Rude Awakening

Zara opened her eyes, everything was bleary. The motion of the vehicle made her stomach turn. She had to blink several times to clear her vision. She realized she was in the rear seat of a vehicle and rolled in fabric. She frowned. Out of her periphery, she could see a man seated beside her and two people in the seats ahead of her. Looking down, she recognized the blanket from the hotel. Trying to move her hands, she could feel the zap strap, plastic biting into her skin. Her control over her voluntary muscles was sporadic as she rolled her head to the side to look at the man seated there. The motion caught his attention, he turned and met her gaze.

“She’s coming to,” said the man. She frowned.

“Hit her again,” said a male voice from the front seat. A woman in the passenger seat turned and handed the man beside her a tube of some type.

Closing her eyes, she tried to concentrate, to summon her power but the fog in her brain prevented her from unleashing a spell as focus eluded her. She struggled against the zap straps holding her wrists, snapping the plastic. Wrapped as she was in the blanket, she snaked her left arm out and grabbed the man with the autoinjector by the arm

“She’s got her hands free!” he cried, desperately trying to jab her with the autoinjector. The woman undid her seatbelt and clambered over the console to get into the back, trying to help the man subdue her. Zara got her other arm out of the bed cover and slapped the woman, momentarily stunning her.

The man with the needle tried to punch Zara in the face as he fought to regain control of the sedative.

Zara growled, pushing the man back with force. The driver stomped the brakes causing the van to screech to a stop, pitching the combatants forward. In that moment, the man sitting bedside Zara wrenched the autoinjector free and stabbed Zara in the shoulder. She looked at where she had been hit, then the man, her vision began to swim.

“Jesus!” said the man, “She’s fucking strong.”

Senses regained, the slapped woman pulled herself back into the front seat, hand to the stinging side of her face.

“You okay Lori?” Cole asked. The woman with the fresh crimson handprint on her face nodded. Cole looked over his right shoulder. “Morgan?”

The man in the back nodded. “She fucking broke the zip tie holding her hands,” he said.

Cole frowned as he checked the watch on his wrist. “The shot should have kept her out for twelve hours, she was out just under four,” he said.

“Did you hear what I said, she broke the bloody zip tie,” Morgan said.

“That’s not possible,” Lori commented.

“Give me a break,” said Cole. “You’ve both seen things that defy explanation, stop acting like imbeciles,” he chastised. “Just keep your eyes on her Morgan, there is a reason she is listed as an Alpha level threat. Christ.”

Morgan sat back, a sullen expression on his face. Taking her hands in his own, he re-strapped her wrists.

Putting the van in gear, Cole said, “Make sure she’s settled, we are going to need fuel pretty soon and I don’t want another incident like this.”

“Yeah, I got it,” snapped Morgan.

Pulling in at the gas station less than a quarter of an hour later, Cole parked beside a pump.

“I’m going to the little girl’s room,” Lori said, exiting the van.

“I got to take a squirt too,” Morgan said.

“She out?” Cole asked, looking at Zara.

Morgan rolled her toward him, then back, prying her eyelids open, before he replied. “Yeah, the ketamine has her out like a light,” he answered.

“Okay, go ahead,” Cole said, getting out if the van and walking to the pump. Morgan got out and crossed over the filling station lanes to the gas station’s convenience store.

Cole pumped gas, whistling a tune. Inside the van, Zara’s eyes flicked open. She still felt groggy, but she was rapidly regaining her faculties.  She saw there was another plastic band around her wrists. Through the tinted window, she could see the one called Morgan returning to the van. Turning her head, she closed her eyes letting the fog clear, soon she thought, soon.

The sliding side door opened and Morgan climbed in, a bag of potato chips in his hand. Slamming the door, he dropped back into the seat beside her. Lori retuned a moment later, the smell of coffee, filling the interior of the van as she set paper cups into the preformed holders built into the console between the front seats.

Cole finished gassing the van and replaced the nozzle. Taking out his cell phone, he fired off a two word text message, ‘condition green’, before hopping back in the van. Fastening the safety belt, he started the van and pulled out.

“How’s she doing back there?” Lori asked.

“There was enough in that to drop a rhino,” he chuckled, rolling her head back toward him with his free hand, bags of chips in the other.

Zara opened her eyes.

“Jesus!” a startled Morgan exclaimed, dropping the bag of chips.

Zara pulled her hands apart, breaking the plastic tie easily. She struck Morgan square in the chest, instantly he began to vanish, shrinking into his clothes.

“Fuck!” yelled Lori, flinging herself over the console herself at Zara, but the latter taking both of Lori’s arms in her hands and pulling her back onto to the seat where Morgan had been only a moment earlier. In the melee, no one heard the sounds of his bones compressing and cracking under the massive weight of Lori’s bottom as she landed directly on top of his tiny little body, crushing the life out of him before he even had a chance to scream.

Zara shifted, bearing down on Lori, unleashing more magic. Cole slammed on the brakes, causing Zara to hit the backs of the front seats while Lori’s clothes slid of the seat onto the floor of the van, her caught inside the fabric.

Rising to her knees, Zara watched as Cole pulled out his gun. She held her palm toward him, and like his two companions, he was reduced to miniature is mere moments.

Zara checked the clothing beneath her knees, finding the form of an unconscious Lori amidst the folds of clothing. Curling her hand around the tiny woman, Zara, opened the van door and circled around to the driver’s door. Pulling it open, she seized Cole in her other hand.

“You!” she said, holding his tiny body in front of her face, “Can you teach me how to operate this conveyance?” she demanded.

Cole nodded, having trouble breathing because of the strength of her hold on him/

She tucked him into the space between her breasts and tossed his clothing into the passenger seat, before climbing into the driver’s seat. Closing the door, she studied the controls. Watching others do it seemed so simple.

“You know what all these things mean?” she asked, setting Lori into one of the cup holders in the console.

“Yes,” he managed, struggling against the firm flesh.

“What now?” she asked of the little man wedged into her cleavage.

“Put your right foot on the brake, the pedal on the left,” he clarified, pointing. “You will need to turn the key to the right to start the engine. Next you pull the gear shift down so that it indicates the D.”

Following his instructions, depressed the brake, started the van and set it into gear.

“Slowly remove your foot from the brake and very gently put your foot on the accelerator, the tall skinny pedal. Remember, the wheel steers the van,” he reminded.

Abiding by his instruction, she started driving. “I’m doing it!” she exclaimed, happy with her accomplishment. Initially, her efforts were jerky and the finer nuances of driving required additional instruction from Cole.

The more she drove, the more exhilarating the sensation, the speed. Despite Cole’s objections, she drove faster and faster. The cell phone amidst Cole’s discarded clothing began to ring.

She released the wheel to get to the phone.

“No!” screamed Cole, “You can’t let go of the wheel!”

Panicked, Zara reached out and grabbed the wheel, jerking it hard to the right, causing the van to careen right and directly into a rocky embankment. There was a loud noise and a flash of white as the airbag deployed directly into her upper torso and face. She sat dazed for a moment, ears ringing, she could feel the sensation of something trickling down over her stomach. Looking down, she could see the impact of the airbag had crushed Cole, his tiny little ruined body mangled between her globes. She frowned. She tried to start the van, but the engine never turned over.

Pushing open the car door, she plucked Cole’s remains from betwixt her breasts, and flung the body further up the ditch. She pulled the fabric of her dress forward to see the crimson bloom Cole made and shook her head. Circling around the van, she opened the sliding door and climbed in. Rummaging through the bags removed from the hotel, she found some of the other clothes Oleg had bought for her. Stepping back out of the van, she removed her soiled dress, using the cloth to cleanse her flesh of Cole’s blood. Now cleaned, she put on underpants, a bra and a different clean dress. Shoes completed her attire. Walking back to the open driver’s door, she leaned in to see if she could find Lori. Somehow, the unconscious woman had remained in the cup holder, curled around the shaped plastic in such a way she appeared undamaged. Smiling, Zara picked her up and placed the tiny woman inside the cup of her bra. Looking the way she had come, and the road ahead, she paused a moment to consider. Shrugging, she started walking in the same direction she had been traveling.