We Could Be Heroes 2

by Harmon Cooper

  Zoe Goa Ramone was up before Sam the next morning. The tiger girl quickly got out of bed and looked at Sam for a moment, standing there in the nude, her arms crossed over her chest.

  Nope.

  She didn’t regret what had happened last night, and only wished it had gone on for longer. But what could she expect? Sam had been fucking Helena, and probably wasn’t used to jumping in the sack with an experienced woman, a woman who hadn’t hooked up in quite a while.

  Zoe smiled at this stupid thought, realizing that she probably wasn’t as good at sex as she thought she was, that some of his premature ejaculation had to do with the forbidden nature of hooking up with her, possibly some of the aftereffects of the concussion, and maybe just a little adrenaline.

  And while she was okay with what had happened, she definitely wasn’t looking forward to seeing Helena again. What she had done was dirty, Zoe knew that. But it had happened, and there was no way to change the fact.

  It could also have something to do with her looks, Sam turned on by her feline features. It wasn’t like every other non-exemplar in Centralia didn’t have a thing for cat girls, so she wouldn’t put it past Sam to be a little curious.

  “Wake up,” Zoe told him.

  Sam didn’t respond, so Zoe said his name again, a little louder this time.

  “What?” Sam asked, squinting for a moment as he looked at her. “Why are you naked?”

  “You are naked too,” she told him.

  “Oh, shit…” he whispered.

  “What? Don’t like what you see?” Zoe asked, bringing her shoulders back just a little so her tits perked up.

  “Don’t… don’t tell me we hooked up.”

  “What do you mean? You can’t remember?” Zoe swallowed hard. “Stop playing around.”

  “What happened?” Sam asked, his tone of voice growing serious now.

  “Use your nose and figure it out,” said Zoe, turning to him so he could see her nude ass, her tail curled in the air. She slowly got into her underwear, looking over her shoulder once to make sure that Sam was watching.

  He was, but not in the way that she expected him to be watching. It was a look of confusion, with a slight amount of horror mixed in.

  “Whatever,” Zoe said as she pulled her panties up and got into her sports bra. From there she stepped into her uniform, zipping it up and leaving the hood down as she left the room. “Get your ass up,” she said just before shutting the door. “We have places to go.”

  Now in the hallway, Zoe turned to the living room to find the old woman sitting in a chair, smiling at her. “I thought you would never wake up,” the old woman said. “I have prepared breakfast for you and your friend.”

  “You did not need to do that…”

  “Nonsense, Paak Ramone’s granddaughter, and I have some clothes for you as well. That is, if you want clothing. I am assuming you don’t want people to know that you are an exemplar team, right?”

  “It would make things a lot easier,” Zoe admitted as she followed the old woman to the dining room table. It was set up with placemats, a full spread of fruit, yogurt, and granola. Sitting in a plastic bin on the floor was a bundle of female clothing.

  “I wasn’t quite as tall as you back in my day, but I used to have a pretty good body myself,” the woman said, the smile she was giving Zoe causing wrinkles to form at the corners of her eyes.

  “I’m sure you did,” Zoe said.

  “You think I’m kidding with you? Look through the clothing I have, see what I mean.”

  “Sure,” Zoe said. “Besides, I should probably wait for my friend to get dressed and have breakfast with me.”

  “So he is that type of friend, eh?”

  “What type?”

  The old woman squinted at Zoe, her brow furrowing. “You know what I mean.”

  “No, I don’t,” said Zoe as she started looking through the clothing.

  The stuff had been recently washed, and as she unfolded pieces and re-folded them, Zoe settled on an outfit that was definitely unlike anything she’d worn before. It was a black number, collarless, yet the back had a hood that gracefully flowed down to the small of her back.

  While it was a little large, it worked, the hood held up mostly by her tiger ears.

  The sleeves were tied off at the elbows, and the dress stopped just above her knees. If it weren’t for the hood, it would have reminded her of one of the gothic loli outfits popular with women a bit younger than her.

  “I’m going to go check on my friend, and change into this,” Zoe said as she turned away. “We’ll be back in just a moment, together this time.”

  “Good.”

  Zoe reentered the bedroom to find Sam still sleeping.

  “What part of ‘wake up’ do you not understand?” she asked.

  “What?” Sam asked, turning his head and looking up at her, his curly black hair in his face.

  “Not this again. Out of the bed, Sam, we have to get started.”

  “Okay,” he said as he rolled onto his side, wincing as he sat up. Sam brought his hand to the side of his head, massaging his temples for a moment.

  As if she were alone, Zoe began taking off her clothing. Sam looked at her funny for a moment as she did so.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Look, I… I understand what happened last night,” Sam said, pointing at his nose. “But my mind wasn’t all there, and I don’t want to cause any trouble.”

  “No trouble here,” Zoe said as she finished unzipping her exemplar uniform.

  “You know what I mean. You probably shouldn’t be getting naked in front of me,” Sam said.

  “Seriously? And I’m not getting naked; I have a bra and panties on.” She snapped her bra strap to make her point.

  “I mean, I can cover my eyes.”

  “Then cover them. And we don’t ever need to talk about what happened last night, if you don’t want to. But you’d better not let Helena find out.”

  “She would understand…” Sam said, absolutely no conviction in his statement.

  “Pfft. That will be the day. And will she be cool with Dinah giving you some head the other morning too?”

  “Look, I had no part in that, and I had very little part in this.”

  “Please,” Zoe said, rolling her eyes. “You turned your power-up on, which was probably why you came so soon.”

  “What? Anyway,” he said, cautiously shaking his head, “the only reason I remember what happened last night is because of my nose, because I can smell your…”

  “My what?”

  “It doesn’t matter, I should go get cleaned up. Yes, cleaned up. I am guessing you are going to wear this black outfit,” he said, referring to the outfit that Zoe had set on the nightstand.

  “That’s the plan,” Zoe said as she readjusted the cups on her bra.

  “Okay, but when we meet with the others, please don’t get naked in front of me. At least do me that favor. I don’t want to have to deal with that.”

  “Deal with what?” she asked, making an innocent face at him and bringing a finger to her lip. “We’re all born naked.”

  “This is ridiculous,” Sam said as he got out of the bed, instantly grabbing the sheet and wrapping it around his waist, trying to hide his erection but failing.

  “It looks like someone came out to play,” said Zoe.

  “No, I did not come out to play, and he didn’t either. I’m not trying to…” Sam thought for a moment how he should phrase this. “I just don’t want any drama. Let’s keep it at that.”

  “No drama if you don’t want drama,” Zoe said as she approached him, placing both hands on his shoulders. She sat Sam down, the cover still over his waist, and climbed on top of him, wrapping both legs around his body and peering at him for a moment.

  “You know you are torturing me, right?”

  “A little, but it’s not like I don’t want it too.”

  “Let’s just focus on the mission for now,” Sam said, but even though
the words coming out of his mouth were telling her one thing, the fact that his hands were on her hips now was telling Zoe another.

  And she knew it was cruel.

  Sam was a good guy, and Zoe had never been the type to steal another person’s boyfriend (or whatever Sam and Helena were). She had never had to resort anything like that, but now she was enjoying playing the role, even if she knew that once Helena was back in the picture, this would end.

  And she knew this because she cared about Sam; she didn’t want him to feel the pressure that would arise if she continued doing what she was doing.

  But that didn’t mean she couldn’t have a little fun until that point.

  Zoe move just a little bit closer to Sam, bringing her shoulders back again so her breasts were almost in his face, unable to resist lightly grazing her breasts across his face.

  “Please…” he said, an absolutely enormous erection now pressing against her crotch.

  “Okay, as you wish,” Zoe said as she stood, leaving Sam sitting on the bed. She went to the dress on the nightstand and put it on. Sam just sat there for a moment, taking in deep breaths.

  “She made breakfast for us,” Zoe said.

  “I need to take a quick shower, just a real fast one. I can…”

  “You can what?”

  “I can smell you all over me and it’s really getting to my head.”

  “You already told me that, and you know, that’s really not a very nice thing to say to a woman.”

  “No, you don’t smell bad, it’s nothing like that. It’s just all the memories,” Sam said, his face scrunched up as he ran his hand through his hair. “I need to forget all this.”

  “Then take a shower and wash it away.” Zoe nodded to the closet. “This is her son’s room, so there should be something in here that you can wear.”

  She searched through the closet for a moment and found a shirt and a pair of jeans that looked one or two sizes too large.

  “These will have to do. And we should probably take a bag with our exemplar clothing as well. Ah, this will work,” she said as she found a knapsack.

  Zoe folded her exemplar clothing and placed it inside. She went for Sam’s, doing the same as well, leaving his boxers on the ground.

  “Shower and get changed, and then we will see about heading to the capital. I don’t know how we will find the others, but we’re not going to find them out here in the sticks.”

  “Yep,” Sam said, looking down at the ground.

  “Don’t be ashamed,” she told him.

  “No, I just don’t want to have to deal with the repercussions from this.”

  “Sam,” Zoe said, her voice growing softer as she moved to the bed. “I’m not going to say anything, even if I was angry at you. And I wasn’t trying to just take advantage of you last night. I thought you wanted it too.”

  “I mean, I probably did want it, but I can barely remember how it started. And I don’t even remember the old woman that you keep referring to. It’s just all a blur, almost like a dream or something. Yeah, I thought it was a dream. And then I wake up and find out…”

  “That you fucked your ex?”

  “Um, yeah,” Sam said, swallowing hard.

  “It happens. Well, I don’t know if that’s exactly how I should phrase this but, it happened, and we can keep it between us. And if it ever happens again…”

  “That’s not why I signed up for all this,” Sam said, looking up at her, a fire blazing behind his hazel eyes. “As stupid as it sounds, I signed up for this to actually do some good. So, for now, let’s just focus on that. We really do have to do something about this planned vampire infestation. They are trying to kickstart the Western Plague part two down here, and it is up to us to stop it.”

  “You’re right,” Zoe said, adjusting her new dress. “We just need to get to the city and find the others, and then we will go from there. Sorry.”

  “There’s nothing to apologize for.”

  “Sorry for teasing you about last night.”

  “No, it’s fine, it happened.”

  “It did.”

  “Cool,” Sam said, looking to the door. “I’ll meet you out there. It’ll be a fast shower, I promise, I just have to wash this away.”

  “I understand.” Zoe stopped just as she was reaching for the handle.

  “Yes?”

  “Nothing. See you out there,” she said, not able to look at him now.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine: Hamza and the Healer

  (Kevin Blackbook is from another book series set in Centralia called House of Dolls. Don’t ask how I know this.)

  Dr. Hamza Grumio ran his hand through his hair. He straightened his lab coat, and stepped back into his laboratory for a moment, looking at the wall that had recently been repaired.

  He heard some struggling in one of the sealed off rooms behind him and he turned to the glass door, watching as the second repairman tried to suck more blood out of the first.

  Tragic, really, but sometimes science had to go deep into the dark before it could emerge in the light.

  It was something that Hamza wanted to see for himself, something he’d already witnessed several times now yet still found fascinating. How did the infection spread naturally? What was the point at which the victim was drained of all their blood? What would it do to the vitals of the one who had done the dirty deed?

  Hamza had already perfected the serum that turned someone into one of these terrible monsters, and he was close to perfecting the serum that brought them back out. In fact, he was sure he had done it, but there were a few small side effects he still needed to work out.

  Which was why he had the second repairman go ahead and finish off the first. He had brought the first one back from being a vampire, but it had caused the man to go mad at some point, Dr. Hamza having to gas the room to tranquilize him.

  He knew his error, monohydrophia exceline instead of monohydrophia chronaline, and he knew that to make monohydrophia chronaline, he needed to break down a few chemicals he had in very limited quantities.

  Hamza would have to be careful, but with his newfound power, that wouldn’t be too hard. “I’m going to need you to stay quiet,” he said, knocking on the glass. The second repairman, full vampire at the moment, tried to break through the door.

  He pounded his fists, snapped his teeth, saliva spraying onto the glass as he glared at Dr. Hamza.

  Rather than deal with his ornery vampire subjects, Dr. Hamza simply prepared the chemical that would knock him out. He put it in a small machine mounted on the wall, which turned the chemical into a gas.

  It misted into the small holding cell, eventually causing the repairman to pass out.

  Dr. Hamza stepped out of his laboratory and shut the door, locking it from the inside. He had a key, of course, and it wasn’t like a locked door could really do much to prevent the teleporter from going where she wanted to go.

  Dr. Hamza smiled at this thought. He was excited to see Scarlett, excited about their business prospects. He had been cooped up in his laboratory for the last twenty-four hours, and he had definitely jerked off once or twice, maybe three times, with Scarlett on his mind.

  The reason he had created the vampire serum and the cure was solely for monetary purposes, and to rescue an old friend. He still had other serums he planned to create, but they could wait.

  And even with Scarlett potentially in the picture, Mia was on his mind as well, the reason he’d gone to all this trouble in the first place. Even if she didn’t need rescuing, he would do his best to free her. Sure, Hamza had enslaved her, but that had been for science. These fucks were enslaving her to use Mia as a weapon, something Hamza didn’t approve of.

  “Heh heh,” he said as he made himself as presentable as he could. To think there was a fine line between what he had done to Mia versus what the vampires had done was proof that anything could be justified. He knew this, he knew his philosophy had holes in it, but that didn’t make him feel for her any less, and he planned to
do everything in his power to free Mia.

  Dr. Hamza noticed the subtle chemical change in the air that signified a teleporter was appearing.

  Scarlett’s form took shape, the lean, wide-hipped brunette joined by a short chubby man in an exemplar uniform; two cat girls, one with turquoise ears and the other with black ears; and a frail old woman, the woman currently held in the fat man’s arms.

  “I see you have brought friends,” Dr. Hamza said, smiling as he took in their details. Nothing to report immediately aside from some apprehension, as well as a strange toxin coming off the cat girls. “Fascinating,” Hamza said as he brought his hand to his mouth.

  “We were told that you could replicate exemplar powers,” the man said as he set the old woman down on a sofa. “The name is Kevin, by the way, Kevin Blackbook.”

  “Ah, Mr. Blackbook,” Dr. Hamza said, extending his hand. The fat man was in a silver outfit, with black and turquoise accents, and there was some energy radiating off his ring. Dr. Hamza looked from the ring to the man’s face as they shook hands.

  “What?” Kevin asked.

  “Interesting ring,” Dr. Hamza said. “And to answer your question, getting to the bottom of a superpower is a specialty of mine. Of course, I don’t work for free…”

  “We’ve already discussed this,” Scarlett said.

  “I know we have, dear, I just want him to know that I will be getting something out of this as well, namely the power. And this is the healer here, the dying woman?” Dr. Hamza said as he moved over to the couch.

  “That’s right,” said Kevin.

  One of the cat girls moved in front of him, the one with turquoise ears, glaring at Hamza for a moment. “Toxic cat girl, if you will please step aside, I need to examine this woman.”

  “I don’t know, Kevin,” she said, glancing over to the fat man.

  “Let him pass, Turquoise,” said Kevin. “This is why we came here.”

  “She doesn’t have long,” Dr. Hamza told them as soon as he reached the woman and brought his hand to her head.

  “How do you know?” Kevin asked.

  “You see, while I might not be officially recognized as an exemplar, I possess an exemplar power.”