Gimme Shelter

Suddenly Lenna’s phone vibrated.

Meet outside Aly room ASAP. 2 guard.

“Georgie come on we have to go. Aly’s window, right now.”

There was no time for Georgie to ask why they had to go to the window. Lenna was already on the way.

Holyfield poked his head back into the room. Something was off about the Union Rep. Holyfield blinked in disbelief at the sight of Wesson uncuffed and standing with the "Union Rep" at the now-open window. This was ... almost comical. The kind of hair-brained scheme he wasn't surprised to see from Wesson's buddies on the Remington side of the line, but so stupid he hadn't expected it. And it had almost worked. He picked his radio from his belt and sent a message to the HRT Members waiting throughout the ICU.

"Suspects attempting escape. Move to intercept in the parking lot behind Agent Wesson's room. Stay out of sight. Holyfield out," Holyfield ordered down the radio, almost irritated by the simple, insane, and shockingly effective plan Wesson's new allies had come up with.

With a disappointed sigh, Holyfield drew his Glock 22 and stepped into the room with the two door guards, who drew their own pistols and leveled them at Wesson and her "Union Rep".

"Wesson, Connery, stop. Right now. You both know the rules of gun safety. Don't point a gun at something you're not willing to kill. There are three Glock 22s pointed at you both. We are too far away for you to intercept before we shoot. Keep your hands visible, and no one has to die. Don't even try the window. I really don't think you two are faster than us," Holyfield barked, his gun aimed squarely between the "Union Rep's" shoulder blades.

“Whoa, Guns. Damn it. Georgie? Help. Plan. Now.”

Lenna was at this moment more scared then she was in the cave with the skin walker. There no myth about the FBI, no secret that she could know. They are just human, which meant that she felt guilty in using her powers against them.

I knew this was a terrible plan.

She hid out of sign and did the only thing she could think of.

Tex help. One in FBI custody. HELP! Please

Sent.

(OOC: Ariel, let me SLEEP)! =)

"Hey, do I look like Peter Pan or what?" Georgina followed Elenna, who ran towards the window. "Is there anything on me that says Hey, I can fly!, or how do you expect me to..."

"Just think of something nice and ask little Tinker Bell to give you some fairy dust, and your problem will be solved", Elenna responded sarcastically.

"Very funny." Georgina looked at the window. "So, jump?"

"Jump." Elenna looked at her impatiently. "Ladies first."

"Wait a sec."

"We don't have a sec!"

"I know, but I can't jump with my Chanel shoes on!" Georgina quickly put off her shoes. "Ready, Wendy?"

"You bet, Peter!"

Meanwhile, near Rock Springs, New Mexico

The shotgun's slide racked again, a twelve-gauge roar splitting the night air. Even after the renaming of Route 666, the region seemed to be haunted. And so far from Gallup, too. Caleb racked the slide of his SPAS-12 Combat Shotgun again and approached the Shapeshifter where it lay crippled on the ground. Thin columns of smoke rose from the buckshot wounds over its body, particularly from where one pellet had nicked the heart. Cal sighed, saluted the stricken beast, pressed the muzzle of his shotgun to its chest and delivered the coup de grâce. He pulled several new shells from his belt and topped up the magazine tube, turning back towards his monstrous pickup.

He pulled the rear driver's side door open, opening the false floor and sliding the shotgun into a gun rack hidden under the back seats. He locked the false floor in place again and closed the door, checking for any witnesses. Or if the Shapeshifter had any accomplices. He sighed and ran a hand through his ragged hair, dragging his fingers down along his face. Needed a shave. And maybe some sleep. He leaned against the door of the armoured Ford F550 and breathed a heavy sigh. The silence of the night was again shattered by a cellphone ringing. He looked around irritatedly, his eyes narrowing until he realised it was his own phone.

"Hello?" Cal asked as he picked up, "Caleb Daly speaking."

"Cal, this is Tex. We've got a problem."

"I'm listening," Cal replied, his brow creasing.

"I just got a message from some Hunters in Gallup. You probably heard about their latest gig on the news."

"Damn right I did. What the Hell got into them?" Cal cut Tex off.

"Ever heard of the Shadow-That-Walks?"

"They killed that thing?" Cal asked, his interest piqued.

"Yeah. But the FBI arrived before they could skip town and one of their own is in custody now."

"And they need backup?" Cal sighed.

"Got it in one."

"Still got the magic then," Cal laughed, climbing into the driver's seat and jamming his keys in the ignition, "You wanna send me a contact number?"

"Sure. Her name is Elenna."

"Thanks. And hey, I'll drop by next time I'm passin' through. Been too long since we talked face to face," Cal continued, "Take care. Bye."

"Bye."

Cal's phone beeped, a new number arriving via text message. He added it, under "Elenna from Tex", and sent a message.

"A friend of Tex's here. The cavalry's on the way. Where are you?"

Twenty-two klicks to Gallup. The truck's engine roared into life, the tuned V8 thundering under the hood. He slid the six-speed into gear and floored the gas pedal. The speedometer and rev counter jumped sharply as he crunched through the gears, not only laughing in the face of the speed limit, but smashing it with a blunt object.

Allison sighed and turned around. She had time to pull on some pants before the escape attempt so she wasn't worried about mooning the HRT.

"Fantastic, KGB...I told you this was stupid."

She hurt all over. Suddenly a sharp pain ripped through her gut and she crumpled to the floor, dropping the pistol as she fell.

Danila watched as Holyfield walked in. And then Aly called him stupid.

Before she promptly collapsed and dropped her gun.

He sighed, setting the gun on the floor and putting his hands in the air. Okay, so maybe it was a hairbrained plan, but it wasn't like he'd had much to work with. . .

Holyfield sighed with relief. He wanted a conviction, not an execution from this. He nodded the agents forward and had them cuff both the stranger and Wesson.

"Non-standard cuffs this time," Holyfield stated, almost angrily to Wesson and the stranger, before stepping outside the room.

He pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed a number as quickly as he could without getting it wrong.

"Hello? Yeah. We've gotta move transport arrangements up," Holyfield stated tensely, before hanging up immediately.

In the last second Elenna felt her phone vibrating.

A friend of Tex's here. The cavalry's on the way. Where are you?

“Wait Georgie. Change of plans, put your shoes back on. We need to wait for someone. Help is coming. Not sure who, but we need help.”

“So I am not enough help?”

“Duh, there are 13 FBI agents. Shall I spell the number for you? Because when you look at it, they have now two from our team in custody. This starts to be a little like the song 99 bottles of rum. We need more help and as long you have a great idea how we get Aly and Dan back, we wait!”

“I hate when you are bossy.”

“Shut up.”

We are in the parking lot. Sorry but hurry. Because now there are two in custody. Long story.

I forgot why I wanted to stay here. Next time we act like a pirate. Any man who falls behind, is left behind. Maybe.

Cal was resigned to the fact that he shouldn't check messages while tearing down the roads of New Mexico at a brave whack, but checked anyway. And had to swerve to avoid an oncoming Mondeo. Hospital Parking Lot. Two in custody. He checked the clock. Making good time. He pulled over and climbed into the back seats, removing his jacket and pulling a ballistic vest from the compartment under the back seats. He donned the Dragonskin and pulled his jacket back on over it, jumping back into the hotseat and slamming the truck into gear again as he typed a new message.

"Look for the black pickup. We need to regroup and do some recon for busting your friends out."

The drive was short and hectic, nearly wiping out three cars as he skidded through the outskirts of Gallup and into the hospital parking lot. The truck slewed dangerously, tilting, but going no further as the tires screeched. That was a few dozen miles taken off them. He looked around frantically, realising he had no idea what these people looked like.

Look for the black pickup. We need to regroup and do some recon for busting your friends out.

“I hope he is here soon.”

It didn’t took long until a black truck arrived at the parking lot.

Okay the last time I met a stranger he turned out to be a skin walker, better be careful.

Lenna did something she would have never thought she would do, making sure she could reach the gun in her waist band easily.

“Showtime Georgie.” Said Lenna quiet to her friend and louder. “Hey, there. I didn’t know the cavalry rides such a great black horse. You know Tex, right? I know we need help but, last time we got help from a stranger he turned out to be a skin walker. How do we know we can trust you?”

Lenna had a similar silver rosary as Rome had, she pulled it off from under her shirt and held it out to the stranger.

"See I am human."

Cal resisted the urge to wince. As long as silver didn't break the skin in human form, he was okay. But then, he'd never had prolonged contact with it. He wrapped his hand around the rosary briefly, then withdrew it. He smiled, winked and shoved the pickup back into gear.

"See? Human as you and the feds in that building," Cal chuckled as he pulled out of the parking lot.

He made a roundabout escape, driving slowly to avoid suspicion after his rather dramatic arrival at the hospital. After travelling around enough blocks to confuse even himself, Cal pulled up at a filling station on the edge of Gallup and cut the ignition.

"Got a place to hold out and plan this bust-out?" Cal asked, "We need to be careful about this. Especially after a failed attempt. They're probably gonna up security, maybe even bring in the local cowboys. They could even lock down the hospital."

“Wow you are really optimistic.”

Lenna looked for a second out of the window and it was nearly as if she heard Rome say. Play nice, chica.

“Elenna Fee. Guess it is nice to know which hunter is to retarded to safe her friends. This is Georgina Gilmore, also a hunter. I am good in hunting but can’t handle humans, to defend myself. Don’t know the hotel room is paid until tomorrow even though my boys had left town. But my car is there and I don’t know. Sorry, I don’t really know what to do. Oh and don’t worry I will shut up and listen, just when I am nervous I can’t stop talking and...”

“Elenna, shut up and let him at least say his name.” Shouted Georgie.

"Caleb Daly, pleased to meet you. Hunter, and acquaintance of our mutual friend Tex for almost two years now. Former First Sergeant, US Army, First Special Operations Detachment Delta. Other than Honorable Discharge after my unit got eaten by a Werewolf. I nailed it in the end though," Caleb stated, "I can deal with planning the assault, and, well, I hunt just about everything, so I can up-gun you two pretty easily. Once the Hotel Room's time is up, we can scoot over to somewhere closer to the hospital. Hopefully there's a Motel or Boarding House we can get a room in near it."

WEREWOLF. Seriously how often do I have to read, hear or talk about them, before I stop holding my breath. Okay right now I want to run away and say sorry guys, but it is not my fault that you in the FBI custody.

Lenna’s voice was far away from being stable, it was shaky. “Okay. Um. That just reminds me of something. Georgie? Do me a favour and take this. I...”

Lenna handed the gun Danila gave her, to the blond girl. Feeling much safer now.

“It is the El Rancho. Um we were hunting this skin walker and had a fight with it at the police station. The walker was Aly, um I mean Special agent Allison Wesson’s partner. She shot at him, after realizing that this was not her partner anymore. She helped Rome, and we stayed together to find the walker who had taken Raws. She was in a pretty bad shape and she needed to go to the hospital. Rome and Raws skipped town, because Rome had some trouble with the law and we thought it would be better not to be here in Gallup, where a police station got attacked. I stayed, because I am friggin moron, to loyal to people that safe my live. And now because I asked him for help is Danila also in custody. To be honest with you, when I can give you a good advice. Kick me out of your car and drive as fast as you can in the other direct away. I just cause trouble. I have no idea how I can help.”

Elenna started in her cool hunter voice, but when she realized what just all happened how close they all were to die and what now happens she was back to be the lost girl she was when she told Danila about Aly. Not even the awesome truck of this guy could distract her.

"I can respect the loyalty. But I get the feeling you all overestimated yourselves after fighting a Skin Walker Tex and I have been trying to keep tabs of for a while - don't get me wrong, very impressive feat. But I'm guessing you're pretty beat up after it. That or you all underestimated the FBI after fighting that thing. After all, they're only human, right?" Caleb replied, "But then, so are you and your buddies. See what I'm getting at here?"

He pulled out of the filling station forecourt and followed the few-and-far-between tourist information signs to the El Rancho Hotel, pulling into a parking space (but taking up almost two in the gargantuan pickup). He stopped, let the turbocharger wind down and cut the ignition, shoving the keys carefully into his pocket. He climbed out of the driver's seat and calmly pulled his phone from his pocket, sending an all-clear message to Tex as he opened the back passenger door to let Georgina and Elenna out.

“Thanks.” Mumbled Lenna to Caleb for opening the door for them.

It took Lenna a while to understand what Caleb wanted to say. And even as she did she wasn’t sure if she did understand it right.

“Um, yeah I think. That is kind of my problem, evilsonsofb*tches I get, humans not really.” Lenna sighed. “But that is kind of the reason I asked Tex for help. Look, don’t get me wrong I am grateful that you are here and wanna help us, but what we don’t need is someone who judges what we do and how we handle things. Aly and Dan needed medical attention and we could drive to the next town. Aly had a hole in her abdomen so it was kind of urgent.”

What the hell does he think, knows us for 10 minutes and thinks he is a better hunter then we are. Just because he knows that the FBI causes big trouble? Right I am in the road with a guy who is wanted in basically every state. I know the FBI and police is not our friend.

As so often when she got angry and needed verbally to defend herself and her friends without real reason she couldn’t block out a voice in her head. A year ago she was sure that it was her brothers voice, now she wasn’t so sure anymore.

“Lennie, come on he just want to help. You know better then turn into the little b*tch you were in the hotel. Don’t trap a person in water bubble that is not nice. You know better than that.”

“Fine yeah we underestimated the FBI, but this doesn’t help us now. So you wanna help us great, at the moment
Georgie and I run out of plans, so we are all yours. If not no one will stop you from leaving.”

Lenna looked determined at Caleb.

Something is weird about him.

“Elenna? Caleb I promise she is just b*tchy when she is worried. She is a nice girl. Don’t listen to her. We know now that we should have left the town earlier and take the risk to leave Aly here or taker her with us and bring her somewhere else in a hospital. But like you said we are not used to fight humans.” Georgie tried to calm Lenna down, which didn’t really worked once her anger is enflamed it was hard to turn it off again, and at the other hand stopping Caleb to leave at the spot.

“Whatever.”

Elenna walked up in the rooms she had shared with her best friends.

Suck it up girl, at least Rome is safe. He would be no help at all to fight the FBI with someone who is wanted by the FBI.

"It's okay, I've dealt with worse hot-heads in the Army. I made a career of fighting humans before turning Hunter. Unfortunately, in a situation like this, violence is almost unavoidable. We could try to minimize damage, but that'd put us at a disadvantage if the FBI decided they just wanted us dead. They're probably gonna move your friends to different rooms to break up the group and throw us off their trail. At some point, they'll probably try to move them to a more secure spot. Maybe what's left of the police station," Caleb stated, his hands moving animatedly as he spoke, rapid movements flying in the face of his calm tone, "We'd need to find where the FBI moved them to or risk getting surrounded in the hospital. Which would not end well for us."

He checked his knife and pistols through his clothes, then nodded towards the hotel.

"We can continue planning when we get inside. Have the feds seen either of your faces?" Caleb continued, taking a few steps, then turning back to face Elenna and Georgie.

“No I don’t think so. I stop immediately when I saw that something is wrong.”

“I am not a hot-head.” Said Lenna sheepish.

This made Georgie smile, she knew Elenna trusted just two persons and they were both not here. And those two were the only one that cold call her a hot-head without getting more than a evil grin as an answer.

As soon the door of the hotel room closed Lenna looked expectantly at Caleb and ask the question she had asked today already.

“So what now? And to be honest I am not sure if I support a stupid idea plan a second time today.”

Lenna said this damn serious but smiled friendly at Caleb.

"We need recon first. We'll need to know how many new agents and cowboys they're bringing in, how many are on-duty at the same time and where they're keeping your friends. Once that's done, we can work out a game plan for getting them out. If we break one or the other out and escape, we can force their hand and make them try and transport the other. It's easier to hit a convoy than a hospital ICU," Caleb answered, "We can work out a floor plan easily enough - just steal some emergency evacuation maps from the Nurses' Room. Once we match your friends' room or rooms to that, we can work on getting in and out, and doing as little harm as possible. We get one friend out, then we wait til they try to move the other one to get them out. Trying to get both of them out of the hospital would require splitting up. With just three of us, that's not an option."

Caleb took a seat at the room's table and opened his jacket.

"Any questions so far?" Caleb asked.

“Sound as if you know what you are doing.” Lenna realized that this was different, sure mostly Rome are Raws made the strategic planning of their hunts, but while they did this she did the research. She had her part to play. But this time she wasn’t sure what her part was, which made her feel small and childish to believe this was easy. Now she understood what Caleb meant that the underestimated the FBI.

“Yeah I have some questions, if I may. Um how do we find out how many agents are here? Do you think they keep them in the hospital? I am not sure but Aly, wasn’t in the best condition when I left her. And just a little note: I am totally against splitting up. Oh and maybe it helps, but the hospital thinks I am a CDC agent. So maybe I can get the emergency evacuation maps. And one last thing. I am sorry for snapping at you, I am just a little nervous and well um scared. I am a nice girl, mostly.”

"Not a problem, I can get on peoples' nerves. They probably won't have all their agents in the hospital, but they'll be nearby. We need to plan this very carefully. Especially if we wanna minimize casualties. Because if the agents and local cops outside rush in while we're being tailed by the ones inside, we're screwed. Big time," Caleb stated, "We need a map of all the emergency exits, on every floor of the hospital, as well as any in the ICU. How injured are you two after taking on the Skin Walker? We need to take that into account too."

He rubbed his chin and tried to take all the variables into account.

"You said your friend Aly isn't in great shape. How's your other friend? Can he or she move without being carried?" Caleb asked.

“Um I am barely injured some bruises but not really much. All tried to keep me out of the reach from the walker. I, um I am good with myth and lore and I knew how to kill the walker. It just took some time to remember it. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t protect myself. It is difficult to think while a skin walker tries to kill you. That is the only reason why I am so less injured.” Elenna seemed a little embarrassed how less she was injured compared to the others.

“I am okay as well. Nothing bad. I have a mild concussion, some bruises and a sprained wrist.” Georgie seemed to enjoy the show between Caleb and Elenna.

“I am not sure how bad Danila is injured. He had a head injury, like a concussion. He could walk and think and well come up with a serious stupid plan. Maybe his head is pretty damaged. But he looks okay. So yeah he can move without being carried.”

"Then we rescue him from the hospital and bust your other buddy out of the convoy," Caleb announced, "And even though you can defend yourself, I'd really prefer if you carried a gun in the event we actually need to shoot anyone. Hopefully it won't come to that, but if it all goes down to a hail of lead, we're gonna need everyone shooting."

"So, what exactly are you two comfortable with shooting? We want something low-impulse to avoid overpenetrating and injuring bystanders. So pistols and submachine guns are what we're gonna be trying to use. And I don't own any submachine guns," Caleb continued, "Which leaves us at pistols or any subbies we can steal from the Feds."

“I have some guns in my car; don’t ask me what they are.” Elenna felt sick just be thinking at the weapons in her trunk. But Rome and Raws made she has different kinds of weapons, to protect herself. Even so she just practiced once to shoot with one of the guns.

“I can’t believe you are making me do this. Carry a friggin gun. I don’t even know how to shoot. I mean yeah okay I do know how to use them but that is just theoretical knowledge. I never tried to shoot a human.”

I just ignore the reason why I don’t like guns and I’ll be fine.

Elenna looked nervous at Caleb.

“We used all the silver ammo for the skin walker, I know we don’t need silver here I am just saying we used it. The normal is still there. When do we bust out Danila? I really have to carry a gun?”

Lenna couldn't hide the hope that Caleb found a way for her not to carry one.