They shouldn’t have died together. In a perfect world, of course, they would have come home together.
This was far from a perfect world.
And they’d only had nine months left in their enlistment, which was why she’d been staying with her grandmother.
Once they finished breakfast and had washed their mess kits, and Leta had received the initial vaccine from Doc, the three of them returned to their room. She’d wanted to get frisky with them, but now she had other questions.
First, she got comfy, sitting cross-legged in the middle of the bedrolls. “So what, exactly, happened in LA and Barstow? And Atlanta?”
The men exchanged a glance, Zed apparently deferring to Uncle.
Uncle went over to one of his duffel bags and retrieved a tablet. After queuing something up, he handed it to her.
It was a video. After glancing at him for confirmation, she hit play.
Five minutes later, she hit pause and glanced around, looking for a garbage can, hoping she wouldn’t need to puke.
“Okay,” she quietly said. “So this is all because of that crazy preacher guy?” She wasn’t religious at all. She’d gone to a couple of different services while in college and then decided what little sleep she got to start with wasn’t worth trading in the occasional weekend hour for. That’s why she didn’t know who the guy was.
The men nodded. “That, and more,” Uncle said.
“Well,” Zed said, “technically North Korea is the original culprit, but as far as LA goes, yeah. And Barstow happened because of LA.”
“Is Silo behind what happened to those two women in Atlanta? And exactly what did happen in Atlanta?”
Another exchanged glance between them. “It’s…complicated.”
She leaned back on her arms and stared at them. “Can we start at the beginning and fill me in?”
This time, the men exchanged what looked, to her, like a resigned glance.
“Guys,” she gently said, “not that I’m trying to avoid sex with you, but if we’re going to have plenty of time to ourselves up there, I’d like to know this now. Otherwise, I’m not going to be able to focus on anything else until I do know it. I need to be fully informed. Since Papa seems to think I should know it, make with the facts, please.”
The men settled on the end of the bedrolls. Uncle started off, explaining the triggering events in North Korea, the scientists, the short-circuited plan to stop the virus right there. Why China nuked North Korea—aka TMFU—where they came into things, and fast-forwarding through Australia, Hawaii, Mexico, Los Angeles, Seattle, and how they came to be in Florida. Atlanta. And, the latest development, destroying a Kite drug lab in Houston.
Staring at the paused video on the tablet, her finger hovered over it before she drew her hand back. “I think I’ll wait to watch the rest on the plane.”
“You sure?” Zed asked. “It’s kind of gory.”
“Yeah. I’m sure.” She switched the tablet off. “I’m probably going to be air sick anyway. Might as well have a valid reason, besides being a puss.”
Her stomach rolled again, but not dangerously so. More like a burp you could taste in the back of your mouth kind of way. “Then again, I didn’t puke in anatomy classes while working with a cadaver. Maybe I’ll be okay.”
* * * *
Uncle gave Leta credit, she was handling all of this information being thrown at her like a trouper. She seemed fairly steady up to that point, despite everything she’d just learned.
Actually, he didn’t know why he was surprised. Considering she was far from her best when they’d first encountered her and she still managed to handle them—literally—she was proving herself quite well already.
“You all right?” he asked her.
“Not really, no, but I don’t have a choice. So yeah, I’ll be okay eventually.”
“Your call, what you want to do.”
“I think I’d better get packed. Will my stuff be okay here?”
“Yeah. Absolutely. We’ll take what you need and the rest can stay here with the other gear.” When they’d helped her repack, she actually had about half of what it looked like she had, due to the fact that she’d simply thrown everything into garbage bags. Folding and rolling her clothes had reduced the mass greatly.
Of course, they were men used to traveling a lot, packing light, packing well.
“And my car?”
“We’ll leave the keys in case they need to move it.”
A brief crack appeared in her facade, a look of fear that crossed her face, gone again before she likely even realized it was there. When Uncle glanced at Zed, his partner’s gaze had already shifted, focusing on him.
He’d seen it, too, then.
Uncle and Zed moved as one, sitting on either side of her and putting their arms around her. A ragged, shuddering breath escaped her.
“It’s not too late to back out,” Uncle softly said, almost afraid to utter it.
“No. I don’t want to back out. Just trying to get my head around it all.”
“It’s a lot to take in,” Zed agreed.
“Yeah. That’s an understatement.”
Uncle wanted to offer her one last out. “If you’d rather stay here—”
“No.” She looked up at him. “You trying to get rid of me already?” A tired, sexy smile curled the corners of her lips in a deliciously adorable way. She wasn’t even trying and she could harden his cock.
That wasn’t due to him being horny. That was due to her being that spunky, that willing to stick with this.
With them.
“No,” he said. “Definitely don’t want to get rid of you.”
“Culture shock,” she said. “That’s kind of what this is for me. If I can help and you aren’t depending on me to shoot anyone, then I’m in.”
Zed made her look at him, concern on his features. “Your boyfriend. He never…”
“What? Hit me?” She snorted. “No, he wouldn’t have dared, even if he was that kind of guy. Hit a woman who could drug him and turn his insides into outsides while he slept? Not hardly. Gary isn’t a bad guy. Just not the right guy for me. He was fun and I was lonely when we first got together. But he’s one-dimensional.”
“How so?” Uncle asked.
“There’s more to life than just sex. Having a conversation with the guy that didn’t involve intercourse or oral was just…well, he might have been great at cunnilingus, but he wasn’t a very cunning linguist, if you know what I mean.”
Once what she’d said finally pierced through his brain, the laughter rolled out of him and Zed both. He hugged her close. “Babe, no problems with us keeping you satisfied in any way you so desire.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah.” He nodded toward Zed. “He’s done some flight time, but is well acquainted with a wide variety of topics, including literature and music.”
“You are, huh?”
Zed shrugged.
“I,” Uncle continued, “hoped to one day maybe get a college degree and teach literature.”
“No shit?”
“No shit.”
She smirked. “Can’t judge a couple of monkeys by their covers, huh?”
“We’re screwed,” Zed said to Uncle. “You realize that, right? She’s going to have us wrapped around her so tight, all the way to the balls.”
“You complaining?” she asked, still wearing that smile.
“Nope,” Uncle said. “Not complaining in the least. Life in the apocalypse was getting kind of boring, truth be told.”
“Yeah,” Zed said. “Boooring.”
“Let’s get your gear squared away,” Uncle said. He pressed a kiss to her temple. “Tonight we’ll make up for lost time.”
She nodded. “That’s for sure. I think we need some ‘get to know you’ time anyway.” She smiled up at him and he knew he was in love despite the short time he’d known her. More than just lust, for sure.
The trust in her eyes, the light in her smile—he wanted
to keep her smiling like that.
“Yeah,” Uncle said. “Because I know me and him want this to last with you. I want to know everything about you.”
“Orphaned child of military parents avoids helping to save the world by going to medical school…and ends up helping to save the world.” Another brief flash of weariness, this time showing through in her tone.
“Well, when you put it like that,” Zed joked.
Chapter Fourteen
Leta had time to get a shower and do her laundry before the men showed her more garment magic with folding and packing. By the time they heard the plane circling around and preparing to land, they’d schlepped her gear down to the dock for her and wouldn’t let her carry anything.
She’d had another round of introductions with the team there, minus the ones who were working inside the lab.
Not that she was any closer to remembering their names than she was before. Uncle and Zed assured her she’d eventually get them all down.
The pilot, under Doc’s supervision, had offloaded some gear wrapped in black plastic bags, as well as sample cases that several men hauled down the dock and up toward the buildings, presumably to deliver to the lab. She handed Doc a small box of pre-loaded syringes. “And the new vaccines to distribute.”
“Thanks.”
Panda flashed Leta a smile. “Don’t let all that junk scare you. Mostly returning the empty cases. No deposit on those things, unfortunately.”
“Okay.”
The pilot’s smile faded. “You all right?”
“Take it easy on her this flight,” Zed warned. “She’s a virgin.”
“Ah. Don’t worry, there’s smooth air between here and where we’re going. Unlike some of these guys, I don’t have a need to torture anyone with a rough flight.”
Leta glanced at the two men and the frowns they cast Panda’s way.
“Not saying these two,” Panda clarified. She turned to Uncle. “Don’t deny it. I heard the story about Echo and his antics with the helo in Santa Clarita.”
Uncle waved it off. “That was to make the other pilot fly him so he didn’t get himself killed. Wasn’t for shits and giggles.”
“Is this a story I want to hear?” Leta asked him.
“Maybe once we’re back on terra firma.” Uncle helped Zed load their gear. “And safely tucked into bed.”
“How long will the flight take?” Leta asked.
“Not long,” Panda assured her. “Less than two hours.”
The three of them received the new version of the experimental vaccine from Doc before they loaded their gear and themselves into the plane.
Leta was settled and buckled in and had already scoped out the location of air sick bags. She’d opted for a window seat, and Uncle sat next to her, Zed in the row in front of them.
As Panda got the engines fired up and they taxied away from the dock, Leta tightly gripped Uncle’s hand.
“This is a piece of cake, baby,” he gently assured her. “Panda’s the best.”
A few minutes later, they were up in the air and Leta was, for the first time in her life, looking down at the ground without something firmly attached to the earth being under her feet.
Gulp.
Nut up. My parents could do this. They died doing this.
She’d spent a lot of years pep-talking herself exactly like that. What would her parents have done? What had her parents survived? How could she sit there and whine about something piddly when in the grand scheme of things, she was alive and should be grateful for that factoid and that she wasn’t living in China or India or hell, North Korea.
She was alive and damned lucky.
No room for whiners.
She didn’t try to pull her hand from Uncle’s, glad to have the comforting contact with him. This was crazy, and whether or not it was due in any small part to the circumstances of their initial meeting, she felt…bonded to them. In a good way.
Like this was meant to be.
Only once she was sure her stomach was going to cooperate did she ask Uncle for the tablet. He got it for her and queued up the video.
She fast-forwarded it to where she’d left off, slipped on the pair of headphones he’d also brought her, and hit play.
And she hoped her stomach held steady, because what she was learning had made her sick to her stomach. To the very visceral depths of her soul.
* * * *
Zed wasn’t altogether sure they might not lose Leta yet. He couldn’t see the details of what part of the video she was at. Gauging from her facial expressions, it wasn’t hard to guess when she’d reached the point where they’d started unzipping the body bags they’d retrieved from the LA facility’s coolers and videoed that part of the operation, before they’d torched the place.
Barstow.
Later, she worked her way to the Atlanta footage. He knew Scooter was aware that footage existed, but Victor and Uni, Scooter’s men, had asked that they didn’t discuss it around her.
They were her friends, her roommates, who’d been taken apart by Silo’s hired goons. Women she’d loved more than sisters, adopted family. Losing them had gutted her emotionally.
Zed also wasn’t sure he agreed with them letting Ax go off on his own with Mary Silo, but Bubba assured them it was what had to happen, and he hadn’t steered them wrong yet.
Maybe there was even some other operation in place by another SOTIF team to track the duo and it was a plan to get Mary Silo brought in.
He didn’t know.
What he did know was that he wanted to do whatever they had to do to try to keep Leta wanting to stay with their group. It went without saying they’d protect her, keep her safe. Another reason he was glad she’d stated she wanted to learn how to shoot.
All their women needed to be able to defend themselves. Annie and Chief were former military, and Chief had spent years in law enforcement. Panda was technically still active military. Their other women, even Pandora, had learned more than the basics. Hell, Pandora had actually saved their asses in Mexico when an operation went sideways on them.
Their vicious little snowflake.
That morning, before they’d caught up with Leta on the beach, Papa had given them his blessings to spend time with Leta, as much as they could. Another reason to ship them to Atlanta. With the SOTIF team stationed at the CDC, they weren’t needed there all the time. They’d have hours during the day all to themselves where they wouldn’t need to be on duty.
They could spend time alone together, the three of them.
Staying down in Florida meant taking their turns on watches, and less time with Leta.
I need to remember to thank the old man for this.
By the time they made their final approach to the airport, Leta had switched off the tablet again and stared out the window. In thought or just watching the landscape, he didn’t know. He didn’t want to interrupt her before she was ready to speak.
In fact, he was starting to get more than a little concerned after they’d landed when she hadn’t said anything at all.
Victor met them at the airport to shuttle them to the safe house with a helicopter.
“This our new doc?” Victor asked.
She offered a sick-looking smile. “Snarky,” she said as she stuck her hand out.
He laughed. “Pleased to meet you. I’m sure I’ll find out soon enough how you got that name.”
“Hey, go easy on her with the flight, please?” Zed asked. “She’s a total noob.”
“Ah. Roger roger.” Victor offered her a kind smile. “Don’t worry, it’s perfect flying weather today.”
“Thanks, I appreciate it. I’m sure I’ll get used to it eventually and you won’t have to baby me anymore.”
“Eh, docs in this unit get preferential treatment by necessity,” Victor said, all teasing wiped from his expression. “We sort of need you people at your best, at the top of your game. Anything I can do to make your job easier, just say so.”
“I’m not saving t
he world,” she said. “I’m just backup medical support. I’ll toughen up.”
Zed touched her shoulder. “He’s right, though. We need all of our medical personnel on their A-game. Don’t be bashful about speaking up if you need something.”
“I just need to get my feet under me and get used to how you all do things,” she said. “Seriously, I’ll be okay in a few days. This has been a major adjustment for me.”
“We need to take her shopping,” Uncle told Victor. “Are there any vehicles available back at base?”
“Yeah, I flew the team in this morning. They’re all there.”
After they’d transferred all their gear to the helo, Zed noticed how Leta stood outside the helo and stared into the interior, as if trying to force herself to get in. He climbed in and held a hand out to her, waiting.
“We won’t let anything happen to you, babe. Victor’s flown larger birds than this over oceans. We trust him with our lives and yours.”
He watched the way her throat worked as she nervously swallowed before taking his hand and letting him help her inside.
* * * *
Leta knew she had to trust these men. She’d willingly thrown her hat in with them, and they’d completely integrated her into their unit.
Getting comfortable flying was an inevitable part of the situation.
I can do this.
All she had to do was sit there and hopefully not get airsick.
She’d shivered in the cold air between getting off the plane and before climbing into the helicopter. Uncle had loaned her a jacket of his to wear over her long-sleeved sweatshirt, leaving him in a black, long-sleeved shirt that looked painted onto his firm torso.
Yum.
Even with her jeans and sneakers she felt chilly. In south Florida, they rarely felt cold like this, and even then usually only at night. Despite the bright sun, it was not even fifty degrees here.
Once they were all strapped in and had donned headsets, Victor got the engine started. This time, it was Zed sitting next to her and holding her hand, with Uncle seated across from them and offering her a smile.
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