“Sounds good. It will shock them at first, but this still leaves us defending refugees,” Barny said.“Unless…we send the civilians away, and we...stay,” Rayner said.“Exactly,” Axel said.“If we could fool the bandits into thinking it is the fighters who left, then they would come to us, unaware who they are attacking,” the woman said, anger leaving her face once she realized we would not leave the refugees.“Sounds complicated. If they don’t fall for it, the civilians are dead,” Barny said."They. It was a nice place to meet her neighbors. People would stop in the store and chat for a bit about what was going on in their lives. It sort of reminded her of her home town in Arizona.It was just a few minutes before ten in the morning when she glanced over at the clock on the wall of the lab. Her cell phone rang, and she looked down at the caller ID. Her stomach tightened and her hands shook.She answered the telephone with a tentative, “Hello?”“Betsy, you have forty eight hours,” William. Her husband was openly critical of Randy and his lack ofdirection. His comments often lead to loud shoutingmatches between the two and end with one or bothstomping off in a vulgar tirade. Candace had neverstepped in to try and stop the shouting matches betweenher husband and son, and the one time early on when shedid try to stand up for Randy, her husband turned hisabuse on her and she left in tears. She never tried to help again. She was sure that Randywas resentful that she never helped him,. .. after putting you in that cab."She giggled. "You... jerked off - because of me?" Impossibly, her nipple hardened even more. In fact, I think it throbbed. I was intensely flattered.I felt the blood rushing to my face. And elsewhere - because she was squeezing and tugging on me. "Yes." I can't believe how hard you are. For me." Pause. "You still didn't explain that 'again.'"I sighed. "OK. I didn't expect you to want to see me for purely social reasons again. I figured the first time was, well.