Sara made her way over to us and dropped downbeside me. “What a mess,” she said in a disgusted tone of voice.“Glad you could finally join us,” she added to Mark.
“Sorry, we got arrested in town. It’s a longstory and not important at the moment.” Glancing around quickly hecontinued in a whisper, “What happened while I was gone? Why didn’tyou wait in the cave?”
Sara gave him the abbreviated version of ouradventure while Mark just kept shaking his head at the stupidity ofour assault.
When she finished her story, Mark commented“All I can say is that you two have more luck than brains. You’reboth lucky to be alive right now. Don’t even think of pulling sucha stupid stunt ever again!”
“No worries on that count, I’m fresh out ofasshole husbands now.”
Sirens blaring, the road and lawn in front ofmy house started filling up with emergency vehicles. More medicalstaff rushed out to assist with the wounded men and also with me.Two fire trucks disgorged their operators and began pumping wateron the blaze that was once my lovely home. Sara went over to wherethe police were gathering and began telling them about the guardsin the area that needed to be picked up.
Now it’s over, I thought to myself as theyplaced me on a gurney and hauled me off to a waiting ambulance. Forthe first time in days I felt safe. The cost had been great, but wehad won. More importantly, we were all still alive to enjoy it.
Epilogue
Linda:
“Welcome home!” they all shouted at me as Istepped through the door of Mark’s house. Technically, my home wasa pile of burnt cinders, but the warm welcome here from my friendsmade it a non-issue. Home is where the heart is, and my heartbelonged here now.
I had just spent the last week in thehospital due to my injuries, and a welcome home party with Mark,Sara, and Carl was the perfect thing to cheer me up. They had allcome to visit me in the hospital of course, but this was the firsttime that we had all gotten together at once.
By unspoken agreement, we had held off inrelating our various parts of the story until we could all gathertogether. As we got caught up with details from everyone to make awhole, the experience started shifting away from nightmare andtoward a unique bond between us. What happened out there was a talethat nobody who didn’t live through it would believe.
I laughed at Carl’s description of whathappened to get them arrested, and how it took them all day toconvince the cops that they weren’t lunatic armed thugs. Saracontinued to make digs at him, but in a warmer manner than I’veseen her exhibit before. If I didn’t know better, I would swearthat they might become a couple soon.
I felt completely fine and to be honest,didn’t think that I needed to stay in the hospital for even asingle day. Now that I was home with Mark and my friends, I wasmore than happy to let them pamper me. The state of shock theyfound me in on the day of the fire was due to the strain placed onme from the overuse and abuse of my new abilities.
At least that was all over and done with now;any future experimentation could be done in a safe and controlledmanner. For a while, at least, we could turn to more mundanematters like designing my new house. The media had raised quite thebuzz over how a military unit on a training exercise could havemade such an egregious error in shooting up a civilian residence.The lawsuits would be legendary, they predicted.
I wasn’t sure how much attention we wantedthough. It might be for the best to try and let it quietly fadeaway. Either way, we could relax for a while.
Mark:
It was good having Linda home with me. Thelast week with the media piranhas descending on me every time Istepped outside was almost as bad as the previous week and ourfight for survival. A story like this comes along once in alifetime, they claimed, and it had drawn the press from all acrossthe country.
I was still upset that Linda and Sara wereforced to take on Sid and his troops without me. It felt like I hadfailed, and all due to a stupid misunderstanding in that donutshop. If I hadn’t been recognized by that one clerk who was a fanof my books, we might still be rotting in jail.
If Linda had gotten herself killed in thatinsane attack, I’m not sure if I could have ever forgiven myself. Istill felt a little bad that Sid was killed, and more so for Sarawho had to do the deed. She may have been a battle hardenedveteran, but it couldn’t have been easy. She seemed to be taking itwell though.
Carl seemed especially subdued ever since hegot out of jail. He blamed himself and his stupidity for gettingcaught with a gun and ruining our chance to bring help in a timelyfashion. At least he had all the charges against him dropped afterthe sheriff had seen for himself that we were telling the truth.The sheriff might have been a small town redneck, but he was farfrom stupid.
Glancing around the room, I was glad thatLinda seemed to be enjoying herself immensely with our littlesurprise party. She had looked to be in really bad shape as theytook her away in the ambulance, but thank God that her injurieswere superficial. I was worried that she might want to avoid usingour unique new abilities, but she quickly dispelled that notion inthe hospital with a telepathic greeting of love.
Not wanting to be overheard talking aboutwhat really happened out there, we engaged in several longsilent conversations during her recovery. The media bulldogshanging around the hospital mistook our silent conversations assimply being content to be with each other. They ran it as alovey-dovey piece for days after I proposed to her.
I was still eager to examine our psionics indetail, but was determined that it would be in a safe andcontrolled environment from now on. Carl
