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Fighting for their freedom, Zack and friends take some damage.

Shifting Consequences--Chapter 24: Flash and Bang By Zmeydros (Lucien Quinn) zmeydros.tumblr.com zmeydros (Twitter) Malfedrosti (Mal Twitter)

When Cher looks at her phone, she sees that she missed a text from Mallory. "The director had the team get on an earlier flight due to orders from above. They will be there before lunch. When you see them enter, you can start driving back home."

Cher's heart starts to beat faster. What is she going to do? Should she warn them? Should she just go back to her car? She calls Mallory.

The call rings out and goes to the answering machine. Cher feels a cold spike of worry travel up from her feet. What can she do? If she goes and warns them, she might get caught and then she won't be any help.

Cher calls Mallory again and when it rolls over to voicemail, she says, "Don't send the team. I'm sure we have the wrong people. Call me as soon as you get this so I can explain." She hangs up.

Whether Mallory will call her in time, Cher has no idea. She starts walking toward the elevator, she has to warn them. About half-way down the hall, she stops. What if the team is already there? How will she explain herself? Especially now that she's called Mallory.

She paces up and down the hall trying to make a decision. No decision comes. Her fist tightens, she breathes faster, she hits her thigh. Her mind is blank and her heart is pounding. Thinking under great duress isn't her strong suit. With no idea how much time has passed, she finally makes it to the elevator and reaches for the call button.

Her hand stops when she notices the sound of hushed voices. She strains to hear them until she feels her ears start moving up to the top of her head. She shivers as she feels her face push out into a muzzle. What if someone sees her like this?

She can hear the voices with her canine ears. "...through the door. Remember, no lethal force unless mission failure is imminent."

Cher concentrates on making her face appear more masculine and less canine as she runs for the stairs. She's in a suit and her breasts are small. She may as well avoid getting her face recognized if there's a camera or a stray team member on the way out.

The feeling of her transformation is a bit painful, but she's so stressed by the situation that she hardly notices. Now that's she's changed her appearance, her brain goes blank. There's nothing she can do, it's out of her hands, she has to get out of here and back to HQ.

Zack's electricity better knock them all out at once or... Cher's eyes tear as she imagines Bella getting knocked out and dragged away. A tear rolls down her cheek as she imagines Zack being studied in some dark recess of the government's secret operations. When she reaches the bottom of the stairs, she goes out the first door she sees, setting off an alarm.

Her heart lurches in her chest as she runs in the opposite direction from her car. She just runs and runs a few blocks away then she takes a right past some suburban rambler houses and slowly circles back to her car.

As she gets in to her vehicle, she yelps in surprise when she sees her weathered male face looking back at her from the side mirror. She takes some deep breaths and focuses on changing her face back to her original appearance. When she's herself again, she shuts the door and starts the car.

With a glance back to the hotel, she starts driving back toward the highway so she can get back to HQ. She fights back tears of frustration at how powerless she is. Her whole body aches. If there is any good left in the world, Zack and his friends will remain free.

* * * * *

Vale walks up to the group around the dining room table as he stuffs his cell phone charger into the front pocket of his backpack. "I think we should leave. I was willing to trust Cher until she got cold feet."

Bella shakes her head. "No, let's wait. She's like us now, she's not going to turn us in."

"If we're gonna run we don't have time to discuss this. Let's just vote." Glenn raises his hand. "All in favor of leavin', raise your hand."

Looking at each of them, Zack frowns. No one looks happy. Bella is looking at the ground with fear-bleached cheeks. Vale's jaw is set as he looks at Glenn and raises his hand. Glenn's face is hard to read. He mainly looks extremely serious with his relaxed lips going straight across.

When Zack and Bella don't raise their hands, Vale stomps her foot. "Come ON! We're not an odd number, one of you needs to raise your hand."

"Why don't you put your hand down?" Bella glares at Vale.

"Because, I think our best chance is to get out of here even if Cher is on our side. If I have more time, I think I can make sure they don't find us again."

"You haven't even broken into their system yet. How can you know that will work? If we have allies inside thei--"

Vale hits the table. "I'm not willing to gamble with my freedom. Are you?"

"How do you know which option is the bigger gamble? None of us have all the facts." Bella's voice wavers as she grips the back of a chair tightly. The fear on her face has given way to narrowed eyes and a furrowed brow. She looks ready to hit someone.

Vale starts speaking even louder. "Standing here without--"

"STOP!" Zack holds out his hands. "United, we can beat them, divided, we can't. Let's run. Cher's not back yet and I think she's had plenty of time to call her boss."

Bella pushes the chair against the table. "Fine!"

"Look, just because we're running doesn't mean that Cher can't be our--" A faint, but familiar, noise grabs Zack's attention. It sounds like what happened when his dad tried to go out a door with a warning sign when they were lost in a parking garage. "Something's wrong."

"WHAT?" Vale and Bella say together.

Glenn looks around as if he is supposed to be able to hear or see the danger that Zack senses.

"Bella, can you cast a spell that would douse people with salt water?" Zack can see a scenario in his head. FBI agents busting through the door and shooting all of them with tranq guns or tasers or rubber bullets so fast they don't even have time to react. They have to thin the herd as fast as possible.

"CHER, YOU FUCKING BITCH!" Vale yells at the top of his lungs.

Glen snaps his fingers and points at the door. "Vale! You're not helping. What if they heard you?"

Vale covers his mouth as he feels his cheeks flush. He really needs to calm down.

Bella clasps Vale on the shoulder. "It's okay. I'm mad too." She looks at Zack. "Yeah, turn on the bathtub and all the sinks in this place."

"Where will you get the salt?" Zack asks.

"I will transmute the water into sea water," Bella says.

"Where does the salt come from when you do that?"

"No time to explain. Now let's get those faucets turned on." Bella dashes over to the kitchen sink.

Zack and Glenn run into each other when they try to dash toward the bathroom. Vale passes them. Zack's heart is beating faster and faster. He's going to have to fight actual FBI agents? He was in some martial arts when he was younger, but he hasn't really focused on it for a long time. At least he has lightning...

It appears as though Bella is using a variant of her cleaning spell to gather all the water to a spot about five feet from the door and three feet off the ground. She will probably be fine in the coming battle. What about Vale and Glenn? Do they have any way of defending themselves against well-trained agents?

"You okay, Zack?" Glenn's forehead creases.

"No, I'm worried that someone's going to get hurt."

Glenn slaps Zack on the back. "Take out as many as you can and we'll do the cleanup. If you worry about us, you'll be too distracted to fight."

Zack gulps and then takes a deep shaky breath trying to calm himself. His mind is still filled with images of them being dragged off unconscious. Then suddenly, lips meet his and he finds himself in a very sultry french kiss. At first he freezes, but then his cheeks start to flush and he moans as his cock stiffens in his sheath.

When Glenn lets him go, his heart is still racing, but the images of impending doom have been washed from his mind. "Thanks, I needed that."

"I did it for both of us." Glenn smiles. "Go electrocute some bad guys, sexy."

Zack walks to the kitchen. Glenn and Vale follow behind him. When Zack walks up to Bella, he tries to pull her into a kiss, but she shakes her head and keeps casting. Glenn and Vale make out for a few seconds before they turn to Zack.

Vale says, "So, what now?"

"I think you and I should split up. One in the bedroom and the other behind the short wall that separates the kitchen from the dining--" Glenn is interrupted by a loud bang on the door.

He and Vale run to the locations Glenn was mentioning as the door gives way to the battering ram making a loud crashing sound. Wood splinters fly into the air as the door swings open on its severely damaged hinges.

Bella sends big manatee-shaped globules of water from the sphere she's collected at the black-clothed figures entering the room. The ones that get hit by the water yell in surprise.

Zack steps to the side, distancing himself from Bella, and lets loose his lightning, causing the first two figures to yelp and fall to the ground. Zack hears a loud bang and a bright flash leaves his eyes seeing nothing at all. Bella yelps as a loud gunshot goes off. Zack sends his lighting out in front of him and hears another yelp.

Then another gunshot is fired and Zack immediately feels the wind get knocked out of him as he loses his balance. It feels like someone punched him incredibly hard in the chest.

Zack sends out more lightning as Bella's water falls to the floor. His vision is just barely coming back. Each breath brings shooting pain. He hears two people running in. Vale and Glenn must have decided that it was time for them to help.

Another shot conincides with Glenn gasping in pain. Then he hears a loud crash as something wooden is broken. Zack can make out Vale over one of the figures pressing his forearm against the person's throat. The agent is gasping and gurgling. Flashes of orange light are coming from Bella's location.

Another shot sends Vale to the ground. The orange light flies through the doorway to the figure behind it and then Zack hears a heavy object fall to the ground before a dull thud as the figure behind the door collapses.

Bella starts crying. Vale rolls himself over as the figure he attacked tries to get up. Vale braces himself with his arms and kicks the legs out from under the last conscious figure. Glenn runs past Zack and Vale and lands elbow-first on the agent.

The last remaining enemy cries out as the wind is knocked out of her. Glenn puts his forearm to her throat. She gurgles and gasps for a few moments before her body goes limp.

Zack blinks. He can see everything now, the dark figures with "FBI" written in pristine white letters on the chest of their body armor, the blood spot on Vale's shirt between his shoulder and his neck, Glenn kneeling on the floor next to the figure he knocked out holding his side, Bella struggling to get to her feet wincing in pain and holding her shoulder.

Zack looks back at Vale and sees even more red. "Are you bleeding?"

"Huh?" Vale turns to look back at him only to suck air through his teeth and grab the bloody area with his hand. "Yeah, did they shoot you too?"

A tightness forms in Zack's chest as he looks down to see if there's any blood. He feels numb. Government agents are strewn about the floor, every one of his new friends is injured, and he his ears are still ringing a bit from the gunshots.

"Zack?" Vale says scooting on the floor so he can turn to look at Zack without turning his head.

"Sorry, I don't know." Zack takes his head in his hands.

A yelp comes from Bella. "I think something's wrong with my left arm."

Glenn hisses in pain as he gets himself to his feet. "It's probably dislocated. I think one of them was mowing us down with bean bag rounds before he pulled out his handgun to use on Vale."

A chill runs down Zack's spine. His mind starts to clear, letting him put together the obvious facts in front of him. Vale got shot! Vale could have died! They barely made it out of this situation and the FBI agents were willing to kill them if necessary. The blood spot on Vale's shirt is growing. Zack sets his jaw as he feels himself get more and more nervous.

He doesn't have time to worry, those gun shots might have brought the police. "Vale, apply pressure to the wound." Zack gets on his feet and walks over to Vale.

Vale grimaces as he presses his fingers against both sides of the wound. Zack rummages through the pockets and various bags containing gear on the special agents. Eventually, he finds a little trauma kit. He rips open a gauze pad and pulls up Vale's shirt.

Glenn walks up to Bella. "This is going to hurt, but I need to inspect your shoulder."

"Oh, ok." Bella lets go of her left arm.

As Glenn's hands feel around Bella's shoulder area, she squirms and whimpers in pain. This hurts so much more now that she's not distracted by fighting for her life.

Glenn lifts up her shirt. "Looks like you took a bean bag right in the shoulder."

"A bean bag?" Bella furrows her brow. How could a bean bag hurt her?

Glenn looks on the floor and then grunts and holds his side as he reaches behind Bella to pick something up. It looks like a sock a bit bigger than Glenn's thumb and is tied off. He squeezes it to show there's some sort of small beads or something inside. "These come out of a 12 gauge shot gun and cause lots of pain. I think your shoulder is partially dislocated."

"How do we pop it back in?" Bella frowns.

"One of my buddies had a shoulder that kept popping out of joint. I learned this trick from helping him." He puts his hand on top of her shoulder. "This is going to hurt, but I want you to slowly raise your arm."

Bella starts to raise her arm and feels pain shoot down it. "OW! OW! FUCK! OW! OUCH! OW-OW-OW OW-OW! FUUUUCK! SHIT!" He helps her raise it further with his other hand. She feels a pop and some intense pain. "AAAAH!"

Glenn lets go. "You ok?"

Bella moves her arm. "I think it's a lot better now. The place where the bean bag hit is really tender, though."

"Yeah, there's a fair amount of damage."

"Hey Bella, I know you're in pain, but Vale's bleeding is taking its sweet time to slow down." Zack says.

Bella feels her stomach sink. "Bleeding?"

"Yeah, I think they were about to give up on taking us alive. I think the guy with the shotgun used his side arm on me," Vale says. "It really hurts."

"Take off your shirt. Let me take a look." Bella moves her hands in small arcs with her fingers spread. Dark reddish swirls follow her fingers. "Thok mess putank shro boon boon putank po rum bro start thok thok."

The moment Zack takes the pad off of Vale, blood starts soaking into the shirt again. When Vale pulls the shirt over his head, Bella claps her hands together pointing the tips of her fingers at the wound. The magic forms a vibrating helix that collides with Vale's wound and ends up sticking out on both sides of it.

Vale groans in pain as the wound is stitched up from the inside out. Blood flows down his chest and back as he is repaired. Zack looks away from the gruesome scene only to turn back and watch in fascination as the skin on the surface starts stitching together.

When the spell is over, everyone except for Bella is speechless. "That spell only stitches things up and stops most of the bleeding. Actual healing takes a lot longer. I'm not the greatest at it. I've only practiced on small wounds like paper cuts."

"It only hurts about a fourth as much now. Thanks." Vale holds up the shirt. "Can I get a new one, please?"

Glenn shakes his head and blinks. "S-sure." He walks over to a bag and pulls out a light yellow shirt and tosses it to her. He holds out his hand and says, "Toss me the bloody one."

Vale does so and Glenn puts it in its own trash bag. As Glenn puts the bag away, Zack hears a faint high-pitched sound. It is really annoying kind of like a... "Guys, I think someone called the police about the gun shots. We have to get out of here."

Everyone in the room stops moving and looks at Zack. Vale puts his hands up to his ears, wincing in pain. He turns his head toward the windows. "Oh no! No! Fuck!" Vale gets up and grabs a couple bags. "Let's go."

"Won't they just catch us if we use the same car?" Zack holds up his hands.

"We'll--we'll go back the way we came toward Illinois and then take a rural road to west. There isn't any surveillance that way." Glenn grabs a big duffel bag. Zack gets up, feeling his very sore ribs grind against each other. It feels weirdly cold in his abdomen, but he can't worry about that now.

Bella grabs the last bag. "Zack, you're looking a bit pale. I think you should take it easy."

"He might have internal bleeding. Those bean bags can break ribs and cause organ punctures." Glenn walks out the door and hits the call button on the elevator.

Zack grabs a roll of paper towels that they left on the counter and follows them out. When they get on the elevator, everyone looks around nervously. The sirens are getting louder. Zack takes a deep breath only to have a spike of pain in his side. He wants to stay calm, but this is the first time he's fought for his life, the first time he's had a friend get shot, the first time he's had an injury like this.

Bella grabs his free hand with hers and squeezes. "We'll make it through this."

"I hope so." Zack squeezes back.

The doors open to the lobby and they rush out the front door. Glenn pops the trunk.

"Give me that backpack." Vale points at the backpack Bella is holding.

Bella hands it over and Vale walks over to his bike. As Vale puts the backpack in one of his panniers, Glenn asks, "You want to follow us on that?"

"Yeah, I have an idea for when we get away from the city." Vale starts trying to put on his helmet. "Bella, can you fix my helmet?"

"Oh, a bit small is it?" Bella holds her hands apart making some light green glowwyness. "Gethspach prac prachen spirro glue two feshenta." She moves her hands further apart and the helmet gets a green haze around it for a moment.

Vale put it on. "Perfect fit. Thanks!"

"We have to go!" Zack hops in behind the passenger's seat.

The sound of the sirens is close now. Glenn shuts the trunk and hops in the driver's seat and starts the car while Bella climbs in.

Vale's heart pounds in his chest as he adjusts his bike to make up for his taller body. Just as Glenn pulls out of the parking lot, Vale starts his bike and zooms up from behind.

Glenn floors it, but the four cylinder engine in the Prizm does little to impress. He takes the quickest path out of town while following all the traffic laws. If there's a speed camera or policemen that are not chasing him, he doesn't want their attention.

When he sees flashing lights in his rear-view mirror, his heart nearly stops. "Shit!"

Bella and Zack look back. Zack says. "No way!"

Glenn looks up the road for some place to turn off or lose the cop behind them. The train crossing up ahead starts flashing and Glenn floors it. The train's horn is music to his ears. Watching in the rear-view mirror, Glenn's chest tightens. Will Vale make it?

Vale watches the crossing guard bars come down and opens up the throttle. Time slows for him as he realizes that he might get knocked off his bike. At the last moment, he hugs his bike not even attempting to look ahead. The last guard bar passes just over his helmet. When he sits back up, he hits the breaks and turns the bike so that he misses the Prizm.

The near miss causes Glenn to grit his teeth, but he keeps driving and Vale lines up behind him again.

The cop car's pursuit is halted by a wall of diesel-powered steel. Glenn smiles at their good fortune. Maybe luck will be on their side for a change. He turns into the first residential area he sees and asks, "Bella, can you change the color of the car?"

"Yeah, why? Shouldn't we be on the road out of here?" Bella looks at the train crossing just to make sure it wasn't a short train or something.

"If we change license plates and the color, we might lose them long enough to switch vehicles." Not that many cars are out on driveways in this neighborhood. It seems as though big garages are popular in this area.

"I like that idea. Do you think we need to do something about Vale's bike too?" Zack looks down a side street and sees a line of cars. Someone's having some sort of party. "Turn right!"

Glenn pulls up behind a 2012 Nissan Maxima and pulls a multitool out of his pocket as he gets out. "Bella, pick another color for the car and work your magic." He quickly goes about unscrewing the license plates. Once he has them off, walks past two cars to a red Toyota Corolla and he undoes the license plates.

Bella starts casting a spell that involves a lot of purple and some little points of light that sparkle all over the car. Zack watches the beauty of the color change spell unfold and tries to ignore the throbbing pain in his side. He feels really tired. He doesn't even try to keep track of Bella's casting.

The color of the car changes in little specs all over the car. The specs spread out into larger areas until the areas of color meet. The color changes to sage green and Bella makes an extra effort to let the color be faded in areas like the finish the car had before.

Glenn puts their license plates on the car and then brings the other car's plates back and puts them on the Prizm. He says, "Great work," to Bella.

Vale gets off his bike lifts his visor. Then he waves at Bella. "Can you change my bike's color to white and change one of the numbers on the license plate?"

"Yeah, but I'm feeling a bit tired from all the magic use. Let's try to find some non-magical solutions after this." Bella starts casting.

Zack watches Bella. She's beautiful in any form. So graceful, so expressive, so kind and... his mind goes blank as he sits back a bit. His arms feel heavy and his breaths are seeming to take more effort. Maybe he just needs to rest.

Vale's bike changes to white in the same way the car did and one of the digits on the plate changes from a seven to an eight. Bella takes a deep breath. "Wheew. Now we should get out of here."

Vale puts his visor back down and hops on his bike. Glenn and Bella get in the car. He follows them out of the residential area and then down some obscure country road that leaves from the side opposite the road they came in on.

Glenn looks at the compass that's part of his credit-card-sized multitool. He's heading south, which is good for now, he'll have to go west for a while at the next biggish road. Now that he has a new car with new plates, it might be worth the risk to head north sooner.

Zack looks back at Vale, feeling a bit dizzy. His new white bike looks cool... Staring blankly for a few seconds, Zack wonders why he was looking back there to begin with. Weren't they stopped a few moments ago? He sits back down facing forward. Since when did he have a headache?

He shakes his head and opens his eyes. For some reason, he thinks it would be a bad idea to fall asleep. Maybe it was something someone told him about serious injuries? He's not sure why that's relevant.

Something about Zack's face is just wrong. Vale feels his heart sink in his chest as he meets Zack's stare. If he didn't know any better, he'd think Zack was in a daze. The sickening feeling Vale has says otherwise. It could be fifteen minutes or more before Bella or Glenn figure out something's wrong and Zack may not have that much time. He needs to find some way to get Glenn's attention. It would be a lot easier if he was riding in the car or knew some magic.