Dragon

[DerVVulfman]

Chapter Twenty Five
Some Like it Hot

Beltsville. Morale couldn’t have possibly been lower. Hit had been weeks since the initial capture, and Lizzie Hardy was on the verge of total mental breakdown. She was still scanning the TV-radio wavelengths hour after hour, day after day, and finding--

“NOTHING!!” She screamed, slamming the television top. “ALWAYS NOTHING!! DAMN IT, CHRIS, WHERE ARE THEY!?!”

Rabikes exploded right back “I DON’T @#$%ING KNOW, ALL RIGHT?”

“SHUT UP!!!!” Pardy shouted from the other room. Moulty diddled and squawked angrily. John Diamond stormed out into the living room, livid.

“WHAT THE HELL’RE YOU DOING, YELLING AT HER!!” he accosted Rabikes.

Chris didn’t cool down. He heated up. “YOU KEEP OUT OF THIS, WIGWAM! YOU ABANDONED BECKY! BOTH OF YOU! I’LL YELL AT HER IF I FEEL LIKE IT!”

Diamond became furious. Pardy rushed in, screaming. “EVERYBODY STOP IT!”

But Diamond all but charged at Rabikes. “YOU SON OF A BITCH! I’LL BREAK YOU IN TWO!”

“COME ON!!!” Rabikes screamed, preparing to swing at Diamond.

Fred Freshee appeared out of nowhere and jumped between the two. “GUYS!!! Guys, guys, guys-- chill the hell out, for God’s sake!”

Rabikes was still tense. “Shut up, you Rob Lowe wannabe-- WHAT THE @#$%?!? FRESHEE?!? Where the hell did you come from?!?”

“Outside. Hi, Miz Hardy.” Chris and John backed off, confused.

“Lizzie, wiping away the tears, said weakly, “Fred... where have you been?”

“I told you. Outside.”

“OH, CUT THE CRAP!!” Pardy shouted.

“PARDY, STOP CURSING!” Lizzie snapped.

“WHAT? ALL I SAID WAS CRAP! CHRIS SAID @#$%!!!”

Rabikes, still on edge, had Freshee in his sights. “Everybody zip it!! I wanna know where the hell you REALLY were, or I’m gonna knock the living shit out of you.” He glancing at Pardy, then her older sister... “Sorry, Lizzie.”

Fred took some milk out of the refrigerator. He looked depressed... beat. “Calm down. I’ll tell ya. I’ve been all over the U.S. of A. looking for her... and that’s the God’s-honest truth. Take it easy, all right”

“Keep talking,” Rabikes ordered.

“Okay. Everybody stay calm. I got good news and bad news. The good news is... I found Becky in Los Angeles.” He drank a sip of milk.

Chris, Lizzie, Diamond, Moulty and Pardy all reacted, excitedly. Fred held up his hands. “AND?” Rabikes asked, bracing for the bad news. Lizzie was trembling, anxious for Fred to spill the beans. Moulty’s eyes bulged.

“And we took a car out of L.A... the two of us...” his voice softened, “then a motorbike, and finally... a train, but... but... they... oh, man, I can’t even say this... they... they... th-th-th-they...”

“FRESHEE!!!” bellowed Rabikes.

Fred looked up regretfully, took off his glasses, revealing his tired red eyes. He was sitting at the breakfast table. “They captured her again in West Virginia.”

Rabikes slammed the wall. Lizzie moaned and collapsed to her knees. Moulty lowered his widdle head. Pardy gulped. Diamond shouted “DAMMIT!”

Suddenly, Fred shot up, whipped open the front door and Becky Fox jumped in, smirking and “ta-daaing.” “SIKE!!!!!” Fred shouted, laughing.

Becky, on the other hand glared at her recent traveling companion with disgust. That was cruel, you apple-assed jerk.

The entire room and everyone in it exploded with pandemonium. Rabikes screamed and pulled Becky into the room for a victory spin. Moulty did loop-de-loops in his cage swing. Lizzie, shocked, almost fainted dead on the table, then smiled with sudden relief. Diamond sighed, shutting his eyes. And Pardy, who never takes off her baseball cap, screamed and triumphantly threw her cap high into the air.

“OHH, SURE!” Fred smiled wolfishly. “When I get back, it barely registers, but when SHE comes back, it’s a friggin’ Mardi-Gras! This is so typical!”

Lizzie walked up to Fred, laughing hysterically. “H-How long have you been together, Fred?”

“Days, Miz Hardy. Days. Imagine the horror...”

She got really close, head-to-head. “And why in the name of Napoleon Bonaparte didn’t you phone us earlier and tell us you both were coming?” she smiled sweetly.

“Ah, jeez, Miz Hardy... I forgot!” Fred flushed.

She hit him over the head with a frying pan. Coming from her, he didn’t mind. He lay semi-conscious on the floor. The others gathered around Becky, who looked for and found a decent notepad.

“Becky, what happened to you? We were worried sick!” Lizzie said.

OH, BOY! She wrote. WHERE DO I BEGIN? She touched her forehead.

“Never mind the notes, kid... talk to us. You did it before,” Chris urged.

Instead, Becky smiled and shook her head. Sorry, Chris, she thought. No can do.

Rabikes’s smile wavered. “But I thought...”

I’M OKAY, she wrote. THANKS -- ALL OF YOU. MISSED YOU GUYS. Becky wanted to tell them everything, about Dr. Roberts, Hunt, Fricker, but there was so much she couldn’t... like what happened in Utah... what she did to Pure Skumm.

She looked out into the dining room. Pardy Hardy approached her. HOW’S YOUR HAND?” Becky wrote to her.

In response, the eight-year-old shot Becky in the forehead. POIT!

“Pretty good, B.F... How’s your face?” she responded, twirling around her plastic gun on her trigger finger. “We’re even now, got it? My shooter’s empty and my work is done.” The girl said as Becky smiled and pried the sticky-dart off her forehead. “Hey, can’t you tell us what happened? Nobody tells me anything! What was it like being an assassin? Was it cool? Was it like Patty Hearst? Better? Worse?”

Becky wasn’t offended. You’re truly an original, kiddo. She saw Diamond whisper something to Lizzie, whose whole face lit up, grinning. She walked upstairs with the look of someone about to spring a surprise gift.

Becky wrote another note for Rabikes and Diamond: WHAT IF VSO DOES TRY THIS AGAIN?

Diamond replied, “We’ll face that if they try. If it happens, we’ll face that together, and you won’t be left behind next time. Right Chris?”

“Absoflamingutely.” Rabikes looked at Becky, then asked her, “Can I have a light, kid? I’m dying for a cigarette.”

That seemed to annoy her. SMOKING’S BAD FOR YOU!! she held up.

Rabikes laughed. “Especially when I’m floating sideways. Always looking out --”

“BECKY!!! MY GOD!!!”

Becky’s eyes widened. She cupped her hand to her mouth. IT’S DAVID!!! Furfy, his mouth wide open in shock, descended the staircase in three quick jumps. Lizzie watched at the top of the steps as Becky shot like a projectile into the ex-cop’s waiting arms.

“BECKY! OH, GOD, BECKY, BECKY, BECKY!!” Two people never held each other tighter. Clenching her mouth, she buried her head in his chest, her body convulsing with grief and relief, her mouth stifling her sobs, her eyes tightly shut. Furfy was crying too. “Y-You’re back! Oh, my God, you’re back!”

“Hrrrrrr,” growled Pardy, her envy and jealousy building up by the second. But Lizzie gave her a warning-look and she subsided.

“I know just how you feel, kid,” Rabikes whispered to Pardy.

She gave him a wary look. “You mean you’re gay?” Rabikes’s butt-muscles involuntarily tensed. To make matters worse, Lizzie had heard Pardy’s comment and giggled.

Furfy stroked the back of Becky’s head, and leaned in, kissing the tears from her eyes. Becky flinched. Nervously, she slowly moved from David.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

YOU KNOW ABOUT MY PROBLEM.

“Yeah. They told me. So?” He touched her chin, asking her quietly “What are you worried about, hon?”

CAN’T TALK TO YOU, she wrote.

“You just did,” David told her. “It doesn’t matter.”

CAN’T EAT, EITHER.

Furfy paused. “We’ll save a lot of money on food, then. Doesn’t matter.”

CAN’T DRINK, SMARTYPANTS.

He was determined to keep things positive. “Drink from the pool, honey. It doesn’t matter.”

What? Becky thought, amused in spite of herself. But then came the last note. I CAN’T MAKE LOVE. She didn’t think he had an answer to that one.

“Becky-- it doesn’t matter. I don’t care, and neither should you. You think a little thing like that’s gonna change my mind? You’re crazy. Did you let my face get in the way of your loving me? Not for a minute. You didn’t care whether I had a face at all. I want to marry you no matter what. You’re mine and I’m not letting you go. Now be quiet. Am I understood?”


She smiled, tearing up again. Okay, she thought. If you insist. They embraced again.

“Did you hear him? Lizzie whispered to Rabikes. “Wasn’t that incredible?”

“Hmmm... love without sex. No, I can’t relate” he mumbled back.

Becky relaxed and outside, arm in arm, with David. She kept considering her last moments on the VSO ship. It was hard getting Kevin Hunt or the doctor out of her mind. Both had been cruel and kind at different moments; she had often been at a loss on whom to trust. She was wiser now (she hoped), maybe even wilder, like Chris said. As for Hunt and the doc, one had ultimately chosen to kill her, the other to save her. Yet she didn’t want to think of Hunt in all-negative terms, despite his last actions. She wasn’t sure what to think. For now, save and free at last, wrapped in David’s arms, Becky Fox thought her own personal prayer for the soul of Dr. Damien Roberts, then added:

Thank you, Doc.

For Morton Downey, Jr. (1934 - 2001)