"What?" Lindsey breathed.
Jenny turned up the sound on the scanner.
". . . Warehouse on Highway 24. . . stolen cars . . ."
"Now what do we do?" Catie asked, her heart pounding in her chest. She was sure Lindsey and Jenny could hear it. Her throat felt tight and she felt like she couldn't breathe.
"Bail?" Jenny asked in a whisper.
Lindsey shook her head. "We worked too hard to bail."
"We don't have a choice!" Jenny said. "At least we can all get out of here!"
"Jenny! Listen to yourself! Even if we did bail, they're gonna know it was us! We're no more than a quarter of a mile from the house, if that."
"Sound the alarm, ladies," Jenny said. Then, taking a deep breath, she screamed, "COPS!!"
All three girls took off down the slight hill towards the cars screaming, "COPS!! COPS!!"
*~*~*~*~*~
Xander stepped down from the trailer, looking towards the drive where three figures were running towards him, waving their arms wildly.
"COPS!! COPS!!"
Xander looked to Kolya who stood next to him. Kolya's blue eyes went wide and he ran off to the side.
Everyone seemed to be thrown into motion. The cars were being loaded three times faster in the early morning light.
"Get those cars out of here!" Yorgi was bellowing. He stared shouting in Russian.
"Where's Kolya?" Sophie asked, looking around for him. They all barely caught a glimpse of him as he flew over the drive on his motorbike.
*~*~*~*~*~
"Gohan, this is ridiculous!" Seventeen cried as they searched yet another room in the house. "How many rooms are there in here?"
Gohan chuckled nervously. "I don't know. I'm sure they're here somewhere."
Piccolo crossed his arms over his chest. "Something tells me we're on a wild goose chase."
Gohan shook his head. "This is where they said they'd be. It's a big place. I bet they're all vegged out in one room somewhere."
Trunks sighed, his hands on his hips. "I wish I was vegged out somewhere. We've been up all night."
"Let's just try another room, shall we?" Gohan suggested. He was relieved when three exhasperated nods answered his question.
*~*~*~*~*~*~
*Come on, you mother fuckers,* Kolya thought to himself heading for the huge car dealer on Morley. He pulled into Ford Motors parking lot and pulled the gun from his belt. "HERE'S TO ANARCHY!!!" he bellowed and began shooting.
Kolya shot out the windows to the large building before him. Then he turned to the cars that surrounded him and began shooting them up as best as he could. His gun clicked a couple of times, signaling that he was out.
Alarms sounded all around him from the building and the cars. He then calmly straddled his bike and leaned lazily on the handlebars. "Come and catch me, you sons of bitches."
*~*~*~*~*~
"I don't see them, yet again, Gohan," Seventeen hissed as they entered the garage.
"I find that funny, because we can't find them anywhere either," a voice said.
They turned to see Goku and the rest of the gang standing there, save Chichi, Bulma, Eighteen and the kids.
"Care to tell us what's going on, Gohan?" Vegeta demanded.
Gohan shook his head. "I know just about as much as you do."
"Your son is a pathetic liar, Kakarot," Vegeta sneered.
Gohan's head was beginning to hurt. Now what was he going to do?
*~*~*~*~*~
The last car was loaded onto the trailer and the huge trucks started up the driveway and were gone within minutes.
Jenny again stood at her post on the small hill. When the cars were out of sight and no police were there to follow, Jenny whooped and jumped in the air. She cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted, "We're clear! We did it!!"
The group went wild, hugging each other, yelling, screaming, a couple of them breaking down and crying, realizing how lucky they were that the police hadn't shown. Alcohol broke out in every direction and as they all stopped to drink for a minute, silence fell over the field. Then the police scanner broke out:
"Young white male, approximately six-foot-five, wearing black riding leathers on a blue Honda motorbike. Heading west-bound on highway 24. Suspect believed to be affiliated with reported car thefts earlier in the evening. Believed to be armed and dangerous. . ."
"Kolya," someone in the crowd muttered.
There was a hush as everyone stood there frozen.
Just then, Leelee ran for the garage. Her long legs carried her there swiftly. She burst through the door and slammed into something tall and hard. At first she thought it was the wall. Then she realized it wasn't. It was Piccolo.
Behind him stood not only Gohan, Trunks and Seventeen, but also Goku, Dende, Krillin, Tien, Vegeta and Yamcha.
"Where have you all been?" Seventeen cried.
"I'm here like I said!" Leelee answered.
"We searched the whole house!"
"I was outside. So sue me," she answered, grabbing a helmet that was on the wall nearby. She grabbed a spare and walked to the motorcycle that she and Catie had stolen only a few days before. She kicked up the kickstand and pushed the bike out the door. Then she mounted it.
"Where do you think you're going?" Piccolo demanded.
"Where ever I want," she answered, surprised at her own audacity. She pulled the helmet over her head and sped off down the hill towards the group.
She pulled up beside the other Z Girls. "Let's go! Someone! Come on!"
Catie accepted the extra helmet from Leelee and jumped on behind her.
Lindsey grabbed another motorcycle that was lying on its side nearby. "Let's go."
*~*~*~*~*~*~
Kolya had just turned onto 24, going the opposite way from the warehouse. Three cop cars and two sheriffs were behind him. His knuckles were white from gripping the handlebars so tightly. He started up the overpass, hearing his brother's words from earlier flashing through his mind. 'Drive hard, think fast and fly . . .'
The streets were beginning to come alive again as the sunlight spilled over the town. The sunlight was working against him. It made him easier to see - his black jacket in the bright light was impossible to miss. But he didn't care. All he cared about was getting the cops' minds off the cars for a while so everyone could get out of there and be safe. That was all that mattered to him. He'd worry about himself later.
*~*~*~*~*~
The three girls on two bikes flew down 24, hoping to catch Kolya. They saw him heading up the overpass with five cars chasing him. Their sirens blared and their lights flashed brightly. They fishtailed around the large corner.
Kolya's bike went airborn just as one of the cops leaned far out of the window, aiming at Kolya.
The girls wanted to scream and warn him, but there was no use. There was no way he would have ever heard them.
*~*~*~*~*~
By getting some air, Kolya hoped to also gain some ground from the cops. He hadn't counted on them already being so close. As he was mid-air, he heard three sharp cracks cut the morning air. And on the third one, he felt something.
It was like an explosion that ripped through the back of his right shoulder and exited through the upper right part of his chest, just before his arm. It felt like all the air had been knocked out of him and he saw huge bursting stars of black and red before his eyes. The road was no longer there to him - the trees, cars, everything was lost in this sea of black and red stars. His right arm felt limp. He squeezed his eyes shut tighty, shook his head and reopened his eyes, barely able to see the ground.
Somehow, and only God knows how, he managed to land the jump, one handed, and kept going. His right arm hung limp at his side and he continued on through the cars.
*~*~*~*~*~
The light ahead of the girls turned red, but they pressed on anyway. Cars screeched behind them and the huge sounds of crunching metal followed them, but they never looked back.
Ahead, they saw Kolya continuing on his bike and decided that he must have not been hit. He, like them, flew through a red light. The wreckage behind this one was worse. A semi swerved violently to avoid hitting Kolya and jack-knifed in the middle of the tiny intersection. The freight it carried - huge, immacuate logs - broke the confining chains and spilled all over the road. The cop cars were all five caught up in the wreckage.
Lindsey pulled a sharp left onto Sparks with Leelee and Catie following her. She went around the wreck and came back out on the other side of it, back onto 24. Way ahead, they saw a small black figure turning into Rothwell Park.
*~*~*~*~*~
Kolya pulled off the highway and down a road that sloped down beside Rothwell Lake. He hit the curb and was thrown from his bike. He tumbled down the slight incline and landed flat on his back near the lake. And he didn't move. He stared up at the sky, the whispy white clouds reflecting in his perfect blue eyes. His left hand moved to his wounded shoulder and he felt the hot, sticky blood seeping through the hole in his riding leathers.
*I should have stayed in Prague* he told himself.
A warm, gentle breeze swept over the lake and blew against his hot face. It brought with it the smells of the woods across the lake and of the fresh morning dew and it seemed to hold the scents of everything that was good in the world. The sun was slowly climbing higher into the sky. Kolya vaguely wondered if this was what Lindsey had meant when she said he needed to get in touch with nature. He wondered if this was what she loved so dear - the feel of the sun, the freshness of the morning air, the sight of the pale clouds in the sky, the sounds of the birds singing in the trees. He wished now that he would have the chance to experience all of it. He wished he could sit and talk to his brother just once more. He wished he could feel the smooth, sleek, cold metal of a car again. He wished he could sit in the barn and smell the fresh hay and the leather and the horses while his friends messed around. He wished he could see his friends around him, dancing, smiling. He wished he could taste another sweet kiss. He wished that for once he could have actually fallen in love.
But now he knew that that would never be. He would lie here, on the hard ground beside Rothwell Lake, and bleed to death. He knew that he would be there, nothing more than a corpse for someone to find by the time anyone discovered him. He prayed that a child from the nearby playground didn't venture upon his body once he was gone.
There would be no praise for him at his funeral. He died a criminal, running from the law, shot dead.
Heaving a quivering sigh, Kolya closed his eyes, and tried not to think about the pain in his shoulder that seemed to rip through his whole body.
*~*~*~*~*~
They saw the bike lying on its side, the motor still running. All three girls jumped off their bikes and ran to it. Then they saw him lying only a few feet away. His face was contorted in pain and his fingers gripped his right shoulder.
"Kolya!" Lindsey screamed and ran to him.
He weakly opened his eyes. "I will die."
"No! Kolya, no you won't! Not today!" Lindsey cried. "Help me!"
Together, the three girls heaved the big man to his feet. Leaning hard on Lindsey and Catie, he made it back to the bikes. Lindsey mounted hers and he sat behind her, leaning hard against her back. He was so heavy, she struggled to sit upright.
"Now what?" Lindsey asked.
"We can't take him to the hospital," Catie said.
"Why not?" Leelee cried.
"People ask questions in a hospital!" Catie answered.
"Then what do we do?" Leelee asked.
Catie snapped her fingers. "Dende! He can help!"
Lindsey's face lit up. "Yeah! Let's get back to the warehouse and call Dende!"
Leelee thought about telling them that he was already there, but she decided against it. They then took off for the warehouse again, taking the side streets back to Morley, and then back down 24. *They'll figure it out for themselves soon enough.*
Jenny turned up the sound on the scanner.
". . . Warehouse on Highway 24. . . stolen cars . . ."
"Now what do we do?" Catie asked, her heart pounding in her chest. She was sure Lindsey and Jenny could hear it. Her throat felt tight and she felt like she couldn't breathe.
"Bail?" Jenny asked in a whisper.
Lindsey shook her head. "We worked too hard to bail."
"We don't have a choice!" Jenny said. "At least we can all get out of here!"
"Jenny! Listen to yourself! Even if we did bail, they're gonna know it was us! We're no more than a quarter of a mile from the house, if that."
"Sound the alarm, ladies," Jenny said. Then, taking a deep breath, she screamed, "COPS!!"
All three girls took off down the slight hill towards the cars screaming, "COPS!! COPS!!"
*~*~*~*~*~
Xander stepped down from the trailer, looking towards the drive where three figures were running towards him, waving their arms wildly.
"COPS!! COPS!!"
Xander looked to Kolya who stood next to him. Kolya's blue eyes went wide and he ran off to the side.
Everyone seemed to be thrown into motion. The cars were being loaded three times faster in the early morning light.
"Get those cars out of here!" Yorgi was bellowing. He stared shouting in Russian.
"Where's Kolya?" Sophie asked, looking around for him. They all barely caught a glimpse of him as he flew over the drive on his motorbike.
*~*~*~*~*~
"Gohan, this is ridiculous!" Seventeen cried as they searched yet another room in the house. "How many rooms are there in here?"
Gohan chuckled nervously. "I don't know. I'm sure they're here somewhere."
Piccolo crossed his arms over his chest. "Something tells me we're on a wild goose chase."
Gohan shook his head. "This is where they said they'd be. It's a big place. I bet they're all vegged out in one room somewhere."
Trunks sighed, his hands on his hips. "I wish I was vegged out somewhere. We've been up all night."
"Let's just try another room, shall we?" Gohan suggested. He was relieved when three exhasperated nods answered his question.
*~*~*~*~*~*~
*Come on, you mother fuckers,* Kolya thought to himself heading for the huge car dealer on Morley. He pulled into Ford Motors parking lot and pulled the gun from his belt. "HERE'S TO ANARCHY!!!" he bellowed and began shooting.
Kolya shot out the windows to the large building before him. Then he turned to the cars that surrounded him and began shooting them up as best as he could. His gun clicked a couple of times, signaling that he was out.
Alarms sounded all around him from the building and the cars. He then calmly straddled his bike and leaned lazily on the handlebars. "Come and catch me, you sons of bitches."
*~*~*~*~*~
"I don't see them, yet again, Gohan," Seventeen hissed as they entered the garage.
"I find that funny, because we can't find them anywhere either," a voice said.
They turned to see Goku and the rest of the gang standing there, save Chichi, Bulma, Eighteen and the kids.
"Care to tell us what's going on, Gohan?" Vegeta demanded.
Gohan shook his head. "I know just about as much as you do."
"Your son is a pathetic liar, Kakarot," Vegeta sneered.
Gohan's head was beginning to hurt. Now what was he going to do?
*~*~*~*~*~
The last car was loaded onto the trailer and the huge trucks started up the driveway and were gone within minutes.
Jenny again stood at her post on the small hill. When the cars were out of sight and no police were there to follow, Jenny whooped and jumped in the air. She cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted, "We're clear! We did it!!"
The group went wild, hugging each other, yelling, screaming, a couple of them breaking down and crying, realizing how lucky they were that the police hadn't shown. Alcohol broke out in every direction and as they all stopped to drink for a minute, silence fell over the field. Then the police scanner broke out:
"Young white male, approximately six-foot-five, wearing black riding leathers on a blue Honda motorbike. Heading west-bound on highway 24. Suspect believed to be affiliated with reported car thefts earlier in the evening. Believed to be armed and dangerous. . ."
"Kolya," someone in the crowd muttered.
There was a hush as everyone stood there frozen.
Just then, Leelee ran for the garage. Her long legs carried her there swiftly. She burst through the door and slammed into something tall and hard. At first she thought it was the wall. Then she realized it wasn't. It was Piccolo.
Behind him stood not only Gohan, Trunks and Seventeen, but also Goku, Dende, Krillin, Tien, Vegeta and Yamcha.
"Where have you all been?" Seventeen cried.
"I'm here like I said!" Leelee answered.
"We searched the whole house!"
"I was outside. So sue me," she answered, grabbing a helmet that was on the wall nearby. She grabbed a spare and walked to the motorcycle that she and Catie had stolen only a few days before. She kicked up the kickstand and pushed the bike out the door. Then she mounted it.
"Where do you think you're going?" Piccolo demanded.
"Where ever I want," she answered, surprised at her own audacity. She pulled the helmet over her head and sped off down the hill towards the group.
She pulled up beside the other Z Girls. "Let's go! Someone! Come on!"
Catie accepted the extra helmet from Leelee and jumped on behind her.
Lindsey grabbed another motorcycle that was lying on its side nearby. "Let's go."
*~*~*~*~*~*~
Kolya had just turned onto 24, going the opposite way from the warehouse. Three cop cars and two sheriffs were behind him. His knuckles were white from gripping the handlebars so tightly. He started up the overpass, hearing his brother's words from earlier flashing through his mind. 'Drive hard, think fast and fly . . .'
The streets were beginning to come alive again as the sunlight spilled over the town. The sunlight was working against him. It made him easier to see - his black jacket in the bright light was impossible to miss. But he didn't care. All he cared about was getting the cops' minds off the cars for a while so everyone could get out of there and be safe. That was all that mattered to him. He'd worry about himself later.
*~*~*~*~*~
The three girls on two bikes flew down 24, hoping to catch Kolya. They saw him heading up the overpass with five cars chasing him. Their sirens blared and their lights flashed brightly. They fishtailed around the large corner.
Kolya's bike went airborn just as one of the cops leaned far out of the window, aiming at Kolya.
The girls wanted to scream and warn him, but there was no use. There was no way he would have ever heard them.
*~*~*~*~*~
By getting some air, Kolya hoped to also gain some ground from the cops. He hadn't counted on them already being so close. As he was mid-air, he heard three sharp cracks cut the morning air. And on the third one, he felt something.
It was like an explosion that ripped through the back of his right shoulder and exited through the upper right part of his chest, just before his arm. It felt like all the air had been knocked out of him and he saw huge bursting stars of black and red before his eyes. The road was no longer there to him - the trees, cars, everything was lost in this sea of black and red stars. His right arm felt limp. He squeezed his eyes shut tighty, shook his head and reopened his eyes, barely able to see the ground.
Somehow, and only God knows how, he managed to land the jump, one handed, and kept going. His right arm hung limp at his side and he continued on through the cars.
*~*~*~*~*~
The light ahead of the girls turned red, but they pressed on anyway. Cars screeched behind them and the huge sounds of crunching metal followed them, but they never looked back.
Ahead, they saw Kolya continuing on his bike and decided that he must have not been hit. He, like them, flew through a red light. The wreckage behind this one was worse. A semi swerved violently to avoid hitting Kolya and jack-knifed in the middle of the tiny intersection. The freight it carried - huge, immacuate logs - broke the confining chains and spilled all over the road. The cop cars were all five caught up in the wreckage.
Lindsey pulled a sharp left onto Sparks with Leelee and Catie following her. She went around the wreck and came back out on the other side of it, back onto 24. Way ahead, they saw a small black figure turning into Rothwell Park.
*~*~*~*~*~
Kolya pulled off the highway and down a road that sloped down beside Rothwell Lake. He hit the curb and was thrown from his bike. He tumbled down the slight incline and landed flat on his back near the lake. And he didn't move. He stared up at the sky, the whispy white clouds reflecting in his perfect blue eyes. His left hand moved to his wounded shoulder and he felt the hot, sticky blood seeping through the hole in his riding leathers.
*I should have stayed in Prague* he told himself.
A warm, gentle breeze swept over the lake and blew against his hot face. It brought with it the smells of the woods across the lake and of the fresh morning dew and it seemed to hold the scents of everything that was good in the world. The sun was slowly climbing higher into the sky. Kolya vaguely wondered if this was what Lindsey had meant when she said he needed to get in touch with nature. He wondered if this was what she loved so dear - the feel of the sun, the freshness of the morning air, the sight of the pale clouds in the sky, the sounds of the birds singing in the trees. He wished now that he would have the chance to experience all of it. He wished he could sit and talk to his brother just once more. He wished he could feel the smooth, sleek, cold metal of a car again. He wished he could sit in the barn and smell the fresh hay and the leather and the horses while his friends messed around. He wished he could see his friends around him, dancing, smiling. He wished he could taste another sweet kiss. He wished that for once he could have actually fallen in love.
But now he knew that that would never be. He would lie here, on the hard ground beside Rothwell Lake, and bleed to death. He knew that he would be there, nothing more than a corpse for someone to find by the time anyone discovered him. He prayed that a child from the nearby playground didn't venture upon his body once he was gone.
There would be no praise for him at his funeral. He died a criminal, running from the law, shot dead.
Heaving a quivering sigh, Kolya closed his eyes, and tried not to think about the pain in his shoulder that seemed to rip through his whole body.
*~*~*~*~*~
They saw the bike lying on its side, the motor still running. All three girls jumped off their bikes and ran to it. Then they saw him lying only a few feet away. His face was contorted in pain and his fingers gripped his right shoulder.
"Kolya!" Lindsey screamed and ran to him.
He weakly opened his eyes. "I will die."
"No! Kolya, no you won't! Not today!" Lindsey cried. "Help me!"
Together, the three girls heaved the big man to his feet. Leaning hard on Lindsey and Catie, he made it back to the bikes. Lindsey mounted hers and he sat behind her, leaning hard against her back. He was so heavy, she struggled to sit upright.
"Now what?" Lindsey asked.
"We can't take him to the hospital," Catie said.
"Why not?" Leelee cried.
"People ask questions in a hospital!" Catie answered.
"Then what do we do?" Leelee asked.
Catie snapped her fingers. "Dende! He can help!"
Lindsey's face lit up. "Yeah! Let's get back to the warehouse and call Dende!"
Leelee thought about telling them that he was already there, but she decided against it. They then took off for the warehouse again, taking the side streets back to Morley, and then back down 24. *They'll figure it out for themselves soon enough.*