Daring Dooz (The Implosion Trilogy (Book 2)) Read Online Free Page A

breathless. She turned to look at herself
in her nice new full-length mirror - from Ikea’s Spunksplat range - and had to
admit that she looked more than a little flushed. Sure, her pink complexion
might be because she had just pulverised one of the world’s top crime syndicate
enforcers in three seconds flat. But she was prepared to think it just might be
because there were signs of an ever-so-tiny bond, who knows, an ever-so-tiny bond
with a romantic tinge, growing between the two of them.
    She breathed deeply,
although anyone watching would have said it was a sigh of contentment. As she
clasped Aubrey’s hand tightly and looked towards the bathroom door, her head
began to fill with images - a bit hazy, but, nevertheless, they definitely were images. Images of a future. A
future so different from her past. A future shared. A future with a man she
could love and protect. A man she could depend on.
    Unfortunately, as she took
her first step, Aubrey’s spindly legs buckled and he passed out again. This
time, his head did hit the parquet
floor. But so transfixed was Mrs Hathaway by the pastel images that flowed like
sweet music through her brain, the sickening noise of cranial impact on polished
mahogany didn't even register. She stared straight ahead, held his hand tighter
and, with steady steps, and a faint, far-away smile, dragged his limp, bleeding
body across to its appointment with her recently reconditioned geyser.
    *
    Mrs Hathaway’s bathroom was
not designed to treat someone who had just had the living daylights beaten out
of him. In fact, it was designed to envelop her in an environment she could
only dream of, and certainly never afford. If you ignored the plastic avocado
bath and 1930’s black and white tiles, the rest was pure fantasy. The walls
were completely covered with a photographic image of a coral island - a
turquoise lagoon surrounded by palm trees, a white sand beach, with a little
wooden pier with protruding posts leading to a beach bar covered in palm fronds
- and everything bathed in bright tropical sunlight. There were even two
seagulls doing something on the beach bar roof. The other bathroom wall was
painted sky blue and decorated with shells, ceramic models of fish, glass
floats in nets and a collection of old compasses collected over the years from
the Portobello Road market.
    ‘What
do you think?’ she asked Aubrey.
    It was only then that she
realised Aubrey was out like a light, and deeply ensconced in his own fantasy
world. An unpleasant, very scary world, where it was perpetually pitch black,
and the only thing that happened was you got punched hard, lots of times.
    She sat him up on her
favourite, pink and gold Lloyd Loom chair, and thought about what to do. He was
still unconscious, but the bleeding was less profuse. However, his white shirt
with the sweet, crumpled collar and his oversized, pinstriped business suit
were covered in the stuff.
    She ran the bath, and the
recently reconditioned geyser performed admirably, apart from the odd bang. She
removed Aubrey’s bloodstained jacket, shirt and tie. It was then that she had
her first shock. She hadn't seen a lot of men naked, but even without an
in-depth knowledge of the male form, she rapidly came to the conclusion that Aubrey’s
body must be one of the most nauseating sights on the planet.
    His skin was very white,
apart from the bloodstains, and seemed too big for him. At various places, it
hung over itself in little triangular folds. Close to each fold, groups of
three or four thick, jet-black hairs sprouted out for about an inch. His
nipples were as pale as the rest of him, so unless you got really close, which
she simply hadn't the nerve to do, he appeared to have no nipples at all. A few
more thick black hairs grew out of his navel, which had stretched downwards
like the bags under old W H Auden’s eyes.
    This was going to take some
overcoming, she thought. The pastel images and sweet music were fading fast.
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