Chapter 12: Home Away from Home

After a couple of hours, they came to a long drive. There was a gate, but it had started to rust and collapse in on itself over the years. Beside it was an intercom, which her mother had once used to screen guests, though Charlie doubted it could even be turned on anymore.

Charlie directed Beatrice to fly the hoverboard up the driveway, roughly a mile or so.

It didn't take long for them to come up on a house. It was a large, modern style house that had once been on the cutting edge of architectural style.

Now it was crawling with ivy, and had paint and brick chipped away here and there. The lawn had grown up around it, almost encasing it in raggedy mess of leaves.

Charlie swore she felt a cold chill run down her spine just looking up at it.

"What is this place?" Beatrice asked.

"It's my mom's old summer home." Charlie said, taking a step towards it.

"Won't they know we're here? Surely there's alarms or something set up." Beatrice frowned.

"No, no." Charlie shook her head. "My father doesn't maintain the property. They stopped paying for the alarm system years ago."

Beatrice seemed a very wary of the whole thing, and eventually said.

"I'm going to check just in case."

Charlie waited with crossed arms as Beatrice inspected the building for any sort of alarms or location transmitters. It took her a good hour of scanning and re scanning before she seemed reassured enough to enter.

As they approached the front door Charlie noticed the keypad used to unlock it. Although she still knew the code by heart (1017, her birthday), it didn't do her much good with the electricity shut off.

"How are we gonna get the do—"

Before the words were even out of her mouth, Beatrice sent a hefty kick towards the door. Then another.  And another.

Mouth agape, Charlie watched as, in three more kicks, Beatrice had the door flying right off of the hinges.

"Jesus Christ." Charlie said. "I didn't know super strength was one of your powers."

"It's not." Beatrice said wryly as she walked through the broken door frame.

Charlie grimaced and quickly followed behind her. "Couldn't you just like, mind crumple it instead?"

"I could." Beatrice said. "But I'm still tired from holding off those guys earlier. We could be in another fight in a day, or even an hour and I don't want to be over exhausted and unable to defend myself if it comes to that."

"Oh yeah." Charlie said.

She looked around, and took in the house. It was exactly the same as she remembered it, only much more dusty. The walls were still white, and the open concept living room was still perfectly decorated with the Art Deco furniture her mother had loved. It did, however, seem like the roof had started to leak in the years that the house had sat empty.

There were still a few things left here and there, probably exactly as they had been the last time Charlie and her mom had stayed here. That day.

She saw one of her mother's designer handbags on the table, covered with dust and slouching. There was an open tube of lipstick next to it.

Charlie grimaced at these things, not wanting to get closer to them. They seemed like ghosts of the past that threatened to haunt her if she got too close.

"I didn't know you were Japanese."

Charlie blinked, trying to bring herself back to the present.

Her eyes traveled to where Beatrice stood, looking up at the mantel. She was picking up a picture of her mom when she was young, standing in an airport in Tokyo. On the wall behind it there was a Japanese flag, covered in dust.

"Oh, uh. Yeah." Charlie said.

"You must travel there a lot." Beatrice said as she sat the picture back up on the mantel.

"No, I've never been, actually." Charlie said.

"Really? Why not?" Beatrice asked.

Great. Now she wants to be talkative? Charlie cursed to herself.

"My mom didn't get along with her family."

Not getting along was an understatement. To this day, Charlie didn't even know her maternal grandparents names, let alone what they looked like.

"Really? Why didn't she get along with them?"

"I don't know." Charlie said. "But it was apparently bad enough that she didn't even want to be in the same country as them."

"I can understand the sentiment." Beatrice said darkly. Thankfully, she changed the subject. "Do you think there's a generator on the property? I might could get some electricity going for us, at least."

"Maybe in the back?" Charlie suggested. "There's a shed where our repairman used to keep all of his things."

"That's a start. Are there any clothes here we could change into? I don't want to get my suit too dirty. It's hard to clean"

"Sure. Let's check in my old room."

Charlie hadn't considered just how embarrassing it would be to invite Beatrice into her tweenage bedroom.

"Nice bed sheets." Beatrice said, gesturing down at her hot pink kitten bedspread.

Luckily she didn't mention all of the celebrity posters on the walls, pictures of all of the prettiest teen actresses from ten years ago. To think her mother hadn't suspected a thing.

Charlie ignored her, though her cheeks burned hot, and instead focused on searching through the dresser.

"Most of these are probably going to be too small for both of us." Charlie said. "But I think I have some really big t-shirts that I used to sleep in."

After a few minutes, Charlie managed to produce one giant t-shirt with cats on it and one giant t-hirt that read: "# 1 Dad".

"I'll take the thunder cats." Beatrice said. "You can be the dad."

"Okay—"

Beatrice immediately peeled off her suit, which she had gotten quite sweaty in, judging by how it clung to her skin. Charlie's eyes widened as the constellation of dark purple bruises that had already formed across her body was revealed.

Beatrice had made it look like the rubber bullets barely bothered her. Charlie had assumed they'd barely hurt her, but judging by how bad her shoulder was throbbing, Charlie assumed she must have been in a lot of pain.

"You're hurt." Charlie said.

Beatrice paused and looked down at her splotchy torso. "Oh no. I'm okay. They're just bruises. It's not like anything's broken."

Charlie frowned. "Are you sure?"

Beatrice slipped the shirt on, hiding away the pale length of her skin. "Yes. I'm fine."

"Alright." Charlie said. She changed into her #1 Dad shirt, and also managed to find a pair of gym shorts that were stretchy enough to fit her.

She couldn't find any shorts that fit Beatrice, but it didn't seem to matter as Beatrice had was already going through the outside maintenance shed without pants on of any sort.

After a couple of hours Beatrice, miraculously, managed to get an old generator running. Now the house had electricity, but Charlie took note that half of the appliances and most of the light bulbs were no longer working.

"We'll need to take care that we turn the electricity off at night. If they're looking for us from the sky, they'll know we're here."

Charlie nodded.

"Great. I'll make us some food."

Charlie wanted to ask her nicely not to, since her cooking was so awful, but since she seemed to be in a nice, talkative mood, Charlie decided not to jinx it.

As Beatrice walked around the kitchen, Charlie brushed the dust off of the pastel blue couch and sat down.

Beatrice raised up her arms, and stood on the tops of her toes as she tried to get a bowl from the top of the cabinet. As she did so, her t-shirt rode to her mid back, exposing the black panties she was wearing. Charlie silently looked at her butt for a good thirty seconds before she mentally slapped herself.

Stop being such a creep!

Charlie cleared her throat and walked over to her side. "Do you want me to get that for you?"

"I got it." Beatrice said, her fingers still just barely grazing the bottom of the shelf.

Charlie leaned forward and pushed the bowl towards to edge. Beatrice reached up, but still couldn't seem to get a grip on it, so Charlie giggled and just grabbed the bowl.

Charlie handed her the bowl and their fingers touched. Charlie glanced down at them, then back at Beatrice's face. Beatrice's cheeks flushed bright pink and her dark eyes darted around, looking over Charlie's face with expectancy. Charlie felt her mouth turn up at the corners as a smirk crept onto her face.

The moment seemed right.

Charlie leaned in, half expecting Beatrice to pull away. But she didn't.

Their lips met, just barely touching at first. Charlie smiled into the kiss, and wrapped her free hand around Beatrice's waist.

Beatrice, surprisingly, started to kiss her back, moving her mouth hungrily, like kissing Charlie was something she had been dying to do. Charlie returned the favor, and let her hand run down to where Beatrice's waist curved into her hip, giving it a squeeze.

Beatrice suddenly pulled away, her breathing quiet but rapid. Charlie laid her head into the crook of her neck and breathed in her smell. It was a mixture of sweat and dust. Charlie assumed she probably smelled the same.

"God. You're so hot. I mean your face, your body..." Charlie laughed giddily into her neck. "I've wanted to kiss you ever since I first saw your face."

Beatrice's hands came up to Charlie's chest, and she gently pushed her away.

"I, uh. I think I should go check on the generator." She said quietly.

Charlie blanched as Beatrice walked away from her without making eye contact.

Fuck. I made it all fucky. Don't just stand there! Say something!

"Uh, Beatrice, uh, wait! What about dinner?"

No! Not that! That's completely the wrong thing to say!

"I mean, I haven't told you the last part of my plan!"

But at that point, it didn't matter. Charlie realized Beatrice was already out of the room.