---

I spread my wings, hoping to deflect any bullets and hopefully spare some of these poor mutants any more pain. My shooting wasn't great, but the gunmen were conveniently grouped together. One or two went down before they could get a shot off. After that things were a little crazy. And painful.

I was taking way more hits than I liked to think about, but I managed to keep shooting and force them to take cover. Those that could, anyway. I heard cries of pain behind me that told me some shots were getting through to the people we were trying to rescue.

"How you doing up there, Cat?" Melissa yelled over the occasional gunshot still coming from outside the door.

"Could...be...better." I growled through gritted teeth. "Things...getting...hazy." One eye had been shot out, but the red haze covering my vision wasn't just from blood.

"Shit!" Melissa grumbled. She knew about the red haze, and what can happen in these situations. "Try to hold on a little longer, I've just got two more cages to go!"

Easier said than done. I thought groggily, but just grunted in answer. A few more shots rang out before I returned fire to keep them under cover, but one hit my right knee. I managed to kneel on my good knee and keep myself upright with my wings.

Someone got brave and ran across the doorway, firing in with an Uzi. I got him, but he hit me a lot more. As I slumped forward, being held up slightly by my wings, I caught a glimpse of Melissa jumping over me with sword and gun drawn. It took all my concentration just to stay conscious and not lose control, but I still heard the gunshots and screams. I could only hope that Melissa knew what she was doing.

I felt a touch on my left wing and growled involuntarily. Someone made calming sounds behind me and I realized it was one of the people from the cages. When the touch came again I managed not to react. Within moments I was upright again, with four people holding me, and my wings, up.

Somehow, I'd kept my grip on the M16. With them supporting me, I managed to reload it with the last clip and we moved forward to try and help Melissa. We were just in time.

The stage area beyond the door was a scene of carnage that reminded me painfully of the cave. There was blood everywhere. Dead and dying were scattered about, with the occasional severed limb, or head, for variety. Melissa was lying in the middle of the mess, her blade snapped in half. It was impossible to tell how badly injured she was, since she was covered in blood from the fight.

There were only two men left standing, and they were both injured. One was busily trying to staunch the flow of blood from his severed hand, while the other was pointing his gun at Melissa's head. She lifted herself up slightly and aimed her own gun at him, but he easily kicked it away. I fired, hitting the man beside him instead. He looked up at me in surprise and I realized he was the same mutant who attacked me at the beginning.

I had managed to heal up a little, thanks to Melissa taking their attention away from me, so took a firmer grip on the gun and fired again. This time I hit him in the chest twice before he fell.

"Melissa? How badly are you hurt?" I asked, gesturing for the others to help me over to her. We shuffled over, and found she'd passed out. I checked her pulse and it was very weak. "We've got to get her out of here!"

"We'll get her." a man with a German accent spoke up from behind me. He and several others moved over to her and lifted her carefully. They were all malnourished and covered in bruises, but there were enough of them to carry Melissa and half carry me down to the floor of the club and out the door. I noticed several of them arming themselves on the way.

"Do you have someplace to go and heal?" the German asked.

I nodded, "A pier, that way." I said, pointing. He nodded and gestured for the others to follow him. It was a grueling walk for all of us. I nodded off several times, with the German waking me whenever he needed directions. Within seconds of coming into sight of the pier Paul was there.

"What happened?!" he exclaimed, running over to help the others with me. I was mostly healed by this point, but so very tired...

---

I awoke with a start, surprised at the relative brightness. I expected to find the German there, asking for directions again. Then I remembered seeing Paul. Am I back at the pier, now? I wondered. Looking around myself I realized I was in my own nest with Lek and Muay on either side of me. My clothes were gone, but then they'd probably been shredded from all the gunfire anyway.

As soon as I moved both Lek and Muay grabbed onto me tightly and cried in relief. I held onto them until they'd cried themselves out. "You are okay, khun mae?" Muay asked after wiping the tears from her eyes.

"I'm fine, Muay." I assured her. They both hugged me again and stayed close as I found some clothes to wear and got dressed. "How is Melissa? Where is she?" I asked, remembering how bad she'd looked when I found her.

"This way!" Muay said, pulling me by the hand. Lek smiled and grabbed my other hand, so I let them lead me over to the ship where we'd taken the people I found on my first visit to the club. Inside it looked like Jessica had converted it into a hospital. Four of the five I brought back from the club the first time were still there, while most of the people from last night were there, as well. Melissa was lying on the mattress closest to the entrance.

"Hi Cat." Jessica said from where she sat beside her. "Here to check on Melissa?" I nodded. "Well, it's a good thing you got her here when you did. If she wasn't a mutant she wouldn't have even made it this far, but she still would have died without help. I found over a dozen gunshot wounds and had to remove eight bullets.

"I also had to reattach her left wing, and I didn't have the tools or, quite frankly, the knowledge to do it right. Fortunately, she heals faster than most mutants and that finished the job for me. It probably won't be usable for a day or two, maybe longer. The rest of her injuries are healing up rapidly. What she really needs at this point is to wake up and get something to eat and drink." Jessica replied.

"But she will heal, right?" I asked worriedly.

Jessica nodded, "Yes, she will. I see you've healed up already. Paul insisted you didn't need any help, and let Lek and Muay there clean you up. It's really amazing how fast you heal!"

"Yeah, I think I was mostly healed by the time we got back. What do we have in the way of medical supplies, anyway?" I asked.

Jessica gestured to an open first aid kit sitting next to her with an almost empty bottle of alcohol and a few scraps of cloth in it. "That's all we've got left. We've cannibalized every bit of spare cloth we could for bandages, but we're still just about out. Fortunately we heal rapidly so we'll be able to reuse many of them soon, once they've been boiled to sterilize them."

"I hadn't thought about that. We don't usually need much in the way of medical supplies, but so many of the mutants we find are so badly mistreated..." I said, thinking about the condition of the mutants from the cells.

"Yes, if they weren't mutants they probably wouldn't have survived in many cases. As it is we lost one last night due to bullet wounds." Jessica said sadly.

"What?!" I exclaimed.

Jessica nodded, "Several of them were wounded by stray bullets and one of them took one to the head. He was very young, maybe twelve or thirteen. There wasn't much I could do with an injury like that."

"Damn! I tried to block the bullets, but..." I couldn't continue as I remembered the cries of pain from the other mutants during the fight.

Jessica stood and stepped over to me, laying her hand on my shoulder, "It's not your fault, Cat. You're tough, but you're not bullet proof. Frankly, from what that German fellow was able to tell me, I'm amazed you managed as much as you did. Or came back alive, for that matter."

Lek and Muay hugged me from either side and I smiled down at them. "Thanks girls." I said.

"They've become quite attached to you, haven't they?" Jessica said.

"I guess so." I agreed. "Have you seen Paul?

Jessica nodded, "He was by earlier to see how everyone was doing. I'm not sure where he's at right now, though."

"Okay, thanks." I said and went outside to see if I could find him. I was surprised to see the position of the sun, which meant it was morning. Either I'd recovered very quickly, or I'd been asleep for an entire day.

As we walked down the pier I saw a group of the newest additions to our group leaving another large ship that nobody was living in yet, as far as I knew. They all stopped and thanked me and asked if I was okay. Paul strolled out of the ship as the last of the group was leaving.

"Hi Cat, finally woke up, huh? You missed all the fun!" Paul said cheerfully.

"Fun? What happened?" I asked, worrying that someone had attacked while I was sleeping.

He smiled, "Nothing major. I just had to talk down a bunch of your recent finds. They wanted to go back and burn the club to the ground."

"That doesn't sound like a bad idea." I said.

He shook his head, "No, it isn't. But they wanted to do it while you were still sleeping! With you and Melissa down I didn't think it was a good idea for any of us to go back into the city right now. They could walk right into another trap."

"Oh, yes, that's a good point. And they're not in very good shape, either. I'm afraid Melissa won't be in any shape to help out for a while, but I'm okay." I said, glancing back at the group who had just passed me, guessing they were the ones Paul was talking about.

Paul shook his head ruefully, "I knew you'd say that. You know you'll need to eat and rest for another day or so to really be back up to speed. From what they told me you were practically torn to ribbons."

"I feel fine..." I started to say, but was interrupted by a loud growling from my stomach. Smiling sheepishly I said, "Oh, alright, I guess I could use a break. They need to rest, anyway. Do we have enough food for this many people?"

"For today, maybe. Mike's going to take a group out to hunt in a little while, and Janet and her sister are doing some fishing for us. We'll have to be careful not to mix things up, though, or we're likely to mutate Carl if any of the fish are contaminated." he replied.

"Well I have to go hunting anyway, I'll see if I can't bring something back with me." I said.

Paul nodded, "Sounds like a plan. Why don't you go do that before you fall over from hunger?"

I agreed, and once he'd peeled the girls off of me I took off. He was right, too, I was very weak. I think it was only the charge I still had inside me that was keeping me going. It felt like that charge was greatly reduced, though, so I'd have to see about getting a recharge soon. I wonder if I used up some of it healing? I wondered as I flew.

After a short flight I spotted a good sized buffalo off by itself and took it down. Devouring all I could, I carried the remains back with me. There was still a good bit of meat left, so I hoped it would help. I felt like I was about to fall asleep in the air so I didn't dare go back for more.

I found Carl, once again, working on dinner. Only this time he had help from a few of the other rescues who were in better shape. They'd set up a large fire pit a little ways off of the pier, so I dropped the carcass off with them. Carl was finally starting to get used to it, but the others...not so much.

From there I glided back to our boat and landed heavily. Lek and Muay were waiting, apparently, as they appeared a moment later to help me down inside. They curled up on either side of me like big kittens, their tails wrapping around whatever part of me was handy. I could swear they were purring as I fell asleep.

---

I woke to more growling from my stomach. It was early morning and the girls were still sleeping. Until I moved, anyway. As soon as I started to crawl out from between them they woke. They were clearly still worried about me.

"I'm fine girls, I'm just going to get something to eat." I told them as I dressed. They insisted on coming with me anyway.

I stopped in to check with Jessica first. "How is everyone doing this morning?" I asked her.

She was kneeling over Melissa when I entered and turned to answer, "Other than Melissa, pretty good. She still hasn't woken up, though. I don't have the means to set up an IV for her, so we really need her to wake up."

"We have a little money we collected from some of the men who attacked us before. Maybe Paul could go into town and buy what you need?" I suggested.

"That would be wonderful!" Jessica said with a relieved sigh.

"Okay, I'll go talk to him before I go hunting, then. Do you know where he is?" I said.

"No idea, sorry." she replied.

"Okay, I'll go find him." I said, leading the girls out of the ship. There weren't many people out and about, but it was still fairly early in the morning. I decided to head over to Carl's plane and see if he knew where Paul was.

About halfway there I saw Kim talking to Paul. "I can take care of myself." Kim was saying as I turned my attention to them.

"I'm sure you can, but I don't want anyone leaving alone. Mike and Tina are on guard duty, so that just leaves Melissa or Cat to go with you, neither of which are in any shape to do so right now. Just wait until tomorrow, Cat will be chomping at the bit by then. If she's not already." Paul said.

"What's up?" I asked as I wrapped my arms around Paul from behind.

"Just trying to convince Kim to wait to go into town. She's in a hurry to help out." Paul said.

I frowned, "Haven't you already been helping out?"

"Yeah, I guess. But there are so many mutants out there that still need help." she said.

"And you want to get a little payback, right?" Paul said.

"No! Well, that, too. But I need to help them!" she said, growling in frustration.

"Why do you need to help so bad?" I asked. She'd been eager to help out from the moment she woke up, but now that she was well enough to do so she seemed to have a whole new urgency to her.

"I just do, okay?!" she growled. She wouldn't look me in the eye and started pacing angrily.

"Look, I need to eat and recharge yet. Melissa is out of action for who knows how long. After us you, Tina, and Mike are the only ones strong and fast enough to fight. With them guarding the rest we can't let you go by yourself. If you walked into a trap like I did you'd be torn to ribbons. How much help can you be if you're dead?" I said.

"I know!" she growled, still pacing.

"Look, how about you help Jessica out with the injured today? I'm sure she could use the help. I'll be ready to go back tomorrow and you can come with me then. Is that good enough for you?" I said.

Stopping her pacing she sighed and nodded, "Okay." With that she turned and headed for the ship where Jessica had set up our little hospital.

"What's with her, anyway?" I asked Paul once she was well on her way, though she could probably still hear us if she really wanted to.

Paul sighed, "I wish I knew. It's almost like she feels guilty or something. Maybe some kind of survivor's guilt?"

"I suppose." I said doubtfully. "Anyway, I was looking for you because Melissa still hasn't woken up yet. Jessica wants to set up an IV to get some fluids at least into her, but she doesn't have the equipment. Think you could go into town and pick up what she needs?"

"Of course. What exactly does she need, anyway?" Paul said.

"I don't know, you'll have to ask her. Just don't take too long, I'm worried about Melissa." I said.

He nodded, "So am I. She's tough though, I'm sure she'll be fine. I'll go get that list from Jessica now. Just don't leave except to hunt, okay?"

"I won't. I'm going to go hunting now and then relax for the rest of the day, okay?" I said, rolling my eyes.

Paul smiled, "Okay. See you later!" With that, Paul ran off, quickly disappearing from sight.

"You stay, khun mae?" Lek asked with the biggest, most adorable puppy dog eyes I'd ever seen.

"I have to go hunt, but after that I'll stay here for the rest of the day, okay?" I said.

Lek exchanged glances with Muay, then they both turned and nodded. "Why don't you help Kim and Jessica while I'm gone?" I suggested. They nodded again and I took off. I noticed they watched me for a while before turning and going after Kim. I hoped they wouldn't cause too much of a fuss when I went back into town tomorrow.

A few minutes of searching later I spotted a small group of buffalo. Yesterday I wouldn't have been strong enough to risk having to fight them all, but today I felt up to it, so I dived. The one I targeted was dead instantly of a broken neck. As I crouched over my kill I watched the other buffalo, but they didn't seem inclined to do anything but run away. Once they were away I ate my fill, far less than the previous day, and carried the remains back.

"You realize how disgusting that is, oui?" Clarice said distastefully as she looked at the carcass. Apparently she was on cooking duty as she was starting up a fire in the fire pit.

"How do you think I felt the first time I ended up eating raw meat from a freshly killed animal like this?!" I growled.

Clarice held her hands up defensively, "Sorry! I guess that would be pretty bad. I guess you were worked over more than most of us by your mutation."

"You don't know the half of it." I grumbled. She gingerly began cleaning the carcass and I left her to it.

There still weren't many people out and about yet as I made my way to the hospital ship. When I entered I found Kim, Lek and Muay helping Jessica set up her IV for Melissa. As soon as they saw me they ran over and wrapped their arms around me. "Khun mae!" Lek yelled happily.

I looked down at the two and couldn't help but smile at how much happier they seemed than only a few short days ago.

We spent the rest of the day together as Paul and I checked in to see how everyone was doing. The German, Stefan, and some of the others were eager to tear the club apart. Paul put his foot down, for them and for me, that he didn't want anyone going back into any buildings or confined areas in the city without going in force with at least one of Kim, myself, or Melissa in the group. And lots of guns.

Stefan wasn't going to go along with it until Paul pointed out how badly hurt Melissa and I were despite being armed and the two strongest mutants in our group. He still wasn't too pleased, so I said, "I'll take Kim and see what we can see tomorrow. Without going in." I had to add the last part as Paul was giving me dirty looks.

Stefan finally agreed, which was the last of the drama for the day. Paul had managed to get some more medical supplies while he was picking up the IV stuff, so Jessica was happy. And Carl said Thomas was making progress, helped by sightings of a 'super hero mutant' in South and then Central America. I think he called her Chrysalis.

---

In the morning I spent a little time with Lek and Muay to try and appease them so they would let me leave. Even so they accosted Kim while I was hunting to tell her, "Tiger woman take care of khun mae!" Very emphatically, or so Kim said.

When I got back I led Kim into the city. She was pretty fast so I didn't have to fly too slow to let her follow me. Paul insisted we both carry weapons, so we each had a backpack with guns and ammunition inside. I didn't want to carry the weapons openly since we were only scouting.

We were only a few blocks from the club when I noticed a column of vultures flying in circles just outside of the city. There must have been hundreds! I thought about going over to take a look, but decided that we'd practically have to go right by the club to do that, so continued there first.

When we got to the club I circled a few times to see if there was any unusual activity around. The club seemed deserted and there wasn't much movement in the area around it. Certainly nothing unusual looking. Kim had similarly circled the club on the ground. I landed next to her to compare notes.

"See anything?" I asked.

She shook her head, "No, it looks empty to me. Do you want to go inside and take a look around?"

"Hmm... tempting. But no, Paul would kill me. You too." I said as I glanced around. Nothing was visible inside the windows, but there could be more mutants inside, or another trap.

Kim grimaced, "Then why come out here if we're not going to do anything?!"

Setting my hand on her shoulder I said, "We are doing something. But while we're here, have you seen a breaker box on the outside of this building anywhere?"

She looked strangely at me for a moment, and then smiled, "I get it, you want to cut off their power and see if they come out, right?"

I shrugged, "Kind of. I seem to have used up most of my charge healing myself after my last visit here. I thought I'd get charged up and disrupt their power at the same time."

"What do you mean?" Kim asked, looking confused.

"I guess you haven't see me use it yet, but I have the ability to absorb electricity. I can also release it wherever I want." I said, remembering that she was still recovering, or not with us, when I'd used that ability here.

Her eyes widened at that, "Really?! I didn't know that. Cool, let's do it!" I think she was as enthusiastic about maybe driving someone out of the club to beat up on as she was my ability, but I let it go. "I think I saw a breaker box over here you can use."

Kim led me over to the box and kept watch while I opened it up and started charging. It was slow compared to some other sources I'd used before, but it would get the job done. It also caused what few lights were on inside and on the outside of the club to sputter and go out. I kept charging until I felt pleasantly 'full'. I could take more if I really wanted to, but it was more comfortable not to.

We waited a few minutes, but there was no sign of activity inside the building, or of anyone coming towards the building. In fact, I noticed everyone seemed to be avoiding the building altogether. Not too surprising considering what all went on in there; both before I crashed the party and after.

"I guess it's abandoned, or they're waiting for us to come in." Kim said, clearly disappointed.

"Well it tells us something. Either there is no one there, or they've laid another trap for us. If there's no one there, then there's no hurry to go back in. If it's a trap, then we need more help. Either way we might as well come back later. Besides, I saw perhaps as many as a hundred or more vultures circling something outside the city. I'd like to investigate that before going back." I said.

Kim shrugged, "Okay, lead the way."

I did, noticing it was more difficult to restrict myself to a speed she could match now that I was charged up. I'd have to think about getting some kind of power source for the island so I could charge up when I needed to. Relying on thunder storms probably wouldn't work very well.

As we left the bulk of the city behind I was able to get an unrestricted view of what the vultures were circling. I 'zoomed' in my vision to get a better look, and wished I hadn't.

Circling was difficult with all the vultures around, but they knew better than to get in the way. One thing about my mutation; most animals recognized me as a very dangerous carnivore and steered clear. Once again I was wishing I hadn't, as flying nearly directly above it the smell was horrendous. Gasping, I came down to land beside Kim, who was still a few hundred feet out.

"What is it?" she asked.

I choked and coughed a few times before I was able to speak, "You don't want to know."

As Kim was about to protest we heard a scream from the direction of it. It sounded like a child. Without a thought we both started running towards it. Kim skidded to a stop as she reached the edge. "What is that?!" she gasped.

"An open... mass grave... I think." I said, gagging again at the horrid stench of dozens, if not hundreds, of decaying bodies. At least some were mutants, though it was hard to say much for sure in the mess. But in the middle of it all was a little girl covered in blood screaming her lungs out.

---

To be continued…