like that. But she was also one of the only women in SWAT, and a damn good officer, too. The boss let her slip with those customary courtesy things.

But now he was rubbing his temples, “You’ve just been upgraded to what we like to call ‘commander,’ so, yes, you are in control of this mission. Watch out, though, one slip and you might be kicked down to rookie.”

Eevee smiled and stood up, “Oh, I won’t slip.” And without another word, she left the room. She had already been suited up, as she and her squad had just come from someone’s house. The person had been a crack dealer, and, no pun intended, she had cracked down on them. Now she made her way up flights of stairs to get to the helicopter. Eevee never liked elevators, they took to long, and she needed exercise, so she always took the stairs.

When the woman was strapped into the helicopter, it took off. Her team looked expectantly at her. She took out her PDA, a useful little thing, and tapped into the mission info. She then said over the team COM, “Looks like we have another robbery, boys. These guys are tough, they’ve holed hostages up in a bank, and though none of the hostages are dead yet, it seems they’re threatening a woman at gun point.”

“Where is this, Eevee?” One of her team asked. His nickname was Trio for his love of shooting things three times.

“Queens, New York.” Eevee answered, which prompted a long and drawn out, “daaaaaaamn” from Zero. Eevee looked at him, “What’s wrong, never been out of New Jersey?” “No, ma’am, just thought it a while to get there, and it is a hostage situation.” Eevee then gestured at the helicopter, “Well, we got one fast ride.”

After explaining the situation, Eevee noticed that her assumptions were correct and that this was, indeed, a bad situation on account of the fact that the helicopter was already at the place. Eevee tied a zip cord to her belt and zipped quickly down the line to the bank’s roof. When Zero and Trio had zipped down, she pointed to them, then to the ground. They needed to get to the front of the building and post a watch. Then their analyst, Xerox, zipped down the line. She told him, too, to go down and meet up with the common cops. After Rogue and Shorty had zipped down, the helicopter moved off. Rogue and Shorty both raced to a ventilation shaft and pried it open as noiselessly as possible.

Meanwhile Eevee watched as Trio took a phone communicating device and stalked over to the bank door. In front of him were armored guards with shields. One of them bludgeoned the door’s glass and Trio threw the phone-box into the room. Eevee could faintly hear the box crackle to life, “This is a secure transmission phone. You may talk to us through this. We seek a compromise, or you can give up. We have you surrounded on all fronts.” Eevee scowled; did they really think this would work? Only SWAT could fix this. And if the robbers harmed anyone in there, Eevee would personally shoot every single one of them.

Eevee turned back to the work at hand.

[rosie]

Now Rosie was in this bank stuck in what you could only call a raid and now she along with many others were being held in what would formally be called a hostage situation. She didn't know what had happened with the one she'd managed to kill, it had been done through fear. To say that Rosie was petrified, was putting it mildly.

With a gun pointed to her head, and the robbers swearing at her, asking what she done, she didn't know what to say or do to help the situation. Or would it just make it worse. She was scared fear would over take her again, and she'd accidentally kill the one holding her, if she did that, then maybe one of the others would just kill her.

Her eyes were open with fear, and she was crying hysterically.

"What do you mean, you don't know?" he snapped back at her, "You just killed one of my buddies, you must know what you did!" he yelled again at her.

Rosie could feel herself crumbling, but the tight lock he had on her meant she couldn't move. Then she saw him. She saw Ira come in the door, she tried to catch his eye and give him a look as if to tell him to get right back out, but he didn't. He either hadn't noticed her look, or hadn't wanted to leave once he found out the situation. It was all happening too fast, soon Ira was a part of it, the whole hostage thing, just like she was.

She caught him trying to mouth words of reassurance to her, but they weren't exactly working right at that moment. She wanted to scream at the robbers that she loved him, and they were to let him go, but if they found that out, then they'd probably taunt the both of them some more, because they had something they could play with.

She wanted to mouth the words 'I love you Ira' but she didn't think now was the right time, instead, she mouthed the words, 'I don't want to die' to him instead.

Just then a voice came through to the bank from sounded like some sort of communication device which had been thrown into them. Asking for a compromise or they were to give up. Rosie hoped they would agree to the compromise, or give up. Either way she didn't want to be in this situation for much longer. The robbers reacted in the way she thought they would, they didn't like it.

The gun being pointed into her head even more harshly than it was before, "No compromise, and no giving up, one of our men has already been killed" he shouted, bringing Rosie's arms into the lock even tighter than before. "In fact, I was just thinking it's payback time" he shouted again, as he turned the gun to a random civillian and shot them in the head.

Then he turned to Rosie, and slammed the gun into the side of her head again, "And you, try another stunt like you did before and you'll get the same" he yelled into her ear, leaving Rosie sobbing her heart out.

[Ira Grey]

Ira caught Rosie’s look, managing to make out what she mouthed back to him. I don’t want to die… Ira’s jaw tightened and he felt his whole body tense up. He had never felt so…helpless. Here he was, an FBI agent no less, caught in a hostage situation, and one of the few women he had ever gotten even somewhat close to was hardly ten feet away from him, a gun to her head, and he couldn’t do anything about it.

He heard a voice from some communication device, presumably the SWAT team or the police, asking for a compromise, a negotiation, something. Apparently the robbers didn’t like that idea. The one holding Rosie shouted back outside, then turned his gun to the guy on the ground only a few feet away from Ira and shot the guy. Ira yelled in shock, recoiling away from the body slumped on the floor right next to him. He glanced up at the robber who had shot the guy in cold blood in time to see him shove the gun next to Rosie’s head again.

“Hey!” Ira yelled, not thinking, starting to get to his feet, but stopped short, sinking slowly back down to the ground as another one of the robbers waved the gun in his direction. Ira looked at Rosie again, looking into her eyes, unable to think of anything else he could do now.

[eevee]

Eevee had only just reached the ventilation shaft when she heard the robber’s outraged response. Well of course it wouldn’t have worked! These robbers were some of the best in the country. Eevee wondered why they were making a big fuss at this small-time bank, unless this was a decoy attack. Suppressing a comment that she would have readily thrown out before she had met Alexei, Eevee clicked on her radio.

“Trio, you copy?” Eevee spat through it, scowling.

“Loud and clear, ma’am.” Trio’s voice crackled over the comm.

“Get your ass over to the national bank, and take some cops with you. I’ve got a hunch that this isn’t their main holdout.” Eevee hissed.

“Yes, ma’am.” Trio said, and the comm. stopped its incessant buzzing noise Before Trio had finished, however, Eevee had already pulled herself into the ventilation shaft. She wound her way quickly but silently through the maze of shafts. She felt like a great cat, a large predator stalking her prey. Her team followed behind her, silent shadows accompanying her equally silent vector.

Then she heard it. The gunshot. She cringed as if the gun had been pointing at her. “I’ll kill those bastards.” She hissed, and unholstered her gun. She checked below her, looking through the slits in the ventilation cover, and saw and empty room. She hopped to the other side—silent, as always—and motioned for Rogue to open the shaft. After the large man had done so, Eevee flipped out, hanging onto the edge of the shaft so when she finally let go, she landed silently a foot later.

After searching quickly with her gun, she motioned her team to stay put. Then, silently, stealthily, she opened the door an inch. She was around the corner from the actual hostage situation. And she saw one of the robbers, his back to her. She knew she’d be rated out, but she didn’t care. Stealthily, she crept up behind him and cut his throat with his pocketknife. He fell to the ground, dead. Eevee retreated to the safety of the room after wiping his blood on his shirt.

After all, he’d been an accomplice in the killing of an innocent person—Eevee could only assume the bullet had hit someone. Now she had gotten back on the robbers, and she snarled to herself. She motioned up to Rogue and Shorty to be quiet and stay silent until she gave the orders. If the robbers were smart at all, and she knew they were, they’d probably want to know what had happened to one of their men. When that happened, they’d probably kill another person, or try to find out who had killed him.

Either way, Eevee was going to stay hidden. She crouched behind the desk, the only desk in the room, and peeked over the side of it. She didn’t care if she was going to be ratted out later, she just cared now that she had exacted her revenge or not. And she had liked exacting revenge.

[rosie]

Rosie was so petrified now she was scared her powers would go into overdrive like they had earlier. If they did, she might end up killing the man holding her, or worse accidentally killing Ira and that would be just awful of course. She loved Ira, of that she was now sure. She didn't care if he took months to fall in love with her, she would wait and she would wait because he was so sweet and he made her feel like she was someone. Before she met him she had been mourning the loss of her brother Tony and then only a week after meeting him the loss of her brother Jake and he'd been there for her through both times.

She knew in her heart this situation wouldn't be good for him. He worked for the computers at the FBI for god's sake what did he know about hostage situations, he was just as scared as she was, she could tell and she couldn't really blame him. Desperate to keep herself from crying so the robbers wouldn't attack anybody else, she tried to remain as calm as possible, but she was still crying and shaking.

Then she saw it, the robber might not have seen it, but she seen it, she saw the one at the other side of the bank get his throat slit by who she could only assume were one of the SWAT guys. At least Rosie hoped none of them seen it happen, because if they did, then somebody else would get killed or injured, and this time it might be Ira or herself.

However the robber standing nearer to Ira and the people beside him had seen it, she knew he had, because he ran over to the one holding Rosie and the next thing she knew he threw her against the floor.

"What the fuck?" he yelled, he still had the gun pointed at Rosie and she was shaking more than ever before. She tried to crawl over beside Ira so he could hold her, but the guy noticed and he bent down toward. "Don't you move, do you hear? Not an inch" he spat angrily at her.

He followed his accomplice to inspect the damage and then the next thing that happened could only be described as an explosive massacre. The guy who had held Rosie was wild with rage. "I told you all, I told you no compromises, I told you no messing with us" he screamed as he then nodded to his robber mate and the two of them started firing off in all directions. The bullets were going everywhere, flying across the room, several people were screaming now, at least three of them on Ira's side of the room got hit, Rosie couldn't tell if they were fatal or not.

She was now huddled in the corner where the robber had thrown her, screaming as loud as the rest of the females if not louder. He then walked back to Rosie, and completely turned on her. "You did this, didn't you bitch?" he screamed, "You already did it to him" he continued to spit, pointing to the broken pieces of ice, "Don't know how you managed it, but you must have killed him too" he yelled at her, pointing the gun at her again.

"I didn't....I...I...I...I've been....here.....all....the....time" Rosie said between her sobs and shaking, and then she heard another gun shot go off not realising it had gone in her direction until she felt the intense pain, and the blood seeping through her white top and jacket. Rosie had been shot just above the chest, important organ missed, but fatal enough to make her look at Ira with misty eyes and scream, before putting her hand up to her chest where the wound was and passing out on the floor.

[Ira Grey]

Ira's mind was whirling in a hundred different directions, trying to think of something he could do. There was always the "use your ability; you can manipulate ice for god's sake" option but judging from the ice scattered on the floor, Rosie had tried that--intentionally or not--and, well, it was plain to see how that turned out. He was trying to think logically, think of anything, trying to keep from freaking out.

Then he saw something out of the corner of his eye, one of the SWAT...people had snuck in and slit the throat of one of the robbers. Ira's eyes widened, and he hoped that the others wouldn't notice...it would probably make it worse. No such luck. Then there were bullets flying everywhere and Ira automatically flattened himself down onto the floor, trying to stay out of the line of fire, feeling himself shaking as bullets went every which way. Then amidst the screams, one stood out at him. Rosie. He lifted his head, and saw that she had been shot, and lay still on the ground, bleeding from just above her chest. Oh, God.

Without thinking, Ira half crawled, half dove over to where Rosie lay, stumbling over over one of his own feet in the process. Way to be coordinated, Ira, he grumbled to himself. Awesome. He knelt next to Rosie, taking off his jacket and putting it under her head. What next, what next, what next...stop the bleeding. He tentatively pressed his hands over the wound in her shoulder, and even though he could tell she was unconscious, he kept saying softly, "It's gonna be okay...just hang in there...", trying to reassure himself just as much as her.

[eevee]

Eevee, after a few moments of hiding, motioned for her team to come down. Rogue jumped down an instant later, and took up position with his gun pointing at the door. Shorty came in next and mouthed, ‘what the hell did you do?’ Eevee cut him off with a quick hand gesture. Now was not the time to say anything. Now was the time to act. And act the robbers did.

Which made Eevee even more enraged.

Eevee, stoically, stood up from her crouching position and motioned for Shorty to open the door. Shorty, knowing Eevee and realizing that Eevee needed to save at least someone, opened the door. The room outside was in chaos. The remaining robbers were shooting everywhere and everything that moved—even themselves. Eevee watched the scene unfold for nearly two seconds before deciding these robbers were extremely stupid for robbers on the top wanted list. And then, after she’d seen two people die—a robber and a hostage—Eevee decided to get even with them.

Eevee calmly raised her pistol, her lovely shiny gray gun, and aimed at the closest robber’s head. Unfortunately, when she fired the weapon, she didn’t know if it was her shot that killed him or not, seeing as he got hit a moment later. Both of the bullets penetrated his brain, so either way his lights would have gone out quickly. She rounded on the next guy, but before she shot at anyone, she waved her team onward. Rogue took up a point position and knelt while at the same time shooting a guy in the knee. Shorty, because he was short, only barely avoided shooting Rogue in the head, but his aim was true and he shot a guy in the chest. It wasn’t a fatal wound, but it probably winded the guy.

Blood was everywhere, and not all of the blood came from the robbers. That made Eevee mad. She had promised to try and never spill innocent blood, and these robbers had broken that promise in a heartbeat. Swinging around the corner, Eevee spotted who could only be the main robber. He was standing over a woman and holding a gun up to her. Eevee would not allow it, and so she didn’t allow it. She aimed, and shot the guy in the knee. As he was going down, she shot him in what she assumed to be the neck, because where she aimed, she always hit.

The guy was dead before he hit the ground, just like the other one. Eevee glanced around, knowing that she was in the open but not really caring. The only place where she was vulnerable was her face, and she doubted anyone would have any sense to shoot there. There were several unmoving figures, but Eevee was immediately focused on the woman she had just saved. That she thought she had just saved. After holstering her gun—Rogue and Shorty could take care of the rest of the people—Eevee hurried over to the woman. A man beat her to it. It seemed that the man cared for the woman, just like Eevee cared for Alexei, and, she wanted to assume, Alexei cared for her. But maybe their love—this man and woman’s love for each other—would transcend to marriage. Eevee didn’t know where she and Alexei were headed.

It was a bullet wound.

The woman was suffering from a bullet wound in the chest. From first glance, the wound looked to be fatal, but Eevee saw that the bullet had entered at a point where it could not slice into anything the woman really needed. And yes, her heart was something the woman really needed. The woman was okay, but she was loosing blood fast, too fast. “Oh, miss,” Eevee said, crouching down next to her and the man. “She’s going to bleed out if we don’t stop the bleeding somehow.” Eevee searched her body for some sort of cloth to plug the hole, but found none. She was so worried that the bullet that had penetrated the woman was hers. If it was hers, then she’d spilled innocent blood, and she’d probably be kicked off of SWAT.

After tearing a piece of Rosie’s shirt to try to stop the bleeding, Eevee prayed fervently to any God to keep this woman alive. Later the people who removed the bullet and who sent it to SWAT’s investigation offices would find that Eevee’s bullet had not, indeed, penetrated the woman’s body. The robber had shot her before he had died.

[Ira Grey]

Ira tried to keep his head down as the SWAT team came charging in, taking down the robbers, bullets still flying everywhere. He kept pressing down over the bullet wound in Rosie's chest, trying to stop the bleeding. Come on, come on, come on... Ira took a deep breath, trying to calm himself as the gunshots finally died down and it was relatively quiet again.

One of the SWAT women came over to where Ira knelt next to Rosie, quickly assessing the situation and telling Ira that Rosie was going to bleed out unless they could get it to stop somehow, any way possible. It hit Ira then, the fact that Rosie might die. Oh, God. He knelt, frozen, a thousand thoughts whirling around his mind. Rosie had...well, she had probably been the best thing that had happened in the last couple months. She was one of the few women that hadn't seemed to care when he turned into an awkward, bumbling wreck of shyness whenever he tried to speak, or when he couldn't get a word out without blushing. She was a friend...no, she was more than a friend. Another thought hit Ira like a punch to the jaw. He loved her.

Ira jerked himself back to the present, having realized that he loved Rosie, and then had another thought. ...have to stop the bleeding somehow... I can use my ability, he realized. Normally he would never use it in public if anyone was watching, he was that unsure of his power, but this was a matter of life and death. Literally. Without thinking what anyone else watching was going to say, he closed his eyes, positioning his hand over the bullet wound and released a jet of ice, freezing and sealing off the wound as best he could. He opened his eyes, moving back a little. "Did that help?"

[rosie]

Rosie had no idea how long she had been unconscious for, well how would she? She hadn't been aware of anything going on around her from the moment she was hit by the bullet. From the moment the first robber got angry at her accidentally killing one of his accomplices she wondered if she would get shot, killed, but she kept hoping it wouldn't happen. However it did happen and now she was lying on the floor of the bank, all robbers finally taken out by the SWAT team which had arrived all while Rosie was unconscious.

She hadn't even known Ira had swept across the floor to be by her side. In fact as she was lying there she saw her life pass by in front of her eyes. She saw how happy her parents and brothers were when they realised they finally had their baby daughter and sister. She saw herself growing up and how her older brothers adored her, and played with her, took her almost everywhere with them. Then she saw how she reacted when she first realised she had an ability and accidentally froze her drink. Then her grief over both her brothers dying. Then Ira. That's when images stopped flashing through her head. It was just Ira constantly. Ira's face, Ira's eyes, Ira's voice, Ira's touch. Mentally smiling at his face she visualised herself touching his face, her handsome Ira. Then she saw a light. A very bright light.

She started heading toward the light and then she saw Tony and Jake, standing there like angels. In fact they were angels, they had wings, and they were surrounded by a white glow. They were beautiful.

"It's not your time Rosangela" Tony said.

"You don't belong here" Jake said.

"But..." Rosie started.

"Rosangela Osborne, you're way too young to be here, you get your ass back to life right now, do you here? Right now" Tony said, as he put his hand on her right cheek and then Jake did the same thing putting his hand on her left cheek.

"Go Rosie" Jake said with a smile, "We'll be here again when it's your time"

The light faded as did her brothers. "But I.." she trailed off as they completely disappeared as did the light. That's when she saw Ira's face again. It wasn't smiling however, it was sad, very sad. Then she coughed and spluttered, as she drifted back into consciousness and opened her eyes very slowly, and saw him. Ira's handsome face.

She slowly lifted her hand up and touched his face with her hand, and then she felt the coldness against her chest, that's when she figured out what he had done.

"You" slow intake of breath, "just" breath, "saved" breath, "my life" desperately wanting to kiss him not giving a damn who saw, but realised she was in too much pain to move. "I" breath, "love" breath "you" breath "Ira" she said, and then her eyes closed.

The sound of the paramedics arriving could be heard, someone must have called them, a few of them came into the building. "Anybody else hurt other than this woman" one of them said, a few people shouted they had flesh wounds, so a couple of the paramedics were able to deal with them on the bank premises.

A couple of them came over to where Rosie was lying on the floor, once again her eyes closed. They looked at her, and at where the wound was, which was still frozen, but not quite as much as it had been before. They raised their eyebrow. "Who did this?" one of them asked. "Because whoever it was, looks like you've just saved this woman's life" he said as he and the other paramedic lifted Rosie onto a stretcher.

Looking down at the man on the floor next to where the woman had been lying said, "You're welcome to travel with us, assuming she's your wife?" he said as he lifted Rosie up. And then looked around at the scene, "Lucky it wasn't worse than it appears to be, and well done to you guys" he said looking at Eevee and the SWAT team.

Rosie began to drift in and out of consciousness then, and immediately held her hand out for Ira to take when the paramedic said he could go with them, she didn't want to be apart from him, not while she was feeling like this, not while he'd saved her life. She hadn't heard the paramedic ask Ira if she was his wife however.

[eevee]

Eevee watched as the man did the most unusual thing. Without using any ice or water or anything, he froze the woman’s wound. Eevee sat back and placed the bloodied piece of cloth on the ground. There was nothing much else for her to do now, it seems the man took care of everything. But Eevee was not surprised with the man’s sudden ability: she was a double agent at Primatech and Pinehearst, she knew about the people with abilities. And she had an ability herself.

Eevee stood up when the paramedics rushed in. There were a lot of them—there should have been. Normally, though, the darned people never thought to bring in half the amount of medics needed, and so the medics were usually rushing about and not getting done what they needed to get done. Now there were a lot—too many?—and Eevee felt herself squished back to the money registers. She felt the register and knew it to be slick with blood. The whole ground was oozing with the stuff.

The paramedics saw to the woman before turning to Eevee. Rogue and Shorty had joined her near the money registers, and both were looking a bit winded. They hadn’t seen a real bank heist in a long time, and Eevee wondered if ‘winded’ was the right word. Maybe ‘unable to expend more adrenaline’ was a better phrase for her guys. When the paramedic gave her a ‘thumbs up’ in tongue, Eevee just nodded. ‘Just doing my job, however crappy it is,’ Eevee replied in her mind.

After the paramedics left, Eevee turned to Rogue, “Gather up all of the excess weapons, you know the drill. And Shorty, you go out and cooperate with the cops. They’re sure to be asking why we went in guns blazing in the first place.” Rogue and Shorty nodded and melted away into the crowd. Eevee knew they’d follow her orders, or else she’d take away their pay. But Eevee wasn’t that mean sometimes.

Now to check in on Trio. Eevee fingered her shoulder-radio. The handset turned on, and Eevee heard the annoying hum of static come over the line. She pushed the button, “Trio, come in.” She waited a couple seconds. “Trio, report.” Another seconds. If Trio had been using radio silence, he would have clicked the button twice, and she would not have called him again. But Trio had not done that. “Trio, dammit, respond!” Eevee hissed into the speaker. Her team didn’t like it when she was mad, and they usually answered after that.

Then the static lessened in the line for a moment. A voice came over her comm., but it wasn’t Trio’s voice. “Officer down!” The voice cried into the comm., “SWAT officer down!” Eevee’s stomach clenched. She jammed her finger on the button, “Officer, repeat?” The cop’s voice came over the line, “There were too many! He tried to negotiate, but they shot him!” Eevee hissed in anger, in fear that Trio was dead. “Officer, is he dead?”

There was static on the other end for a couple moments.

“His face was blown off, ma’am.” The officer replied. Eevee felt winded all of a sudden. And her ‘winded’ was the accurate term of the word. Francis Johnson, aka Trio, was dead. The burly second-in-command of her unit had his life taken from him. If only she hadn’t told him to go! He wouldn’t be dead! It was all her fault! Rogue was there, a large bag in his hands. “Ma’am, it wasn’t your fault.” He said, looking down, tears forming in his eyes. Everyone had loved Trio.

But it was her fault. Just like it was her fault Emilee died. “Officer, are the robbers still there?” Eevee whispered in a broken voice. The officer answered back, “No, your SWAT shot the leader, and the rest broke up. No money was stolen. He saved the day.”

Eevee let a small smile show, “that’s good.” She muttered, but didn’t say it over the comm. At least Trio had done well with his final breaths. Now all Eevee had to do was make sure the woman was okay, and she’d be fine. The woman had to be okay—there were too many deaths today. Trio had been too young to die. Emilee had been to young to die. But this woman—this woman was vivacious, Eevee saw that when she was trying to keep her from bleeding out. The woman would live, Trio’s life wasn’t given in vain, and Eevee would live to fight another day. Such was the way of the world.

“Let’s go see what’s happening outside.” Eevee said after regaining her stoic composure. “I’m sure we’re going to be the stars of television for at least a couple hours.” Eevee and her team walked out the doors, and, like she had predicted, were assailed with television newscasters. ‘This ought to be fun.’ Eevee thought, inwardly glaring, inwardly that large feline stalking her prey yet again.

[Ira Grey]

Ira saw that Rosie was starting to come awake, reaching her hand up to touch his face, and for once, he didn't blush. He leaned closer as she spoke softly, almost too quietly to hear...she said she loved him. Ira's eyes widened, smiling faintly and he responded, hesitantly, barely audible. "I, um, I love you, too." Then Rosie's eyes drifted closed again, and then the paramedics were running in, coming over to Ira and Rosie. When one of the paramedics told Ira that he had just saved Rosie's life, he smiled slightly, watching with concern as they lifted Rosie onto the stretcher.

Ira jumped slightly when the paramedic spoke to him again, telling him he could come along, asking if Ira was her husband. He got to his feet, following along behind the paramedics, looking down at Rosie. "No, just...just a friend," he mumbled, taking Rosie's hand as they headed towards the ambulance.

It wasn't a very long ride to the hospital--Ira kept holding Rosie's hand the whole time--and then once they got there, she was whisked away to surgery and there was nothing for Ira to do but just wait and wonder.

[eevee]

[[ End of thread~ ]]