The Tempest by A.J. Scudiere (story read aloud .txt) 📗

safety was off. He stepped quickly into place next to Dr. Murasawa.

She was absolutely the last person he had expected to see here. And why was she so beaten up? He had to ask, “How did you guys get here?”

“I got chased by the storm. Skidded on wet road and went into a tree,” Murasawa said. That explained the damage. She answered him without taking her eyes off the others, far more competent with a gun than Cage would have expected her to be. “When I got up, I found a truck with the keys in it and started driving around looking for people. No one is out here!”

Cage could agree with that. “You found Izzy.”

He hadn’t quite asked it as a question, as the answer was obvious. “Yeah. She was wandering down the street, looking really dazed.”

This made Cage question her decision then to put a gun into Izzy’s hands but, to be fair, the situation was a fat mess. He was just grateful that he and Dev had managed to find both Joule and Izzy. And Dr. Murasawa! It was three names off the list, all at once. Had there not been loaded guns aimed at too many strangers, he would have sat on he ground and breathed with relief, or hugged everyone. This was not the reunion he’d hoped for.

If they could just survive this standoff, they would be okay. Though he had no clue where the doctor had found these guns, he realized that, now that the two of them were the ones holding the firearms, they had a better chance.

He turned his head slowly to his sister, leaving his eyes and the barrel of his gun turned toward the crowd. “Joule, do you want to explain what's going on here?”

Just as he thought he was going to get some answers, another voice boomed from behind him. This time, the sound was accompanied by the unmistakable cock of a shotgun.

“What the ever-loving hell is going on here?”

67

Joule wasn't facing the right direction to see much of anything. But she could tell that Dr. Murasawa and Cage were far enough back from the edge of the barn to see whoever had come around the corner. Both had been immediately convinced to follow the newest set of orders.

She watched as they each slowly set their firearm on the ground at their feet, the other hand still in the air, and then just as carefully returned to standing.

When the group had broken out of the barn, they’d come out the side and weren’t facing the driveway. In fact, the building shielded most of it from view. The smoke and flames didn’t do anything to make the view clearer. Jumping out of the way as pieces popped and flew, bringing flames or at least sizzling heat with them, didn’t help.

That was certainly how Dr. Murasawa and Izzy had managed to creep up on them. And here she was, getting snuck up on again, Joule thought, as two massive forms appeared around the corner of the blazing barn.

The barn was keeping her warm on one side, but she was fighting to find the middle ground. She wanted to be close enough for the light and heat, but far enough to avoid the embers that cracked and arced into the night and onto the grass. Luckily, the ground was still wet from the previous night and—so far—none of the embers had sparked a new blaze. There was enough to worry about without that.

“What is with the damn guns? And why isn't anyone putting out this fire?”

Joule looked around the small group and realized she was central to most everything that had happened.

As the voice stepped into the light of the blaze, Cage smiled and called out, and though he kept his hands in the air, he wiggled his fingers in a friendly gesture. Then he greeted the newcomers by name and asked the question Joule was dying to know the answer to.

“Boomer! Bob! What are you doing here?”

“There's a damn fire, if y’all hadn’t noticed,” Boomer or Bob answered quickly and in a surly tone. He still had his gun up, though not quite as carefully aimed, maybe because of Cage’s friendly overtures.

They all heard a crack and sidestepped quickly to avoid a small handful of embers that rained into their little group.

The other brother didn’t lower his gun. “We can see the sky lit up for miles. Everyone’s coming.”

For a moment, she let that absorb. The Larkins maybe weren't the brightest of criminals then, if they’d set a fire that would have attracted the entire county. Though Joule and the others would certainly be dead if they had remained inside the barn.

Beside her, the blaze crackled with its own life and she could hear the sound of flames rushing up the inside walls and eating the wood.

She took one more step away from it and absently began to lower her hand toward her pocket. But one of the brothers—they were obviously brothers—twisted his head quickly in her direction. Maybe she wasn’t quite the most favored nation that she thought she was.

“I have a kitten in my pocket. I want to be sure he's okay.” Then she walked over with her hands still in the air. “Here, you check.”

Joule held both her hands high, but motioned with her hip out, waiting while the big man softly slipped his fingers into the pocket of her hoodie. His face melted as he touched the tiny kitten, petting it softly.

“You have a kitten in your pocket?” Cage asked incredulously.

“She does,” the man answered with a grin.

It was Jerry who huffed, his own hands still in the air. “Dorothy here named it Toto.”

She watched as Cage laughed, and she had to admit, this was the most comfortable she'd ever felt with a gun aimed on her. And she'd had three different people point a gun at her in the last several hours, which was up from zero in her entire previous lifetime.

Alabama was not