by Beth Lynne
19
He really hated to see a pretty girl cry. This one was sitting on a bench in the girls’ locker room and was sobbing her brains out. Everyone had left after the incident, but she remained.
“Don’t cry, pretty one,” he said, placing his hand on her shoulder.
She jumped several inches, her rear end leaving the seat as she gave out a startled gasp and a poofy little fart. He grinned as her face reddened in embarrassment.
“So, you are human after all,” he informed her.
“What are you doing here? This is the girls’ locker room.” Some of her usual spark was coming back. Her mouth was still bleeding a bit and her bottom lip was swollen. He found it somewhat sexy, but then, everything about her had always been attractive to him. However, it was annoying that she let herself get beaten as she had by someone he considered inferior and insignificant in every way compared to her magnificence.
“No kidding, Captain Obvious,” he sneered.
“You don’t belong here.”
“Again, no kidding, Capt—”
“Yeah, I know, Captain Obvious.” She smiled slightly and then winced as the pain in her lip stabbed at her.
“Aw, you okay? You’re bleeding. Have you gone to the nurse?”
She waved a pass to the nurse at him. “I still have to go.” Then she stared into space and wailed suddenly, “What am I going to do? Everyone in the world is going to see that video! My reputation will be ruined!”
“Oh, please, you aren’t that special,” he assured her, not really believing it but wanting to bring her down a peg. He pulled out his phone and accessed his Instagram app. Yep, the video was getting mad views. Lots of shares too. And comments such as “That bitch finally got hers! Yea!” Plenty of happy-face emojis decorated the comments, along with cartoon “Pows.” There were even comments to make sure that people viewed 1:23, when Sidra smacked her in the mouth, and 1:31, when she slapped her. There were already 536 views and over 200 likes. Not bad, since the school had around 2,000 students. By the end of the day, he figured there would be over 1,000 views. He shrugged and put the phone back in his pocket. Others had gotten there before him and no doubt posted more, but he was not about to relate any of this to her. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Don’t worry? How many views were there? I know you were looking at the video! Videos! There were probably at least fifty phones out! Oh my God, what do I do?”
He really wanted to stop her crying. She looked so ugly with her makeup running and her nose all red and dripping snot. Why couldn’t she just shut up and let the lip swell? He sat down next to her on the bench.
“Look, I have a way for you to get even with that little rat-bitch.”
She stopped crying for a moment and looked over at him. “I’m listening.”
“Let’s leave and go have something to eat like ice cream to put on that lip and I’ll tell you what we’re gonna do…”
20
“I love a daytime date. You get to do things from nine to five that you can’t at night,” Val remarked to Howard as they were enjoying some ice cream after seeing a movie matinee. It felt like an old-fashioned date taking place during the week while Howard had a day off. It was their second date and Val felt like she was really starting to like the handsome, quiet, built security guard. It seemed like life was starting to turn around since that weird experience through her car air vents and in the subsequent caves. She had cut back on her drinking, was starting to see her kids a little more, and was working out at home and a gym, thanks to Bella’s obsessive guidance. Her first paycheck from the “international organization” was substantial, even at the trainee level, with a nice payout to the 401K she so desperately wanted.
“Yeah, and then at night, you can….rawr!” He punctuated his suggestive comment with wiggled eyebrows and a purring sound.
They hadn’t “rawred” yet, but during the movie, they had cuddled lightly as well as held hands. She had a feeling Howard was a church-going man who valued others and wanted to take it slow with her. No problem there, her brain told her. You suck, her hormones retorted. Val was torn between the two parts of her body. The brain would overrule for now, she supposed, but the hormones would definitely win after a (short) while. At the moment, though, she was in that happy place of getting to know a man with whom she was feeling extremely compatible.
She considered the pluses of this new man. Howard had never been married (which was a pro and a con—no ex, but why hadn’t he married yet?) He said he had been spending the last three years caring for his mother (and there was another plus—wait for it…), who had finally died of a long illness, so no judgy prospective mother-in-law. And another plus from that detail: he was devoted to the women he loved. He had no children, so no baby-mama drama, and presumably, he knew how to work a condom or was very lucky. He was very nice-looking and muscular, so he cared about his body but was not completely over the top with it, as evidenced by the three-scoop sundae he was currently devouring. He had three different flavors, though, so she hoped that love of variety didn’t cross over to other areas, like dating multiple women at once.
Then there were the cons. Howard was thirty-four to her forty-one. Val hoped she would be able to overcome that, but right now, the seven-year age difference wasn’t a problem, especially if she could get her muscle tone up and belly down before their first “rawr.” He also seemed to be content as a low-level security guard at Autumn House. No benefits, no 401K for him. He made an hourly wage and was fine with it! No way was Val going to be the bread winner in any relationship. Also, there was his name. Howard Howard. What the hell were his parents thinking? she wondered. He did try to mitigate the repetition with an S in between the two names, but that didn’t help, in her opinion.
“How’s your ice cream?” he asked, probably noticing her silence.
“Yummy. A real treat,” she replied. Plain vanilla (she hoped that Howard didn’t think that her ice cream was a reflection of her personality). She didn’t want to go overboard since she was going to begin the real training soon and something like a full-on sundae would really bog her down with a stomachache. Bella had informed her that as soon as Celia summoned the “team,” things were going to “get real.” Well, she said “shit” would get real, but Val figured she could paraphrase as her mind wandered during her nice, peaceful, relaxing date. And of course, her cell phone rang, disrupting the peace. Bella’s face in a nasty scowl she made when Val surprised her by taking her picture appeared in the caller ID. Ugh.
“Sorry, I have to answer this. It’s my keeper.” Val made a face. She had begged Bella to stay hidden from Howard for now and Bella was pretty disapproving of that action. Why, she was not sure. Was it because Val was keeping secrets from a new man? Bella had a strict moral code that she only broke for her job. It was the weirdest thing, Val thought. Or was it that Bella just was not on board with Val dating someone right now? Or was Bella jealous? Val strongly suspected that Bella was gay, and again, only went back into her closet for official government business. Val would have introduced Bella to Howard if she could come up with a good reason for harboring a supposed heroin addict from her former place of work, especially since said addict made the place of work a former one for Val. “Hello,” she said as she answered the phone.
“Agent Fireball, you’re being summoned to appear before the boss at sixteen hundred hours this afternoon. Meet me at your place of residence and we will be proceeding to the training site at that time.”
“Sixteen hundred hours is…?” Val never was any good with military time beyond twelve hundred hours. She usually had to count out loud.
“Four o’clock,” Howard supplied.
“Thanks,” Val told him and then continued her phone conversation with Bella. “Training? I just had some ice cream,” she admitted.
“You will be meeting the team, not training yet,” Bella assured her. “See you there, trainee!” She cut the connection.
“Ugh, what time is i
t?”
Howard glanced at his watch, another thing Val liked about him. His phone wasn’t out all the time and he could tell analog time. “Fifteen twenty-two.” And military time too, apparently.
“Thanks. I’m afraid I have to leave. I am so sorry.”
“Have a date with a Marine?” Howard asked, only slightly joking. His expression was a little hurt.
“No, nothing like that. Don’t worry; I only can handle one handsome man at a time. That was my roommate. I have a meeting that was moved up to today. Maybe I will get that job I was telling you about. She and I may work together.” Val had told Howard that she was interviewing for a job as a social worker but was vague about where.
“When do I get to meet that roommate of yours?”
Hopefully never, Val thought. “Oh, soon.”
“Keeps a tight rein on you, doesn’t she?” Howard remarked.
“Oh, yes, she wants me to do well.” Val smiled as they got up and walked over to the cash register. She noticed two teens sitting near the door with scraped clean sundae dishes in front of them. The girl had a noticeably swollen lip and reddened cheek. Val hoped that they weren’t caused by the boy sitting across from her, but he appeared too mild-mannered, nerdy even, to have done something like that. You just never knew, though. It was always the quiet ones. She linked her arm through Howard’s after he paid for their desserts and exited the restaurant.
21
Sidra was suspended, grounded, ostracized, vilified, all kinds of things when she came home. Actually, the school principal suspended her, and her parents did the rest. She didn’t even get to tell her side of the story, not as much as she wanted to anyway. As far as it seemed, Sidra had started the fight after previously lobbing a volleyball at Venti’s neck. Witnesses said that Sidra had wrecking-balled her head into Venti’s stomach after Venti approached Sidra in the locker room. “She just completely lost it,” Delia related to the principal in a shrill voice. It wasn’t mentioned that Delia was one of Venti’s girls. Sidra actually didn’t try to deny anything. She was on cloud nine right now, having kicked the ass of her arch enemy since middle school. He mother didn’t quite see it that way, though.
“What am I to tell Elaine?” Margo asked once they were home and sitting at the kitchen table. Elaine was Venti’s mother, Margo’s good friend.
“Tell her that her daughter is a big bully and that I finally had enough and kicked her ass,” Sidra told her mother calmly. “Hopefully, she’ll see it on YouTube, Facebook, or Instagram.”
Margo exchanged a glance with Sidra’s father, Evan. He cleared his throat as he hid a smile. “Sidra, what you are failing to realize is that your mother is upset because—”
“We both are upset, your father and I. Both of us.” She glared at her husband.
“We are upset because handling disagreements in a violent manner is never the answer.”
“No?” Sidra asked. “Because it seems that I got her pretty good and maybe she will think twice before making her faces, knocking my stuff off my desk, taking my cell phone, and saying stupid crap to me. And if she does any of it again, I am popping her again.” At that moment, Mittens strolled into the kitchen and let out a huge meow. Sidra rolled her eyes at the talking cat that made feline noises to keep up pretenses. Axel chose that moment to charge in the back door, phone out, laughing hysterically.
“Oh my God! You have to see this! I guess I know why you weren’t on the bus, Sid!” He held the phone up so Sidra could see what he was watching. She saw a mini-her smacking a mini-Venti.
“I haven’t seen that yet. I’ve been too busy having my ass reamed.”
At that moment, just for spit and giggles, Mittens moved closer to the back door.
“Axel! Close the door!” Margo shrieked.
Sidra started to laugh. Axel slammed the door quickly.
“Relax, Mom, she isn’t going anywhere.” Mittens winked at Sidra.
“I am not going through that again! And, anyway, don’t change the subject. This is about you. You and Venti used to be such good friends and look at you now.”
“This is all about Venti being a bitch, ever since middle school. She has been picking at me and picking at me, and I finally decided to give back what I have been getting and then some! I don’t regret a thing. And you can tell that idiot Elaine to put her idiot daughter on a tight leash or else!”
“Sidra! You are grounded. Stay in your room with no phone, no TV, no computer. You will get homework that you can do with pen and paper, and otherwise, the next three days you are suspended, you are in your room with your imagination.”
“Fine with me! The world sucks anyway!” With that, Sidra flung her phone onto the kitchen table and stalked up to her room. Mittens followed. “Am I allowed visits by the cat?” she shouted to her mother. Without waiting for an answer, Sidra continued up to her room, Mittens on her heels.
Once behind the closed bedroom door, Mittens rolled on the floor, howling with laughter. “Oh, my paws, that was sooo funny!” She stood up and stretched, regaining her dignity, sobering up somewhat. “Let’s watch that video.”
“I can’t. I’m grounded.”
“Oh, please. Use your computer before they confiscate it.”
“Here, this is easier.” Sidra pulled a tablet out of her desk drawer, turned it on, and accessed her Instagram. She had twenty-six new followers and fifteen direct messages, all of which contained videos of her and Venti’s altercation at different angles and distances. “That is so cool,” she told Mittens.
“At least you have a fighting instinct,” Mittens said approvingly. They continued to watch the videos in silence, sitting on the bed together, Sidra not moving and completely engrossed, and Mittens similarly transfixed and tail switching back and forth. Suddenly, the screen changed and Smith’s visage filled the seven-inch tablet. Sidra audibly gasped and nearly dropped the tablet.
“Hey, Sidra,” Smith said, smiling and waving at her.
“H-h-heh-hi,” Sidra replied lamely. Mittens jumped onto Sidra’s lap and blocked her view of Smith’s lovely eyes.
“Hi, Smith,” Mittens purred. “How is my favor-r-rite hunk of love?” The cat’s face changed somewhat; her eyes became narrower, more seductive, and she licked her lips, which were fuller and poutier for a moment.
“Hi, Saturn! How’s life treating you?”
“It’s pu-r-r-r-fect, dearest.”
“That’s good,” Smith told her absently. “Listen, girls, the boss wants you here at the training site at four o’clock.”
“I’m grounded! How am I going to get past my parents?” Sidra said, coming to life.
“Stop yelling or you will attract those parents. We will go out the window.”
“The window? How the hell will we get out the window?”
“Smith, will you come and get us?” Mittens asked Smith, who was still somehow in Sidra’s tablet.
“Sure thing, Saturn. Be there in five.” The screen went back to the paused video of Sidra on top of Venti, hand connecting with her mouth.
“Classic,” Mittens remarked on the picture.
Sidra gave her a very wry smile. “I think I’d like a still of that shot and blow it up to hang on my wall.”
“Your parents would hate that, your mother anyway.”
“My dad kind of thought it was funny, I think.”
There was a knock on the window. Smith was outside of it.
“In broad daylight, really? I hope the neighbors and everyone sees this,” Sidra crowed.
“They won’t. People are so unobservant,” Mittens stated.
“Hey! Will you open the window? I can’t float in place forever, you know,” Smith yelled outside.
“What? He’s floating? No way!” Sidra exclaimed.
“Open the window!” Mittens and Smith yelled in unison.
“It’s like my dream,” Sidra mused out loud as she opened the window. Smith hiked himself over the sill.
“Come on; I’ll carry Saturn as
a cat, and Sidra, you hang on to my back and wrap your legs around me tight.”
“As a cat? What else are you, Mittens?”
“Mittens? Hahahaha, Mittens!” Smith laughed as Mittens settled herself contentedly in his arms. Sidra grabbed her heartthrob’s shoulders and boosted herself up without hesitation so her legs wrapped around his waist. If she was going to fall to her death, let it be with him. Smith jumped over the sill and they headed straight down into nothingness.
As they disappeared over the window sill, none of the group saw the door open and Axel in the entrance, mouth agape at the sight of them vanishing.
22
The day after the training simulation, Simon alias Gray Hare had a massive headache and his back felt like someone had stomped on it repeatedly. His leg muscles were tight, and he had trouble lifting his arms. He was nauseous as well and decided to stay in bed. He fell back asleep and found that it was noon when he woke up again. He felt slightly better; the nausea was gone, and he was able to make his way to the bathroom, cringing as he urinated, expecting to see blood in his pee. Fortunately, it was clear. He breathed a sigh of relief.
Simon prepared some tea and toast for his late breakfast with a side of Advil, sitting across the table from “the” chair, just in case because he did not want to fight any monsters today, not in his pajamas and robe anyway. He found he was still hungry after that and scrambled three eggs. He devoured those and had more toast. He guessed that he had burned a lot of calories the previous day and also wore himself out. He felt much better after eating, so he showered. While in the shower, he found himself reaching the shampoo shelf from a different angle, like it was lower than he remembered. Also, he noticed his tummy was a little tighter. Not a six-pack, but maybe a two-pack was forming. “Huh,” he thought out loud. “I can actually see my dick today.” He smiled to himself and whistled a happy tune. “Thank you, Mr. Hookworm!” he remarked as he dried himself off vigorously. Simon had no illusions that the serum he ingested was doing its work on his body as an unexpected side-effect. “No complaints from this superhero!” he exclaimed jovially.