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

by Shawn Keys

  Yvette injected some caution, “We don’t know anything yet! I’ve only seen these few scraps. I could be misreading this. I’m not a world-class expert in this. I learned a little for my degree. This much material is on a whole new level. I need more. If I’m going to piece this together… if I’m going to help you… then I need to see all of it. This isn’t enough to throw our whole lives away over it, yet.”

  Kyle nodded. “You’re right. If you are willing to take that risk, then I’m willing to bring you in. Megan trusts you. I can, too. But you’ll have to come with us and see everything we know first-hand.”

  Megan reached out to squeeze Yvette’s thigh. “Showing you how much fun Mr. Hutchings can be is going to have to wait. Get into something a little more comfortable, my dear. We’ll wait. Then we’ll take you to see the rest.”

  * * *

  Agent Lawson escorted Steve and Amanda into the central living room of a cloistered ranch house near the edge of town. It was built long before ‘open concept’ became a popular choice for how to build a home. This place was like a rat’s maze, almost purposefully meant to get people lost if they wandered off too far. “Here we are.”

  From the couches in the room, the three familiar forms of Nathan, Riley and Chloe exploded in a chorus of happy welcome. For the next few minutes, nothing much was done beyond enthusiastic greetings and the exchange of hugs.

  Eventually, they broke up enough that Jack Lawson was able to interject. “I hope you all have a good evening. All the rooms on this level and down in the basement are made up. There should be enough for all of you. Please remember, keep your phones on and charged. We have the police doing what they can to track your son down and pull him out of any trouble. But you never know when he might get the chance to get in touch.”

  Amanda smiled. “We will, Agent Lawson. You’ll be the first to know.”

  He gave a reassuring nod, then walked out toward the kitchen where Agent Niles was getting them some coffee.

  Immediately, Steve turned to the others. “What are you all doing awake? It’s after midnight.”

  Chloe laughed, “Get real, Mr. Wallace. These stormtroopers dragged us out of our houses in the middle of the night. Sleep is the last thing on my mind!”

  Amanda gave her a repressing smile. “It’s wonderful to see you, Chloe. But let’s not start exaggerating. Did you see the news? Dazz’s parents really were killed.”

  Nathan gave her a kind smile. Not many adults called Dazz by her nickname, as if it was unbecoming and not ‘proper’. But the smile vanished in a heartbeat. He spoke low, “This is stupid. Beyond weird. Listen, Dazz doesn’t know anyone like they are saying on the news. She has better taste than that! This is a case of more idiots who took one look at her tattoos and decided to call her a hooligan. She doesn’t hang out with skeezy lunatics. Well, not any skeezier or crazy than us. We’re her friends! She has a few internet-hacker friends, but most of them are in different countries!”

  Steve tried to keep things calm. “We don’t know anything. This has to be a huge misunderstanding. Do you all know what happened to Kyle? The news he got?” He looked uncomfortable with breaking the secret.

  But all three of the others nodded. “Sure. He told us.”

  Steve was glad. “Then he is probably tucked away with a woman, somewhere. Maybe Dazz? That could be where they are.”

  Riley scoffed. “Umm, no. I mean, sure, she likes to have her fun now and then. But having a kid? No way. She thinks it’s all a government racket. Even if they used protection, accidents happen, right? We’re all Kyle’s friend. Dazz would do anything for him. I honestly think she has a hidden crush on him she has never admitted. But she takes ‘sticking it to the man’ pretty seriously. Sleeping with him and risking having a kid would be too ‘conformist’ for her.” He laughed, then shrugged. “She might go down on him… but only if he did first!”

  Amanda scowled. “Enough, Riley!”

  Not used to parental figures calling him to account, Riley clammed up sheepishly.

  Deflated from his idea a little, Steve shrugged. “They might not even be in the same place.”

  Amanda patted him on the shoulder, knowing he was doing his best to make her feel better. “They’ll sort everything out. These two agents seem very polite and very professional. We need to give them a little faith.”

  Nathan grumbled, “I’m telling you, something stinks. Kyle hasn’t responded to any of my texts in almost a day. That ain’t right. I don’t know what is going on, but it isn’t good.”

  Chapter 13

  They were back in Megan’s car when Kyle got the next text from Danielle. Despite his protests, he was in the front seat. Yvette had climbed into the cramped backseat, treating it like a bit of a novelty. Kyle opened the screen and read:

  Danielle || Your parents were not home. Nathan was gone. His mother answered and said he hadn’t been around in hours. Riley’s house is dark, but hard to say for sure. Can’t get in.

  Kyle hated every part of this. Needing time to think, he texted:

  Kyle || Thanks for doing that. Come back to the house. We have a lot to talk about. I’ll text my Mom and see if she answers. I didn’t want to do it this way, but I can’t wait any longer. She might be worried about me.

  Danielle || OK. See you soon.

  Entering his mother’s data on the new phone, he tapped in a message to start things off as gently as he could. Starting with ‘so I’m a criminal and a fugitive now. What’s new with you?’ didn’t seem like the right play. Instead, he went with:

  Kyle || Hey, Mom. It’s been a crazy couple of days. I know you told me to stay out of trouble, but that didn’t seem to be in the cards. You probably saw the news. It isn’t all true! Dazz is alright. She’s here with me. It didn’t go down like they are reporting! We need to talk, and fast. If the FDPC have you, be careful.

  He debated saying more. If he revealed too much, would the FDPC agents just kill her out of hand? Were they reading over her shoulder? He hated this. Not having much choice, he hit ‘send’ and then turned off the phone. If he was going on the same level of paranoia as before, and if the FDPC had his parents, then they would be able to start tracing the new number whenever he left it on. He’d check back a little later. Being so late at night, his Mom might be sleeping and she wouldn’t get the message till morning.

  It didn’t take long for Megan to get them to her home. She pulled into the garage and shut the doors to keep the neighbors from getting nosy.

  Opening his door, Kyle turned and held a hand in to Yvette, helping his teacher out of the small rear seats. She slipped free with grace, straightening again with a smile. Kyle didn’t have to imagine her naked body much; the French woman had gone with an even thinner variant of lycra pants and a long-sleeved top that clung to her everywhere. Instead of the black picked by Megan, she had chosen a dark navy-blue bottom with a snowflake blue on top, making her a splash of color against the tactical choices that the others were wearing.

  They entered the house and went straight for the living room where Dazz was chomping away at whatever breadcrumbs she could follow. “Kyle? Ms. Clarke? Is that you? I haven’t gotten very far, but this program is definitely a ‘pass / fail’ sort of thing. It’s checking certain elements and producing an output that isn’t very long. Just long enough to say whether the genetic material is meeting the grade.”

  Kyle entered the room with a smile. “Fortunately, we come with reinforcements.”

  Megan added, “And maybe a key to the cipher.”

  Yvette entered last, glancing around the room to take stock of what she was getting into. She homed in on Dazz, the only one at a computer. “You’re the one who got into this strange email server?”

  Dazz was tucked in next to the coffee table, sitting with her behind on the carpet and leaning against one of the sofas. A pen for note-taking was grasped between her teeth. She glanced up at the unfamiliar voice asking the question. Her mouth opened and the pen fell to the ground. He
r eyes stretched a little wider.

  Kyle figured that was how he looked when Yvette was walking away from him naked.

  Megan sighed. “Another victim.”

  Yvette gave them a soft, “Shush, you two!” She glided across the carpet, sinking to the seat cushion right next to Dazz. “She’s adorable.”

  Dazz gave a soft giggle and a grin. The rebellious attitude had evaporated, and she was practically panting for attention.

  Yvette stroked her fingers through her pink hair, earning a purr. “Why don’t you two go get some coffee? We’re going to take a look at more of these documents and see if we can put together a bigger picture. Lots of searching and lots of reading. Boring to watch.”

  Dazz was gazing up at her in adoration.

  Megan sighed again as she led the way toward the kitchen. “I take it these didn’t have any classes together.”

  Kyle shook his head. “Don’t think they’ve met until now.”

  The history teacher nodded. “Don’t worry, Yvette will get her back and focused again. She’s used to it.”

  One of Kyle’ eyebrows climbed up. “Are others like that around her?”

  Megan’s own eyebrow rose in a counter-challenge to his. “Hmm? Oh, no. Because that’s how she acts around me.” She gave him a wicked grin, then finished the trip into the kitchen. She kept her peace until they were out of earshot. “You said Danielle and Laura are on their way back?”

  “That’s what they said. Not sure how long it will take.”

  Accepting that as a promise, Megan produced enough mugs to make coffee for everyone involved. As she poured, she said thoughtfully, “We still need a few details, but I know Yvette wouldn’t have spoken up if she wasn’t mostly sure. She has her PhD in linguistics with a focus in Grecian and Latin dialects and their shared history. If Yvette isn’t guessing and she’s right, that means at least some of the FDPC are mucking around with eugenics.” She shook her head. “I really thought we might get this one right. Every time there is something to believe in, someone comes along and poisons the water. But fighting Persterim was about our whole species living past tomorrow. And the measures they took seemed so good at the start.” She tapped the stirring spoon a little more loudly that strictly necessary. “I really thought I would be able to get behind this all the way, this time.”

  Kyle helped stir the other half of the cups. “Much of what they are doing is still necessary. There are good people who are trying to make this go the right way.”

  Megan met his eyes. “You realize this has to call into question everything, don’t you? Remember the questions from the other students? Is Persterim engineered as a weapon? Was that the first attack, driving us all to a point where we gave these bastards the power and opportunity to pick and choose the bloodlines they want to keep alive? Or are they just taking advantage of when nature struck?”

  Kyle swirled a little cream into his coffee. “I get it. Hard to know what is real.”

  “Hard to know what matters.” She sounded a little bitter.

  Kyle rounded the kitchen island, sliding up behind her. He curled arms around her and kissed her on the shoulder. “No matter what we find, a couple things are still real. It doesn’t matter if someone did this on purpose or not. Once we help figure this out and spread the word, at least one thing remains true.”

  Megan hummed in soft pleasure as he hugged her close. “Oh? What’s that?”

  “That we need to turn this thing around together. Which means once we’ve done our part, we’re going to find a safe place and I’m going to get you and Yvette very, very pregnant. I don’t care if the government mandates it or there’s a million dollars’ worth of scholarships on the line. We’re going to do it because our race needs it… and, because I don’t think I’ll be able to stop myself.”

  His thickness was throbbing a little inside his jeans, pressed up against her behind. She released a throaty laugh. “I can tell.”

  He turned her around, pushing her back up against the island. He pressed his hard form against her firm body in the most delightful way. “You haven’t asked for anything in return, and I’m not going to start asking you for promises now. But I told you I would come back to you. You told me what you wanted, and I am a man of my word.” He leaned in and kissed her, following her first advice to him and taking what he wanted.

  Permitting herself to be claimed, Megan’s soft mouth surrendered to his lustful embrace. He parted her lips with a demanding sweep of his tongue, and she let herself be entered. Arching her back a little backward, Kyle drank from her lips, then spilled her all the way back onto the island behind them, narrowly missing the scalping coffee cups positioned on the far end.

  Grabbing hold of her legs, he pulled them up off the ground and then tugged her yoga pants off the swell of her behind and down past her powerful thighs. He had grasped her panties as well, stripping them both away to reveal her shapely legs right to the building slickness of her intimate flesh between them.

  Megan goaded him on, “Fuck me, Mr. Hutchings. Right here. Put a child in me!”

  Kyle dragged her back to the edge, pushing her legs over so they were stacked on top of each other on the island. He lavished kisses on them from her calf to her thighs, once again spending time worshipping the legs that he had lusted after for months. His hand grasped hold of her ass, squeezing the top cheek hard enough to leave a red palm print, then spread her cheek higher to open up her core. “You want me inside of you, don’t you Ms. Clarke?” He remembered the rough treatment she had given Laura and the implication of what she wanted to do with Yvette. Megan was a she-wolf, used to being the alpha. He needed a firm hand to keep control from her. He gave her a soft spank on the higher, more exposed cheek of her ass.

  “Yesss. Oh, God, I need this. Make it hard. I need it hard!” She grabbed at the edge of the island, bracing herself for being ravished.

  There was nothing but hunger between them. Both of them already had their blood stirred by Yvette’s teasing earlier. They had been on the edge of needing this ever since. His hand guided his thick shaft to her dripping entrance, then grabbed hold of her bare thigh. Using it for leverage, he buried half his cock into her wet core. She gave a ragged whimper at the thick penetration, not quite used to him yet. She bit down hard, trying not to scream and give away what they were doing.

  The hunger in Kyle had stopped caring. Let them hear. He clutched her flesh tighter, not letting her go anywhere, and fucked the rest of his long, hard, imposing cock into her body with pounding strokes. Turning her head, Megan plunked her forehead on the island and bit her lip so hard she nearly drew blood. She keened downward, doing her best to keep silent but losing the war. Her arms were wrapped around her legs, curling the joined limbs toward her chest, keeping herself exposed to him.

  He took full advantage as she offered herself up to him. He didn’t know any fancy techniques, and this time… it wasn’t about learning any from her. This was all about raw lust.

  The back door creaked open.

  Kyle didn’t really notice at first. By the time he did, Danielle and Laura were standing at the far side of the island. Their mouths were open in surprise, on the verge of giggling in outright titillation. They had drifted into each other’s arms, cuddling close and were stroking each other’s arms and back as they watched.

  Then Laura said, “Do it, Kyle. Cum inside her. Don’t you see how much she wants it? You do, don’t you Ms. Clarke?”

  Danielle sighed, “Mmm, oh I know how good it feels. I felt it last night, Ms. Clarke. Mmm, it was ssooo warm inside.” She clutched to Laura, cupping one of her breasts and teasing the tip of it through her black shirt with light pinches and circles.

  Kyle wasn’t sure which of them was more turned on by the two spectators egging them on. Megan began to cum in a long, lasting orgasm that slathered his erection in cream. Her strangled scream squeaked from her tight lips, trying against all hope to keep it contained inside. Kyle let out a guttural growl as the steamy perfec
tion of her sex clenched him with wet intensity. He erupted deep inside of her. For the second time in as many days, he filled her womb with his hot seed. Pumping hard, he gave everything he had until the last of his strength ebbed.

  He collapsed over her thigh, breathing hard.

  Laura and Danielle split apart, drifting in opposite directions around the island and closing in on either side of him. They pressed up against his arms, teasing him with deep, sexy laughs.

  Laura murmured into his ear, “I want some.”

  Danielle whispered, “That was so amazing, you two. I didn’t think I’d like that so much…”

  Kyle glanced at her. “What?”

  She blushed. “Watching.”

  The possibilities exploded in Kyle’s mind. They were still learning each other. Learning where the lines were drawn. He had only slept with Danielle and Megan, but there was a sexual tension hovering in the air. Yvette. Laura, who had made her intentions very clear. The idea of them all enjoying and watching each other as well was a heady thought.

  And while the sexual connection between them built, where would that lead? He wasn’t a rake, to take a woman and then move right on to the next. They needed to share his bed, but could that lead to sharing more? He remembered that morning, the sleepy intimacy between them all, but not quite fully formed. He had a sudden urge; wanting not just to have them naked and panting in his bed, but the morning after as well.

  The only question was… would they want the same? Danielle would. But even Megan had committed to nothing more than a little sexy fun for the immediate moment. They were large questions, and he couldn’t answer them yet. But… he was beginning to know what he wanted.

  He hoped he could live with what emerged. Right now, the idea of losing any of them put a notch in his heart.