Just Cause: Revised & Expanded Edition (17 page)

“Heater’s on. We ought to warm up pretty soon.” Jason backed out of the spot and headed for the headquarters exit to the city streets, unmindful of the occasional patch of snow or ice on the road. Sally’s teeth chattered and she tried not to flinch as the truck rolled down the road; she expected it to skid out of control and flip at any moment.

Jason drove through town for about twenty minutes before he pulled into a parking lot next to a well-lit building painted in cheerful colors with tasteful neon lighting that spelled out
Devereaux Foundation
. A small cluster of people stood under a streetlight near the door and smoked while they conversed. One of them noticed Jason and Sally and called to them with a loud
yoo-hoooo!
 

“Crap,” muttered Jason.

“Who is it?” Sally whispered as the woman in the raspberry-colored overcoat and white hat and scarf hurried toward them.

“Theresa Lupe. Society reporter. Leech.”

“She’s the press? What does she want with you?”

“Not just me. Us. Just Cause. She’s always trying to dig up something on us.”

“Mastiff darling! So wonderful that you came out here tonight.” The woman clutched a small handheld recorder like it was a rosary.

“Hello, Ms. Lupe,” said Jason.

“And this must be Mustang Sally, Just Cause’s newest member. Are you two an item? Have you already made your move on the parahuman community’s most eligible young bachelor?”

Sally blushed and wished she’d had the foresight to have her breather mask and goggles on. She had never considered the implication that being in Just Cause would make her a
celebrity
, with all the public interest that went along with such a moniker.

“We’re just here to play with the kids, Ms. Lupe.” Jason steered Sally away from the reporter with the buzzard’s gaze. “Perhaps you’d urge your readers to make a donation to the Foundation.”

“Give me an exclusive interview with the two of you and I’ll consider it.”

“No thanks. Have a nice evening, Ms. Lupe.” Jason opened the door and gave Sally a gentle but firm shove inside ahead of him.

“You two make a lovely couple,” called the cackling reporter after them.

“I can’t stand that woman, but Juice made it clear we have to be polite to her. A lot of people read her column. She could do a lot of damage to our reputation if she tried.”

“Why would she want to do that?”

Jason blushed. “Because she’s a vindictive bitch.”

Sally burst out in laughter as they walked through the foyer and stripped off their coats. Jason pushed open the door into what he called the
romper room
and he and Sally went inside.

Sally saw fifteen to twenty kids as they played games in the room, roughhoused, chased each other, and climbed all over an indoor playground. Cries of “Jason!” and “Mastiff!” echoed around the room and the kids charged over like little bundles of boundless energy. Sally locked a smile on her face and hoped it didn’t look like a rictus of death.

“Everyone, this is Mustang Sally. She’s new on the team and came out to hang with you all tonight,” said Jason to the excited children.

“Hi, Mustang Sally!” several of them chorused. Sally thought they sounded like a juvenile Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.

“Da-a-a-amn,” called two young boys who couldn’t have been more than eight or nine years old and looked so much alike they had to be twins. One had an afro so large it made his head twice as large as normal while the other sported short dreadlocks. Their clothes looked worn, like hand-me-downs, but clean.

“Sally, these are the Kingston brothers. The one who looks like he stuck his finger in a socket is D’Angelo. And his brother is Jamal.”

“You better hang with us,” said D’Angelo. “A lot of these older kids’ll be mackin’ on you because you’re lookin’ so fine.”

“Yeah,” said Jamal.

“Jason? Help?” Sally hoped the tone of her voice would convey to him her discomfort.

“You’ll be fine.” Jason’s voice was muffled by the ten children who climbed all over him. “Just don’t let them sell you anything.”

“Hey, you can’t blame a li’l brother for tryin’ to make a buck,” called D’Angelo.

“Yeah,” said Jamal right on cue.

“You’re a superhero, so show us somethin’,” said D’Angelo. “What’s your power?”

“I’m a speedster. That means I can run really fast.”

“That ain’t a real power. Anyone can run.”

“Yeah.”

Sally cracked a wry grin at the two young skeptics. “Not like me.” And before he could yelp in surprise, she swept up D’Angelo in her arms and made a couple quick circuits of the room—not so fast that her doctor would have a reason to complain but certainly fast enough to make D’Angelo’s hair blow around like a thistle puff. She skidded to a stop and set him down. He staggered a couple steps and sat down.

“Whoa!” He gasped for air.

“Word,” Jamal said, moved to great expressiveness by Sally’s display.

Suddenly she was surrounded by all the children who’d been dog-piling on Jason a moment before, all clamoring for a ride.

“What do I do?” she asked Jason, who seemed a little taken aback at suddenly being relegated to second banana.

“You started it,” he said. “How about making a run around the room the prize for a game?”

“We could do that. What game?”

“
Red Light, Green Light!
” shouted several of the kids.

Soon Sally found herself in the middle of a game of Red Light, Green Light as serious and intense as any training session she’d had at the Hero Academy. After a few minutes, she realized she really enjoyed playing with the kids.

She’d never gotten to just be one herself.

They all played several rounds of the game with different winners each time. Sally carried each victorious child piggyback around the room a couple times at speed. Parents began to come by to collect their children, who zoomed around pretending they were Mustang Sally, much to her amusement.

D’Angelo and Jamal were the last ones to leave, picked up by their mother who smiled warmly at Sally and Jason and threatened to beat the boys with a skillet if they didn’t stop runnin’ around like damn wild monkeys.

“She don’t really beat us,” D’Angelo confided in Sally as he left. “We’re too pimpin’ for that.”

“Yeah,” said Jamal. “Ow!” He yelped as his mother grabbed him and his brother by their ears and led them out of the playroom.

“Think that’ll do it, Cerise?” Jason asked the Foundation employee who had kept track of the kids and signed them out to their parents.

“Yes, we’re going to go ahead and close up for the night. Thank you so much for coming out tonight. The kids always love it when you drop in. And it was a real pleasure to meet you too, Sally.”

“I had fun,” said Sally. “I’ll be back again. I promise.”

She and Jason walked outside into the chill night air hand in hand. “So what’d you think?” he asked.

“It was fun,” she said. “A lot more than I was expecting. Thanks for bringing me here.”

“My pleasure.” Jason grinned. “So it’s still pretty early. Do you want to go get something to eat? I could go for a few burgers. Playing is hungry work.”

Sally’s stomach rumbled. “Yes, please,” she said. “On one condition.”

“Name it.”

“Can we go somewhere quiet? My ears are still ringing.”

Jason’s laugh made her feel warm enough that the cold air wasn’t quite as bad as before.

Chapter Thirteen

“Know thy self, know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories.”

-Sun Tzu

January, 2004

Denver, Colorado

Jason squeezed the Blazer through a narrow drive-through and bought a half-dozen burgers for himself and one with a side of fries for Sally. She noticed he asked them to hold the onions so she did the same, just in case. “What do you want to do?” he asked her.

“I don’t know,” she said. “We could just drive around for awhile. Listen to music. Talk.”

“Sounds good to me. Unwrap this for me, will you?” He held out a burger to her.

They wandered along the streets, as Jason stuffed his face. He did take smaller than normal bites and attempted to chew quietly in a real effort to be polite. Sally thought it was very dear of him to do so.

Sporadic fog began to appear in the darkness. Jason flipped a switch on his dash and powerful lights mounted underneath the Blazer’s bumper illuminated the road despite the growing mist. Sally saw something that pegged her interest off to the right. “Hey, slow down. What is that?”

Jason braked and stared into the darkness. “Looks like a park. There’s a lake. See all the fog rolling off it?”

“Can we park there?”

He steered into the gravel lot and swung the Blazer around to face the water. “Ask and you shall receive.”

“Turn off the engine,” said Sally.

“It’ll get cold pretty quickly,” said Jason. “Not much insulation in these old trucks. But I’ve got a blanket back there somewhere. I use it to protect my amps.”

“Good enough.” Sally scrambled over the back of the seat and began to rummage around through the stuff in the back. “Look at this mess! Don’t you ever clean out your truck?” She held up for emphasis what had once been a soda can, crushed into a golf-ball-sized spheroid.

Jason laughed and blushed. “I don’t ever have anybody else in here with me. Seriously, the other guys in the band don’t even ride with me. Hey, can I have a fry?” He reached over, took one of Sally’s fries, and popped it into his mouth.

“Oh, it’s on now,” yelled Sally, and jumped back into the front seat. “Nobody takes my fries, mister!”

Jason took another one.

Sally giggled and grabbed the small carton with her super-speed. She kept it away from Jason’s big mitts with ease.

He reached out and poked her in her ribs as he laughed like a hyena. She shrieked, doubled over, and kicked at him.

“You said you weren’t ticklish.” He laughed as he tried to get her again.

“You cheater!” she gasped.

He grinned and ate another fry. She realized while tickling her he’d taken the carton away. “Mmm, good,” he said around a mouthful of processed deep fried potato.

She reached for them, but he held them up out of her reach. Not to be deterred, she scrambled right into his lap, straddled him, and fished the remaining fries out of the carton to leave him holding the empty container. She sat there for a heartbeat and her whole body tingled in a pleasant way as she looked down at him. He returned her gaze, locking eyes with her. Their battle for the fries forgotten, Sally took his head in her free hand and kissed him slow and tender, like in a movie. He tasted a little like french fries and faintly of burger, but mostly he tasted like himself.

His arms encircled her and pressed her to him. She felt a thrill course through her as he nuzzled the spot where her neck met her shoulder. “Mmm,” she breathed. “That’s nice.”

“Glad you like it.” He brushed his fingers across her cheek.

“Have you been with lots of girls?” she asked. “You know, big celebrity, rock star, you must have quite a stable.”

“You brought me all the way out here to talk about that?”

Sally kissed him on the tip of his nose. “It doesn’t bother me. I was just curious.”

“No, I haven’t. I don’t have that kind of free time. Just one. Back in the Academy.”

“Really?”

“Really. It’s been a long dry spell.”

“You certainly seem to know what you’re doing.” Sally nibbled on his ear and made him jump beneath her.

“I’m making it up as I go along.” He kissed her again. The fries tumbled from her hand to lodge between the seat and the door. She didn’t care. She wanted her hands free to caress him.

Jason’s interest in her, the desire she could feel in his lips, his hands, and his lap, made her feel invincible. He wanted her, she was the object of his affection, and it felt so good she could barely stand it. The steering wheel jabbed into her back as she shifted her position a bit. She could do something about that, though. She pulled away from Jason’s mouth, although loathe to do so, and fumbled around the side of his seat.

“What’sa matter?” he asked, his voice hoarse.

She found the release handle and yanked on it, which caused Jason to fall backward. She slid from sitting on his legs to his hips, a position she found much more comfortable and intimate. She leaned over and kissed him again. She enjoyed the feel of him beneath her. His arms slid up inside her coat to caress her back. The cold outside forgotten, she flung away the coat. She wanted to feel him, his hands on her skin.

A tiny voice in the back of her mind asked her what she thought she was doing. It sounded like her mother, but she didn’t listen. The sound of her heart beating drowned it out. She sat up and looked down at Jason, who gazed back up at her with wonder in his eyes as she undid the Velcro tabs and hidden latches along her costume’s front.

Jason’s eyes widened and she felt him grow harder beneath her as he took in the sight of her small but firm breasts. Her tiny nipples stood out hard like pebbles. He reached out to touch them, but stopped; his hands hovering in uncertainty. Sally took his massive wrists in her slender fingers. “No, I want you to,” she breathed, and guided his hands to her skin. The sensation made her head spin and sent little electric shocks running up and down her as if Doublecharge had fired tiny lightning bolts at her from afar.

“You’re beautiful,” whispered Jason.

“So are you.” And in that moment, Sally knew he would be her first. The thought warmed her in the cold air inside the truck and she reached up to let her hair down.

A light shined into the driver’s side window, diffused by the frost all over it, and somebody knocked on the door.

Sally yipped in surprise. In a flash, she closed her top, slithered back into her coat, and sat primly in the passenger seat as Jason sat his side of the seat back up and tried to get himself back onto an even keel. As casually as possible, he rolled the window down to reveal an earnest young police officer, dressed in her heavy coat to ward off the night’s chill.