The Cost of Being Special (Survival of the Fittest Book 1)

by Shawn Keys

  Not needing to be invited twice, Kyle used the hidden strength in his arms to curl the two women so they were both lying with their sides to the panda, as if both hugged by its fluffy arms. Then, his palms worked under their shirt and sweater. He was blessed with being pretty much ambidextrous, a talent that his jiu jutsu work had only developed. Using those skills in the best possible way, he unhooked their bras from behind and gave him room to play.

  Danielle was rapidly catching up from her original caution. When she felt her breasts pop loose, she moaned into Laura’s mouth, eliciting a delighted laugh from her friend.

  With that encouragement, Kyle took the hem of their tops and pushed upward. He carried the cups of their bras up as well, spilling the closest of both their breasts out into the air. The two girls shifted, trying to give him access, which resulted in them smushing their other breasts against each other, nipple to nipple. That sensual sight boiled Kyle’s blood a little. He leaned in and spiraled a tongue around Laura’s aereole. It firmed into cute little ridges, and her nipple stood out in the air like it wanted more. He sucked it into his mouth, followed by devouring as much of her breast as he could.

  Laura let out a feral purr. “Oh, he’s hungry! Mmmm, oh yeah, that’s soooo nice…”

  A soft pout followed as he released her with a sweet little pop! Shifting over, he lapped at Danielle’s breast and gave her an equally yearning treatment. Not to leave Laura in the cold, his left hand swam up her skin and enveloped her breast, wet from his saliva, and kneaded it with pleasantly massaging strokes.

  Kyle didn’t give one damn about how fragile the lock on that door was. This was too intense now to turn away.

  * * *

  Jack turned into an open parking spot on the street, not wanting to get hemmed in within the actual parking lot. He nearly slammed into the car parked in front of him when his partner gave a cry of alarm. “What?”

  Even though it couldn’t possibly do any good, Jill shook her arm computer in frustration. This is the kind of fucking day this has been! She cursed inwardly. Aloud, she merely griped, “L.O.S. on Hutching’s implant.”

  Jack looked puzzled. “Loss of signal?”

  Exasperated, Jill snipped back, “Yes, that’s what I said!”

  “What, did he fall off the roller coaster or something?”

  “I didn’t say he flat-lined. I said it disappeared. That means he didn’t cut it out or anything.”

  Jack frowned. “We’re not in the middle of the woods here. There’s no way he isn’t getting a signal this close to a city.”

  Opening the door, Jill went over to the nearby fence looking out over the fair grounds. The sun was almost set, which meant the lights were on. The Ferris wheel towered over everything, while the whip-saw movements of the roller coaster and the pendulum motion of the galleon rides all drew her eye, doing their best to tempt in riders with the neon lights and flashing patterns. Once Jack joined her, Jill waved at the loud, chaotic mess. “This place set up shop fifty years ago and never moved. It’s pretty much a fixture around these parts, operating below code wherever they can get away with it. How much lead paint and asbestos lined walls do you think are in there? And who knows what else?”

  Jack grunted. “You think he crawled into a hole that is blocking the signal by accident.”

  “Could be on purpose.” Jill shrugged. “He hasn’t been avoiding us. We just took time getting to him. There’s no reason for him to go into hiding now.”

  Jack brought his own computer up. “Let me call up the history. It’ll show exactly where he dropped off the map. We can start there. If you’re right, and he’s taking a nap under a lead blanket, shouldn’t be hard to find him.”

  Jill nodded. “Good idea. Can’t get this one over fast enough. This day needs to end. Now! I’m sick of it. Once you have him locked down, I’ll get a baseline test kit and the CRAGG. We’ll only have 45 minutes once it is out of the freezer, and the baseline takes 15 to process. If we have to search for him first, we’ll have to move fast to make it all work.”

  Jack shrugged. “We could haul him back here to the truck. Can do it all here.”

  Jill considered that. “If he gives us any lip at all, we’ll smack him around a little. But it would be nice if he plays nice and we can do this all friendly-like.” She changed a few settings on her arm computer. “Put it on local detection. The signal will bounce around all over the place in there, but at least we’ll get some sort of read on him when we’re near.”

  They made the changes, then set off into the carnival grounds, heading for the game tents where Kyle Hutchings had last been located.

  Chapter 6

  If anyone asked Kyle, he would say things were on a wonderful pace. The two girls seemed to agree. None of them were rushing, content to lavish attention on each other in the privacy of their little hideaway.

  Both of them had stripped away their tops completely, right along with their bras. Bare from the waste up, Danielle was leaning against the panda-pillow, while Laura was pressing into her to kiss passionately. Laura was wandering her kisses up and down Danielle’s neck, while her breasts grinded softly against Danielle’s own mounds and along her stomach.

  Kyle was behind Laura, kissing his way from the nape of her neck and down her spine. His hands were groping her behind through her jeans, and now wandered along the hem in search of her front button. He located it, and with a careful flick, he popped it open and gave himself a little more space for exploring. His hands returned to her backside, slipping in to cup into her taut flesh.

  Laura hummed in eager response, wiggling her rear against his hands to goad him on.

  Oh yes, Kyle thought. This is going perfectly! He looked over Laura’s shoulders at the face of Danielle, her eyes closed in sweet pleasure, biting at her lip and cooing into Laura’s ear. If Laura’s lithe body wasn’t enough to get his blood steaming, that expression would! All the old fantasies about Danielle came rushing back as if they had never left. And to have Laura there as well…

  Kyle only hoped he was going to survive this.

  It was totally worth the risk.

  He was about to push downward on Laura’s jeans, aiming to crest the fabric over her shapely ass when a shout interrupted him from somewhere back near the entrance.

  “Kyle Hutchings!” The strident, male voice wasn’t any of the jerks who had given them trouble earlier. There was a maturity to the voice. A sense of purpose that made him sound like an authority figure on the same level as parents and teachers and what-not. “Kyle Hutchings, we know you’re in here somewhere. We need to talk!”

  The call instantly killed the mood.

  Danielle’s eyes went wide, mouth opening.

  Laura clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle her gasp. She put a finger over her lips and made a whisper-quiet “Shhhh!” sound.

  Kyle snatched fast for their tops that lay on the hay-strewn ground not far off. Inside his mind, he was ranting, Damn damn damn damn damn damn! Agony ran through him as he saw the girls tugging their clothes back into order. What are the fricking chances? He was going to kill whoever that was out there!

  Danielle hissed lowly, “Who is that? That’s not Fred!”

  Gaining a little more sanity as his lustful blood cooled, Kyle shook his head fast. “I have no idea. Umm, finish getting dressed and I’ll have a look.”

  Leaving the women to wrestle themselves back into proper attire, Kyle crept back far enough to find a space between the piles of abandoned machinery. He took in the black suits on the man and the woman there, as well as the careful way they moved through the outer part of the barn-garage. They moved like they expected to be ambushed. Actually, they’re moving like they’ve already been ambushed once recently, and they expect to be hit again.

  Unable to guess why, Kyle retreated back to where the girls were hiding. As weird and frustrating as this was, his alarm was receding. “G-men of some kind. Bet they are FDPC. My teacher said they would be trying to get a hold of me to t
alk about my tests.”

  Laura was surprised. “They tracked you down out here? Wow, they really care about their jobs.”

  Danielle nodded, and asked, “You want to stick around and do that now?”

  Both girls were back in a state where they could walk around in public, but both of them were still looking very mussed. Their hair was deliciously ruffled, their lips pouty from the intense kissing, and their sweater and shirt were not sitting quite right on their bodies. They looked like they had just crawled out of a bed, and were very much ready to be tossed back into one.

  With that sexy image, Kyle shook his head. “Hell, no. There’s more than one quiet place in this city, right? Want to find another one?” He hoped with all his heart the mood wasn’t totally dead. Were they willing to go rekindle it somewhere else?

  Laura flashed him a heated smile. “Run from ‘the man’ and celebrate with a little more fun? I’m in.”

  Danielle smiled supportively, maybe not quite as eager to ‘stick it to the man’, but not wanting the night’s fun to end. “We know our way through this place. Come on. We can lose them. We can cut through the rides area and out into the parking lot. I have my car there.”

  With half-a-plan in place, they kept their heads ducked low and snuck toward the far end of the barn-garage. The place turned out to be a bit of a nest, with one building leading into the next. It wasn’t planned that way at the start, but the carnival workers had cut tunnels in the side of walls and build shelters so they could move from one storage shed to the next without getting exposed to the weather.

  The problem was, no matter how fast they moved and no matter how well Laura and Danielle knew their way through the abandoned garbage and rusted machinery, the agents seemed to be keeping pace. They kept calling out, pleading for him to come out. “Kyle Hutchings! This is a standard procedure! We need to talk to you immediately!”

  For some reason, the longer they got delayed, the angrier the agents were getting. And the angrier they got, the less they sounded like anyone Kyle wanted to talk to.

  Eventually, he figured it out. He dragged the girls to a stop. “Shit! This damned implant in my arm! They have me lo-jacked! No wonder we can’t lose them! They probably know you two are here as well.”

  Danielle clawed at her arm instinctively as she realized the problem. “Then why aren’t they right on us? You can pinpoint people down to a few feet with these things.”

  Kyle’s mind scrambled to figure it out. Then, his considered the old hulks surrounding them. Then, his eyes drifted up to the sheet metal walls and fraying paint. “This place. Look at all this crap. All of it is as old as the hills. Must be messing with their signal.”

  Laura nodded, convinced he was right. “I’m beginning to get why all those activists were super angry when these implants came out. I never really got the big deal. But I hate this. It’s like being hunted.”

  Danielle pointed out, “You and your Dad hunt all the time.”

  “Yeah, and I hate being the deer. You still want to get out of here, Kyle?”

  Kyle nodded. “I’m getting the creeps from all this. But once we leave the sheds behind, they’ll be on us quick enough.”

  Laura plucked up an old piece of curved metal that had been ripped away from one of the walls. It was multi-layered, full of lead paint and a bunch of other crumbled wire insulation. “Don’t think a few minutes holding this will kill you. Just… don’t lick it or anything. Hold it over the arm and shoulder where the implant is. That would kill a cell-phone signal, so I’ll bet it’ll screw up the implant as well. Get the hell out of here. We’ll run interference.”

  Kyle’s eyebrows rose. “Really?”

  Danielle smirked. “Remember what our fathers do for a living. They could buy any six of these agents if they mess around with their daughters. We’ll be fine.”

  Kyle remembered, especially Danielle’s special forces father. “Thanks for reminding me.” He had the sudden, fearful image of a terrifying guy like that walking into a back bedroom in their house to find Kyle and Laura ravishing his daughter together. “That rules out meeting at your place.”

  Catching on, Danielle laughed evilly. “What? Military Dads loved meeting the guys who are sexing up their daughters. Gives them someone to practice on.”

  It helped lighten the mood.

  The laughter ended when they heard the two G-types call out again. “Kyle Hutchings! Do not take this lightly, we are warning you. This is a mandatory meeting! Get out here, now!”

  Kyle mouthed the word ‘wow’, and whispered, “Not going to happen.”

  Laura pecked his cheek with a kiss, then grabbed his phone and entered her number into it. Danielle did the same. Then Laura said, “Text us later to tell us where to meet you.” She smirked. “Don’t leave us hanging.”

  Kyle shook his head, then favored them both with a smile. “You two keep getting hotter, you know that?” Filling his memory with one more helping of their beautiful forms and sexy smiles, he ducked under the hole in the outer shed wall and bolted across the fair grounds.

  * * *

  Jill eased around another pile of old machinery with a scowl etched on her face. She checked her arm computer again; the red marker of their target was gone, though she was picking up the same echo of the two other implants. She was getting names from the short-range pings, though her computer was cut off from the central servers, stopping her from downloading their whole files.

  Jack wasn’t having any better luck. He was about to call out for Kyle again.

  Out of the darkness, two young women popped into view. The redhead piped up, “Hey, what’s all the yelling about?”

  Jack grumbled at them, in no mood to play around. “Laura Greene? Danielle Nyqvist?”

  He guessed right, but Laura joked back at him, “What, assuming the blonde is the Swedish one? That’s racist!” She laughed as if a little drunk, teasing them.

  Jack tried to remain patient. “We’re looking for Mr. Kyle Hutchings. Were you just with him? We need to talk to him urgently.”

  Laura gave an exaggerated turn to the left and right. “Hmm. Nope. No dude. Only dudettes.”

  Danielle was a little less flippant, though not giving them much. “No idea who you are talking about, officers!”

  Jill was in no mood for this. Flipping open her jacket, she pulled her pistol.

  Instantly, the whole atmosphere changed.

  Danielle gawked at them. “Are you serious with this? Who are you anyway?”

  Jill snapped, “Do we look like police to you? We’re FDPC, and it has been a long day. Down on the ground. Now! You are going to answer our questions or we’re going to have a few hard words.”

  Facing down a gun, both of the young women went to their knees, hands presented in front of them. Despite the fear, or maybe because of it, Laura started mouthing off. She wasn’t one to keep silent. “You’re insane! I don’t care if you’re the hand of God himself! I’ll have your badge for this!”

  Jill stepped in and cuffed the butt of her pistol against the side of Laura’s head. The redhead was smacked to the side. She rolled with the blow, crumpling onto the ground. “Enough. There aren’t any cameras in here, girls.” She charged a round into her gun. “There’s lots of noise out there, and not much in here. This will be your word against ours. I don’t care who you think you are. Guess who’ll win?”

  Danielle jumped over to hug Laura close, no longer keeping her hands up. “Laura? Laura!” Her glare blazed up at the agents. “What is wrong with you? What? What do you want?”

  Jill leveled a dark glare right back. “You heard my partner. Kyle Hutchings. He was in here. You are, too. Tell us what you know.”

  Danielle didn’t bat an eyelash. “In case you haven’t noticed, this is a big fricking building, lady! This is my girlfriend. We were making out, alright? Maybe he was watching! Go arrest him for being a pervert! We have no idea who he is!”

  Jill clenched her jaw, weighing her options. Damn. If she’
s lying, she’s as deadpan as a sociopath. She stepped forward and planted a boot on Danielle’s chest. Giving her a shove, Jill pushed the younger girl onto her back. Brandishing her pistol, the FDPC agent fired one more threat at her, trying to shock her out of her lie. “Do you know what extraordinary measures are, my dear? Anything surrounding a fertile man is on the table, and no one’s going to ask questions if I rough you up a little to get the answers I nee – aaahhhh!”

  Her aggressive move had brought her into range of Laura, who wasn’t nearly as hurt as she had been pretending. The cheerleader with a rough past surged to her feet and slammed into Jill. Her gun hand whacked off a nearby metal beam sticking out from an old tractor. Gasping at the sting, the pistol skipped away onto the dirt. It banged off a rock in just the wrong way. The trigger was jerked, and a bullet ripped into the junk pile.

  Despite what Jill had said earlier to intimidate the girls, the gunshot carried. Outside, there were a few cries of alarm as people reacted. Not many, but a few had been within earshot.

  The girls bolted off into the gloom of the barn.

  Jack yanked at his own gun.

  Jill barked at him, “No! Leave them alone!”

  Jack shot her a glance, wondering what she was thinking. By the time he looked back at the fleeing girls, they had vanished into the dark night. “What the hell, Jill?”

  Snatching up her weapon, Jill hissed, “They called my bluff and got the drop on me. My fault. No way we’ll be able to bury the death of two viable females. Especially those two. Did you see them? They were textbook baseline, and sounded like they had connections. Our own people would string us up by the ankles and leave us to the wolves.”

  Jack grimaced. “Which means we need to get to this Hutchings guy. If he’s already possibly breeding with baseline stock, this could get messy. Maybe we should call this in? We’re already exposed.”