Book of the Damned: A-E5L1-01-00: (A reverse harem, post-pandemic, slow-burn romance) (The JAK2 Cycle, Book 2)

by V. E. S. Pullen

  “I can’t. No access and also a clean room, you know?”

  “Right. But also, I’m fine. No secondary infections for this one, my fucked up blood counteracts the virus. I’ll probably be back out on the streets terrorizing the populace in a day or two. Slowly, I mean, because I’m really frickin’ tired, but it’ll be like any generic slasher movie where the monster is practically crawling but yet always catches up. You could even take your mask off if you want.”

  Is it wrong that I think she’s adorable when she gets nervous and starts going off on tangents? Seriously, fucking adorable.

  I couldn’t help it — and didn’t really try hard to resist — I ran my finger down her nose and bopped her lightly on the tip. “I’m not willing to risk it, sunshine. When I get home, I’ll text her, I promise.”

  “Okay. Good.” She laid her head against me again, and sighed. I’m not going to lie, it felt good. “I think I need to lay down again, but I hate to give this up.”

  “You can have all the hugs you want once you’re out of here.”

  “You say that, but you don’t know… I’m voracious. I’ll be hanging off you twenty-four-seven. Burrow into you like a tick. A pathetic, sickly tick,” she whispered.

  “I hope you do,” I whispered back.

  “Lift me up, Soldier Boy,” she ordered, and I was happy to comply. Before we exited the bathroom, out where others might hear, she said, “I’ll be out in a day or two, and then I’ll find Mouse. She’s gotta be around somewhere, no one would do anything bad to her… she’s a fucking national hero.”

  My eyebrow arched up, but she never explained, changing the topic when I tried to ask by telling me to drop her on the bed and go home. “Get some sleep in your own bed and come back tomorrow if you want, I’m not going anywhere.”

  Chapter Two

  Tai

  I didn’t drop her on the bed, I laid her down gently. I helped get her settled, and sat with Azzie when the nurse went to get the milkshakes. Luka was asleep again, Sev out cold in the chair next to him, and I didn’t want to wake them. Luka must’ve called in the troops while I was in the bathroom with her.

  I held Azzie’s hand as she dozed, wrapped in heated blankets, and loved when she mumbled “You’re warmer.”

  I adjusted her pillows when we raised the bed up so she could drink some milkshake, then adjusted them back when she was done. I tucked her in, and touched her forehead as she curled up, sleepy and content. “I’ll be here when you wake up, Azzie,” I said, wishing I could kiss her instead of touch her with a gloved hand. “And when you go to sleep again. And so will the others.”

  “Okay,” she said, not even hearing me. “G’night, Tai.”

  “Night, sunshine.”

  It took a lot to force myself to leave her, to go back to the clean room and strip off all the protective gear. As soon as it was off, I let the nurse know I’d be back in a bit, and headed down the hallway to the elevator. Sasha and Spider were asleep in the little waiting room, wanting to see her for themselves — alive and alert — as soon as they could. I went home to shower, eat, and text my mom.

  Me: You awake?

  Mom: Sure am, honey bunch, but just barely. What’s up? Ever hear back from that girl? That package is burning a hole on my counter top.

  Me: No, but Azzie told me to have you open it. Immediately.

  Mom: Azzie, eh?

  Me: Don’t be like that. There’s a lot going on here.

  Mom: Tai, why did your friend Mouse send me four frickin’ trays of AESLI vaccine and a vax gun? Is this for real? This can’t be real. They have barcodes though.

  Me: HOLY SHIT

  Mom: HOLY SHIT IS RIGHT

  Me: !!!

  Mom: This can’t be real. Is this knock-off vaccine? Is it going to make anyone sick?

  Tai: No. No it’s real.

  Mom: What?

  Me: It’s real. I’m not kidding.

  Mom: No. It can’t be. This goes for $1200 a dose if you can even find it, MINIMUM. This is hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of vaccine. How would she even have this? And why? What is going on?

  Me: Mom, I can’t explain it to you like this, but you need to trust me. It’s real. Four trays is what, 500 injections or so?

  Mom: Looks like about 570. 144 per tray and a half dozen empty spots that I’m not going to complain about.

  Me: What will that cover?

  Mom: The kids. The elders. Some of the higher risk folks. This is incredible. How?

  Me: She’s a good friend to have, Mom.

  Mom: I’ll say. Thank her for me. Big kiss, right on the lips.

  Me: She’s disappeared. We’re actually really worried. Like I said, there’s a lot going on here. When I asked her about the package, she sent me a cryptic text back and hasn’t been seen since. And Azzie is the only one who knows her enough to know where to look for her, nobody even really knows where she lives. But now that Azzie is awake, we can look for her.

  Mom: Awake?

  Tai: She’s been really sick. Really, really sick. She got infected with a mutated strain of JANUS.

  Mom: Oh no. Oh, Tai. I’m so sorry, hon. Were you two close? Did Spider know her?

  Me: No, she’s fine. Like I said, the fever broke and she woke up tonight. And yeah, we’re close. She’s close with Spider too. She’s special to us.

  Mom: ??

  Me: A LOT going on.

  Mom: Uh, yeah. Sounds like it. Feeling like you need to explain.

  Me: Yes. You have no idea…

  Mom: This is a secure text.

  Me: Not secure enough for this.

  Mom: ??

  Me: Azzie was named after two characters from that video game that Spider and I used to play all the time when we were young. Do you remember that game? There’s a poster on my wall.

  Mom: Okay?

  Me: You’ll figure it out.

  Mom: Is it important that I do?

  Me: Yes. I think it is.

  Mom: Okay. Give me a couple minutes.

  Mom: Does this mean what I think it means?

  Me: Yes.

  Mom: I think you and your brother need to come home for a visit. Bring your friend.

  Me: Maybe for a visit, if we can get away. There’s a couple friends I’d like to bring.

  Mom: Let me know if you need money or transportation. How many traveling?

  Me: Six.

  Mom: Not a problem.

  Me: Work is really tying me up here, so it might take some time.

  Mom: Understood.

  The last part was a code telling her we weren’t in a position to leave on our own, that we’d be stopped if we tried. Her offer of money or transportation was an offer of an extraction, either subtle or very, very not subtle, and I let her know I’d try to get more information to her.

  I didn’t think they’d be too upset if any of us decided to leave — it would be a problem for Kane’s study but I’d be surprised if I was even still a part of it given what happened. No, the problem was going to be Azzie. From what we’d been able to deduce, this entire town was set up solely to keep and protect her.

  No wonder she never had a problem getting a ride from a patrol, they rode the streets just to guard her.

  But if anyone could make it happen, it was my mom. She was the baddest of the badasses, a leader in the Native Nationalist Coalition and one of the most powerful people in the southwest, if not everywhere west of the Mississippi. Although I’m thinking Azzie could give her a run for her money there. My mom might be able to muster an army, take down a government if she wanted to, but Azzie could probably bring down nations.

  And I don’t even know if she realizes that. Somehow, I don’t think she does.

  Azzie

  McNamara kept me in the ICU for 24 hours after I woke up, then he released me completely, telling me to resume my regular schedule as soon as possible. He was acting weird, more formal and distant than usual, which is saying a fucking lot. He watched me carefully, and I wanted to ask hi
m about Mouse but not with the mood he was in.

  In those 24 hours, I’d been visited by Sevlukasha multiple times, Spai multiple times, and Jason and Ryan Callis once — I played around with calling them Jaryca in my head, but they remained “Jason and Ryan Callis” regardless.

  Reggie stopped in to tell me he was on guard duty and I should tell him if I wanted any of the riff-raff expelled from the room. I asked who he had money on for what, and he flushed a deep red and told me he had $20 on “the big triplet with the short hair” (Sasha), who happened to be in the room at the time. I told him, in front of Sasha, that if he stopped scanning me every time I went in and out of the hospital, I’d kiss Sasha in front of witnesses so he could have his winnings. He told me it wasn’t worth his job.

  Sasha didn’t seem bothered by my offer.

  Tai was there with him when McNamara’s nurse showed up to discharge me — the man himself too important for such trivial concerns — and if they were surprised that my foster parents hadn’t come to pick me up let alone visit me, neither one said anything. Instead, he and Sasha requested that I give them the night, they needed to talk to me.

  “That sounds ominous,” I said, adjusting the scrubs they gave me to wear out. My clothes had been bagged and disposed of as biohazardous waste, which is why I had gone home and changed into junk clothes and old sneakers before meeting the CDC dudes… who haven’t shown up yet, which was annoying me quite a bit and I was starting to wonder if they were CDC at all. Now I was in some institutional green scrubs that sagged around me. I had lost more weight while I was sick, weight I couldn’t afford to lose, and I could tell by the looks on their faces that they were trying to hide their disgust, and they found me grotesque.

  Yeah, well, I wasn’t thrilled either.

  I felt— I felt exposed finding out that they’d been here the whole time, seeing me like this. They saw me while I was sick and hopped up on morphine, in my most vulnerable moments. They saw me cry from the pain.

  I’m not a weak person — I’m not — but that’s what they had to think seeing me sobbing like a baby and calling for my mom. Yeah, I remembered. It was so bad that the morphine didn’t even help, and in my head it was four years ago when I got sick the first time and cried for her without realizing that she’d died two days before. I was grateful — grateful — when the pain got so bad that I stopped feeling it anymore; my brain couldn’t process it but it didn’t stop my body from responding, and I began to vomit. What a sight I must’ve been. It was enough that they upped my dose and let me drift in sweet oblivion.

  Next time I go to infect myself with anything, I’m planning to have standing instructions that the privacy curtain must be closed at all times.

  “What’s that look?” Sasha asked, gesturing for me to sit down and then kneeling down in front of me to put socks on my feet. I’d gotten a little lightheaded bending over, and he must have realized. Jesus, I’m pathetic.

  I grimaced at him, swiping at the tears creeping out of my eyes that I was too beat down to stop. “Just feeling gross and pathetic,” I said, my voice thick in my throat.

  “You can take a shower when we get home,” Tai said, “and we’ll find clothes for you to wear. I know you’d probably rather have your own stuff, but I don’t want to run the risk of your aunt— er, foster mom?”

  “Just call her Rachel,” I said. “I do.”

  “Okay. I don’t want to run the risk of Rachel trying to keep you there if we go to your place to pick up anything.”

  “Can I borrow your phone?” He handed it to me, and I texted her, getting an immediate reply. “She’ll have a bag at the door to pick up if you don’t mind swinging by there.” He stared at me, concerned even though it made it a whole lot easier, and I smiled weakly. “I’m not their kid, Tai. Sometimes I think they’re actually afraid of me, but they like the house and cars that come with taking me on.” I shrugged, realizing they probably didn’t understand what I meant, why someone would get incentives for taking care of me. “You do what you have to in this world, you know?” He shook his head, and I swear— “If I see one even micro expression of pity out of you, I’m going to slap you stupid, you hear me?” I snapped at him, and luckily it made him smile to be threatened by a sickly skeleton with hair so stringy and gross it resembled red vines.

  “I’m not afraid of you,” he laughed, then pointed at the wheelchair. “Let’s go.”

  “You will be,” I muttered. “You will be.”

  “You know, all hunched over like that, you do kinda resemble Yoda,” Sasha said, opening the door so Tai could push me through.

  “More like Baby Yoda,” Tai teased so I lifted my hand up in the air and flipped him off. He caught hold of my middle finger and squeezed it before letting go and pushing me out the door.

  Rachel had a bag sitting on the porch, we didn’t even need to interrupt their evening to get it. That was nice of her.

  Tai and Sasha were pretty cranky about that but neither one said anything after I gave them a really intimidating scowl. My relationship with my foster family was none of their fucking business.

  We drove in Tai’s vehicle back to the house he shared with his brother, and I got to experience the sparse, utilitarian glory of base housing devoid of any personal touches. It was depressing.

  “You know there are stores in town that sell things like couch pillows,” I mentioned casually, eyeing the brick-like structure that they wanted me to sit on while I distributed hugs to Luka, Sev, and Spider.

  “It’s more comfortable than it looks,” Luka declared, then flung himself on the floor, really selling it. “You should sit.”

  “I feel gross,” I said, only partially talking about my unwashed flesh.

  “I took your bag to my room,” Spider hugged me again, tightly, and there weren’t any (*cough*) extras this time. “There’s clean towels in the bathroom and an extra toothbrush if you need it, I don’t know what your aunt— your f— uck. What Rachel included in your bag. Just use whatever you need, okay?”

  “Thanks Spider,” I whispered, tears spiking again. God I was so weepy these days. I hoped that would go away, maybe once I showered, or ate. Or slept. “I’ll be sure to use your toothbrush. And razor. And leave a wad of hair in your drain. Okay?”

  “That’s fine. Whatever you need to do, my delicate flower,” he managed to get out with only a mild gagging sound. That’s when I knew something was up.

  Nobody thinks a drain yeti is fine.

  Chapter Three

  Tai

  “We can’t tell her,” I said, looking at my brother and, well, our three new brothers. The last week had changed things, changed us. We were bonded together over that beam of pure sunshine showering in Spider’s bathroom. “She’s not doing well right now—”

  “What do you mean?” Luka leapt up from the floor where he’d been lying, tossing a ball at the ceiling and occasionally missing the catch and getting hit in the face, which he called training. “Is she sick? Should we take her back—”

  “No, dude. Relax.” Sasha pushed him back down and flopped onto the couch on the opposite end from Spider. “She’s just feeling vulnerable and hurting right now. She was swearing up a storm when she was getting dressed and she couldn’t get the clothes to stay on, I think she’s feeling… ugly.”

  “Telling her that we were brought here to fuck her and knock her up would not go over well at this particular moment in time,” I sighed, collapsing into my recliner. “It would crush her. Like Sasha said, she’s just vulnerable right now — she called herself gross and pathetic when she was getting dressed. We can keep that bullshit to ourselves for a couple days, give her time to recover.”

  “She’s too thin, yeah, but she’s not ugly,” Sev said. “She’s beautiful and she’s fucking alive. She could never be ugly.”

  “She’s also a teen girl,” Luka grimaced. “I’m not sure they have the same standards we do.”

  “So we’re in agreement?” I made sure everyone nodded, and t
hen relaxed. “So as long as we don’t tell her about that, everything else is fair game, right?”

  “Like who we are?” Sasha asked, eyebrow rising up.

  I nodded.

  “And why we’re here?” Luka asked, and I nodded again.

  “Who are you, and why are you here?” The voice I both loved and dreaded — at this moment, at least — spoke from behind me, from the hallway leading to the bedrooms. None of us had heard her come out of Spider’s room.

  “I figured you’d be in the shower for an hour,” he said mildly, sitting up to make room for her.

  “I can’t take long showers or baths, or use hot water. It irritates my skin. And tepid showers suck ass, so I’m fast. Nice dodge, by the way. How about you tell me what you were talking about just now?” She rounded the couch and sat down between Spider and Sasha, barefoot with her long legs encased in heathery-gray leggings, a green and blue plaid flannel shirt flapping around her. I could see at least one more layer under that, and I suspected there were more. Her hair was still wet, hanging loose in tangles that she was trying to work a comb through and it wasn’t going well. “By the way, who the fuck doesn’t have shampoo or conditioner in their shower? You have three-in-one body wash? What the fuck? It sucks as shampoo, conditioner, and soap — why would anyone use that shit?”

  “Smells good,” Spider grunted, and ran a hand over the week’s worth of growth on his head. “And I don’t have hair, dummy.”

  “Well you, sir, have fucked me good here,” she said, concentrating on her hair and completely missing the expression on his face. I almost felt bad for him. “My hair is in knots. This is going to take forever.”

  “Turn,” Sasha said, taking the comb from her hand. “Slide back closer to me,” he guided her by her hips, fitting her between his splayed legs as he sat sideways with his back against the arm of the couch. “Don’t you know anything? You don’t start combing from the top when it’s this tangled, you start at the bottom.”