We woke up around seven in the morning, both of us because of my nightmares. Not being a morning person, I can’t tell you what it was like waking up in a hotel room with my friend's wife in the bed across the room from me. I rolled out of bed and into the shower. When I came out I was dressed, she was dressed, and there was a large, black coffee on the nightstand for me.

  So I guess it was pretty much heaven, because coffee.

  Coffee is literally the greatest human accomplishment since the wheel.

  I went downstairs and out the door to take a walk around the block looking for anything out of the ordinary, like a death squad or something. Luckily for everyone, my imagination almost always outstrips the reality in front of me. There was nobody around skulking in shadows, no fedoras pulled low over the eyes, and no sudden shouts of “There he is!”

  So I went back inside and ate a hotel breakfast that was fine by hotel standards but a far cry from the amazing dinner of last night. However, since all I actually cared about was loading up on energy for the day, it was exactly what the doctor ordered. I've gone without painkillers for several days at a time, so I knew I'd be okay, but right now, it was playing hell with my appetite.

  As nine a.m. approached, we walked down a few blocks to the Ford truck for sale. It was about fifteen years old and well worn, but looked like it had been taken care of by a man who relied on his truck for a living. The paint was faded, but the tires were new, the rims clean, windows sound, and all around a tight ship.

  Looking in the windows, she was spotless inside if a little threadbare. The upholstery was good though, with no rips or holes, and it sported a stock radio.

  A few minutes later old farmer number three ? from central casting (that's the one with no hair, a big beer gut, a baseball cap, and stained denim overalls) moseyed up to us and asked if we were the couple that called yesterday about – again, I swear I’m not making this up – ‘Ole Bessie.

  “Yeah, that was me, darlin'," Sarah replied, her faint southern accent transforming into a solid, thick southern drawl. The woman who ran a major department in a billion dollar company had been replaced by a sweet Southern Belle.

  He looked us over a bit before he said, “Y’all don’t look the type for an old work truck, you don’t mind my saying.”

  I opened my mouth to say something, but Sarah cut me off, “It’s for our boy. He recently got his license and we want him driving something reliable, tough, and…well…not new, God love him.”

  He tipped his ball cap back and scratched his head for a second, and said, “I can’t blame you for that. Boys and their first truck don’t usually last long before they're up to trouble.” Sarah laughed, put her hand on his arm and said, “Bless your heart. Sounds like experience talking.”

  The old man smiled and nodded, “Three boys of my own.”

  Sarah stared at the truck for about thirty seconds before turning to him with a big, warm smile, and said, “Would you take three thousand cash for it?”

  He scratched behind his left ear and said, “Well, since it’s for your boy and it’s his first truck, I guess I will.”

  Sarah handed him a wad of cash and he signed the title over. He finished counting and without looking up he called out to us, “You might want to tell your boy that ‘Ole Bessie has more under the hood than it appears. She’s no monster, but that’s a six liter V8 under there and she’s never had any trouble getting up and rollin’ on down the road. Tell him to keep his foot light on the gas.”

  Sarah jumped behind the wheel and we were off on our way to the town of Round Rock and Sarah's house.

  A few minutes later I laughed despite feeling like an addict in withdrawal and said, “I sure hope our boy appreciates this fine machine.”

  She smiled and said, “I almost feel bad lying to the man, but we’re on limited funds and he doesn’t need to know we’re on the run from evil Druids.”

  “All Druids are evil. Always were. But fair enough.”

  Sarah gave me the side-eye, but said nothing as we took off down the road.

  It was a completely uneventful ride to Round Rock. It took about two hours to get there and the truck performed flawlessly. And yes, she had plenty of power for an old truck. Sarah had a lot of fun driving the thing at 85 miles per hour down the road.

  As we neared her neighborhood, she finally slowed down and we drove a few back roads to approach the neighborhood on the other side of the shared green space. We filled the tank about ten minutes away from our target because the V8 was a gas hog and we wanted a full tank just in case.

  We drove slowly along the road trying to find a parking space that would allow us fast access to the green space and once we found it, we pulled in and parked ‘Ole Bessie.

  Pointing almost directly across the wide open field in front of us, Sarah indicated a cedar fence and gate that looked like it led directly to the back door of her house. “We go in through that gate and head upstairs to my room. We’ll grab the guns and the ammo from the safe and throw it into a big bag I’ve got in the closet. Then we’ll go back down the stairs to my office and grab any small electronic thing we see. Sound good?”

  I replied, “Sounds perfect. Let me lead the way to see what’s going on. You stay behind me about 10 feet and two steps to my left. You cover my six to nine o’clock. Do you know what I mean?”

  “I cover behind us and to your left.” We started walking quickly, but not running.

  “Bingo. You ready?”

  “Yeah. Scared, but yeah.” We were approaching her gate.

  “Stick close and let me lead,” I said again, “We’ll be fine. Remember, it isn’t Hollywood, right?”

  “Right” I could hear the smile in her voice. “No shootouts, no explosions.”

  “Right. We are but two sneaky bastards stealing your own shit from your house. In and out and away we go.”

  “Away we go,” She repeated.

  We reached the gate. Sarah had a key in her hand and she unlocked the gate. I pulled the pistol from my holster and grabbed the latch. She put her key away and pulled out her own gun. She was breathing fast and heavy and I could see the intensity of her feelings.

  I reached out with my left hand and rested it on her shoulder. “Look at me Sarah. You’ve got this. In and out. Easy as pie.”

  She swallowed and nodded.

  I opened the gate and we went through into an empty yard. We walked straight to the back door and as Sarah went to unlock it, three things happened all at once. I saw a raven fly overhead, three men came around the side of the house, and somewhere in Hollywood a director yelled, “Action!”

  The guy in front pulled up short, opened his mouth to yell, and the two men behind him piled into his back. Sarah damn near jumped out of her skin and everyone raised their guns except me.

  “BLAM BLAM BLAM!” My gun was already raised.

  Three men dropped to the ground dead and as Sarah automatically leaned over towards the door lock to fit her key, I simply reared back, kicked the door in, and pulled her inside.

  “Upstairs now! Get the guns!” I screamed. I ran through the kitchen into the front in time to see the front door knocked in by two guys in armored swat gear and a breaching ram as a third guy leveled a shotgun in the doorway and yelled “Target!” while looking straight at me.

  I braced on the wall framing out the weird little seating nook on my right and fired straight into his face, which was the only unarmored part on him. At the same time, he discharged the shotgun and I felt a sting and a searing pain in my right shoulder. Luckily, the slug in his shotgun didn’t hit me, but it hit the edge of the wall and a wood splinter went straight into my shoulder. He fared much worse, dropping to the ground dead with a 9mm bullet lodged in his brain.

  However, the two men who had breached the door had dropped the ram and grabbed their AR’s slung across their bodies and I realized I was bracketed by two guys I could totally kill, except I couldn't kill them both before getting shot several times myself. Also, walls in a modern house are mostly concealment, not cover. The .223 round coming out of those rifles will go straight through a wall unless they hit the 2x4 framing, and even then they will probably ricochet off and still go through. So I dove to my left to get behind the stairs rising up to the second floor whilst firing off a round at the guy standing to my right. The bullet nailed his helmet and knocked him on his ass, but it didn’t kill him.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Ah. So that’s how the plucky wizard did it in my book I still haven’t finished listening too yet.

  Meanwhile, the guy on the left-hand side of the door opened up with three rounds, slamming the stairway and wall, but unlike a single wall, a stairway has solid hardwood treads, and two walls acting as cover.

  I was in a narrow hallway created by the stairs and the wall of the kitchen behind me. I knew from my first visit it ended at an opening into the main dining room, so I pulled myself up to my feet immediately, ran to the corner, and came around in a crouch.

  The shooter was running towards the foot for the stairs and I sent a round at his head, where it creased the skin at the back of his neck, missing the vital arteries because that’s how my luck runs sometimes. However, with my next shot I had a clear view of the guy who had been shot in the helmet a second ago turning to face me, so I dropped him with a face shot, same as his shotgun wielding friend.

  Now we began to play a deadly game of “ring around the rosy” as the wounded but still very much active and pissed shooter with an AR began retracing the route I took around the stairs while I crept in the same circle trying to keep the stairway between us so that I didn’t get my ass shot off.

  It would have been embarrassing as hell if it hadn’t ended almost as soon as it had begun when the guy circled back around to the foot of the stairs and got greeted by both barrels of a shotgun being fired from upstairs by Sarah.

  BOOBOOM!

  Two rounds of 000 buckshot pounded the shooter to his knees and I turned towards him, pointed my pistol at his grimacing face and pulled the trigger.

  Sarah started down the stairs when I realized a bad thing. Out in the field, I had worked with Broadhead several times. Like us in the Squad, they loved using groups of three, and three groups of three was their typical attack squad. I looked up at Sarah and started pounding up the stairs.

  “Run back up! Run back up!”

  No sooner had I shouted than rounds started pouring through the open front door, the window next to the front door, and the back door. Team three had split up and caught us inside.

  Having never been upstairs before, I was momentarily at a loss of where to go, but Sarah said, “Back to the bedroom” and I followed her around to the left and into the master bedroom that overlooked the stairway and gave an excellent view down towards the front door and entry foyer.

  The firing stopped as she came back out other bedroom with her own AR in her hand and tossed it to me saying, “Here. Use this. It’s Frank's and full auto capable.” She turned around without waiting for a reply and went back into the bedroom.

  Thanking the tendency of ex-U.S. military members to break federal laws regarding automatic firearms, I turned back to the railing and looked down as someone outside of the front door tossed in a flashbang grenade. I turned away and closed my eyes, yelling “Flashbang!” while realizing that probably wouldn’t mean much to Sarah.

  The grenade wouldn’t do that much damage to either of us up on the second floor, but it would provide some cover for the bad guys entry and it could easily set Sarah’s house on fire. I waited until the Grenade went off with an insanely loud BAMF! and flash that practically burned my eyes even though they were closed. The percussive WHUMP I felt in my chest was impressive, even from the second floor. However, I’m quite experienced with flashbangs and used them often so they don’t intimidate me. Right after the flash I opened my eyes, spun back to the railing and thumbed the selector switch to automatic. I pointed at the doorway, pulled the trigger, and held it until the magazine was empty.

  I was rewarded with a yelp and curse, but I could tell it wasn’t anything lethal. Wounded, not dead. We still had three to worry about. I had missed the breach and now at least one was safely inside the house. I had to assume the back door shooter was inside too, but I could tell that the window shooter was still on the outside because I could see his shadow.

  Sarah came out holding her shotgun, a large bag, and a bit wild-eyed. “I have a rifle, a shotgun, and ammo in the bag. Is that good?”

  “It’ll have to do.” I replied as I reached into the bag and grabbed a fully loaded magazine for the AR. “We need to get out of here ASAP. There’s three left, one of which is injured, and there’s going to be a shit ton more on the way.” I replied.

  "Wait!" she said as she spun back into the bedroom and crossed over to a nightstand, "I have two phones right here."

  Then, a flashbang arced gracefully up into the air and sailed towards my head as one of the assholes downstairs came up with the great idea to risk losing a hand and throwing the grenade at the last seconds before detonation.

  Without thinking I raised the rifle to my shoulder and shot it out of the air. Of course, that was going to make it explode about 10 feet in front of my face. A fact my ADHD ass realized as my finger finished pulling the trigger.

  BAMF! WHOMP!

  I tried spinning away, but the blast knocked me onto my ass, blinded, deaf, and stunned. I rolled violently away from the explosion for all intents and purposes completely out of action, on fire, and in massive pain. Writhing on the floor and up against a wall I struggled to get right, knowing I had lost. In a few seconds I was going to feel the searing pain of bullets entering my body and then die. There was nothing I could do about it. I was completely disoriented and in agony. I had failed Frank, Sarah, and myself.

  Somehow, seconds passed and turned into a minute as the ringing in my ears subsided and my vision slowly came back. I saw a shadow on the floor beside me and recognized it as the AR. I scrambled for it still barely in control of my own body, flopping around and trying to make my limbs work.

  A million years later I got a hold of the gun and braced myself on the wall, lifting the rifle to my shoulder, my vision slowly resolving from spots and shadows into actual shapes. I was still going to die, but the inexplicably slow approach of the bad guys meant I would take one or two with me when I did.

  Then I sat there.

  And nothing happened.

  My hearing and vision eventually came back to functional levels and I heard Sarah's voice, “Dru! Can you hear me?”

  “Dru! Can you hear me!” She was yelling. I could barely hear her.

  “Dru! Can…”

  “Yes! Where are you?” I shouted

  “Downstairs! Can you move? Can you come down?”

  “Not sure! Let me try. Are you safe?”

  “Yes! But not for long!”

  “I’m on my way! Where are the bad guys?”

  “Two are dead, and one is on the ground!”

  “What the fuck!?!?”

  Sounding desperate, she yelled, “Just get down here!”

  “On the way.” I repeated. Feeling and looking much like a drunken fool, I gingerly got to my feet and staggered down the stairway trying to maintain good discipline with my firearm. I’m sure I looked like a drunk rounding the stairway and trying to avoid the two bodies cooling at the foot of the stairs and finding a third sprawled up against the front door jamb staring down a furious Sarah standing in modified Weaver stance pointing a pistol into his face.

  “What in the hell happened?”

  With me now pointing a second gun at the bad guy, she seemed to relax a little and turned to me. “Well, after the flashbang went off, you screamed like a 12 year old girl," she briefly flipped on a stressed smile, "so I ran out of the bedroom and looked over the railing, and two guys were rushing the stairs. I screamed and they both looked up at me like idiots, so I pulled the triggers on my shotgun and…and…they both died. I only had my pistol left so I ran down the stairs and this…this...jerk was coming in the door. I shot him 3 times and knocked him on his butt. So I shot two more times. They have exceptionally good body armor. He’s only bruised!”

  I stared at her. “Yes they do”, I slowly replied. “So how did you kill two at once with buckshot?”

  “They looked up…face and neck exposed…like idiots. I had two rounds of 000 shot loaded.”

  “That’ll do it.” I agreed. Incredible. She wasn’t even shaking anymore. Ice-cold and professional as hell. Some people are like that. When the shit hits the fan all the fear goes out of them and a laser-like focus takes its place. If that’s what’s happening here, she will probably fall apart into a complete mess about an hour after we survive this. You know…assuming we survive this.

  I walked up to her and kept my rifle pointed at the guy on the ground. “So, what are we going to do with you?”

  Sarah chimed in, “Whatever it is we do with this guy, we need to do it fast. I can’t believe there aren’t police all over the place.”

  The Broadhead guy on the ground relaxed fractionally and said, “Cops are holding a cordon of 3 streets for us. Another team is on the way. You’re both dead.”

  “Bullshit. There’s no way you have the entire police force in your pocket.”

  “Of course not, “ he sneered, “we don’t need the whole force. The boss is enough. We pull strings you couldn’t dream of. This won’t even be on the news tonight.”

  Sarah snorted, “You don’t know my neighbors, they’ll be screaming about this for years. This is a southern town, gossip is practically a sport here. They’ll be all over the news.”

  “They won’t even remember this by tonight.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” I asked

  “Forget it,” he smiled “You’re gonna die in a few seconds anyway.”

  I looked over at Sarah and she seemed to understand my glance. Turning back to the asshole on the floor she said, “Take off your helmet and strip out of the body armor. Now!”

  Smile gone, he reached up and unsnapped the chin strap and pulled the helmet from his head. He reluctantly loosened his vest and pulled it off. I quickly stepped in reversing the rifle and smashed the stock into his head, knocking him out. “Grab the bag. I’ll grab this guy. We’re leaving now.” I threw the guy over my shoulder in a fireman's carry and headed for the back door while Sarah sprinted up the stairs to retrieve the bag and the shotgun. Together we ran out the back door, across the yard and into the greenspace.

  Amazingly, there was no second kill team, no police, and no witnesses looking out of windows, doors, or even people on the street. Impossible. Yet it happened. We ran, me loping along with an unconscious man on my shoulder, Sarah carrying a small armory, all the way to ‘Ole Bessie without another soul seeing us.

  Sitting in the front seat smiling was Sam.

  Sarah raised her pistol and Sam raised his hands in the air saying, “Don’t shoot Annie, I’m on your side!”

  “Who the hell are you?” She yelled.

  “That’s a guy definitely not named Sam”, I answered. “Who the fuck is Annie?” I asked him.

  “Annie? Annie Oakley there? No? Too soon? Too niche?”

  “Too old,” I replied

  Exasperated, Sarah asked, “Boys, what is going on here?”

  From the cab of the truck, Sam waved and said, “Hi. I’m Sam, an old friend of your husband.”

  Sarah ran around to the driver's side. “Hi Sam. Get out of my truck before I shoot you. Pretty please.”

  “Ahh. You’re a lot like Dru, I see.”

  “If by that you mean I’m in the middle of a life and death situation and a stranger is sitting in my car wasting time, yes, I’m a lot like Dru. Same thing is happening to him right now. Last chance, sweetheart, move or get shot.”

  “Ha! Wonderful. I’m moving.” He got out of the truck and quickly jumped into the truck bed. “Let’s get the fuck out of here. Throw me the dummy on your shoulder.”

  I think it says more about my still addled brains than my trust that I did what he asked and threw the unconscious guy into the back and slid into the passenger seat of the truck and shut the door.

  Sarah looked at me incredulous and said, “Really? You’re going along with this?”

  “It’s faster, trust me. And we need to get the fuck out of here now.”

  Sarah hesitated less than a second, shrugged, got in, and took off down the street.

  “Turn here!” Sam yelled through the rear window and pointed down the street to our left.

  “Where are we going?” I yelled back

  “I know a great little warehouse about an hour from here where people can interrogate to their hearts content!”, He laughed back.

  Fuck. Okay.