Cherry Blossom Girls Box Set

by Harmon Cooper

  Grace, please, respond.

  Silence.

  I was startled when Dorian reappeared with Veronique slung over her shoulder. Dorian was breathing heavily, her face red.

  Veronique was completely passed out, her eyes rolled up under half-closed lids.

  Before I could say anything, Dorian placed her hand on Grace and spread her fingers so that she was also touching my skin.

  And we were gone.

  Chapter Thirty-One: Kidnap or Kill. The Story of My Life.

  Our bodies took shape outside of Jim’s in Oak Hill and fortunately, our Mercedes was still there. The moment our forms solidified, Dorian dropped to her knees, barely able to keep hold of Veronique.

  I could tell she was overheating. I was sitting on the ground, in the same position I’d been in back at the military base. Once I adjusted to my surroundings, I unlocked the car and put Grace in the back.

  Then I moved to Dorian. “I’ve got her,” I said as I took Veronique from her arms.

  I removed Veronique’s helmet and body armor and set her in the front seat. As I did, she opened her eyes and looked at me. “It’s going to be all right,” I told her. She looked pretty bad off; her skin pale, a bruise already forming over one eye. “Just relax.”

  “I need …” She nodded and lifted a hand to the side of my cheek.

  “Just a little,” I warned.

  Instantly, I felt a shift in the energy of my body. Her hand reddened for only a moment, and then she let go.

  “Thanks,” she whispered, her skin lightening some.

  I moved to Dorian and helped take off her bulletproof vest and helmet.

  I looked back at the car and realized it would be better for Veronique to sit in the back so Dorian could sit in the front with the A/C blasting her. “I’ll be right back,” I said, and after I moved Veronique to the back, I helped Dorian to the front.

  We hit Highway 71 heading west, our fast-paced drive all but a blur to me. Dorian to my right, Veronique in the back, next to Grace … I didn’t know what the fuck my life had become, but I couldn’t lose any of these women.

  And damn, if we didn’t need to get Grace some clothes, but the few clothes we had were in shopping bags in the trunk.

  I bit my nails as I drove, the lights from the road casting horizontal orange arcs across the inside of the vehicle. No music, stars overhead, my heart still beating fast even though we were moving far away from the violence.

  I hadn’t become desensitized yet, but I was getting close.

  In my mind, I could still see the men Veronique had killed. I could still feel the bullet as it struck me in the chest. Hell, I still wore my bulletproof vest, which I’d forgotten to take off back at the restaurant. My helmet too. I was seriously driving a convertible Mercedes in a ballistic helmet and bulletproof vest.

  Fuck my life.

  But I was alive; it was the most alive I’d ever been. Even though Veronique had drained some of my life force, I felt rejuvenated, powerful, safe. Thank you, adrenaline! And I shouldn’t have felt safe; if we had been attacked at that moment, we would have been done for. Dorian was down, Grace was in la-la land, and Veronique needed to feed.

  Still, we were together, safe enough. Yeah, safe enough.

  And I was the getaway driver. Some fucking superhero skill to have: I can drive a car! But it was useful. And sure, if we ever got out of this alive, later we could alternate between teleporting and driving, but that remained to be seen. So much had happened between us, and I felt it in that singular moment.

  But like Italo Calvino said, “The past is like a tapeworm.”

  I set the vehicle into auto drive and took out my smartphone. I sent an encrypted email to Ken to tell him all was well and that we needed to talk soon. I started to send a message to Luke, but I didn’t want to get into everything that just happened, so I kept it under wraps.

  Sometimes it was better that way. And besides, once I had time to unpack everything that had happened, I could give him the lowdown in a series of quick texts.

  Staring out at the endless highway, my Mutants in the Making naturally came to the forefront of my mind. I needed to write the third part, put them all together, and release it as a proper book.

  But where to begin? And how could I continue writing without incriminating myself more than I’d already done? I should have published it under a damn pseudo; my vanity will be the death of me.

  “Are you feeling better?” I asked Dorian after we’d driven for about thirty minutes with the cold air blasting against her face.

  She nodded. “That was … I don’t know.”

  “We need another car, and I’ll need you and possibly Veronique to help. Also, Grace needs clothes. Can’t have her just sitting naked in the car.”

  “I can help,” Veronique said from the back seat. “Just get me close enough that I can feed. Regarding her clothes, once we stop, I can try to dress her. We still have the Leslie shirt and Dorian’s shorts. I believe.”

  “Sounds about right,” I said. But listen, and seriously here – we can’t leave a body trail this time.” I thought of the college student we’d left back at the hotel; how frightened and confused she’d be when she finally recovered enough to wake up. “That’s why we need Grace … What are we supposed to do with the person after we drain them and steal their vehicle?”

  “I could teleport them to the desert somewhere,” Dorian said.

  “I’ll file that under ‘body trail.’ We should try to set that up as our MO: the less killing of innocent people, the better. I’d like that number to stay at zero going forward. The security personnel, private military soldiers, other supers – those are our targets.”

  “I’m sure we’ll figure something out. If not, just let me feed.” I watched in the rearview mirror as Veronique closed her eyes and laid her head back.

  “Remember, no body trail.”

  I pulled into a gas station about an hour later. It was the largest gas station I’d seen in my life, easily the size of a WalMacy’s back east.

  “Bucky’s,” Dorian said as she read the sign. “There are a lot of cars here.”

  She wasn’t lying. The place was packed, and since it was open twenty-four hours, it didn’t show any signs of slowing down. There were at least fifty pumps and sitting outside the entrance was a large collection of towering roosters made of corrugated metal.

  Only in Texas, right?

  Our goal was Santa Fe, damn near ten hours away. Grace had mentioned she wanted to go there. It was near one of the secret facilities, and once we got her up and running again, we could continue our assault.

  The question of our endgame came to me and I swallowed it down, as I’d done multiple times over the last few days. But what happens if you actually succeed? a voice at the back of my head asked.

  A memoir? was my answer.

  I hated to laugh at my own answer, but I did, and Dorian gave me a funny look.

  “Sorry,” I told her, “my brain is a mess, scrambled like eggs, poached, boiled twice, burned around the edges.”

  “So, it’s an egg? I’d love to eat.”

  “Funny. Veronique, can you walk?” I took off my helmet and worked on removing my vest.

  She nodded.

  “Let’s get in, get some food, get back to the car, get our bags in the back, and then get another vehicle.” I found a spot away from the bright lights of the entrance.

  “I think I’ll just stay here while you two feed.” Veronique got out and retrieved our bags from the trunk. “Conserve energy.”

  “Good call,” I told her, and Dorian and I turned to the supersized convenient store.

  I was going to be driving all night, and I needed to get lit as fuck on energy drinks. Bull Bean was my go-to choice; I found their twenty-hour energy cans and grabbed a six-pack. I also picked up a pulled pork BBQ sandwich, a bag of chips, and a freaking forty-eight-ounce cup of coffee. Dorian got a sausage wrap, a sixty-four-ounce Dr. Pepper, and a pint of Blue Bell ice cre
am, which came with its own spoon.

  We headed outside and found Veronique still leaning against the Mercedes, a sly look on her face. She watched as a man got out of a sporty two-door Mustang.

  “We need something a little larger,” I reminded her. “There’s four of us, and we’ll still have an extra body to deal with.”

  Nope, I hadn’t come up with a solution as to how we were supposed to steal a car and not kill or kidnap the person. Since I’d already laid down the ‘no killing’ rule, we were going with the next best thing: kidnapping. I’d tried to come up with other options, but they all led back to these two choices. Kidnap or kill, the story of my life.

  “Ah, there. That’s more what we’re looking for,” I said as a Toyota Four Runner pulled into a space a few spots away from us.

  “On it,” Veronique said, and before I could really say or do anything, she approached the driver – a short woman in a pair of overalls – and drained her. She started by draining her long distance but moved in closer until the woman had all but shriveled up.

  Veronique used her powers to transfer the woman’s keys over to me, and after making sure no one was watching, we quickly placed the woman in the back of the Four Runner. I checked her pulse. Whew, she was still alive.

  We then moved the naked mess that was Grace into the newly acquired vehicle, and once we put her in the back as well, Veronique began dressing her.

  A car pulled up, clearly wanting our spot, but we waited for a moment. Dorian leaned against the trunk of our Mercedes, giving the country guy driving the other car a pretty good view of her rear. He focused on this for a moment, licked his lips, and moved into another spot not too far down.

  “Let’s go, Dorian,” I said before he could approach us.

  Yes, he stood no chance against her, and I’m sure Veronique wouldn’t mind feeding again, but I didn’t want to cause a scene. She followed my lead, Blue Bell spoon in her mouth, drink in hand as she sashayed to the front passenger side of the Four Runner.

  With a smile on my face (because who doesn’t like seeing someone walk like that?), I grabbed what was left of our bulletproof gear, and kept the Mercedes keys in my pocket.

  “Good job, everyone,” I said. I adjusted the seat in the Four Runner and started it up. We got back on the highway, and when we were about thirty minutes away from the gas station, we pulled over and I buried the Mercedes keys.

  By this point, Dorian was sleeping, her hands on her distended belly, and Veronique was awake in the back seat, sipping from the big ass cup of coffee I’d bought.

  “What are we going to do with her in Santa Fe?” she asked.

  “Which her?” I looked at Veronique through the rearview mirror. “The owner of the vehicle?”

  “Grace.”

  “We’re going to contact Ken. But first, we’re going to see what we can do on our own.”

  “And the woman in the back?” she shifted her weight so she could look behind her at the unconscious owner of our new vehicle. “I could drain her some more,” she said, red energy radiating up her fingertips.

  “Veronique, don’t kill her. We’re going to drop her off at a hospital. Take her ID first, make sure we aren’t on camera. Better yet, maybe we’ll just drop her off in front of a McStarbucks or something. No, that’s too visual. A hospital. We’ll figure it out. Maybe Dorian can teleport with her to the front and teleport away instantly. Yeah. Then they won’t see the vehicle.”

  I was thinking out loud, two Bull Bean energy drinks down, my heart thumping in my chest.

  More driving. Minutes became hours and every now and then Veronique would check on me to make sure I was still awake. But I’d never been more awake in my life. It wasn’t so much because of the energy drinks as it was a determination to save Grace. We’d made it this far. We would see this to the end.

  At some point we stopped, refueled, used the restrooms, and got more coffee.

  Kept moving.

  Texas became a tumbleweed blur.

  I set the SUV in auto drive and relaxed a little. Damn, was auto drive nice, and as the Toyota drove itself, I took a deep breath and finished another energy drink. I felt a hand fall on my lap and I took it, squeezing tightly. I looked over to see Dorian smiling at me.

  “You’re doing well,” she whispered.

  “You’ll get us there, Gideon,” Veronique said from the back.

  “Why are you two still up?” I asked, half-jokingly.

  “We’re keeping watch,” Dorian said, her hand still in mine. “Let me know if there’s anything else I can do.” She flicked a finger at my pocket.

  “And I’m making sure she doesn’t wake up.” For the third time that night, Veronique drained the woman we’d taken hostage.

  “Careful,” I reminded both of them.

  We neared the Texas-New Mexico border.

  I’d been driving for hours, and after we reached a small, semi-forgotten town, I saw a sign pointing to a hospital. We drove to the hospital, stopped a few parking lots away, and Dorian disappeared with the woman, returning seconds later empty-handed.

  The mind-numbing journey continued.

  I drank another Bull Bean and felt a surge of faux energy.

  The sun was starting to come up, adding a touch of pink to the horizon.

  I suddenly felt like crying. I suddenly felt like jumping into the air and clicking my heels together.

  I suddenly felt like driving the SUV off a cliff.

  Relax, Writer Gideon.

  It wasn’t Grace. It was my own subconscious, but I was fine with that.

  Long story short: We somehow made it to Santa Fe. And when we did, I pulled up to the first hotel I could find and got a room with double beds.

  The sun was up, the air was cooler, the altitude higher, and I was exhausted.

  Chapter Thirty-Two: A Golden Shower in Santa Fe

  It wasn’t quite a golden shower, but as I carried Grace into the hotel bedroom in Santa Fe, she pissed in my arms and all over the front of my shirt.

  I was too exhausted to care, but rather than lay her in the bed, I put her in the bathtub, figuring she may go again. I took off my shirt – so long, Austin Ice Bats – and realized then that I didn’t have any other clothing.

  The gift shop.

  It was about eight in the morning, and the gift shop would be open soon. Not at all concerned with the fact that I was a bearded shirtless man with a gnarly scar on his cheek, I walked back to the hotel’s reception area and told them I needed a shirt.

  The clerk looked at my bloodshot eyes with alarm, and her manager came running. I told them I’d had a problem with my other shirt and that I’d like them to open the gift shop so I could buy one of those kitschy New Mexico shirts.

  “In particular,” I told the manager, “I’d like the one with the wolf jumping in front of the moon.”

  “The gift shop opens at ten,” he said.

  “Please give me something, or …”

  I glanced over my shoulder, assuming Veronique or Dorian had followed me.

  They hadn’t, but I didn’t need to press any further. The manager saw the crazy look in my eyes, opened the gift shop, and handed me a medium.

  “Make it a large,” I told him, “I need some room to breathe.”

  If ever there was an understatement of the year …

  He returned with a large wolf shirt and I meandered my way back to our room.

  “I need to message Ken,” I mumbled when I stepped inside.

  Dorian, who was resting on the bed, flashed away and appeared behind me.

  “You need to rest, Gideon,” she said, placing her hands on my shoulders. Veronique was already out, cuddled up under the blankets on the bed farthest from the door.

  “I need to shower too,” I said.

  “Relax.”

  “Grace,” I told her, and with that, I entered the bathroom.

  Grace’s skin had melted away even more, but I wasn’t bothered by it in the least bit. I knelt by the tub and
started smoothing her hair out of her face.

  “Gideon,” Dorian said, stepping into the room behind me. “You drank too many energy drinks. You need some rest.”

  “There’s no such thing, goddammit!”

  But by this point, I was stripping down to my boxers and getting into the tub with Grace. I positioned myself behind her, wrapped her in my arms, and looked up at Dorian.

  “I’ll rest here.”

  And rest I did. For hours and hours, I slept with Grace in my arms. She was breathing, and I could feel her lungs expand with each breath in, but other than that, she was pretty much dead to the world.

  Or so I thought.

  I woke up hours later to Grace’s voice in my head.

  Writer Gideon.

  I tried to move out from under her, but my leg was asleep.

  Grace? I thought and tried to shake my leg out. It wasn’t easy, especially because she was on top of me. As I woke up, I saw that Dorian was sitting with her back against the door, also asleep.

  I’m here. I don’t know what Mother did but …

  We’re in Santa Fe, I thought to her, where you wanted to visit.

  Is it beautiful?

  Don’t know.

  You drove here last night after rescuing me and haven’t seen the city.

  That’s right. I only saw some Pueblo-styled buildings. George R.R. Martin once lived here. That’d be a nice life, living in Santa Fe and writing fantasy.

  It would be very nice. Dorian, Veronique, and I could live with you and we could redesign the home.

  I would love that.

  We would too.

  I swallowed hard. I never pictured myself as the type to have a polyamorous commune with beautiful women, but then again, Mormons did it …

  Why are you thinking about Utah again? Grace thought to me.

  Sorry. My brain is an onion that shouldn’t be unraveled.

  Your brain is more like a dog that chases its tail and sometimes catches it.

  Hey!

  I don’t know how long I’ll be like this, she thought, changing subjects. And I’m sorry for my appearance. It must be gruesome.

  I don’t care about that. What I care about is getting you back to your full operating level.