Recovering from a car crash isn't easy. The van rested on its passenger side. Our roof was at least a foot lower than before. Kahina's unconscious form hung limply with only the seat belt anchoring her. Shaggy was groaning. One hand was still on her gun, the other buffered against a deployed airbag. At least we didn’t explode.

I tried to take a quick inventory of my working parts. My left temple throbbed. One leg kept sending up sharp cries of pain. Both shoulders were partially numb. My battered hand was cracked open again and bleeding. I tried to wiggle both sets of toes. Only one responded with any accuracy.

It took a moment to realize that there was another noise coming from the freeway above us. Sirens. Gone were the snarls of wolves. Gone was the screech of tires and gunshots. Sunlight peeked in at a sharp angle. Had it only been an hour or two since Candy showed up? If that? We must have been laying here for more than a few minutes.

Based on the wailing noise of emergency vehicles it was a no brainer as to why our pursuers had cleared out. They couldn't stick around waiting for the police any more than we could.

"Shaggy. Shaggy, wake up." My voice was dry. I tried to twist around carefully to a sitting position. My broken limb banged into anything it could find. I kicked at the back of her chair with my good leg. "Wake up. Wake up!"

Ann Myers barely stirred. The grip on her gun tightened. I had a feeling that she would hold that thing well unto death. I reached up and grabbed at the side of our vehicle. It took a lot of work to drag myself up and look outside.

Our van had slipped from the highway and down a short hill into a ditch. There were a few people talking just off the road. One was on the phone, another couple were talking to each other. Their words indistinct.

The fourth figure is what royally set me off. It wasn't a wolf, but you could tell the person was watching the van. Or specifically, since I poked my head out, he was watching me. I fell back to the inside of the vehicle and tried to gather our stuff.

The bags with our supplies might very well be ruined. What had been a carrying cooler was now a mashed piece of plastic. Deep red and purple liquid flowed freely into a pool against the back doors. Our ammunition was in a different container sitting crosswise on top of the blood bag.

"Shaggy!" My voice was working better. She didn't stir.

Every movement where I twisted my body brought fresh jabs of pain. I worked through it and turned back to Kahina. The shimmering was nearly gone. Now that the sun was up it would put the vampirism condition into a dormant state. At least there was a faint haze to her skin. Maybe it was my imagination. I had to be hopeful. After all, without Kahina, what was the point?

I slid a shoulder up and braced it against her. A second later and the belt buckle was undone. Shaggy was finally making some sort of motion in front of us. She should have faired better than I did short of a concussion. Well, except for the airbag being shoved into her face at high speeds.

"It's okay." My mind was bordering on frantic. "We're okay." I should be calm and collected like always. "We need to get out of here."

"Nnngh?" Shaggy asked something, but it was unintelligible.

"We've got to go." I was shoving things into the remaining bags. There were two left and I had no idea how to carry everything with a broken foot. Maybe I couldn't. The sirens were closing in fast. "Hell."

"NNnghh?" Shaggy asked again. Then the brunette’s eyes opened and saw the mess of an airbag nearby. Both hands flailed at the white fabric which caused her to slip even further out of the seat.

"We crashed. My leg’s broken and the police are coming. What do we do?" I asked her. She always had a plan.

Shaggy put the gun into its holster. She fumbled with the seatbelt and tried to brace herself from the fall. The attempt was successful compared to my landing.

"What do we do?" I whispered again.

A voice cut in loudly through a megaphone bullhorn.

"This is Officer Franklin. If you can hear me just hang on. We're sending down a paramedic." A young male voice, judging by his timber. Not that it meant much.

"What in the furry fuck is going on?" Ann said.

"We crashed." I started over.

"No kidding?" Her sarcasm was tangible and words broken. "Is Lady Rhodes okay?"

"Yes." Kahina was in better condition than me and Shaggy. Aside from the looming threat of death.

"Good. We need to get away from the police."

"Difficult. My leg’s busted." I said.

"Set it?" She asked in a tone that implied I was stupid.

The thought never crossed my mind. While Shaggy's speech was slow to recover, apparently her brain was firing on all cylinders. My leg should heal given time and quicker if it was in the right place. Of course, I hadn't tested any broken bones since returning. All my wounds in the last five months had been flesh and guts. And I was relying on something that there were no guides for.

"I'll set it," I said.

"Backdoors?" Shaggy moved on to the next subject.

"No good." We were parallel to the highway. There was no sneaking out any exit.

"If I run interference, you think you'd be able to get out?"

I thought about it. There had only been one person with a clear line of sight on the van's back door. Though with the police nearby it was hard to say how well that'd go. Shaggy's phone started vibrating now of all times.

"How long until you can walk on the leg?" She pointed down at the blood-soaked pants. "And carry any real weight?"

"Not soon enough," I answered.

"Weak. I thought wolves healed faster than that."

I stared at her. Now was not the time to even begin this conversation. Chances are the break would heal in a day. Faster with good sleep. Hopefully.

"Look I'll head out there. Here. Answer this while I deal with the circus." Shaggy pulled out the phone and handed it to me. My huge fingers found the green phone button and pressed it.

"Hello?" I had no idea who was on the other end.

"Jay? That you, man?" A familiar voice said.

I recognized the surfer accent but had to ask. "Crummy?"

There was a sigh of relief.

"Alright. You all in good shape?" Daniel asked.

Shaggy was trying to get enough purchase to pull herself out. The crash had left her a little jumbled. She barely managed to lift up over the edge.

"We're alive," I said while eying the brunette’s escape.

"Good, you and Kahina Rhodes are okay?"

"Leg’s broken." I absently replied.

"Listen. Is Ann okay? Please tell me she's okay." The concern in his voice was intense.

"She's okay."

He let out another sigh of relief. "Now for the bad question. Please, please tell me this crash out on 607 isn't you."

"That out towards SeaSide?" I gently set Kahina back onto the side wall. It took another moment to find enough space for my leg to straighten out.

"Jesus Christ. This is not low key at all." The Western Sector agent rattled something against a desk. I could almost picture him slamming a stapler up and down in anger.

"At least they backed off." The first aid bag was smaller than the one with our guns. Somewhere inside may have a brace and wrapping.

"I doubt it," Daniel muttered into the phone. Then he picked back up with a louder tone. "Listen, Ann should know what legal codes to recite and get you all out of there. But you cannot let the police see any weapons out in public. You cannot let them know that any of the damage to the highway was your fault."

"Wasn't me. It was Shaggy's."

"That woman will be the death of me," He murmured.

"Probably," I said.

It should have been obvious before. Somehow Daniel and Shaggy knew each other, very well. How was beyond me, though. She said Daniel got her this job, but there was more to it. Active Sector agents would never work for a vampire household. Background checks and god knows what else would prevent it. Sensei was retired and maybe the rules bent a little bit then, but even he had stepped out once the transformation started.

"Are you listening, Jay?" Daniel asked.

"No." I hadn't been. My hands were busy stripping away fabric around a broken leg and trying to check the damage. At least nothing had poked through the skin. It just bulged in a disgusting shape.

"I've got an agent nearby. He'll be stepping in to take over the scene until the rest of the squad gets there. You have about four minutes, tops before the place is locked down." My friend rapped fingers against a desk. Their rhythmic sound helped soothe me.

There was a grunt as I braced a few long rods against my leg. They were flimsy feeling but the best our first aid kit had. At least there was wrapping to bind everything up.

"The agent will be there right before the others. He'll take you into custody."

"We can't get arrested." I grit my teeth and pulled myself up. I'd need to hobble a bit in order to get to the back doors on the van. Once there I'd have enough room to get Kahina and a bag out without needing to lift us all up.

"He won't take you in. You two are going to take his car and vacate the area." Daniel said.

"Is that standard?"

"Fuck no. But I'm doing it anyway, man.” Daniel kept talking while I tried to test my leg’s tolerance. “After you get the car you'll have about ten minutes before it's noticed and called in. The agent will be forgetting his cell phone in the passenger seat."

"Alright." That wasn't a lot of time to do much of anything. We were pretty far away from anywhere useful too. My home was a few hours in the wrong direction. Kahina’s mansion was a bit closer but still not somewhere we could get in twenty minutes.

"Gotta go then." I juggled the phone to another ear and lifted one of the bags. It hurt like hell but not quite as bad as being shot. I'd walked that off, a broken leg should be easier right?

"Listen, Jay..." Daniel started.

"Yeah, thank you." I didn't want him to say it.

"Not what I was going to say, but you're welcome."

"Quick then." I couldn’t stay in here much longer. Shaggy had to have made some progress with the law enforcement cars showing up.

"You keep them alive. Got it?" He said.

"Of course." I wouldn't have another Julianne on my conscious. Kahina had been right in that aspect, there was a lot of Julianne in the way Shaggy acted sometimes.

"Good." Daniel clicked off the phone and I shoved it into a bag.

I wanted to carry the one with guns and explosives. The first aid kits would have been nice but would but there wasn't anything useful left in there. Not with all the spare blood pouches busted. Not when the silver and bullets were in the bag I had.

With four minutes left it was unlikely we would have enough time to make it back down here and get another bag.

I stumbled past the puddle forming in the back and pulled at the latch for the doors. One flopped open, but the top one refused to stay up. There was no good way to get Kahina and the bag outside of the van with a broken leg. Getting everything outside required setting her down and some awkward dragging. It was too heavy to do it any other way.

The scene outside was worse the second time. There were at least five police cars and one person propped up against his door with a clear line of sight down to the van. That person had a rather large gun perched on the crack between the door and car frame.

"Get your ass up here!" Shaggy turned and yelled. She sounded heated.

"He can stay down there until the W.S. boys show up." The man next to her said.

"Wrong, you have no right to hold any of us!" Her voice quivered in frustration at the officer. It was the same tone she had used on Anthony back at Kahina’s mansion.

I tried to do as suggested and limped gradually up the hill. Each step shot a bolt of pain straight through my center. Kahina and our weapons were being lifted. I pulled on my strength just a little, using her presence as fuel for a mental switch. I sure as hell wasn't going to leave Kahina down there. Or the weapons that helped us keep her alive.

"That's where you're wrong. Destruction of property, reckless endangerment, murder even if you think it's self-defense.” The officer’s gruff voice tried to sound level-headed. “Either way you're not leaving here under your own power."

"None of that means shit! Tribunal law trumps human law in the face of transition!" Shaggy said.

"We can sort it out downtown." The lawman said.

"Like hell we can!" At least she was smart enough not to reach for her gun. "A jackass like you would ruin everything!"

"Listen, Missy." The officer tried to keep a cool head while talking. His calming tone didn’t much good, though.

Moving up the hill was difficult but doable. I almost dropped everything more than a few times. Luckily my leg held up. The break might not have been as bad as it seemed. Not that it reduced the pain any.

"Worst case you stay here till W.S. shows up. You can either be nice about it, or we can put you in a squad car until then. Either way I've got nothing to lose if your fanger dies." He said.

The words soured me. Not only what he was saying but the dispassionate way it came out. Like he had seen this sort of failure over and over.

"Sir!" Shaggy said. The officer brightened for a moment until he realized she wasn't looking at him. She was looking at me.

I was about to drop Kahina and club this officer over the head repeatedly until he changed his tune. There were a few other suits with hands on their guns and the one that kept a clear line of sight to my body. It wasn't like I had snuck up at all. This officer in charge had let himself be caught unaware.

"We'll wait for W.S.," I said in a relaxed tone. Dropping Kahina would put her at risk anyway.

"Sounds like a smart plan." The officer had taken a step back so that we were both in clear sight instead of on opposite ends.

"That jackass can't bring charges if we walk off. You sure we should wait? Sir?" She said.

"Daniel said yes."

The man in charge stepped back and the remaining police gathered in a half ring around us. They weren't being outright aggressive, but you could tell we were only a twitch away from gunfire.

Down the road, someone was sitting over a dead wolf head that had spilled out from the van during our tumble. It was beaten thoroughly after rolling along the concrete. There were other lights in the distance, probably around the other half of the body. Cones were being put up to redirect traffic. Numerous cars were arriving by the minute. I gave Shaggy the bag with the ammunition. She didn't bother trying to hold it and set it down.

There was one clean looking car without any sort of affiliation sliding past the blockade of vehicles. It had to be our Sector Agent's because it looked almost exactly like Daniel’s car.

"Oh no." Shaggy groaned upon seeing the car.

"What?" I asked.

"Nothing," She said.

I sat there carefully cradling Kahina and putting a great deal of our weight onto my good foot. The braced up leg had held up this far. That meant either I was healing or it wasn't that bad to begin with.

"Friend of yours?" I asked.

"Not even close." She uttered.

My responding grunt said it all. Anything Shaggy said at this point was suspect. We needed to have a talk once there was breathing room.

"Crummy said we're getting a ride from an agent." I tried to explain part of what we had talked about on the phone.

Shaggy looked at me, then back at the car. A slight smile spread across her features. "Did he now? Under our power or the agent's?"

"Ours, I gathered." We were whispering now. The car stopped and the man who got out looked extremely pleased to see Shaggy. He had brown hair like Shaggy, but the angle to his face was sharper than hers.

"Did he say I could knock out the agent?" She asked.

"No."

"Officer, I'll be taking over from here. This is clearly one of ours." The Western Sector agent said.

"Have at it. That firecracker has been throwing legal precedence into my face since she got out of the van. The sooner it's in your hands, the better." We heard the officer say.

"He likes you." I whispered.

"He can like my foot up his ass." She responded.

"Excellent, let me get them into custody."

"You need cuffs? Maybe a muzzle?" The officer asked.

"No. Our teams will be here in two minutes. Hold the fort until then but don't touch anything." The Sector agent managed to say it without an ounce of condescending attitude.

"Yeah, yeah.” The office shrugged and waved at some of the police officers. “We know the drill. I've got no problems handing this cluster fuck over. Ain't enough overtime in the world to deal with a vampire transition."

They parted ways and the officer went back to his people and started issuing orders. One or two of the cars were already loaded up and ready to go. You could tell that the regular police didn't want to be anywhere near this mess.

All we had done was decapitate one wolf, after blowing holes in the freeway plus a car. There had been humans inside of it. Then there was slipping into a tumble on the freeway, skidmarks clearly outlined our trail. Plenty of gunfire had happened. To top it off there would be at least a dozen traffic violations.

None of this took into account the broken elevator shaft, explosions at the hotel and five or so bodies back there. Maybe the police had a good reason to avoid this headache. Thinking about it made me cringe. Things would only get worse between now and the end.

"Shaggy." I felt a tinge guilty for using her nickname.

"What, sir?"

"Do things always get this messy?"

She didn't answer until the Sector agent was basically on top of us. "No. This has been the worst case I've ever seen."

"You two have no idea." The agent said. His hands had two pairs of plain looking handcuffs. "Come on, time's a wastin'." The smile hadn't left his face.

"Seriously?" Shaggy asked.

"Dead serious. You think they'll let me take you away without securing you?"

She turned around and presented both hands pressed together. The agent didn't drop his expression if anything the grin got wider as he locked the cuffs around her wrists.

He came over to me next and I gave him a flat stare. Kahina was in my arms. The ammunition bag was now sitting there and Shaggy couldn't carry it. Eventually, it sunk in and the unnamed agent shrugged.

"Prolly need silver cuffs for you anyway." He put the remaining pair away. "You can hold everything. Between that and the leg I doubt you'll get far."

Whose benefit was he speaking for? Mine or the police officers still on the scene? A good portion of them looked antsy. He had me place the bag in the back, Kahina in the front and then set a pair of silver laced cuffs on me. I didn't argue. The sooner we got through this charade the better. We probably only had a minute or two until everyone else showed up. According to Daniel, we had to be out of here before then.

"All set?" The agent was talking to Shaggy again.

"Yeah." She responded.

"Remember, on those models-"

The brunette cut him off. "Pressure and twist left." She sounded amused at his attempted reminder. "There's a reason I got this assignment over you." What she meant by assignment was over my head. Just another thing to put into my 'Shaggy doesn't make sense file'.

"If this goes well, your boyfriend is giving me a promotion, so it should all work out." The agent said.

Shaggy snickered and let herself be lowered into the car. The agent turned and walked back to the police barricade. Another set of sirens could be heard closing in.

I looked around. Sure enough, the agent had left his phone on the front seat. The engine was still running. Next to me Shaggy grunted and I saw her elbow bend at an awkward angle. A moment later there was a snap as the cuffs came undone. That was a neat trick.

She slipped through the small space between front seats and laid back casually. Her eyes peered over the dashboard into the crowd of other cars.

"Time's running out." I tried to twist my arms in the cuffs behind my back. It didn't work well at all. The little silver spikes on these cuffs didn't hurt me like they would a wolf. That didn't make it pleasant.

Shaggy looked in the rear view mirror and nodded once. Then she sat up and slipped the car into reverse. Behind us, two blocky black vans with WSRT painted in giant yellow letters were cruising up. They started filing out before we managed to escape. Luckily they didn't even pay attention to our car. They veered straight for the agent who had shown up first.

"Bravo, get down there and secure it! Watch for secondary bodies. Charlie, you're on the road. Lock down everything that looks remotely hairy!" We could hear the shouting through the car. His take-charge tone was helping to keep everyone distracted from our slow escape.

"Local, your people better start turning over the rest of the site! I'm going to need to see..." The rest of the words were lost as we made it past the blockade and back onto the freeway.

"We've got maybe ten minutes." I said.

Shaggy nodded. "It's plenty."

I sat there in the back of the car mulling over my next course of action. There were important questions to consider, like what exactly Shaggy was doing here. What sort of game this was. She knew too many people in Western Sector for it to be a coincidence. Finally, she must have noticed me staring into the rear view mirror at her face.

"What?" Shaggy asked.

"We need to talk." My arms crossed as I glared at her.

She didn't respond.