Epilogue
I waited near the rear of the armored truck while Jenna stood at the mouth of the open hangar bay.
Cassie sat on the open edge beside Monica, who had since woken from her brief siesta to watch carefully as Mimi held up what remained of the Ichor in her hand, with Barry seated behind them.
“Just a taste,” said Mimi as she dipped her finger into the Ichor and held up a gilded finger.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Something I learned from you,” Mimi replied.
Cassie looked skeptically at Mimi's Ichor coated finger, then to me for confirmation. When I didn’t protest further, she parted her lips and sucked the Ichor off, squinting her eyes tightly as she swallowed it.
She shivered, her eyes shifted rapidly beneath her closed eyelids, and then her shoulders sunk into a relaxed posture like a weight being lifted off her shoulders.
When Cassie opened her eyes, she was perfectly fine, with none of the horrors she’d witnessed influencing her face.
“You okay, Cassie?” I asked as I moved closer.
“Yeah, actually,” she replied in a tone of surprise. “What I saw was horrible but, I dunno, I’m okay now.”
I looked at Mimi. “You desensitized her to the bodies?”
Mimi shook her head. “Healed. After everything we know about it, when I saw what it did for Monica, I felt like just a little bit could heal the mind too.”
“Is that how you feel?” I asked Cassie.
“You know what? Yeah,” she admitted with a pleasantly surprised smile. “I still don’t wanna go staring at the bodies, but my perspective is different. Like I’ve had time to process it.”
“Good,” I said, stepping closer to tilt up her chin and kiss her. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
Cassie giggled. “I’m still getting used to that.”
“Too fast?”
“No,” Cassie shook her head and then pressed her lips against mine. “Just right.”
I smiled in response, then looked to my left at Monica. “And as for you.”
“Aren’t you proud of me?” Monica sassed with a happy little head shake.
“That was badass,” I admitted, then grabbed her by her dark coiled curls and pulled her in for a kiss. “But you’d better not worry me like that again.”
“I won’t Daddy, I’ll just do something even more impressive.”
Her sarcasm got me to chuckle, and then I nodded into the truck. “Wanna go count the money?”
“Oh, my God, yes!”
She turned around and grabbed Cassie’s hand before pulling back into the truck, where bags on bag full of cash were waiting.
I then met Mimi’s gorgeous eyes. She closed the Ichor canister, set it down in the back of the truck, and leaned against the bumper with one leg crossed over the other.
“Today was crazy—best week of my life!” she gushed.
“We couldn’t have done this without you,” I uttered. “That thing you did with the shadow was insane.”
“I got to see you in action too,” she replied, biting her lower lip as her eyes scanned my face, then started counting off on her fingers. “Partying at my place, saving a girl’s life, I almost die but you saved my life, and then we bust a big crime syndicate? That definitely counts as dating.”
“We still have a vacation to go on, too,” I grinned.
“True. But before that, you promised me a kiss.”
Mimi suddenly threw her arms around my neck and pressed her lips to mine for a hard, passionate tongue kiss, no doubt smearing some of her black lipstick onto my mouth. I held the small of her back and felt her squishy tits against my chest, until she bounced back with a giggle.
“That was good,” I beamed.
“I’ve got something better for you later…” she flirted, then tilted her head sideways to peer at Jenna. “And I think someone’s coming.”
“Oh yeah,” I said, taking a step back as the sound of a car convoy echoed into the hangar. “Be right back.”
Jenna perked up and looked at me with concern as half a dozen federal cruisers pulled up with transport trucks and a number of utility vehicles.
I walked up to keep beside her as a large sedan pulled up in front of us, standing in solidarity as a pasty, dark haired agent stepped out of the driver’s side.
“Jaxon Dirge,” he said.
“Bill,” I nodded curtly.
Jenna recoiled and looked up at me incredulously. “You know Agent Ramsey? He’s your cleanup guy?”
“Something like that,” I said with a grin. “He owes me a favor or two.”
“Or two,” he said as he walked over to stand in front of us with his hands in his pockets.
“Okay,” Jenna blinked rapidly. “How?”
Agent Ramsey looked around as a group of men in hazardous materials suits started collecting Mutable specimen from the corpses in the hangar. “You see all these men? What do you think they have in common?”
“Uncle Sam’s salary?”
Ramsey chortled. “Every one of us was at Site Zero during the first Mutable outbreak, including Mr. Dirge. The reason I’m still standing is because he cured us. He cured us all.”
“You’re a Mutie?” Jenna breathed.
“Former. And there are a lot of people who owe you a great debt,” he said before looking at me. “You’ve made an impressive mess here today.”
“Hopefully it pisses off the right people,” I quipped.
“Take a vacation,” Agent Ramsey grinned back at me, then shook my hand. “You’ve got friends waiting when you get back.” —he nodded to Jenna— “Detective.”
And then the special agent took his leave to sanitize the crime scene. We stood there quiet while she took a moment to take everything in, then held onto herself in a self-soothing clutch, turning to meet my eye.
“What’s gonna happen to me?” Jenna questioned.
“Nothing. You were home sick, remember?” I said with a smirk.
Jenna smiled weakly. “I meant now that Gaines is dead. I’ve spent so long chasing my father’s killer, I don’t know what to do anymore.”
“Do you still wanna be a cop?”
She hesitated. “Yeah… I think so.”
“You think?” I challenged.
Jenna took a deep breath, exhaling up into the air. “I still want to do good out there, I’m just not sure what that looks like now.”
“Take some time to think about it, preferably over a tropical drink on a beach somewhere.”
“On my salary?” Jenna laughed bitterly. “No chance. I’ll probably spend the next two weeks in my apartment figuring out what to do with my life.”
“Your apartment? I thought we were roommates now?” I teased.
Jenna’s face contorted with hopeful surprised followed by skepticism. “I thought we were done?”
“We don’t have to be,” I said with a boyish shrug. “I could always use a redheaded nudist detective in my house to argue with—when we’re not closing cases and getting into trouble.”
Her lips parted, a light gasp coming between them. “You’re serious?”
“I’m thinking Bora Bora,” I said with a cocky, pensive look out into the distance. “You’re welcome to join us.”
And then Jenna finally smiled.
“Got you,” I said, aiming at her with a finger gun. “So what do you say.”
She looked me up and down with a cathartic breath. “Closing cases… so we’re officially partners now?”
I held out my hand. “Partners.”
“Jaxon Dirge,” Jenna looked at my hand, frowned at me, then turned around to accentuate her figure. “What do I look like, a man? The only thing I’m shaking is my ass. See you at home… partner.”
And then she walked off with her fine self toward the armored truck while the girls celebrated in a windfall of our newfound cash.
***
Over one hundred and fifty million dollars in total.
We didn’t even bother waiting, we moved my hoard to a secure, hidden location buried behind in the backup property where I cured the little girl, who agreed to cat-sit for us before we chartered a private jet and headed straight for Bora Bora.
And of course, Barry came with us.
It was a long time coming, with the cleanest blue water I’d ever seen. Isolated on a peninsula with bright sand and the smell of tropical trees everywhere.
We enjoyed ourselves inside the privacy of our tiki-style private bungalow with an open sunroof and three bedrooms.
Not that we needed them all.
Cassie, Monica, and Jenna were all sunbathing in the buff safely inside the straw walls while I reclined behind them on a white beach chair with wood framing beneath a shade made from an indoor tree canopy.
Mimi, rocking her black bikini, sat beside me in the shade, her pale skin looking whiter than ever in the bright paradise, spared from the intense French Polynesian sun.
As for the other three girls, Cassie laid in the middle, Monica to her right, and Jenna to her left not too far from Mimi and myself, who kept outside of the direct sun.
“I don’t get it,” Jenna said, her breasts glistening with suntan lotion and a mild sweat as she turned to look at Monica. “Why are you trying to get a tan?”
“What, I can’t get darker?” Monica retorted, her own breasts and brown nipples aiming at the sky. “Vitamin D ain’t just for white people! I’m mixed, anyway.”
“Well I knew that. Your dad, right?” Jenna replied.
“How would you know?” Monica frowned.
“Your last name is Shaw.”
“Oh… Stop being a detective, we’re on vacation!”
“You know what’d be really great right now?” Cassie spoke with a content, blissful smile and closed eyes, her nude body every bit as laminated from lotion. “Sex on the beach.”
“God, it would…” Jenna commented.
“No, I mean the drink! I mean yeah, I definitely wanna fuck in the sand—on top of a towel—but there’s a drink stand right over by where we came in.”
“I’ll go with you!” Monica hopped up to grab a straw hat and some sunglasses. “I can finally try on that new dress.”
Cassie walked past me and leaned over to give me a kiss, looking into my eyes with equal parts gratitude and affection. “You want anything?”
“Just you when you get back,” I said. “And these.”
I cupped her breast and sat up to capture her nipple in my mouth, sucking Cassie’s breast for the first time as she gasped with a pleasured yelp. And then I squeezed her ass and smiled at her. “See you soon.”
Her gaze softened into pure endearment. “I love you.”
“I love you too.”
“Dude, seriously,” she touched my cheek. “I love you.”
“I meant it, Cassie… I love you too.”
“Good,” she breathed. “Cause we’re having sex when I get back, and Monica’s licking your load out. Cream pie…”