SPN/j2 Big Bang 2019 For The Heirs To Come, Be Brave Chapter 3
For the Heirs to Come, Be Brave
Chapter Three
Shadow Creeping Over Me
Two weeks had passed since they had arrived at the mall, it had been almost five weeks since the world had come crashing down around them.
They hadn't planned on staying in one place for this long, Jensen, of course, wanted to find his family and he knew that Jared was desperate to find him but during their time at the mall, several storms had rolled through, making it difficult to travel.
It was late in the afternoon and he had been simply lounging around on the roof when he had been forced to go back inside.
The rain seemingly came out of nowhere and it came down hard.
Hail, the size of marbles pelted the roof and windows and created a thunderous echo inside the mall.
Chris and Rachel were wandering around the mall somewhere, Misha was asleep and Jared was sitting at the table with a book.
Jensen grabbed a couple of bottles of water and sat down across from him.
"How are you doing?"
Jared glanced up from his book and then gave his shoulders a shrug. "Okay, I guess. Eager to finally leave here."
"I know you are," Jensen replied as he held a bottle of water out to him. "It's not going to be forever, we will make it to Albuquerque, I promise you that."
Jared sighed heavily. "I know we will but it's just so damn frustrating, they could be out there waiting for us and we can't do anything, not with all this shitty fucking weather."
"We'll figure out it Jared," he told him. "You okay though, sitting here with your book, cos I thought I might lie down for a bit."
Jared nodded back at him. "Yeah, I'm okay but don't worry, if anything happens, you'll be the first to know."
Jensen took his bottle of water with him and walked over to the tent. He lifted back the flap and smiled to himself when he saw the way that Misha was sleeping.
He was lying on his stomach, on an angle, the sleeping bag had moved to one side and the pillow to the other.
He looked ridiculous and the normalness of it made Jensen smile even harder.
Stepping into the tent, he dropped the flap and had to carefully step over Misha.
He rearranged the pillows and blankets as best he could.
He didn't fully wake up, but Misha moved to a more comfortable position and Jensen laid down beside him.
He tucked one arm under his head and drawing in a deep breath, he closed his eyes. He must have been more tired than he realized because not long after, he was fast asleep.
****
It was roughly mid-afternoon, three weeks after arriving in Lubbock, when Jared was down by the lake with Jax.
It had been almost 24 hours since the last rainfall and he was ever hopeful that in the coming days, they would finally make plans to leave the mall and make their way toward Albuquerque.
He had been a little iffy at first to take his beloved dog down to the park. The last time they had spent a normal day playing, all hell had broken loose.
Jared had been tossing a stick to Jax who was having great fun in leaving that particular stick and bringing back a different one.
It wasn't until he was watching Jax dig around in the long grass for a new stick that it occurred to him that he hadn't seen any other animals.
In particular, he hadn't seen any birds, not since that day he had run across the field toward his house.
He knew the reasons for the lack of birds was going to be another terrible thing to add to a growing list but he tried not to think about and instead focus his attention on Jax.
But his attention was instead drawn to the sound of metal hitting metal.
When he glanced back up to the roof of the mall, he could see people standing there, not specifically who it was but he could make out a couple of figures.
"Jax, come on, let's go."
They quickly made their way back to the mall and once inside the building, he could still hear the metal on metal noise.
When he got to the roof, he saw Jensen and Misha standing near the edge, Misha was holding a metal pipe in his hand and he was banging it against the old air conditioning unit.
"What's going on?" Jared asked as he approached them. "When I heard that... it freaked me out."
"Yeah," Misha replied. "Sorry about that, but we knew that when you heard it, you would come back."
"Okay, great," he said. "So, why are you doing that exactly?"
Jensen pointed to a spot in the distance. They were too far away to make out faces but they could see two people down on the street, roughly three blocks away.
They couldn't be entirely sure from that distance, but it was more than likely that the two individuals were injured. They moved slowly and awkwardly, each stepped seemed like a struggle.
"You want them to come here?" Jared asked.
Jensen turned to face him. "There are only two of them, they don't look so great and we have the means to defend ourselves if we have to."
"If we can help them," Misha added. "Then we should."
At the rate they were moving, it took about 20 minutes before they got close enough for them to make out any features.
A man and a woman and when they rounded the corner of the building, they could finally see the three of them standing up on the roof.
The woman was pointing at them.
"You two should go down there," Misha said. "I'll stay here until they find the building."
Jensen nodded back at him and lead the way down to ground level.
On the way down, they had grabbed two of the guns, concealed for now to prevent any issues before they'd even had a chance to talk to these strangers.
Jensen and Jared cautiously made their way down the street.
A few minutes later, the two newcomers came into view and they had been right about them, they were clearly injured.
Jensen took a few steps towards them and gave his head a shake as he looked at the face of the man before him.
"Professor Morgan?"
The man stumbled a little and the woman standing next to him, reached out with her good arm and helped steady him.
"Jensen Ackles?" he replied. "A familiar face, finally."
Jensen moved toward him and slung his arm around him to help him walk.
"How the hell did you end up in Lubbock?"
"Got stuck at Denver International and made it as far as Trinidad before the fucking EMP killed the car," Jeff explained. "We were in Amarillo before here."
"What's it like there?" Jared asked.
"It's a fucking hole."
Jared narrowed his eyes at him. "I'm sure it's not that bad."
"No, it's a literal hole," he told them. "The ground opened up, from what we heard it stretches from Bushland all the way across to Washburn. We had to backtrack a little and head through Wildarado to get here."
"Jesus." Jensen said.
"We should get you guys upstairs," Jared said. "We have a ton of medical supplies and food."
"Sounds good," Jeff replied. "By the way, this is Felicia."
They looked over at her, her left arm was in a sling, her clothes were dirty and torn and she had a wound of some sort on her chest or shoulder, her shirt was stained with blood.
Jared led the way into the mall and it took the two of them to help Jeff up the escalator.
When they arrived at the food court, Misha was already there, a stack of first aid supplies was piled up on the table and Rachel and Chris had set up the fire and had brought some food over.
Jensen dealt with Jeff while Jared helped patch up Felicia.
Jeff took off his jacket and Jensen could see he had a large wound on his abdomen and as he explained it, he had received it on day one, he had been trapped after an earthquake hit Denver and he had woken up to find a piece of metal sticking out of him.
The wound wasn't healing too badly but it was taking a long time to recover fully.
After Jensen handed him a couple of painkillers and an antibiotic, he set about cleaning the wound.
Other than that, he had a bunch of scrapes and bruises but nothing serious, at least nothing that was visible.
"Do you think your arm is broken?" Jared asked Felicia. "Or is it just sprained?"
"It's broken," she replied. "And it hurts like a son of a bitch."
Jared picked up the same painkillers and antibiotics that Jensen had given to Jeff and gave them to Felicia.
"The best we can do is a wrist splint, we found a bunch of them in the pharmacy, not as good as a cast but still pretty sturdy."
"Maybe they should clean up, shower before we finished patching them up."
"You have showers?" Felicia asked.
"Yeah in the gym downstairs, we'll take you down there."
"Oh my god," Felicia said with a laugh. "Do you know how long it's been since I've had a shower, weeks. We found a not too disgusting lake a few weeks ago but other than that, nothing."
Rachel helped her to her feet. "We can get you clean clothes as well."
After showering, eating and having their wounds properly dressed, they settled in to get a few hours of sleep.
"This is crazy," Jensen said. "I get how you felt when we showed up, Jeff turning up like this..."
"He was your Professor," Jared said. "Both of you?"
Misha shook his head. "I know who he is but I never took his class and yeah, it's fucking bizarre that he's here."
****
It was extremely early the next morning when the newcomers finally woke up, in all, they had slept for about 12 hours.
The others wouldn't have normally gotten up that early but given the circumstances, it would be rude not to.
Jared and Rachel made breakfast for everyone and given that it was a nice day, they ate out on the roof.
"How long have you guys been here?" Felicia asked.
"Rachel, Misha and I have been here from the start," Chris explained. "Jensen and Jared turned up about three weeks ago."
"What about you guys?" Jared asked. "Did you come across other survivors, do you have any idea what's going on?"
"FEMA had a camp set up just north of Pueblo." Felicia said.
"How many people were there?" Rachel wanted to know.
"A few thousand," Jeff replied. "It looked like they were doing the best they could, but supplies were low and people were panicking. I wouldn't be surprised if the camp fell pretty quickly."
"While you were out there," Jared began. "Did you see any bodies?"
He could feel everyone's eyes turn toward him and he felt a little uncomfortable.
"What do you mean?" Jeff asked. "Did we see people get killed? Yeah, a few."
Jared gave his head a shake. "That's not exactly what I meant, all of the things that have happened, the flooding, the earthquakes, the people who have been killed, where are they? Bodies don't just vanish into thin air, so where did they go?"
A loud rumble echoed in the distance and a flash of lightning illuminated the sky.
When they had come out onto the roof, the sky had been clear but these days it didn't take long for storms to roll in out of nowhere and for them to disappear just as quickly.
Soon after, they could feel the rain coming in, they could hear it hitting the rooftops of the buildings around them and when the wind picked up, it brought the rain right down on top of them.
They quickly made their way inside and settled around the fire that Chris had already managed to light.
"Where were you heading?" Jensen asked them. "Back to Dallas?"
"That had been the plan," Jeff replied. "But it changed when the EMP hit, we just had to move day by day. Is your plan to stay here or...?"
"At some point," Jared said. "We're going to go west toward Albuquerque."
"What's in Albuquerque?"
"Our families," Jensen told them. "Hopefully."
****
A week had passed since the arrival of Jeff and Felicia and the entire group had finally made plans to leave the mall and head west.
Jensen and Misha had rearranged the trailers to fit in as many supplies as they could while still leaving enough room for Jax.
They knew it was going to be rough going with the bikes but they couldn't use the trailers without them.
When they had secured the trailers, they headed back to the second level.
Jared, Chris, and Jeff were sitting at the table but they couldn't see Rachel or Felicia.
Misha grabbed a couple of bottles of beer and handed one to Jensen.
"Where are the other two?" Jensen asked.
"They went over to the supermarket," Jared replied. "Packing up the supplies, we didn't factor in the need for certain toiletries, you know because we're clueless idiots."
Jensen cocked an eyebrow at him and then gave his head a shake. "Right, well they're not exactly wrong about that."
"There is still so much stuff here," Chris said. "That it feels kind of wrong to be leaving it behind. Obviously, we can't take everything but..."
"I get that," Jensen said. "But the trailers are packed tight and each of our packs is almost too heavy to carry. We'll be alright though, we're going to have enough food and water, that's what matters."
"Food for the dog too?" Chris asked.
Jared nodded back at him. "Yeah, there should be enough for him, besides, he's not as big of an eater as he used to be."
"Okay," Misha said. "I guess that means we're ready to go in the morning then. Oh, I almost forgot, we found these plastic ponchos as well, they fold up small enough to fit in your pocket."
"Sexy." Jensen replied with a chuckle.
Misha narrowed his eyes at him. "Yeah well, you'll think it is when you're having to walk through a fucking tornado."
A few minutes later, Rachel and Felicia returned with two shopping bags full of toiletries.
Rachel dropped her bag onto the table and reached inside and pulled out a small can and tossed it at Chris.
"What is this?"
Rachel sighed heavily. "Yeah, I figured you wouldn't know. It's called deodorant."
Chris pulled a face at her and she laughed back at him.
"The end of the world doesn't mean we have to smell like it," she added. "Got some toothpaste and toothbrushes as well."
"And a few more rolls of toilet tissue," Felicia said. "You can never have too much."
****
Later in the evening, after they had eaten they were lounging around their 'campsite'.
Jared was sitting at the table with a book while Chris was occupying himself by poking at the fire.
Jeff had already fallen asleep. He was healing a lot better with the help of antibiotics and painkillers but they knew that he was still in some pain and Jensen wondered how well he was going to be able to travel.
Rachel and Felicia were playing with a pack of cards they had found at the supermarket, Jensen had thought about playing but he was feeling a little restless.
They would be leaving in several hours and he was anxious about what they would find out there, and he knew he wasn't going to be able to sleep and that was making feel even worse.
"Jensen."
He turned around and saw Misha sticking his head out of the tent. "Can you please stop with the fidgety pacing and stay still for just a minute."
Jensen crossed his arms over his chest and glared back at him. "I'm not doing that."
Misha raised an eyebrow. "Yes you are and it's irritating, so can you sit down or come to bed or do something that's not driving everyone crazy."
"How long have those two been together?" Felicia asked, leaning toward Rachel in hopes that Jensen wouldn't hear her.
"Senior year of high school," Rachel replied. "So, four years now."
"Are they always like this?"
Jensen spun around to face Rachel and Felicia. "You know that I can hear you, right?"
Rachel nodded back at him. "Yes, that's why I'm talking so loud so that you would hear what I'm saying."
Jensen narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean 'always like this'?"
Chris groaned loudly causing Rachel to laugh.
"Screw you guys." Jensen retorted.
He walked over to the tent and flopped down onto the sleeping bag and he tried to get comfortable but Jax came barreling into the tent and started pulling at the pillow Jensen was lying on.
"Even Jax thinks you're being annoying," Misha told him. "So stop stressing out."
****
They had been on the road for less than an hour when the rain came in. An icy wind was pushing the rain at all angles and they had to stop to put on extra jackets and the rain ponchos.
They had planned to cut across the plains but with the rain, it would just create a muddy mess and with the bikes, it would be even more difficult.
The rain lasted almost two hours before it finally let up but they were all completely soaked through and completely miserable.
It had still been less than four hours since they had left the mall behind but it was clear to Jensen at least, that each one of the group wanted to stop, to get into some dry clothes and to try and warm up a little.
"Okay this is getting ridiculous," Jensen finally said. "My fucking boots are full of water and I can barely feel my fingers."
"Yeah," Jeff replied. "We should stop for a bit."
It was still too damp to try and light a fire for warmth but even just changing out of their wet clothes made a world of difference.
An hour later, they were back on the road and had agreed that if the rain stayed away, they would begin cutting through the plains in the late afternoon.
The sun was high overhead now and it amazed Jensen that there was not a single cloud in the sky.
As cold as it had been that morning, it was now unbelievably hot and they had to begin removing layers of clothes.
In the early afternoon, Jared let Chris take over the bike and he let Jax off the trailer for a little bit.
The old boy enjoyed stretching his legs but it soon became clear to Jared that if they didn't have those trailers, he wasn't sure how well Jax would do with all the hiking.
****
The rest of the day, they were able to make good time with the weather staying consistently warm.
Just after the sun went down, they stopped for the night, setting up camp. They had only brought one tent with them, supposedly it was roomy enough for four people, but Jensen highly doubted it would comfortably fit two.
They mostly brought it with them as a last resort.
They had picked a spot that had a lot of tree cover and they rigged up a tarp to provide them with a little bit of shelter.
Jared and Chris worked quickly to set up a fire and once they were settled in, they ate their first meal since breakfast.
They were all fairly exhausted so they knew that as long as the weather held and they weren't jolted by any earthquakes, they might actually get a decent sleep.
One by one they slowly drifted off to sleep, Jensen was the last one awake and before he went to sleep, he added a few more pieces of wood to the fire and checked that the stones around it were secure enough before he laid back down between Misha and Jared.
He had no idea how long he had been asleep for when a loud rumble echoed across the plains.
The noise was so severe that they could feel the ground vibrate underneath them and in moments, the seven of them were wide awake and on their feet.
They moved away from the trees and into the clearing.
"What the fuck is that?" Chris cried out as the rumbling sound grew louder.
"What is what?" Misha asked.
Chris pointed to the horizon. "That fucking light."
A pale yellow light seemed to dance along the horizon, it looked as though it were sparking, dull at first but growing brighter by the minute.
"What the hell?" Jeff muttered as he took a few steps forward.
The light grew in intensity and each one of them feared what was about to happen. The past few months had been horribly unpredictable so even their greatest nightmares weren't the worst things that had come to pass.
"Jensen."
Jensen turned on his heel to face Jared who was standing directly behind him, he looked as terrified as he felt.
Jared stepped up beside him and folded his arms over his chest.
The lights in the distance flickered several times before they seemed to dissipate entirely. Jensen wasn't entirely sure that was a good thing and he knew that for certain when another loud boom echoed across the plains.
He couldn't understand how it could have been so loud, there must have been 100 miles or more between them and the horizon, whatever had happened, it was serious and he feared for any lives that may have been close to the explosion.
A moment later he felt a hand land on his arm and turning to his right, he found himself looking directly into the face of Misha.
He was so close in fact that Jensen narrowed his eyes and leaned back.
"What are you doing?"
Misha took a step back. "We can't stay here; we need to get moving."
Jensen glared over at Jeff who was busy staring off into the distance, he could tell Jeff was worried about what to do next, he may have somehow become the de-facto leader but even he had his doubts that he was going to get them all killed.
"He's right," Jeff announced. "We need real shelter because whatever just happened, if it gets any closer than that and we're outside, it will kill us all."
They made quick work to pack up the camp and Jensen was careful to make sure that the fire was completely out and covered and when he was finished, it was almost as if it had never been there to begin with.
All seven of them gathered at the edge of the tree cluster giving the horizon one final look before they headed out.
They traveled in single file, it was for no particular reason really.
Jeff took the lead with Chris close behind, then there was Misha, followed by Rachel, Jared was next while Jensen was just a few steps behind and Felicia brought up the rear.
Despite their lack of sleep, they moved quickly across the open plains and they estimated that they had been traveling for about three hours when they stumbled across another tree cluster.
A small creek, almost devoid of water lay just beyond the tree line.
"We gonna keep going or are we gonna stop for a while?" Chris asked.
Jeff dumped his backpack onto the ground and sat down on a crumbling tree stump. "We can't stop here; we need a proper shelter."
"Okay, I feel like I need to point something out," Rachel said. "What happens when we find this proper shelter?"
Jeff glanced up at her and cocked an eyebrow at her. "What do you mean?"
“I mean, what happens when we find somewhere to shelter,” she continued. “What we just saw happen was what… less than one hundred miles away? How far are we going to have to go before we’re safe? Because if it happened there, it’s going to happen anywhere.”
“Wow,” Misha said. “Way to bring everyone down.”
Rachel spun on her heel to face him, anger flashing in her eyes. “You know that I’m right."
A deafening silence fell over the group as they processed the idea that they may never actually be safe again, Rachel had made a good point, where were they going to go that would keep them alive.
"We keep heading toward Albuquerque," Jeff said.
Jensen glanced over at Jared for a moment. "We all know that whatever happened earlier, it was in that direction."
No one said anything but they knew that Jensen was right.
It might not have been in the exact location they were going but it probably wasn't far away from it.
"It had to have been an explosion right?" Chris said. "I mean to create that light and boom, it was an explosion of some kind."
Jensen glared over at him and then gave his head a shake.
"Truth is," Jeff said. "We have no idea what or where it was, all we can do is keep going, try and find your families"
****
They kept walking for another few hours before they stopped again, they pulled out their sleeping bags and built a fire but they didn't get too settled in, they wanted to move in a hurry if they had to.
As the others fell asleep one by one, Jensen sat there, his legs crossed, hands resting on his knees and he stared into the fire, it crackled and hissed sending a tiny spark into the sky.
If the situation wasn't so dire, it would be almost beautiful.
Not having any awareness of how much time had passed, he felt his eyelids getting heavy and he exhaled sharply as he laid down.
****
For a brief moment, as he stirred from his sleep, he thought he heard something, a slight noise that was reminiscent of a cat's purr as it absorbed the comfort of its human but as his surroundings became clearer and sleep drifted further away, he knew that it couldn't possibly be a cat and that's when his fear escalated.
He knew that he was lying on the damp ground and when he rolled onto his side, he saw the remains of the fire, a few tiny embers still burned but it wasn't enough to give off any warmth.
Sitting up, he rubbed at his eyes as glanced around, he was the last one to wake up and after getting to his feet, he quickly glanced around for the others.
He finally spotted them standing about 10 yards away, they appeared to be staring at the horizon and he was curious to know what was going on.
"No one could have woken me up?"
Both Jared and Misha turned to look at him and while Jared looked a little sheepish, Misha just shrugged his shoulders.
"Yeah, thanks."
He stepped up beside Jared and folded his arms over his chest. "So... what are we looking at?"
Chris pointed toward the horizon and after squinting for several minutes, Jensen finally saw a small dot against the blue sky, every now and then the sun would catch the mystery object.
"What the fuck is that?" Jensen said to no one particular. "Is whatever the hell that is, always been there?"
Chris turned to look at him and then shook his head. "No idea, I mean we've been going the same direction and no one has noticed it."
"Last night." Rachel said, and when she failed to continue, they all turned to stare at her.
"Got anything more to add to that?" Chris asked her.
"That noise that we heard," she replied. "We can all agree that it came from that general direction, right? Well, whatever the hell that is, maybe it only appeared because of that noise."
Jensen cocked an eyebrow at her. "Okay, it's possible but uh... what is it?"
Rachel crossed her arms over her chest and glared back at him. "Any particular reason why you'd assume that I would know the answer to that?"
Jensen muttered under his breath as he glanced back at the horizon. He could have sworn that the mystery object had somehow changed shaped and appeared just that little bit closer.
"Okay, anyone get the sudden urge to get as far away from here as possible?" Misha asked.
They packed up their things and continued west across the plains.
****
It was three days before they came across another town and they settled in an old house that still looked pretty sturdy.
It was still light out and Jensen, Jared, and Chris decided to do a little looking around.
As they made their way down the street, Jensen noticed some red markings on the doors of the houses.
“What’s that all about?”
“FEMA,” Chris told them. “They must have come through here and evacuated everyone. The numbers are how many people, how many survivors and the date.”
“So that means they came through just a few days after,” Jared said. “This is a fairly small town, to get FEMA through here, they got lucky.”
“You guys were at a FEMA camp though,” Chris replied. “There are probably dozens of them scattered all over the place.”
Jensen shrugged his shoulders. "I guess so, but if any of them were close enough to..."
“Yeah,” Chris said, cutting him off. “I heard rumors that a camp in Northern California had been taken over by the survivors and it was pretty rough. They were executing ‘criminal’s’, were strict about weapons, that sort of thing.”
“I’ve also heard that there are illnesses sweeping through the camps, that’s one of the main reasons we stayed for so long at the mall, it was just safer there.”
“What sort of illnesses?” Jared asked.
Chris gave his shoulders a shrug. “I’m not sure. I mean with all the flooding, I reckon that would cause a fair amount of illness, some of that water is going to be rancid."
As they continued to walk down the street, they began to notice shell casings on the ground and the closer they got to the center of town, the worse it became.
They saw bullet holes in the walls of the buildings, smashed glass and debris littered the ground as they approached town hall, they saw that half the building was reduced to nothing but rubble.
But the damage hadn't been caused by an earthquake.
"Why the hell would anyone do that?" Jared asked no one in particular.
Jensen gave his shoulders a shrug. "I don't know. People panicked."
"And attacked the ones who came to help them?" Jared replied. "How does that make any fucking sense?"
After a few more minutes of walking, they suddenly stopped and spun on their heels when they heard the sound of gunfire.
None of them said anything, they shared a quick glance and then started running.
They took a couple of wrong turns in trying to get back to the house but when they finally cut across the street and rounded the corner, they saw who they wrongly assumed to be Jeff standing at the side of the house.
Jensen almost knocked Chris over when they came to a sudden stop as the person, not Jeff, turned toward them and started firing.
Jensen grabbed Chris' arm and yanked him backward.
Jared was already crouched down behind the fence of the neighboring house but there were missing planks and it was barely providing enough cover for them.
"What the fuck is going on?" Jared cried out. "Who is that?"
Jensen and Chris shared a look and Jared stared at him in annoyance.
"My guess," Chris said. "Is that they're after whatever supplies they think we have."
"So my next question is," Jared replied. "Why aren't Jeff and Misha shooting back?"
Jensen inhaled sharply, he knew why Misha would have been reluctant to shoot at people, despite the situation, they were only doing what they thought they had to do to survive.
Jeff, on the other hand, might not be so reluctant.
"We have to do something," Chris said. "We can't let them take out supplies, no matter how desperate they might be."
A few more shots fired off and Jared cringed at the noise.
This time though, someone inside the house did fire back, rounds ricocheted off the fence and the footpath.
One bullet came particularly close to the mystery shooter and he had to throw himself back to avoid being hit.
After letting off another volley of bullets, the shooter had to reload and Jensen took the opportunity to motion toward the side of the house.
They only way they were getting back inside where if they went through the back door.
But they also knew that there could be more people standing guard so they had to be extra careful.
They snuck along the side of the house as more gunshots echoed out.
Jensen was the first to reach the backdoor and as he tried the handle, he cursed under his breath when he remembered that he had specifically checked it himself to make sure that it was locked from the inside.
Glancing over his shoulder, he looked at Chris and Jared.
Jared was crouched down near the fence while Chris was trying to open a window. It was making a lot of noise as he rattled the window in its frame and he quickly realized that they weren't going to be able to get in that way.
"What the hell are we supposed to do?" Jared asked. "We stupidly didn't bring any weapons with us, so we're supposed to fend them off by throwing rocks at them?"
Jensen cocked an eyebrow at him and then gave his head a shake. "Whatever you think will work."
Jared glared back at him as Chris let out a chuckle.
"Are you fucking serious?" Jared scolded him.
"Calm down," Chris replied. "We'll find another way inside."
They inched their back along the fence but then Chris stopped when he heard something.
"What is it?"
"I don't know, I heard some clicking noises."
Jensen waited for him to elaborate but Chris remained silent.
Instead, he crept back toward the door and was surprised to find it was open.
He glanced over his shoulder and waved at Jensen.
Once they were inside the house, they moved cautiously to make sure that no one else had managed to get in and they eventually found Jeff, Rachel, Felicia and Misha on the second floor.
"Jesus," Jensen cried out. "What the fuck happened?"
He rushed over to Misha who was sitting on the bed, his left hand clutching at his right shoulder.
He could see blood and his heart dropped.
"Misha, what the hell?"
Rachel dropped a bag onto the bed and pulled out bandages and other first aid supplies.
"I'm fine," Misha tried reassuring him. "It grazed my shoulder but that's it. I swear that I'm okay."
Jensen sucked in a deep breath and allowed Rachel to patch him up.
It really wasn't that bad but the fact that he had been hit at all send a cold shiver down his spine.
If he had been standing just a few inches over, things could have ended very differently.
"Do you know how many are out there?" Jeff asked. "Did you see anyone?"
Jensen shook his head. "No, we didn't see anyone else."
"Okay," Jeff replied. "So, there's only one shooter then?"
"A fucking ballsy one at that," Chris added. "So why exactly is the asshole still standing?"
They all turned to look at Chris.
"What?" he retorted. "Like we don't have enough fucking problems as it is without some asshole trying to kill us."
"He has a point," Rachel said. "He seems pretty determined to get in here and we can't just stay here, so..."
Another round of shots hit the side of the building and Jared flinched.
"He's just trying to survive, like the rest of us," Misha said. "Killing him won't help anyone."
Chris groaned loudly. "Sure it will, it will help us."
"Okay," Rachel replied. "This isn't getting us anywhere. What do we do about him?"
Jensen lifted his hands to his face and wiped at his eyes.
The shooter fired again, this time hitting the windows, the glass shattered and Felicia who was closest to them flung herself backwards.
Jeff glanced over at Misha and Jensen who were still sitting on the bed, he didn't say anything and then he turned back to the window and fired off several more shots.
Jensen knew what he was doing and while he didn't exactly agree with it, he would do anything to protect his loved ones and he couldn't do that if he were dead.
A few minutes later, Jeff turned away from the window and lowered his gun.
"It's done?" Chris asked and Jeff nodded. "Then we need to get the fuck out of here, now. Before anyone else shows up."
****
Chapter Four Thrown Into the Flames