Cherry Bomb

CHAPTER 6

AN ASTHMATIC BLOWS HARDER than the complimentary hair dryer in room 114 at the Old Stone Inn, but Alex makes do, brushing out her new strawberry red color while standing in front of the bathroom sink. She tilts her head forward, shaking out her long bangs, straightening while drying. When she finishes, her hair is still in front of her face. Alex looks into the mirror, then parts the bangs with her fingers, pushing the right side behind her ear and letting the left side hang flat. Covering her scars.

Alex stares. Sees someone she recognizes. Someone she hasn’t seen in a while. A beautiful old friend who has gone away and is never coming back. Fit. Trim. Still attractive, even a year shy of forty.

“I miss you.”

She kisses the tip of her index finger, then touches the glass, running it down the reflection of her jawline. Her hair falls back, revealing the pink ugliness underneath.

Without telegraphing the move, without even changing expression, Alex makes a fist and drives it into the mirror. Her image shatters.

She feels like there are coiled springs nestling in her muscles, bursting to be set loose. Naked, she lifts her arms above her head and rolls into a handstand, walking over to the area the bed used to occupy before she pushed it into the corner. She tilts farther forward, her feet touching the wall, and begins to do reverse chin-ups, her head touching the carpet with every dip.

When she reaches seventeen, the sweat comes, rolling down her ears and soaking into her hair.

Her arms begin to wobble at forty-six. She starts to pant, oxygenating her muscles, the lactic acid building and burning.

Alex pushes on to sixty, even though her arms are shaking so badly her balance is wavering.

By seventy-three, her left arm gives out, causing her to collapse onto her side. She rolls with the fall, tucking in her head, using momentum to get to her feet. Alex turns and launches into an explosive tae kwon do kata, kicking, twisting, and punching.

Her mind is both focused and clear as she forces her body through the moves, grunting exhalations called ki-hops with each blow. Her muscles remember every thrust and spin. The par tic u lar form she uses is traditionally done with four assistants, who hold boards at various heights to be broken by hands, feet, and head.

Rather than boards, she flails at the air, directing each strike at the unscarred face of Jack Daniels.

The kata ends in the splits, the toes on the forward leg pointed sky-ward, hands clenched into fists and spread out like wings. Her body glistens with sweat, and her breath comes in gasps.

With her heart rate still up, Alex flips over and begins a set of fingertip push-ups. She knocks off a hundred, rolls gracefully to her feet, and pads into the bathroom to towel off.

The cracked mirror tells her she’s still ugly. As if she needed the reminder.

The clock on the nightstand reads ten after three. Her date isn’t due until four, but from experience she knows he usually comes early. In more ways than one.

Alex doesn’t dress. Instead, she digs into her gym bag and removes a fresh roll of duct tape, a package of rubber bands, a box cutter, a Cheetah stun gun, and a handheld butane torch. The stun gun is pink, the shape and size of a cigarette pack. The torch looks like a phaser from Star Trek. It’s also pink, which delighted Alex when she found it at the home supply store. A girl has got to know how to accessorize.

Then she sits on the bed, lotus style, and waits.

Ten minutes later, David “Lance” Strang knocks on her motel door. She confirms it with the peephole.

“I’ve been waiting for you, Lance.”

She opens the door, lets him ogle her. Lance hasn’t changed much in the fifteen years since she’s last seen him. Same broad shoulders. Same strong chin. His thick brown hair has receded just a bit, and now it’s salted with gray, but other than that he’s exactly as she remembered him from their Geiger days.

Lance takes Alex in, staring at her legs, her tits, before moving up to her face. When he sees the scar, his grin falters.

“Yeah, sorry about that, Lance. And about this.”

Alex brings up the Cheetah and hits David Strang in the gut, applying a million volts to his nervous system. He jerks forward, and all two hundred and twenty fit pounds of him crumple to the carpeting.