Chapter 7
I pulled up my driveway with my head on a swivel, the rush of that night’s exploits still coursing through my veins.
The garage door opened with a mechanical buzz with a press of the overhead button in front of my rearview mirror, my headlights casting a white haze across the still-packaged furniture I had tucked in the corner. A second vehicle remained covered in a black tarp.
Another press of the overhead remote shut the garage door behind me after I pulled in, after which I stepped out to walk to the treasure waiting in the trunk. The SUV door opened to reveal a rectangular, chrome metal coffer with magnetic locks.
And when I opened it, a golden glow lit up my face.
Ten hermitically sealed, transparent cylinders filled with semi-solid clusters of a golden substance, halfway between liquid and solid state.
Ichor.
Two hundred pounds of it.
I would have had to kill and drain at least twenty Muties to get that much. And that’s just what I could fit in my trunk, there were other cases just like this one in the warehouse.
Someone had been busy.
Being nigh unkillable may have made me reckless, but I wasn’t stupid. New Muties were popping up faster than they were being culled, or ‘cured’. The original proliferation was said to be less than a thousand people, so the math wasn’t adding up.
Nobody moved that much Ichor without major connections, which obviously tied into some big time players. Taking all of the Ichor would’ve resulted in a manhunt that would bring trouble to my doorstep.
So I took the money and a single coffer, then left the rest of the Ichor behind; easily a billion dollar’s worth. As for the cash? Well, I took what I wanted and burned the rest.
A single black duffel bag sitting in the backseat, enough set me up for a good while, if not for life.
I took out the Ichor canisters one by one, each one twenty pounds, then took them to a solid steel lockbox I kept under a tarp in the back of the garage. Once those were stashed, I grabbed the bag of money, shoved some of it into my pocket, and went inside the house.
Cassie and Monica were already waiting for me, standing in the hall with the two pistols Monica had taken.
“No worries, it’s just me,” I said.
They lowered their guns.
“You’re back!” Cassie breathed.
“Of course I’m back,” I replied with a chuckle. “You girls have fun?”
“Oh, we basically lived in that hot tub,” Monica remarked with a smile, still in her bikini.
“Did you figure out what you wanna do?” asked Cassie, who was also still in her swimwear, her skin dotted in dew.
“Job’s done,” I said.
“Holy shit, you went and did it already?” Monica voiced with disbelievingly wide eyes.
I unslung the duffel bag from my shoulder and tossed it to her feet. “Take a look.”
Monica turned her head slightly and looked at me with alert suspicion, kneeled down over the bag and unzipped it. One look at the cash her entire body flinched.
“Oh, shit—Cassie, look!”
Cassie leaned over with her eyes angled down, which went wide once she realized what it was. “Oh my God…”
“You can take it in my room and count it,” I said with a smirk. “Just dump it on the bed.”
“Oh, you best believe!” Monica gushed and she picked up the duffel bag with a slight wince of exertion. “We’re making clips for Snapchat, stuntin’ all over these bitches!”
She took off toward my bedroom after that, and when she turned? Hoo boy. G-string. I could see her whole ass.
Cassie ran her fingers through her short blonde hair, blinking multiple times with an incredulously airy tone. “I can’t believe what I just saw.”
“Here,” I reached into my trench pocket and took out a stack of hundred dollar bills, ten thousand dollars.
Cassie looked at the money with confusion and then at me. “What’s this for?”
“It’s your out, to get you back on your feet. You don’t have to save up a bunch of money, you can just take this and get a place.”
Cassie held herself by her upper arms, squishing her breasts in her bathing suit top while turning her right knee inward, visibly uncomfortable.
“I mean, thanks, I guess?”
“Something the matter?” I asked, dropping my hand with the money still held in it.
Cassie averted her eyes askance, staring to her left.
“If you want me to leave, I’ll leave. I guess I could come by and visit but…”
“But?”
She looked me in the eye, crestfallen. “I was kinda looking forward to staying with you and Monica for a while. I haven’t lived alone in a while, and it’s fun to have friends, ya know?”
This was one friendship faux pas I wasn’t going to be able to buy my way out of. It didn’t even occur to me that she’d interpret my act of generosity as a way to get rid of her—which wasn’t my intention at all, I just hadn’t thought it through.
Emotional intelligence and all that.
But she wasn’t alone in that.
I didn’t need Monica to be my live-in housekeeper, what I really wanted was the company. In just twenty hours, Cassie and Monica had already infused my environment with fresh energy and fun, and I wanted more of it.
They knew my secret and didn’t judge me negatively.
For the first time since my adaptation, I didn’t feel alone.
Everything else was just an excuse to have them around.
“Then how about this?” I tucked the money back into my pocket. “Stick around for a while; I’m in no rush. We’ll figure it out as we go along.”
“Yes!” Cassie sprung into a jump and hugged me tightly, then backed away quickly with her palms held up defensively. “Sorry. Abrupt, I know. It’s just—I don’t know what to do with myself!”
“You can go help Monica count the money.”
Cassie hollered in excitement. “Gaahhh!”
She hugged me again with a tight squeeze, smiled at me with a look of utter mischief, then nodded her head sideways down the hall. “Come hang out.”
“Actually, I gotta get some cleaning done,” I said, rubbing the hair on the back of my head.
“You’ve never been rich before, right?”
“Can’t say I have,” I chuckled.
“Then do it later,” she said, grabbing my hand and tugging me lightly while leaning backwards. “Come onnn, have some fun!”
There was nothing I could do. The invitation to goof off after a big bounty was just too alluring. All I wanted to do was just play.
So I went with it.
The bass of melodic hip-hop echoed down the hall, muffled by the wall between us as we made our way to my room.
Monica had pulled out a portable wireless boombox, playing Agora Hills by Doja Cat for an upbeat, celebratory vibe.
She was on the bed, upright on her knees with a wily grin as she watched us walk in.
“Those dudes whose ass you beat the other night? Their ratchet girlfriends are all on my socials, and I’m ready to flex on every bitch I can’t stand. Wanna help?” Monica asked with girlish delight.
I shrugged with a chuckle. “What’d you have in mind?”
Monica arched her back with playful sensuality and pushed the duffel bag over, then slid her fingers down to the bottom, gripped it, and pulled it away, dumping all the money on the bed in one fell swoop.
A series of happy butterflies went off in my gut; I’d never had this much money before, let alone a pretty girl putting it on presentation.
“Let’s do a photoshoot making it look like I cuffed a rich man. They’ll be so pissed the whole neighborhood will implode into its own ass,” Monica replied with malicious satisfaction. “It’ll also bring some pretty girls out of the woodwork…”
This was sounding more fun by the second.
And I wasn’t exactly a nice guy.
Not anymore.
“Let’s do it,” I agreed with a smirk.
Monica briefly glanced at Cassie, looked at me, then lifted one finger and curled it in in a come hither motion.
I took off my trench coat and let it drop to the floor, then kicked off my boots and got onto the bed beside the pile of cash with Monica to my left.
She crossed her leg over mine, snuggling her toes in the bunched up fabric of my pants near my shins, then held her phone out for a selfie.
“No face,” I said.
Monica pouted. “I can’t just post some dude’s chest!”
“Maybe I’m camera shy,” I retorted facetiously.
Monica looked my face up and down. “You shouldn’t be. You’re cute.”
Hearing that somehow disarmed my usual reservations.
God, this was bad. One day with this girl and she was already figuring out my levers. I guess that was the vaunted street smarts in action.
If I was gonna help out with exacting petty levels of vengeance on her past associates, I was gonna have to go all in.
And then the chorus of the song reinforced it.
“I wanna show you off, I wanna show you off.”
So much for secrecy. For the third time.
“Fine, go ahead,” I acquiesced.
“Sha-wizzy!” she enthused while choosing a glittering filter. “That means ‘sweet’, by the way. Okay, the first one’s gonna be a video.”
Cassie sat on the edge of the bed with pink-faced amusement in her eyes, watching as Monica picked up a ten stack and then leaned against me, holding it like a fan in front of her face.
A few seconds of her ‘cooling off’ with the cash and it was off to her Snapchat story. A few seconds later, the views and comments started coming.
Monica squealed with delight and started opening them one by one, showing me what people back in her old stomping grounds were saying.
‘You think you funny bitch?’ , ’Who dat?’, and ‘Slayyy gurrrl’ were just a few of the responses that came in.
And those were just the women. A smattering of thirsty, jealous men were next, asking her to pull up or where she was at.
She ignored them and answered some of the girls instead—in a series of emojis I dare not attempt to translate—some of whom were sending titty pictures trying to proposition for a threesome.
“Damn, that was fast,” I remarked with boyish delight at the numerous nipples flashing before my eyes.
And then one of her haters messaged, ’That’s only ten G’s. Not much money.’
Even I had to raise an eyebrow at that one.
“Well, if that’s gonna be her attitude, grab another stack,” I suggested with a churlish smirk.
Monica giggled. “Got anyone you wanna piss off? An ex, maybe?”
“Eh, not really. Actually… there is someone.”
Monica turned her head quick. “Who?”