“Who?”
“Mick Trubble. He's the person responsible for their deaths. He’s a remarkable man.” Kelly’s eyes flicked to Jinx’s body. “She met him once, I believe. He might have been the one to help her escape the Haven. All which led to us being here now.”
Happy dropped her head. “I’m not interested in the Troubleshooter. If the Agents are dead, then there’s no reason for me to go with you.”
“Then our business is concluded.” Kelly turned, following the other Wildcats into the shadows of the forest.
Cash waited for the sound of their footsteps to fade before he scooped Jinx up and jogged to the Battle-Cat with Happy and Mateo. "Is the adrenaline shot prepped?"
"Of course."
"Good. Looks like her jamming signal worked on their vitals detector too. Let's wake her up and get out the hell out of here while we can."
Mateo ran to the door and activated it. "Hey, Cash. Are we gonna tell Jinx that the Gutter Girls want her to join up with them?"
He raised an eyebrow. "Let's keep that one to ourselves, okay? What she doesn't know won't hurt her, know what I mean?"
Mateo nodded solemnly. "Yeah, Cash. I want her to stay with us too."
The Florida coastline was a picturesque display of white sands and sparkling, blue-green ocean waves. It was blazing hot, but Cash stayed cool laid back in a lounge chair under a wide umbrella on the deck of a local bar and grill called the Crab Grab. He relaxed in shorts and sandals, a bottle of Horse Piss lager in one hand, dripping condensation onto the faded wood of the deck.
He adjusted his sunglasses and grinned. “Don’t get much better than this.”
“Tell me about it.” Jinx finished applying suntan lotion to her legs. She lay in a hammock nearby, her formidable curves on full display in a yellow swimsuit. Leaning back with a contented sigh, she picked up a shrimp cocktail and nibbled. “For the first time in years, I can finally relax without worrying about someone trying to put me in cuffs.”
“Yeah, courtesy of the guy who put you in cuffs.”
She playfully threw a shrimp at him. “Don’t pretend like you weren’t gonna turn me in, papi chulo. It’s a good thing you’re such a bad Nimrod.”
He plucked the shrimp from his chest and popped it in his mouth. “Hey, that hurts my feelings. It all came together in the end, right?”
“Yeah, can't argue with that. We make a pretty good—aaugh!" She squealed when a cascade of sand sprayed over her from a rumble bike that slid to a halt right in front of them.
Mateo pushed his goggles up on his head, staring at Jinx in dismay. "Sorry 'bout that. Still getting the hang of this baby." He patted the handlebars of the brand-new fat-wheeled, fusion-powered rumble bike. A slender, long-legged woman in a tiny pink bikini sat behind him, tanned and beautiful, dark hair flowing in the wind like silk.
Jinx leaped to her feet, using both hands to dust sand from her hair. "Do you know how long it's gonna take to get this out?"
Cash gave Mateo a thumb's up. "Nice bike, kid. Who's your new friend?"
"This is Esmeralda. She's my girlfriend."
"Your girlfriend? That's… kinda quick."
Mateo grinned. "She said she'd be my girlfriend all day and night for two gold bulls. Isn't she nice?"
Cash groaned, slapping a hand against his forehead. "I think we need to have a talk, Mateo."
"I got this." Jinx stalked over, speaking in Spanish so rapidly that Cash couldn't make sense of anything, except the word puta used repeatedly. The woman cringed under the onslaught, hastily shoving the bulls in Jinx's hand before leaping off the bike and running across the beach, throwing anxious looks over her shoulder to make sure Jinx wasn't following.
Mateo's eyes widened, staring at Jinx in confusion. "What did you do that for? She was beautiful and extra nice!"
"And extra expensive," Jinx said, handing his gold cards back to him. "Trust me, Mateo. You don't want what she's offering."
He scratched his head, staring after the fleeing woman. "I sure thought I did."
"Tell you what — you give me a ride on your new bike. I'll watch your back and keep the leeches off of you."
"Yeah? Okay, cool. I don't like leeches. Hey — does this mean you're my girlfriend now?"
"No, more like your bodyguard." Jinx hopped on behind him, placing her hands on his shoulders. "Don't go too fast, okay? I’m not crazy about bikes."
He slid his goggles on with a grin. "What's that? Can't hear you."
She shrieked when they took off in a burst off spraying sand.
Cash snorted with laughter, watching them zoom away. "Jeez. Look at them. Just kids having fun." He glanced over at Happy. "Hey — you okay?"
She sat quietly in a beach chair, a bottle of whiskey in her lap. In a T-shirt, shorts, and with her auburn hair down she could almost pass for an ordinary beachgoer. But the scars and bionics marked her as anything except ordinary. Her stare was unfocused, her mind a million miles away.
She blinked at his question, turning his direction. To his surprise, a tear slid down her cheek. "I don't think so, Cash."
"You seemed to take Kelly Crimson's news pretty hard."
She nodded, scrubbing a hand across her cheek. "I wanted to see him. Look him in the face and ask him why."
"Who?"
"Mike Trudo. There was a time when… it doesn’t really matter now. All that matters is that I thought I could count on him. I trusted him with my life. And he betrayed that trust. Ruthlessly. I've never been the same since that day. All of this—" she gestured to her synthetic parts. "This isn't the worst of it. The worst is what he did to me. All I wanted to do is kill the others. Make them pay for what they did. It's justice. It's fair. I didn't get to kill Natalie and Franklin, and I'm okay with that. Either way, they got what they deserved. But Mike… I had to know. I didn't feel like I could move on unless I saw him face-to-face one last time."
Cash sighed. "I guess I'm the last person to talk about moving on. I'm the guy who just put his dead fiancé's brain into a prototype synoid, after all. But she died because of the trust I put in my partner. So believe me when I say I know how you feel. But one thing I've learned is that life goes on whether you want it to or not, Happy. You can't control the things that happened to you. All you can control is how you cope."
"How do I cope, Cash? Every time I look in the mirror, I see what they did to me. Every night I relive it in my dreams. What if I can't move on? Then what?"
"Then you keep trying. That's all any of us can do."
She shook her head, a crooked smile on her face. "Your optimism is really aggravating to someone determined to be depressed; you know that?"
"Yeah, I tend to do that." He glanced at his holoband when it buzzed. "Well, looks like Deejay's download is complete. Wanna come and see her wake up?"
"No. Feels like an intimate moment for the two of you. I'm just going to sit here, watch the sunset, and kill this bottle."
"Have fun." He eased out of the lounge chair and headed for the Battle-Cat.
"Hey, Cash."
He stopped, turning halfway around. "Yeah?"
"Thanks."
"For what?"
"I was fading in and out on the rooftop with Kilgore. But I remember what you did. You could've shot Kilgore and collected the bounty. You chose my life over bringing him in. I'm… not used to that. It's been a long time since anyone chose me."