We were within sight of our vans, but Manuela and her men had surrounded them, so, it was time to fight. Amerie was in charge, Sky was helping the Bad Girls at first while Angel stayed with me, Sienna and Kitty. I could tell that I would soon be unconscious, so I decided to call Sky back, I needed her close to me right now. “Sky,” I said as loud as I could, but it was still faint.

I was sure she wouldn’t hear it, but she was suddenly kneeling beside me. “The girls need some extra courage,” I said faintly, “once they see a huge lion they can’t kill, they will run fast enough.” “Courage on the way Steve,” said Angel, and she leaped into the air coming down as Courage the lion. She ran quickly into the fight just as Rascal fired two more flares into the dark night sky.

Just as she was changing into the lion I had said for her to get Manuela, not to let her escape. “I guess she wouldn’t have heard me,” I said faintly. “She heard you Steve,” said Sky, “you forget she has amazing hearing.” “Yes, that’s true,” I said, “she does.” “How does she do that?” asked Sienna as she continued staring at Courage running toward the fight, “I thought Courage was a real lion!”

“Courage is a real lion,” said Sky, “but a special lion from an Angel.” “You’ll have to ask Steve about it sometime,” said Sky smiling. “Are all of you “ghosts” able to change into animals?” she asked again. “Nope, just Angel,” said Sky, “it would be nice though.” Meanwhile, back with Aari and Kat. “We need to pull out fast Aari,” said Kat, “Steve is hurt bad and Manuela has them surrounded so they can’t get away.”

“I hate to let Rico go free,” said Aari, “but Steve and the others are more important. We do have some dead and wounded to deal with.” “Right, we will take them with us,” said Kat. It did slow them down a bit, but they didn’t want to leave anyone behind, not even the dead, or Rico would likely get rid of them, and that we don’t want. Now, back to our fight with Manuela.

Amerie sent the cats in first and they rolled out from under all the vehicles at the same time and they were shooting their slingshots immediately, then back to hiding under the vehicles. Then they did this a second time. It should be noted that they waited until the flares had died out so it would be dark again. That was not a problem for the cats, they could see fine, but Manuela and her men couldn’t see very well.

But, after doing this twice, the men were aimed and ready for the third attack, which never happened. Amerie was too smart to send the cats out a third time, instead she and the Bad Girls attacked right after Rascal fired two more flares. That brightened the area around the vehicles making it easy for the Bad Girls to pick their targets.

It also made it harder for Manuela’s men to see the Bad Girls hiding in the darkness. Then Courage showed up and began to attack! That shocked everyone since that huge lion kept killing them and yet they couldn’t kill the lion, no matter how many times they shot at him. Then Courage spotted Manuela running away and gave chase.

Manuela was no match to outrun Courage, so she was soon caught and killed. “Sky, I need you now,” I said, “you can help me, will you help me?” “I would help if I could Steve,” she said crying, “but now that I’m a ghost, well, my blood is not the same anymore. But Dawn can help.” However, I didn’t hear what she said, I was now unconscious.

“Wake up Steve,” she said gently, “you need to try and stay awake.” However, I didn’t wake up. Amerie, a couple of the girls and Courage came back to tell us it was safe now. The remainder of Manuela’s men fled once they saw that she had been killed by Courage. They put me on Courage and took me across the field to the vans.

The cats were checking them for bombs but didn’t find anything. Monika, Dawn and Katresa had been shot, but only wounded. Dawn was the worst of the three, and that was bad, she is the only one that had my blood type, aside from Sky. This made Sky more worried than ever. Before we left, Sky sent another message to Jennifer, from Rascal to Muffin.

Then she communicated with Kat to let her know how things were going with us. She told Sky not to worry, that we wouldn’t lose Steve. “I wish my blood would work,” said Amerie, “I would give it all to him.” “I will make sure that Steve knows that Amerie,” said Sky, smiling. We still had a little more than an hour before our jet would arrive. What are we going to do with all that time.

We have about half an hour driving time to the airport, so we will go straight there. Kat told Sky to meet them at the airport, it would save time so she could start working on me. The jet we will be using for our escape has it’s own little medical room. We also brought one of our nurses along, Bridgette, who is also our vet.

She stayed behind on the jet for safety and she would look after any wounded on the way home. We did have wounded this time, plus 3 dead from Aari’s team, though 2 of those are from Mandar’s Team 8. Aari himself was wounded this time as well. Meanwhile, back home, Rascal’s second message came through to Muffin.

Eeeeeeek! Eeeeeeek! She screamed and once again Misty was carrying her to Jennifer upstairs. “This is not good Misty,” said Jennifer, “Dawn is the only one that had the same blood type as Steve. If she is badly wounded, they won’t be able to take blood from her. She might need some herself.”

To Be Continued.

©2025 Steve McLeod.