“I won’t infect anybody else,” she said slowly, her nails digging into the couch until the pads of her fingertips protested.
“We don’t really know the truth about that statement, now do we? You’re the ultimate carrier of the most dangerous plague to ever attack mankind.” He lowered his chin, the movement somehow menacing. “You’re also here so I can make sure you’re not ready to check out.”
She rolled her eyes. “If I’d wanted to kill myself, I wouldn’t have traveled this far to do it.”
“Fair enough.”
She glanced at the unmade bed. Too many women had become victims as the world had disintegrated; the strong overcame the weak. She wasn’t weak, and she was no man’s plaything. “I’m not here for your amusement.”
“I’m not amused.” He leaned toward her, and her breath caught in her throat. “Let me be perfectly clear. I don’t force myself on women, and neither do any of my men. Any people here, and anyone we come across, remain safe from personal attack. Rape is a crime dealt with by death, so you have no need to fear.”
She’d heard that in the rumors and tales, but she hadn’t known it to be true. “Women don’t earn their keep, earn their protection, with sex here?” Wherever here was.
“No.”
“You were in an inner-city L.A. gang. Years ago.” She lifted an eyebrow. “Rape was against the rules?”
His face blanked. “No, but I’ve never forced a woman.” Those dark eyes narrowed. “My past is my own. You sure know a lot about me.”
Not really. He’d become a folk legend fighting in L.A. before the news had shut down. Since then she’d been trying to gather facts, but there were still blanks. “Why did you leave the gang? I’ve never heard why you entered the army.”
He rubbed his chin. “Judge gave me a choice. Prison or military. I guess he saw something in me.”
She let her shoulders relax. “I wondered.”
“Yeah.” Jax eyed her shirt just at her neck. “Can I see again?”
Well, she couldn’t really blame him. She set aside the pack holding her father’s precious journal. Her fingers remained steady this time as she unbuttoned the blouse and drew open the sides.
Jax’s nostrils flared, while a tension, one she barely remembered as sexual, overtook the atmosphere. “Does it hurt?”
“The blueness?” She glanced down, her lungs suddenly too tight. “No. I don’t feel anything.”
He reached out and gently took her wrist, shoving the sleeve up to reveal the track marks on her elbow. “This must hurt.”
His touch stirred awareness deep in her abdomen, and surprise paused her at the feeling. When was the last time she’d felt desire? Or even warmth from another’s touch? She glanced down at the scars caused by drawing so much blood. So many times, and outside of normal medical procedures after a while. “Yes. That hurts.”
“I knew a junkie once with an arm like this.” Jax shook his head and unrolled her sleeve. “The irrationality of a thing is not an argument against its existence, rather, a condition of it,” he murmured, securing the buttons at her wrist.
She frowned as the familiar words rolled around her head. “Einstein?”
“Nietzsche.” Jax lifted an eyebrow. “Rumor has it you’re carrying an advanced form of Scorpius. True or false?”
“False rumor to isolate me.” She tried to keep her tired eyes open.
Jax gestured toward her pack. “I get the food and water you have, but what’s in the journal?”
She sighed. “Sorry, but there’s nothing about Scorpius. My dad was a physicist and a philosopher. He wrote a lot down.”
Jax blinked. “That’s quite the combination.”
“Yes.” The words on paper were all she had left of her parents.
Jax studied her and then looked toward the gas lamp on the counter. “We have lanterns left, but not for long unless we get more fuel. So keep an eye on the lamp but extinguish it if you go to sleep.”
“I understand.” The guy was quoting Nietzsche? What kind of an ex-gang member turned army special ops turned leader of a vigilante group knew philosophy? She shook her head. Time to negotiate. “I’m here for a reason.”
“I’m sure.” He eyed her blue heart again. “You can cover up.”
She fumbled in refastening her shirt. “I’ll teach you everything I know about the illness, and you provide temporary protection and one kill.” The mere idea she was contracting a murder banished the desire humming inside her and replaced the heat with a lump of cold rock.
A veil fell over Jax’s eyes. “What makes you think we don’t know everything you do about the illness?”
She shrugged, wondering if he knew what kind of information he might have stored away just from his ransacking labs. “The Internet went down fast, much faster than anyone would’ve thought, and the news and television thereafter. No way do you know what I know.”
He watched her patiently, as if waiting to strike. “The Internet went down because of a guy named Spiral.”
She blinked. Wow. So Jax Mercury had some seriously good intel. “True. He was infected with the illness and then reacted by creating a world-class computer virus. Figured if bodies died, so should technology, since it got us in this fix in the first place.” Her instincts hummed. Underestimating Mercury would be a colossal mistake. Suddenly, and for the first time in way too long, hope struggled to unfurl within her. “I still know more about the illness than you do.”
“Probably.” He studied her for a few moments longer before cocking his head to the side. “What else?”
She cleared her throat. “I assume you’ve scavenged the area you control?”
His chin lifted. “So?”
She swallowed, her body stilling. “Did you scavenge the emergency CDC outpost on the southeast side of L.A.?” Her blood pumped so fast she could feel a vein in her neck bulging.
“Yes. Why?” he asked softly.
The softness contained a deadly intent that rippled a shiver down her spine. Her fingers fidgeted. “They had the most recent research, and combined with mine, we might have hope.” They also had intel on where Myriad, the ultra-secret lab, might be located.
He studied her. “We raided the CDC outpost and took all the medical supplies and paper records. Our limited medical personnel went through the files looking for cures, but I have to be honest, none of them are researchers with your background.”
Lynne leaned forward. “I’d be happy to go through all the information and decipher it for you.” Oh God. Maybe the risk of heading into Mercury’s territory would actually pay off . . . if she could find Myriad. “Could I look through the data?”
He leaned back and studied her. “Sure. Are you telling me there may be a cure?”
“We haven’t found a cure yet, and I think it’s unlikely. But maybe possible?” How many times in her life would she have to say those words? “There was some cutting-edge research into vitamin B and protocols for making it permanent in the body.” The vitamin helped infected survivors retain their sanity, somehow halting the stripping of the brain that the Scorpius bacteria caused. It worked even better if built up in the human system before infection, hence the inoculations. She could tell him that much, which was all true. And if the location of the lab that had done that research was in those documents, she’d finally find Myriad.
Jax stiffened. “Permanent? Meaning no more inoculations?”
“Yes. If we can get the human body to create its own B to slow down the fever and the damage to the center in the brain that controls empathy.”
His eyebrows lifted. “Looks like you’re going through boxes of paper starting tomorrow. For now, who do you want me to kill?” At the question, a new hardness entered his eyes. A look that judged her.
Her eyes stung, but she refused to look away or lower her gaze. “I’ll tell you when I’m ready.” For now, she didn’t know if she could trust him. “Do we have a deal?”
He frowned and rubbed his whiskers. “You kn
ow I have your knowledge to demand if I want, right?”
Her chin lifted. “You said you don’t force women.”
“I don’t force women to have sex.” He reached out and tapped her chest above her heart. “I have no problem refusing you food and sleep until you give up everything you know or even suspect about this illness. You should probably have thought of that before coming here.”
She had considered all the consequences, and the risk had seemed worth it. “You won’t torture me.”
“I will.” The softness of his tone was all the more deadly than if he’d yelled, proving his control and absolute conviction. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I will.”
Would he? No wavering, no conflict showed on his hard face. But everything she’d studied, and everything she’d found, indicated he wouldn’t torture a woman. Of course, desperate times and all of that. “This will go easier if we work together,” she said levelly.
His gaze delved deep. “You’re right.” He clasped her hand in his warm one and shook. “You give me what I want, and I’ll protect and even kill for you.” Releasing her, he stood, reached into the dented dresser, and tossed a faded Los Angeles Dodgers T-shirt her way. “Besides the car ride here, when was the last time you slept?”
She caught the worn cotton as well as the scent of soap. Something clean? It was almost too much to hope for. “I, ah, don’t know.”
He lifted his head. “Right. Bathrooms are outside, and they’re not bad. We confiscated new honey buckets from a warehouse, and if you need to go, there’s a guard waiting to escort you. No hot water anywhere here. Do what you need to do, change into the shirt, and the bed is yours for a few hours.”
Her eyes ached they were so tired. “I don’t need to sleep.”
“You’re no use to me if you pass out from exhaustion.” He lifted her to her feet as if she weighed absolutely nothing. “Take a nap—just change your clothing first.”
Her instincts hummed, and she eyed his amazing physique. He obviously trained often. “What kind of fighting forces do you have here, anyway?”
He brushed a strand of hair from her face and then grasped her chin, tilting it up. The switch from gentle to firm was undoubtedly on purpose, and the tactic stopped her short. “Let me be clear on how this will work after your nap. I ask questions. You answer questions. That’s it. No more. Do you understand?”
Heaviness weighed down her limbs, and grit scratched her eyes. Every ounce of spirit she still owned wanted to defy him. To take him on, just for pride. But her intellect and her body won. This time. “I understand.”
“Good.” He released her and stepped back. “Do I have to stay and put you in that bed?”
An image of his hard body in bed shot through her head, weakening her knees. What in the hell was wrong with her? She’d seen good-looking men before. This one took handsomeness to deadly in a way that stirred her blood too much. Although it was nice to feel something other than fear and desperation. Plus, she could certainly rationalize her physical reaction to him.
When death loomed near and survival became everything, biology made a fighter, a soldier, like him desirable. Need easily created lust.
He grasped her arm, yanking her from her thoughts. “Lynne?”
“You can leave.” She sidled out from his hold, and he allowed it. “I could use a couple hours of sleep.”
“Good.” He pivoted and headed toward the door, his broad back remaining to her. “I’ll have guards right outside, just so you know.”
She clutched the shirt to her chest. Her freedom had been bartered the second she’d made the deal. “I know.”
He left, and she quickly changed, her mind too tired to process much beyond the softness of clean clothes. Drawing out her father’s journal, she ran a finger over the imprint of his name. DR. FRANKLIN XAVIER HARMONY, PHILOSOPHIES. God, she missed him. Gently, she tucked the precious journal into the pack and moved toward the mattress.
Pressing one knee on the bed, she peered between rough boards on the window to the dark world outside. Dawn had been covered by a thick mass of black clouds. Just her luck to arrive in Los Angeles during the short but brutal rainy season. She couldn’t see a thing.
Sleep. As a scientist, she understood the value of regenerating during a sleep cycle. Sliding beneath the covers, she inhaled the masculine scent of Jax Mercury.
As she lay in his bed, having met him in person, there was no doubt in her mind that she’d underestimated him. He was much more intelligent, much sharper, than she’d thought. While she’d known of his absolute dedication to Vanguard, she’d figured she’d be able to maneuver around him.
Something told her she’d been wrong.
Chapter Four
It is a miracle the earth survived the violence of space, and it’s a bigger miracle that humans have survived the earth.
At the end, we will pass the way of the dinosaur.
—Dr. Franklin Xavier Harmony
Jax rubbed his gritty eyes and left Lynne in his room, already planning how to best use her. He strode down the worn concrete stairs to what had always been a crappy alcove that served as the entrance to the upper two floors of the rent-controlled brick building. The first floor had consisted of a free medical clinic, soup kitchen, and offices for attorneys down on their luck. When he’d created the Vanguard headquarters, he’d changed the clinic into a triage infirmary, the soup kitchen into a soldier cafeteria, and the offices into his war rooms. He’d tossed legal books out in favor of weapons.
Well, he’d actually burned them for fuel. The old laws no longer mattered.
Then he’d promptly punched doorways between the three areas for better access.
He hit the alcove, turned to go through the new doorway to the soup kitchen, which was dead empty at the hour of dawn. The smell of burned tomatoes followed him as he skirted tables and rickety lawn chairs for another new doorway, this one to the former waiting room of the clinic.
Banging echoed from the back of the suite, so he crossed behind the dented reception desk. He found his man in a room that used to be the lunch room of the clinic. A blue halogen lantern gave off an otherworldly glow in the small space. “How much B do we have now?” he asked.
Tace Justice, dressed in full combat gear, glanced up from a microscope they’d found at a junior high several months ago. It rested on a surprisingly smooth wooden table in the center of the room, across from a counter lined with other medical supplies. “Finished the inoculations for this month, except for yours, and this is it. We’re out, kaput, done.” He stood and grabbed a syringe. “Since you’re here, let’s wrap this up.”
Jax grimaced and tilted his head to the side.
The needle slid in, and fire flamed through his neck. “You have the finesse of a fucking elephant,” he muttered.
Tace shrugged. “I was a field medic, not a doctor or a nurse. Take it and shut up, or go to the main infirmary for civilians in the center of Vanguard territory.”
Jax scrubbed both hands down his face and glanced at a child’s drawing of a distorted blond guy with his head open taped to the wall. “Is that supposed to be you?”
“Yep.” The Texas twang deepened. “Not sure what it means, and the open head is a little creepy, but it’s nice the kids found some crayons.”
“Lena?” Jax asked with a sigh.
“Of course.”
The little girl often found a way to wander into military headquarters to give presents, and Jax had a drawer in his quarters of oddly shaped and painted rocks she’d showered on him. “They need to do a better job of keeping the kids inner territory.”
“Then you should go inner territory more so folks can see you,” Tace said.
Jax avoided going beyond his command unless absolutely necessary and stuck to the perimeter of the seven square blocks, making sure their defenses stayed shored up. Barbed wire fencing protected the entire territory, which was a trick he’d learned from serving at several military bases, and he didn’t want to di
scuss going inner territory. “We’ve been getting shot up with B for months. Is there any chance our own bodies will take over production of the vitamin so we don’t need the shots?”
“Hell if I know, and so far, the new data hasn’t helped. Nobody knows about Scorpius.” Tace winced. “I can just affirm from my own review of the public documents initially sent out by the CDC that vitamin B, in this concentrated form, provides a protection so that if somebody contracts Scorpius, they might live through it. The B seems to keep the bacteria from spreading in the body. By testing those who have confessed to being survivors, the CDC discovered the Scorpius bacteria localizes just in saliva and blood.” Tension rode his words. “Of course, most survivors don’t tell me the truth about it in our community, so I don’t know who has been infected.”
In his past life, Tace had been an army medic after having grown up on a Texas ranch with several siblings, all of whom had succumbed to Scorpius. Now he gave off a vibe of being one with the universe and at peace. But he was a damn good medic who at least somewhat understood Scorpius and vitamin B.
Jax grimaced as thunder rolled again. Shit, they needed rain but not bad wind. “It’s a vitamin,” he muttered. “Vitamin fuckin’ B.”
Tace blew out air. “The B vitamins deal with dopamine and serotonin in the brain, which has something to do with hormones and empathy. That’s all I know.”
Jax scratched his stinging neck. “Have you had much of a chance to go through the data we took from the CDC outpost and contracted labs in the area?”
“We went through it for medical data, but some of it was pretty confusing.” Tace stretched his shoulders. “Why?”
Jax rubbed his chin. “Lynne Harmony thinks she might be able to find a concoction that creates B in the blood so we won’t need constant injections. She’s not telling me everything, but I think she was truthful about that.”
Tace stilled. “Interesting. The research I read did talk about B quite a bit, but some of it might as well have been in Sanskrit.”
“You don’t know much.”