Chapter 31

I turned and there was Marlene Garrett, hurling toward me with murder in her eyes. I flicked on my camera and passed the phone to Gina to record everything.

I could see the cops she’d been traveling with picking themselves up about sixty feet away. She was still cuffed, but that didn’t seem to phase her. She was furious at the sight of me. I stood my ground and waited for her to reach me. The area was clear as Gina backed away so she wouldn’t get hurt.

Sometimes the universe hands out strange gifts. Tonight was a gift from the universe or God or Disney or whatever higher power you feel is most firmly in control of events. Thy Will be done.

I curled my fingers into fists and snapped out my left, feeling the satisfying crunch of cartilage giving way as her nose bent and flattened before her momentum carrier her into me. Her hands went to my throat and I let them. I was looking to inflict as much pain onto her as possible and I only had a moment or two before the cops pried us apart. I swung my left hand as hard and as fast as I could, using my weakened right hand to hold her head steady with a vicious grip on her ear, twisting and mangling it as much as I could as I pistoned my fist into her jaw as hard as I could, wanting to break bones. I felt them start to give way and felt a couple of teeth bounce off of my face and skittle away.

She was shrieking incoherently as she tried to strangle me, her fingers digging into my throat as I beat her mercilessly. I was lying on my back and she was on top of me. I wondered where the cops were and worried that airport security was playing jurisdictional grab-ass while we fought, so I took the bull by the horns. I grabbed her other ear, feeling the cartilage crumple like cardboard in my fist, twisted and pulled her down while I lunged up. My forehead shattered her cheekbone and when her grip on my throat loosened, I grabbed the handcuffs in both hands, wrenching them as violently as I could back and forth until I felt her wrists break and her hands hung limply.

I kicked her off me and shakily got to my feet. The cops were coming toward us, but it looked like they’d been taking their sweet time, maybe hoping I’d press charges. I was gonna do a Hell of a lot worse than that. I grabbed her ankles and stood over her. “This is for the girls you brutalized,” I seethed at her in a loud enough voice to be heard on the video. I raised my foot and drove it down on her pubic bone with everything I had.

The scream that ripped out of her was worse than any sound I’d ever heard and I savored it in sadistic glee. She thrashed on the ground, pissing herself and possibly shitting herself at the same time.

“That’s what we do to people that sell little girls in Boston, Bitch!” I said to her and then I spat on her. “Welcome home.” I was aware my voice didn’t sound right and coughed a little, my throat starting to hurt a fair bit now that I was done having fun.

“Are you okay?” one of the cops asked. There was a large lump raising on the side of her face where Marlene had hit her or knocked her over hard into something.

“I’m Captain America,” I rasped, feeling my throat delicately. “I can do this all day.”

“She just went ballistic when she saw you standing there. I’ve never seen anything like it,” her partner gasped. He was holding his ribs and seemed to be having trouble breathing.

“Get that checked out, Soldier,” I told him. “Looks like you might have a couple of cracked ribs from whatever she did to break free.”

“Yes sir!” he threw a salute, playing along. “You’re the guy with the YouTube channel?”

I nodded. “The video from Thanksgiving was one of her gang. The one at Halloween was several of them.”

“Thanks for your help in apprehending an escaped fugitive,” the first one said, offering me her hand.

“No problem,” I said, my voice still feeling like I had something loose in there. “I suspect she’s too half-dead to give you any more problems.”

Gina had come up beside me and pointed the camera down at Marlene. She was passed out, covered in blood, had very clearly pissed herself and her hands hung at strange angles.

I crouched down into the shot and smiled at the camera with some obvious effort. “I’m sorry. Where are my manners? This is Marlene Garrett. She invited sixty girls she was friends with to a party one weekend, drugged them all out of their minds and then sold their bodies to the highest bidder. She’s a little miffed with me because ... well I’m not certain why she hates me. It could be because the young man who shot me and lost his life was one of her close friends and helped her organize and carry out that sick deed or maybe she thinks that I played an important role in bringing her to justice. Either way, she’s likely to be VERY angry that she failed to kill me tonight. She’s probably going to be a little embarrassed that she just shit her pants too, but I think she’ll get over that.”

I patted her cheek and stood up. “I think that’s enough footage for the world,” I told Gina and she stopped the camera and handed the phone back to me.

“Putting that up tonight?” the cops asked as we waited for their Boston counterparts to arrive.

“Maybe,” I said thoughtfully. “Maybe not. I mean I just beat the living shit out of a girl.” I sniffed the air. “Literally.”

“I am NOT cleaning that up,” the female cop said, making us laugh. Airport security had the area cordoned off and were herding people away from it.

A few minutes later, the Boston contingent showed up, one of them looking down at the human wreckage and swearing softly at her condition. “What the HELL!??!” he blurted, looking toward the two officers that had been on the plane with her. Then he caught sight of me.

“Why am I NOT surprised to find you here, covered in blood?” he asked.

“I’ve missed you too, Officer Daniels,” I said with a laugh, immediately reduced to a coughing fit.

“It’s not his fault,” one of the officers confirmed. “He was standing here waiting for a different plane when she broke loose and attacked him. He was defending himself,” she said.

“He always is,” Daniels said dryly.

“I’m here to pick up my fiancee,” I told him. “Her plane is just pulling up to the jet-way now,” I pointed, my voice sounding like a twenty year smoker.

“Alright. DA Forbes isn’t gonna like this,” he warned and I nodded.

“Tell him to get a copy of the airport security footage and it’ll show what happened,” I promised. “She was screaming that she was gonna kill me and she had her hands around my throat. You can hear my voice. I was in real danger.”

He nodded and jotted it down quickly. “I’ll tell Forbes to call you, but the officers called it self-defense and I have no doubt that the security footage will show the same. At least this one still has her head attached.” He looked down at her and shook his head. “She might wish it wasn’t when she wakes up.”

“For the record, I would like very much to press charges. Could we see something in an Attempted Murder trial?”

He nodded. “Not surprising. You’ll probably have to talk to some more officers later on.”

“Can we do it at my place after I’ve had some rest and medical attention?” I asked.

He nodded. “Tomorrow,” he said.

“Evening,” I confirmed. “I’ll be seeing doctors after school.”

He finally let me go and we went over to meet Emma.

“You okay?” Gina asked gently. “You sound bad.”

“I’ll live. You asked earlier if I ever let my sadistic side out to play,” I reminded her. “That was a little taste.”

She nodded. “Thank you for that,” she said softly.

“Thank YOU for recording it,” I said. “The other girls are gonna want to see it. I don’t think we can post it though. Violence against women.”

She nodded. “Let’s talk about it at home. You know you’re covered in blood, right?” she said delicately.

“Well, it’s too late to clean up now. Might as well wear the war-paint home,” I said, spotting Emma coming down the jet-way.

She spotted me and her eyes flew open as she ran to me. “OH MY GOD! WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU?!!?” she demanded loudly.

“I had to stop and say hello to Marlene,” I said with a slight smile. “She was arrested last week and brought in to stand trial today. She should still be laying on the floor over there,” I pointed where they had the area cleared for paramedics. “Those would be the people tasked with scraping her off the ground.”

We explained what had happened with me coughing occasionally and I showed her the footage Gina shot.

“I’m not sure we can post it, but the girls should see it,” I said.

She nodded and we collected her bags when they cleared the baggage carousel. “I love you, Slugger, but I’m not hugging you until you get a shower.”

I laughed and coughed and picked up her bags. “At least I’m walking better,” I said lightly. “Let’s go home. I can’t wait to see the reaction from the girls to this news.”

We walked out to the car, drawing some horrified looks for my condition and then we were off. I was grateful traffic was light. Gina and Emma chatted in the front seat and I had the back to myself. Gina explained that she was just about moved in, which was news to Emma.

“Well, I challenged him to ask my parents if I could and they said yes. I brought most of my clothes over today,” she explained.

She laughed at that a little bit and turned to look at me, shaking her head. I’d taken care to leave the blood on my face alone and played with the souvenir I’d found stuck to my shirt after the fact. I smiled back at her, which must have looked strange because of my appearance. “We’ve missed having you here,” I told her truthfully. “The girls are meeting us at the house to discuss something related to the case and then I’m going to be taking a quick shower and we’re gonna catch up on that kiss I owe you before we eat.”

“What’s for dinner?” she asked, suddenly focused on that.

“We ordered pizzas since the cheerleaders are waiting for the meeting at the house. Lana’s in charge of saving us a whole one so that the three of us can eat,” I told her.

“Good!” she said. “I’ve missed good pizza,” she said.

“They don’t have decent pizza in LA?” I asked incredulously.

She shook her head. “I’m sure it exists somewhere, but the best pizza I ever had was in Chicago. The stuff here is good, but out there, if you don’t order from Little Caesar’s, you get toppings like tofu and eggplant slices instead of pepperoni. At least that’s the way it was at the places close enough to order from.”

“You get pizza from the poor part of town,” I suggested. “It’s supposed to be frat-food. Cheap, easy and goes well with beer. So campuses and slightly poor neighborhoods are the best demographics for pizza. Areas where personal chefs tend to work, do poorly for pizzerias. Not that I’d suggest you wandering around dangerous areas of LA for the sake of pizza,” I assured her. “Maybe we should look into good recipes to make our own and try our hand at it this summer. Of course, we’d have to make twelve pizzas for the number of people we’ll have.”

“Two less now,” she said with a sigh. “How are you taking that?”

“I was pretty bummed for a minute,” I said with a shrug. “Gina breathing life back into me after that took a lot of it away. Losing out on the baby hit me a lot harder than I realized it would. I’m not so bad about Cheryl now. If she needs to go her own way for her recovery, that’s what has to happen. I was really looking forward to the baby though.”

“I know,” she said sadly. “I can still hook you up with that girl who wants your sperm for her baby,” she suggested.

I shrugged. “Let’s see how the next few weeks go and then we’ll decide on that. Talk to her and find out what she wants from us as far as raising the baby goes. We might not be comfortable with what she tells us for answers.”

Gina glanced at Emma sideways. “There’s a girl that WANTS Matt to get her pregnant?” she asked, surprised.

“She wants a baby,” Emma said. “She’s not so attached to having a husband, boyfriend or anything like that, but she wants the best genetic partner she can find. Matt’s good looking, doesn’t suffer from any diseases, he’s reasonably sane, freakishly smart and driven to succeed. If there’s a more perfect partner, I can’t think of one.”

“So you might be a dad after all,” she said, perking up some for me.

“Maybe,” I said casually. “It depends on what we want and what she wants.”

“I KNOW what YOU want,” Emma teased suggestively. “You want a milk-maid of your very own.”

“Very cute,” I told her. “I still think a pregnant girl looks really hot,” I defended myself, “and so what if I’m curious what breast milk tastes like?”

“I’m not saying it’s wrong,” she backed up right away. “I just think it’s cute how you look forward to it and most guys even twice your age just see the work.”

“Guy’s are stupid,” I pointed out. “Remember Tony? Ten minutes of wisdom and he’s got his head together enough to date two girls. I try not to put myself in the same category as guys for the most part because of how stupid they are.”

“Girls aren’t much better,” Gina pointed out. “Marlene went after you in front of fifty people while she was still wearing handcuffs.”

I smirked at that. “She’ll regret THAT for a while,” I laughed. “I used the handcuffs to break her wrists.”

We laughed about that as Gina pulled into the driveway and we got out. The street was lined with cars, so clearly, the girls had arrived. I wondered if Cheryl was there and I lifted Emma’s bags out of the trunk with none of the strain it would have taken to carry them even a week ago.

“Let me go in first,” I grinned mischievously, making them laugh. We were a few minutes late so the rest of the girls should have been starting to get bored by that point.

I opened the door and turned my back, pulling the suitcases behind me before I turned around to a sea of eyes.

“What the fuck?!!?” Lana exclaimed, seeing blood all over me. “What happened?!!?”

I grinned broadly. “You run into the most unexpected people standing around the airport,” I told them. “Gina and I were just chatting quietly, waiting for Emma’s flight when an old acquaintance ran up to give me a hug. We have some fantastic footage of what happened next.”

I crooked a finger for them to follow me and I made my way through the crowd to go downstairs. They filed down the stairs and watched as I plugged the phone into the computer to download the video.

I set it up and started it before standing aside and watching the girls. Several were lounging on the bed as they watched, but I noticed Cheryl had come as far as the doorway and hadn’t stepped inside.

They watched the video of me breaking her bones and beating her senseless before I drove my foot down into her crotch as hard as I could. I could hear a few of them crying softly and I understood. She’d been the person who’d destroyed their lives and she was disgraced, humiliated and broken in their names.

“I’ll let you girls watch that again while I go get a quick shower to wash all the blood off,” I told them. “Then I can at least give hugs and kisses to all who need them.”

I grabbed my robe and ducked out of the room, passing Cheryl without stopping to talk. I crossed the hall and closed the bathroom door behind me, stripping off my clothes and getting into the shower to wash the blood off my face. I’d already decided that my jacket was fucked and so was the shirt I’d worn. They looked like I’d rolled in the sluice trough at a slaughter house. I took a few minutes to bask under the spray and opened my mouth, taking in a mouthful of water to gargle a little of it in hopes of soothing my throat. I seriously thought about calling Victoria after I was done in the shower. I sighed and shut off the water, vowing to do it after I talked to the girls.

I dried off quickly and threw on my robe before opening the door and returning to my room. The video wasn’t playing when I walked up to Emma and kissed her deeply. “Welcome home, my love,” I told her softly. “I’m sorry for the delay in giving you a proper welcome. I’ve missed you these past two weeks.”

She grinned. “I’ve missed you too,” she said, running her fingers through my short blond hair. “It’s gotten a little longer,” she noted. “Talk to the girls so we can eat and then you can fill me in on everything that happened while I was away.”

I nodded and turned my attention back to the girls. “So, that obviously wasn’t the reason I asked for you all to come here tonight,” I told them. “I felt it was important for you to see it though. I don’t know that we’ll post it online. It’s pretty brutal and it’s me beating up a girl. That’s not looked on favorably.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Emma told me softly. “I think if we did an introduction and explained what she’d done and how she attacked you, that might put it in the right perspective.”

I nodded and let it sit for now. “The real reason that I wanted to meet with you is actually closely related to it. The police executed a search warrant at Marlene’s house last week. They found a treasure trove of evidence. There’s a complete list of everyone who paid Marlene, including how much they paid and who they paid to be with. That means that Cheryl can use that information to track down the father of her baby if she chooses and the rest of you can finally know exactly who abused you that weekend.”

I paused and let that sink in, letting them digest that the list could fill in blanks for them. “That wasn’t all they found though. There was money and drugs, which is to be expected. What came as something of a blow was the last thing that they found. Marlene documented the event. I don’t know how many pictures there are or what they show, but DA Forbes told me that they recovered pornographic materials that were made that weekend. I’m so sorry to be the one to tell you that.” I grimaced. “DA Forbes told me the images are already out there, shared to the internet. It’s possible that’s how word of the party spread around the school and why some people persist in bugging you. Mr. Forbes said he would allow you to see the images if you wanted. He promised to have a female assistant sit with you and interview you about your recollections base on what’s in the pictures. I also wanted you to know that I talked to Principal Peterson and the school is going to host an assembly to discuss rape. It’s being held this Friday. I want to be clear, none of you are being asked to speak or are being asked to come forward. None of you will be identified by name, but the topic of Marlene’s party will be brought up in general terms.”