Jailmates

by Lesli Richardson

  * * * *

  Captain Zola Wright mentally cursed the four men walking a short distance in front of her.

  Could they possibly make any more noise?

  At that point, it wouldn’t have surprised her if they broke into bawdy drinking songs.

  They might as well, for all the racket they were making. Sneaking up on someone trained in concealment and who didn’t want to be discovered would be damn near impossible at this point.

  Then again, she hadn’t wanted this mission. She sure as hell didn’t want to be in charge of a group of lifer wonk privates who didn’t give a shit about what they did because of their job security.

  And, frankly, she didn’t want to find the man she was looking for.

  Not that she was dumb enough to admit that to her CO, or to the wonks assigned to go with her on this mission.

  She had less than two weeks left in her own two-year opt-in term. It was just like Half-Assed Hicks to assign her some bullshit job like this, even though she suspected the orders came directly from Colonel Craige above him. She’d never met Captain Russell Owens in person. Now that decorated sniper was a civvie, she really didn’t have any desire to meet him. Owens had earned his freedom, as far as she was concerned. Did his time, and opted out.

  Lucky bastard.

  Although unknown to her personally, she respected him, his reputation, and his record. They’d worked several missions together, without actually being face-to-face, him and his squad providing sniper cover to her Red troops on the ground. She knew his rep and his skill level—the best sniper the NNAA had, bar none.

  He had countless logged kills, maybe as many as she had, but she envied his ability to do it from a distance. Even though he was a Red, they were assigned to separate squads that never mixed despite being stationed at the Houston barracks.

  If that was by design of their higher ups, Zola didn’t question it. She focused on doing her job, no matter how much she hated it, and herself, as a result. Besides, with over ten thousand people stationed at the Houston barracks, not counting civvie personnel and civvie NOKs, it was a city unto itself. And as much time as Zola spent on the road on missions, there were people in her own unit she barely knew, much less people in other squads.

  Once she’d been assigned to the covert Red assassin unit at the Houston barracks after basic ended, Zola had never been able to get herself transferred out again despite despising the job. Had she known being good at what she did would mean seven years of hell doing it, she would have faked clumsiness, ineptitude with a blade and a choke wire, pretended she couldn’t track a blind, three-legged bull in a china shop at high noon—anything to keep from having to take lives and being pigeonholed as an assassin.

  Now they wanted her to find and talk to Owens, try to convince him to come back, opt-in for another term.

  How the frak am I supposed to do that when I don’t even want to be here for another opt-in?

  Not that she’d ever admit that to Major Hicks or Colonel Craige. She was no idiot.

  But she had to at least make the effort in front of the wonks, even though they didn’t know the specifics of her orders. If she found Owens, she was to talk with him. If he didn’t want to return, she was to report the conversation, his last-known whereabouts, and pass along his exact intended destination, if that intel was available.

  She hated that, too. Hated that she knew, deep in her gut, that her higher-ups wanted him back, dead or alive, regardless of what they’d told her.

  She’d found Owens’ burned uniform shirt earlier and had a hard time not laughing in front of the lifers when she told them it was probably from a hunter or transient, and they’d believed her.

  Burning the unneeded traces of her military life. It was something she planned to do herself in very short order, eliminate all hints of her Red career once she was a civvie.

  She wouldn’t be able to so easily get rid of the memories, or the bad dreams, or the 9001 chip status that would follow her to the grave and likely earn her looks of fear and grudging respect any time she had to be scanned, but at least she’d be free.

  Not that Hicks had said as much, but she suspected if or when Zola found Owens and reported his inevitable go-fuck-yourself reply, Colonel Immanuel Craige would order someone else be sent to take care of him. Likely from a Red unit under his command out of a different barracks, someone who didn’t know Owens and who hadn’t worked with him personally.

  If scuttlebutt was to be believed, it wouldn’t be the first time Colonel Craige had someone eliminated who he’d deemed too valuable to lose. Either that, or non-medical retirement opt-out Reds from Craige’s command had the worst luck ever. Maybe he didn’t want trained Reds running around with civvies, possibly able to hook up with Fundie rebel groups or thug bands that sprouted from time to time. Able to join with opposition forces, or even train others in their specialized and highly deadly tactics.

  Worse, someone who would know the Red playbook and be able to come up with counter tactics.

  That was her guess, anyway. She didn’t know for sure. No one had ever offered up a better supposition for it, and she never contributed her own opinion to those conversations. Last thing she wanted to do was have word get back to Craige or Hicks about her thoughts.

  Thus she kept them to herself.

  Besides, she’d never been assigned that task, to eliminate a Red opt-out. She had no concrete proof it ever happened in the past, either. Had never talked to anyone who’d admitted to doing it. Early on, she’d thought maybe it was just a calculated mind fuck meant to discourage Reds from opting out. Even though amongst the Reds the rumor mills sometimes worked overtime, there was too much circumstantial evidence of it to be merely coincidental. Usually, it was rumored, they picked a lifer Red to do the dirty work.

  It apparently wasn’t a widespread practice amongst the Red units under other commanders, as far as she knew. Zola wasn’t stupid enough to blow the whistle on something she couldn’t prove, especially not this close to her own opt-out.

  If Colonel Craige couldn’t have them, no one could. That was, she’d heard, his unofficial mantra. A dead Red didn’t count against his opt-out stats. She also knew he took great personal pride in his opt-in numbers, for some crazy reason.

  She didn’t care why. That was above her pay grade.

  She knew his philosophy would likely apply to her as well. Which was why she’d never come right out and told Craige or Hicks that she wasn’t going to opt-in a second time. They’d just assumed she was, a belief she was happy to nurture and encourage despite never outright saying so.

  What they didn’t know was that people from her closely-knit area in the Carolina Territory had a long history of rigging the conscription, ever since the system was created following The Great Turning. They had been smart enough to fake their info when registering children, traveling for days or even weeks to rego centers far from their homes, and once there lying about where they lived.

  The NNAA didn’t have a means of verifying anything before it was entered in their computers. Rego center wonks rarely questioned someone claiming their origins in the local region when they registered children, even when they obviously weren’t from there. And if doubts were raised, the lifer wonks running the rego centers were easily convinced to look the other way with a token of appreciation, such as a bottle of home-brew, or a pack of 420 smokes, or a medium coin passed under the table to them.

  Zola and her brothers had all been registered via the San Antonio rego center. Her mother had been registered out of Detroit, and her father out of Chicago.

  The NNAA wouldn’t be able to track Zola once she opted out. She’d made sure to verify that. Once a conscript opted out, their chip status was changed to freeman. If someone ever wanted to check her, once the ID number was cross-referenced with the status database, that was it. They didn’t have the ability to check names anymore. The overtaxed and ancient computer database system was far too fragile as the population had slowly begun to rebo
und, placing even more of a strain on it and the quickly degrading satellite network.

  Zola already had her plan in place, had done her research. She’d claim she was heading back to her listed hometown region of Tampico, in the Old Mexico territory. That was where she’d reported for her conscription not long after she’d turned twenty. After she opted out, she would even journey south along the Texas coast from Houston, in case anyone followed her from the barracks.

  Once she was sure no one was able to track her true destination, she’d head home to the Carolina Territory.

  And then figure out a way to make a normal life for herself. She was still young. She still had a long life ahead of her.

  Hopefully.

  A long life to figure out how to rid herself of the nightmares she suspected would plague her for years.

  At least pet cats and dogs wouldn’t care how dead and broken she felt inside. Although Zola struggled not to think of the pets she had to leave behind in her parents’ care when she’d left home for her conscription.

  It hurt too much, knowing that most, if not all of them, had probably passed in the time she’d been gone.

  She’d always envied those who’d lived before The Great Turning. They’d had life so much easier. No forced conscription period. Their wars had been fought in distant countries with aircraft and missiles that could bestow death from a distance. What had been America had been peaceful. A population that could stand together and help one another.

  Her great-grandfather had told her stories as he showed her books stored in his basement, pictures of a time well before her birth twenty-seven years earlier. Before a meteor struck the Earth and devastated a massive section of the eastern Asian continent, as well as triggering tsunamis and cataclysmic global conditions that killed off over two-thirds of the world’s population within the first five years between starvation, diseases, and violence.

  Before billions of people died and countries fell, dissolved by the disaster and by the deaths of their people.

  Before the New North Americas formed, when there were still separate countries and states comprising the North American continent, and not one central government slowly rebuilding things one industry at a time.

  Before, they had technology and machines that made life a breeze compared to today.

  Fuel that flowed from pumps anyone could operate, filling vehicles that could take you anywhere you wanted, without a care. Vehicles nearly anyone could afford to own and operate and drive.

  Next year marked the one hundredth anniversary of The Great Turning. People had finally eked out lives and rebuilt communities as the weather patterns improved, making large-scale farming of crops and livestock possible again in much of the continent. She wanted a chance to live. To work.

  Maybe even find someone to love and raise a family with.

  She damn sure couldn’t stomach spending her life as a paid killing machine for the NNAA. The only reason she’d stayed in for one opt-in period was because she’d stupidly believed John Porter when he’d said he loved her. He was staying in, and had begged her to opt-in, to stay with him.

  That they could have a life together. He had spent months seducing her, getting her to fall for him.

  And she’d fallen, hard and painfully.

  She’d been dumb enough, naive enough, to fall for everything, thinking someone could love someone like her. A paid killer.

  Not this time. Never again.

  Zola paused and held her breath. Ahead of her, the sounds of the men faded into the night. But there was…something.

  The feel of a large animal close by. A predator.

  Watching her.

  It wouldn’t be a bear or a large cat, because those had been hunted almost to extinction in the warmer, open climes of the South. They were only found in the North, and in mountainous regions.

  This was neither.

  And they weren’t close enough to a body of water for it to be an alligator.

  She closed her eyes and waited, listening not just with her ears, but with all her senses.

  It could be a person, but she’d scented no traces of a fire, spotted no signs of human life, other than the idiots ahead of her, ever since they’d found the campsite earlier.

  If it was a person out there, they definitely didn’t want to be found.

  This was, she’d told Hicks, why she was refusing a vehicle when he offered her the use of one. Owens was smart enough to head out on foot. She couldn’t be expected to track the man if he went off the road if she was zipping along and couldn’t watch for subtle signs.

  Half-Assed Hicks had agreed with her rationale. Then he’d said Colonel Craige wanted her to take the wonks, and she knew she couldn’t argue with him about it. It’d look too suspicious.

  What she didn’t want Hicks to know was that refusing a vehicle had also been a stall tactic on her part. One well-trained man, alone, could move far faster than she and four lifer wonks could. They would hike through the night tonight and stop for a couple of hours around noon tomorrow to nap and rest during the heat of the day, when they could more easily set a watchman.

  In this case, her rationale was that she wanted to try to get ahead of Owens, let him catch up to them. Again, logical thinking that Hicks and Craige couldn’t argue against. Owens likely would have holed up for the night and only move during daylight hours. Without someone to stand guard, he wouldn’t camp out in the open and would want every advantage.

  After a few moments, Zola opened her eyes again and moved on. Yes, she realized there was a very good chance it was Owens somewhere nearby out there in the dark.

  If it was him, it meant her logic was—unfortunately—accurate. Because they would pull ahead of Owens.

  But the last thing I want is an encounter with Owens in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere. I have less than two weeks left before I opt-out and run. Professional courtesy.

  She continued walking, determined to catch up to her thunderous herd of wonks and light a fire under their asses to pick up the pace.

  * * * *

  For more information about The Great Turning and other books in the series, please check out the series page on my website.

  Free Preview: Bleacke's Geek

  The following preview is chapter one of Bleacke’s Geek (Bleacke Shifters, Book 1) by Lesli Richardson.

  Description

  When girl meets geek, the fur’s gonna fly.

  Dewi Bleacke is a no-nonsense Prime Alpha wolf. As head Enforcer of the Targhee pack, she’s in charge of Florida. Her assignment is to kill a dirtbag who sold his daughter. She doesn’t expect to find her handsome, albeit geeky, soulmate in the process.

  Dr. Heathcliff McKenzie Ethelbert lives a quiet, boring life. A professor at USF, he has no girlfriend, no car, and is a devout vegetarian. So when a mysterious woman with mocha eyes literally drags him out of his booth and then proceeds to have her way with him, it’s not his average night out. When she follows their sexy interlude by abducting him after killing a man, he suspects life has just taken a drastically odd turn.

  Now Dewi, her partner Beck, and her surrogate father Badger, have to educate her new “grazer” mate on the ways of the Targhee wolves. “Ken” does his best to fit in. But an old killer lurks in the shadows—the wolf who murdered Dewi’s parents. Can she keep Ken safe, or will her mate prove to everyone that he’s a lot more than just Dewi Bleacke’s geek?

  * * * *

  Chapter One

  The parking lot of a crowded neighborhood sports pub in north Tampa, not too far from the University of South Florida, on a steamy, early June Saturday night.

  Nothing unusual about that.

  Leaning against her car, she patted her hip. Through her black, double-breasted oilskin coat she felt the comforting weight and profile of the nine millimeter in its holster. The coat, a man’s style that she’d had custom-tailored to better fit her, hung midway down her calves, the back split up to her ass, allowing her unimpeded mobility. Tonight
she wore black jeans and an oversized black, button-up shirt, with a black tank top on under that, along with her black leather motorcycle boots.

  Admittedly clichéd, but it hid blood well, if necessary.

  Pushing away from her black Saleen S281, she strode toward the pub. Two college-aged guys standing outside the front door went slack-jawed and silent as they stared at her approach. She didn’t need her special abilities to know what they thought as they watched her stalk across the wet parking lot. Coat billowing behind her, combined with steam rising from the tarmac, a smooth, silent gait that made it seem as if she floated, and a kick-ass car.

  She could practically hear their erections rising.

  Frat Boy One shifted position a little so he could crane his neck to look around her and get a better view of her ride.

  “You walk within ten feet of it,” she muttered, just loudly enough that they could hear as she passed them, “and I’ll rip your balls off and have them deep-fried as my appetizer.”

  Both men immediately took a step out of her way, giving her a wide berth as she entered the pub.

  As she’d expected, no one inside noticed her entrance. It was a busy Saturday night. The waitresses looked frazzled, while the puck drop of the Bolts-Blackhawks playoff game on TV held most of the patrons’ attention.

  Her intended mark sat in a far corner booth, with his back to the door while he shot the shit with three of his scumbag human friends.

  Good. He’s not expecting it. Stupid fuck. How could you sell your fifteen-year-old daughter to a drug dealer and not expect retribution from pack elders?

  It boggled her mind.

  She preferred to not take him down inside the main dining room, especially since there were a few kids in the pub. At least not kill him in the open. Maybe if he got up to take a leak, then she could do it back in the bathroom.