Book of the Lost: AAV-07d25-11: (A reverse harem, post-pandemic, slow-burn romance) (The JAK2 Cycle, Book 3)

by V. E. S. Pullen

  She drifted into silence, staring off at nothing again.

  What does someone say after all that? What do you say to break the tension, bring her back to the here and now? How do you express any kind of sympathy when someone just told a story about how the five thousand people that made up their entire world died around them, and then they had to keep living in the ruins?

  There are no words adequate to respond to that, nothing to say to the one person that could’ve saved them all if only they’d figured out the vaccine sooner. And she knew it: that knowledge was the weight dragging at every word, sitting in the corner like a smoking gun or bloody knife giving evidence to what she saw as her crime.

  I don’t think it was a coincidence either; the responsibility she felt was conditioned into her, she was programmed as thoroughly as any cultist, and she was never going to be able to rewire her brain like Tai did until she truly accepted it wasn’t her fault.

  Leave it to the dickhead to break the silence in the least empathetic way.

  “You mentioned the wind turbines and solar panels — is that how everything is powered in the bunker, too? Are we going to have to worry about external machinery that could draw attention or break down?” Greg asked her, snapping her out of her almost trance-like state. She jumped, looking around at the rest of us who were silent and completely focused on her.

  “Uh, no,” she said, fumbling with her water bottle again and deliberately not looking at him. “The bunker goes pretty deep underground. This whole part of the state is sitting on a fresh water aquifer, and there are a bunch of underground streams and watersheds that flow through here, and the preppers tapped into them. Most of the power comes from in-stream hydro units.”

  “Most of it? But not all? Where does the rest come from?” His attitude, the belligerence… I’m pretty sure every person there was glaring at him, which just made him even more abrasive. I reached out and set a hand on Luka’s shoulder, keeping him in place, and held up a hand to Sev. Now was not the time.

  Azzie huffed out a breath and shook her head. “Sure, Greg, this seems like a good time to go over all those specifics. Before you’ve seen anything. But hey, you’re finally listening to me for once so I should take advantage of that, right? Those hydro units sit about fifteen to twenty feet below a main pump room and two smaller ones — the units charge a battery system plus fuel the pumps, a filtration system, and a boiler in each station — and supply radiant heat and water for the whole structure through pipes running underneath the floor. Every pipe and drain throughout the structure has these built-in turbine blades so the water flow actually generates more power, and as long as the main hydro units continue to operate the pumps and the pipes don’t get clogged, it becomes a self-sustaining system. So the main hydro units power the pumps and provide most of the power, but water flowing through the pipes generates electricity through those turbines, which charge small battery clusters throughout the structure.”

  “How do you know all this?” the little boy asked, which was good because I wanted to know, too.

  “There are binders full of instructions and schematics and maintenance logs for every part of the bunker,” she explained, her smile strained. “You’re going to have to learn all this stuff too, you and Heather — your job is to keep this place running and maintain everything while we’re gone, because Mouse might want to move back here and this is her home. She and I figured things out together, and I’ll show you some of it, but you’ll have to take on the responsibility of learning everything about this place. You down with that?”

  He nodded at her solemnly, and her smile became more genuine and relaxed, until Greg opened his goddamn mouth again. “So that’s it? Mouse shows up and we’re out, and on our own?”

  I wasn’t positive, but it seemed like his entire attitude towards Azzie had changed in the last, oh, hour or so — approximately the same amount of time Azzie had become bitter and resentful, and Sev had been on the verge of killing someone.

  Somebody was going to need to start talking. And soon.

  “That’s up to Mouse,” she said, still not looking at him. “There’s plenty of room, but to be honest, your odds aren’t good right now. And if she wants you to go, you’ll go, because there’s a number of things I won’t be sharing with you. Like override codes.”

  I would’ve thought he’d argue with her, insist on some reassurances for his kids at least, but he didn’t. I glanced over and met Spider’s eye, realizing we were on the same page: him not bullying her about the override codes, more than anything else, meant that whatever went down with them was huge.

  Azzie ignored all of it, keeping her focus on the kid. “I think you’re going to like living here, Michael.” So that was his name. “The preppers lived here full-time and they were hardcore. There was already a lot of stuff here, we didn’t even realize how much, and Mouse and I set it up really cool in there. She had a whole town to explore and take anything she wanted from the furniture stores, the hardware store, the comic book store — every fucking store in town was picked through in the weeks that it took to remove all the bodies and decide what places were salvageable and what needed to be demolished.” She had a little smile on her face and a far off look in her eye. “Mouse hit every store in town, and it was late fall so a lot of places had gotten shipments in, in preparation for the holidays. There was a quirky little gift shop that sold all kinds of imported toys and decorations — mostly from Japan but lots of other places too. Mouse fucking emptied that place. We spent months going through all those boxes and decorating, you’ll see. She even looted some of the houses, then used her ridiculous humvee to bring everything she could handle on her own to her cabin, but she waited to open up the bunker until they brought me back to Salem. The two of us together carried it all through the woods — I used to be a lot stronger back then, and less prone to fatigue.”

  That nostalgic smile was gone. She got really still, and it was like the calm before a storm. She was staring at Rachel — completely expressionless but somehow full of fury, her hands gripping that water bottle like it was carbon she was crushing into a diamond.

  And Rachel? She looked away.

  “Why didn’t you live with Mouse?” Heather asked, distracting everyone.

  Azzie blinked, focusing on the girl. Her hands relaxed, and she sighed. “Because this place was secret, and I’m followed everywhere, tracked everywhere. I stayed with her as much as I could, but if I lived out here full-time, someone might come looking for me at the cabin and it was just a decoy. She stopped in there every morning and moved things around, rumpled the bed, and ate breakfast before work — maybe put some leftovers from dinner in the fridge. But she didn’t sleep there or anything, she lived out here. This was our home, me and Mouse.”

  Another family she lost, and another home she had to leave. I hated what was happening to her, hated it, but it was just another thing she had to give up to fulfill that crushing feeling of responsibility.

  “What about your tracker?” Tai said, pointing at her arm. “Didn’t they know where you were?”

  “Mouse and Greg rigged something that gave off the same signal, kind of like what we did with the cars,” she answered. “There was one at the game store too. When I’d get here, she’d turn it on, and I’d put this metal band around my arm that cancelled out the signal, then I could come to the bunker safely. We were very careful. We’ve always been very careful about everything — since the very first day, we’ve had a plan to get out if things went bad, and it might have evolved over time but the precautions we took just got more intense. It sorta feels like everything I ever did in the last four years was in preparation for this day.” She smiled at Michael again. “But like when I started living with you, we knew you guys would be in trouble if I left, so we had to make a plan for you too. We’d intended to stay in the bunker with you for awhile before really leaving, but that was before I knew what was really going on out there, and I’ve got so much I need to do.”


  “What do you mean?” Ryan asked cautiously, glancing at his brother. I wasn’t sure if they really were acting sketchy or I hated them so much that I was suspicious of everything.

  “If staying in the bunker is an option, maybe you should do that.” Jason was staring at her with an intensity that made me want to gouge his fucking eyes out. She wasn’t his. He didn’t get to look at her like she was.

  “It’s not an option, I need to get out there and start vaccinating,” she said, and her voice finally had a spark of life in it.

  I felt a sick surge of something I recognized as jealousy — I wanted us to be that important to her, and I kind of hated myself for being that selfish but I also didn’t care. Between the fucking Callises acting like they had some claim on her, and her own determination to do whatever it took to save the fucking world no matter what it did to her, I was all kinds of pissed off now.

  She’d bleed herself dry, not giving any fucks what it would do to us to lose her — does she not care that she could destroy us, and for people she doesn’t even know? She’s never going to be able to give enough for all of them that need her, and none of them are going to fucking care what it does to her.

  “You said you know how to make the vaccine, and you’re going to teach us,” Tai spoke up, and there was a tinge of irritation in his voice that I thought might match right up to what I was feeling too. “But eventually your barcodes are going to run out and the vax gun won’t be any use.”

  “I know,” she snapped, still on edge. “Some of them are going to have to be unregistered, people are just going to have to deal with that.”

  “It won’t matter for us,” Sev reassured her. “Our family doesn’t need registered doses. Sure, there are some who could benefit from it to be able to work legitimately in some places, but for the most part, all we need is the vaccine in our bodies so you can save the barcodes, stretch them out as long as possible.”

  “Same,” Spider said, shooting a look at Tai, and he nodded. “All we’d care about is that they can’t infect us now—”

  “Wait, what? What did you say?” Azzie stared around, looking for someone to laugh or tell Spider to cut it out or what, I don’t know. I keep forgetting how isolated they were from everything, that she might not know. “What are you talking about—?”

  “They use the virus as a weapon, Az. Wiped out an entire reservation in Montana two years ago,” Spider explained as gently as he could, and she imploded in front of us.

  “I— I can’t,” she stuttered out, shutting down completely like something was dying inside her. Then Spider was lifting her up and carrying her into the trees, and I stopped anyone from following them.

  “Give them a minute,” I said. “He’ll bring her back.”

  Chapter Two

  Spider

  I held her as she raged. I held her as she cursed.

  I held her as she begged me to tell her it was a lie, but I couldn’t. Hearing it may have destroyed some part of her, but she knew it was the truth.

  And I held her when she asked if I thought Mouse knew that they were purposely infecting people too. That, I don’t think either of us knew, not for sure.

  When she was done falling apart, I put her back together as best I could, reminding her that she was going to fix things and it wasn’t going to be like that anymore. The world was fucked up, but everything she’d been doing, everything she would be doing, was going to help change that. I don’t think I got all the pieces, and I don’t think they were all securely fastened together, but she was herself again.

  She was ready to go back, ready to get up from my lap and walk back to them, and I held her in place. I had my back against a tree, my legs stretched out, and she’d been sitting sideways tucked against me, my arms around her and my chin resting on the crown of her head. I kissed her hair and told her to wait.

  “I have something to say to you, Azzie.”

  She was exhausted before we’d even started walking here, and had been going non-stop since. She had no strength to push me away even if she wanted to, so she nodded her head against my chest and let me talk even though I knew she didn’t want to hear what I had to say.

  “None of this, none of the horrible things you hear about are because of you, or are your fault. You know that. I know you do. You are not responsible for the cruelty and greed of other people. You are not responsible for the atrocities that have been done. You are not going to be able to fix everything. Nod to tell me you understand that, and you agree.”

  She nodded.

  “Good. Eventually, you really will agree with me, but that’s enough for now.” She snorted and I squeezed her tighter, until she sighed and nuzzled against my neck under my chin. I knew my girl. I knew what she needed. “Along with not being able to fix everything, you need to start considering that you aren’t going to be able to fix hardly anything if you’re on your own. I’m not trying to be condescending when I say you don’t know what it’s like out there, but it’s just as dangerous as in here, okay? And just like you know all the dangers in here, we know all the dangers out there. And we need you to trust us.”

  She stilled, not moving. “So what are you getting at?” she mumbled, finally, but she didn’t pull away.

  “I— We need you to accept that you won’t be going anywhere alone. Not ever again. I don’t mean like you don’t get to go to the bathroom alone, don’t be a jerk, but we know you still think that when we get beyond the walls, you’re going to go off on your own, and I’m telling you that isn’t going to happen. You aren’t alone anymore, it’s not you against the world, it’s us — you, me, Tai, Sasha, Luka, and Sev. We’re a team now. We all believe in you, and what you’re going to do, and we’re going to make sure you can. We’re with you — we’re with you in every way. Okay? I need you to nod now.”

  Nothing.

  “Why are you fighting this?”

  “I can’t—”

  “Yes, you can.”

  “You don’t know—”

  “Yes, we do.”

  “Spider…”

  “Azzie.”

  She began to pull away from me, sitting up and making moves like she was going to get off my lap, putting her hands on my shoulders to steady herself. I grabbed her hips like I was going to help her get up, but instead I lifted her and settled her back down, facing me, and she was forced to straddle my legs. She glared at me but didn’t try too hard to get away. I kept my hands on her hips, and she had hers on my shoulders, and all of it felt right.

  She couldn’t hide from me like this. Every expression that passed over her face, I saw it clearly. Right now, she was a mix of exasperation, and fear, and that misguided determination to drive us away.

  “I’m not easy, Spider. I’m the definition of high-maintenance, and it’s only going to get worse. It’s also absolutely necessary that anyone I’m with is only with me. Do you really think any of you are going to tolerate that for long? And do you think — if I have even a taste of what that’s like, do you think I’m going to be able to give it up so easily? Just kissing Tai— I can’t go back from it, okay? I can’t separate it. I’ve kissed Sasha and I’ve kissed Tai, and I’m not going to be able to get over it if they change their minds about me after just kissing, let alone…more. It’s better not to ever have it, than have it and lose it. I know all of you are saying these things right now and you all really believe what you’re saying, but we need to be realistic. You need to be realistic. I’ll stay with you for a little while, just to get my bearings, but it’s better—”

  “Do you really think that any one of us will ever find someone like you ever again?” I interrupted her, so I could explain just how realistic we were. “And do you think any one of us would settle for less? Do you think we won’t compare every woman we meet, until the end of our lives, to you? We were already doing it after a matter of days, Azzie, before we even knew you, so do you think it’s going to change now?”

  She shrugged, but she wasn’t convincing herself,
let alone me.

  “And do you think that’s fair to all the low-class, ungrateful garbage people and spiteful-gash whores out there to constantly be compared to you and found wanting?”

  She snorted, looking up at me with those eyes, eyes that broke my heart every time I saw them dim a little more after being crushed by someone else. Now, there was a spark of hope, just the tiniest little spark, and I couldn’t let it go out.

  Not again. Never again.

  “No, it’s not fair to them. You’ve ruined us for other women. In a couple of weeks — half of which you were hospitalized and most of which you couldn’t stand us — you managed to completely ensnare five superior specimens of masculinity. We can’t function without you now. We’re completely dependent— fucking useless without you. If I had realized it, I would have run far, far away the moment the word fuckwad left your mouth, but I didn’t. Instead, I beat off that night thinking about you and that goddamn straw, and choking your pretty little cock-holster with my dick.”