I punched in my code, not bothering to hide it, and cranked the wheel to open the door. Sasha was silent. He followed me inside, watched me disarm the security system — again, I let him watch, since I was going to change my codes before we left anyway — and I pointed to a bench built into an alcove just inside the door. There were shelves underneath it and hooks above it, patiently waiting for outerwear to be shed before occupants continued down the ramp, deeper into the bunker. “Please wait here. I don’t know if she’s here, and it wouldn’t be good to just spring you on her if she is. Okay?”
“You have two minutes or I come looking for you.”
I snorted. “Sure. You do that.”
“Don’t fuck around with me, Azzie. If you aren’t back in a few minutes, I’m coming for you.”
“Sasha, if I didn’t want to be found, believe me, you wouldn’t have a chance.”
“Is that a challenge?”
I shook my head at him. “Don’t piss me off anymore than you already have,” I warned him, and he looked confused like he had no idea why I might be mad at him. Jackhole.
I left him there in the entry and did a quick scan of the front rooms before I went to the security terminal and checked the logs.
Eight days. She hadn’t been home in eight days.
That’s where Sasha found me. On my knees, doubled over, on top of a giant rug in the shape of Hello Kitty’s head. My chest felt like it had been split open, like the only way to hold myself together is if I clenched every muscle and held on, fighting the screams trying to force their way out.
“Azzie!” he shouted, falling to his knees next to me and pulling me into his arms. “What happened?! What’s wrong?”
I shook my head, unable to get the words out.
“Are you hurt?” He was genuinely concerned. I guess that shouldn’t have surprised me as much as it did. I shook my head again.
“Did you… find her?” he asked, with so much caution that I realized he’d always assumed she was dead. Then again, he’d never even met her.
I shook my head, finally swallowing back enough of the corrosive tar in my throat to rasp out, “She hasn’t been home in eight days.”
“Hey, we’ll find her,” he assured me, “I swear to you, we’ll find her.”
Oh, sweet summer child, how fucking naïve you are.
I pushed him away, struggling to my feet, ignoring his attempts to help me. I staggered a little trying to get my knees to unlock, batting away his hands. “Stop. I don’t need your help.”
“Azzie, c’mon! Cut me some slack, I’m trying to help you. We want to help you, and we’ll find her. We’ll tear apart this base if we need to but we will find her.”
I shook my head, chuckling humorlessly. “You all look around here and can’t see past the smoke and mirrors. You’re dazzled by the food, and the stores, and the people walking around like the last four years haven’t happened. You think it’s so idyllic here, so benign… Goddammit, you’re so fucking smug about how sheltered you think we are, how much harder the world is out there — you have no idea how dangerous this place is. She’s fucking dead, Sasha.”
“Azzie, stop,” he pleaded with me, then his voice changed, his own anger coming out. “What is your fucking problem? I’ve never been anything but nice to you and you treat me like the fucking enemy!”
I scoffed, and I should have kept my mouth shut and kept walking, but I have a temper. A bad one. And realizing that Mouse was gone had pushed me over the edge.
I turned on him. “You’re right, Sasha, you’ve truly been a fucking saint to me, how could I ever think otherwise?” He’d gone pale, eyes wide, but I was too far gone to question it. “Are you my white knight? You gonna sweep me up into your arms and carry me to your bed, show me how good it could be? Are you going to make me feel beautiful, make me feel like your woman?”
“Jesus Christ,” he whispered, staring at me like he’d never seen me before.
I turned away from him, leading him back to the entrance and out into the forest, locking up behind me. I left the lights on in her house, I couldn’t bear to see it completely dark, but I locked it all down and reset the alarm.
They took her from me.
The only person I had left who truly cared about me.
The only person who survived besides me.
They took her from me, to punish me. To teach me a lesson.
These men don’t realize the bullet they dodged tonight. They think it’s their attention that’s the issue, that what they do makes things easier or harder on me. Like having them choose me, might fill up all the emptiness inside me — that I’m desperate for any kind of affection, and grateful for their notice.
They don’t understand that my attention puts a target on their backs.
Anything I care about gets taken away, eventually.
I thought Mouse was beyond their machinations, that who she was kept her safe. But I’d gone too far, showed them I was willing to risk myself, that I believed it was my choice.
Boy, they sure proved me wrong.
He hesitated lifting me into the truck, like he wanted to stay and hash things out, and that wasn’t going to happen. “You act like this place is some kind of paradise, and it’s a fucking prison. Now take me back to my cell.”
We didn’t speak again. He dropped me off at the house and drove away, and I cursed myself for feeling sad about it.
Sasha
Me: I have no idea what just happened, but I made it worse. Somehow I managed to make it worse.
Tai: ?
Spider: What did you do??
Luka: FUCK
Spider: I told you to fucking let it go and give her some space. Goddammit.
Me: Is this text secure?
Tai: Yes
Me: I went to her house to try to fix our fuck up then I screwed up worse and I’m not totally sure how. I just wanted to prove to her how beautiful she is, how wrong she is about us, and she was responsive and then just went cold. Completely shut me down.
Tai: Great.
Luka: Noble effort, bro.
Me: It gets worse.
Sev: Uhhhhh
Me: She had me drive her to Mouse’s house. It’s this little one room cabin in the woods. I walk in, and the whole things is decorated with stuff from the Fallout games.
Sev: ??
Luka: For real?
Tai: I didn’t play any of them but those are post-apocalyptic, with a 50s-style aesthetic, right? The World of Tomorrow Today…if we didn’t blow it up?
Me: Exactly. Apparently Mouse has a really fucking ironic sense of humor.
Spider: ?
Me: The cabin is a decoy. Azzie led me into the woods to the underground bunker they have out there. Bomb shelter. The door is painted with a big “111.”
Tai: What?????
Me: To say we’ve underestimated them is such a profound understatement.
Spider: Can you take us there? Like right now?
Me: I sure can. What I can’t do is get us inside of it. Azzie punched in all her codes in front of me, like she wasn’t even paying attention, and then on the way out, she very deliberately reset everything. She even set the alarm on the cabin. It’s totally locked down. Also, I got the feeling that if she wanted to, she could have led me on a very confusing route through the woods so that I’d never find the place again, but she was in a hurry so we went directly there.
Spider: Shit. Huh.
Luka: So what happened?
Me: We went inside. She asked me to wait in the entry in case Mouse was there so I didn’t freak her out or something. She disappeared, and I looked around a bit. The bunker is… hard to describe. It looked like a doomsday prepper got drunk, started rolling on x, and went to a toy store. I saw maybe four rooms (and it’s a really confusing, maze-like layout) and they were all these industrial/utilitarian constructions that had been painted in various themes based on the character Hello Kitty and her friends. And then filled with every possible branded item that
could exist for that character within the theme. There was a Hello Kitty Strawberry room. There was a “cartoon dog with stars” room. A “Hello Kitty with rainbows and kittens room.” It was…overwhelming.
Me: This might be a good time to say Azzie’s room at the house? Bare bones. Almost no decorations, token personal items. She apparently has the master suite in the house, and it’s got a king-sized bed, a desk, a big armchair, and a walk-in closet bigger than your living room with only one rack and a couple drawers full. That’s it. It’s clear that the place she considers “home” is Mouse’s bunker.
Me: Which is why I thought my fucking heart was being ripped out when I heard this god-awful keening sound like an animal being tortured. I had to search for her, and I found Azzie on the ground, curled in a ball, sobbing. Remember when she was crying in the hospital and it made you want to tear the building down just to get to her and stop whatever was causing her pain? This was worse.
Tai: Holy shit.
Me: She’d been at a computer terminal, looked like security logs. The last entry to the bunker before us was the night Azzie went into the hospital. I tried to comfort her, tell her we’d find Mouse, and that’s when it got exponentially worse. She’d already been mad at me, and she just ripped into me. Told me that we’re so busy being smug about this place and how idyllic everything is compared to outside, that we don’t realize how dangerous this place is. She said Mouse is dead. When I tried to help her up, she lashed out again. Said (sarcastically) I’ve been a SAINT to her, asked if I wanted to be her white knight. Take her to bed, make her my woman.
Sev: ???????????
Luka: WTF????
Tai: WHAT?
Me: Saint is my road name. I don’t think she knew the significance of that, I really don’t, but the whole thing knocked me on my ass. It’s was like she knew everything, about the study and about us.
Spider: How would she know any of that? What the fuck?
Me: She keeps telling us she’s not stupid. It’s time we believed her. I think she figured it out, everything. She’s been three steps ahead of us this whole time, and I can’t seem to keep up.
Sev: We’ve been such colossal ASSHOLES.
Luka: That’s not possible. How could she know everything? That bitch at the hospital was so convinced she’d never figure out anything, over YEARS. In a few days, she figured us out completely. She even knows your fucking ROAD NAME???
Me: I think that was just a coincidence, but it felt like she sees through me completely.
Tai: If Mouse is really dead then we need to get Azzie out. I’m going to text my mom, ask for an extraction. Not going to lie, it’s going to get ugly.
Luka: I’d die happy knowing she was free of this place and safe. I don’t care what it takes, make the call.
Chapter Six
Azzie
I watched the sun come up. The light gradually changed around the edges of the curtain, and when it bled into the room, I knew I couldn’t leave without the guys.
I had to go, and they had to go with me.
If I disappear, the people in charge here will clean house. All of them will be killed, they can’t afford to have anyone talk.
FUCK.
It was time to go, no question, but I couldn’t leave them behind. As angry as I was — as hurt as I was — I couldn’t sacrifice them because my ego was wounded.
It was Monday morning. I needed to talk to Tai, and I needed to get my oil change. Then I needed to go to school, and try to act normal for the next twenty-four hours so I don’t get anyone else killed.
I acted normal with Rachel, which is luckily a bit surly and anti-social. We dropped off the kids, she drove me to the hospital as usual. I was a little nicer to Reggie, now that I knew he actually does like me, and I walked the length of the hospital like normal.
Normal, normal, normal.
I almost broke down at the door to Mouse’s lab, but I sucked it up and pushed open the door. The lab was quiet. Tai was sitting at the counter he’s always at, messing around with his phone. He looked up when I opened the door, wary.
I shook my head at him and mouthed “Music.”
As I took off all my layers in preparation for my phlebotomy, he went to Mouse’s computer and turned on the music app, cranking up the volume. I sat down in the phlebotomy chair and he rolled forward on the stool.
“I wasn’t sure you’d be in today.”
“Still need treatment for my disease, Tai,” I snapped tiredly. My head was already aching.
“Azzie…”
“Don’t talk, Tai. I need you, no all of you, to just shut the fuck up for once or I’m going to change my mind.”
“Change your mind about what? Being friends or—”
“Saving your lives.”
He went still.
“I need you to listen to me, and do everything I say. I need you to do EVERYTHING I say, understand?” He nodded. “You need to stop talking about shit you know nothing about. You can’t decide you know better or you know best. You all need to get off your high-fucking-horses and consider for one second that you don’t know everything—”
“Azzie—”
I sighed, raising my hands up and sitting back. “Sorry. I’m just… I’m just so fucking angry right now.”
“We didn’t want to tell you yesterday, you were so upset and you called yourself gross, it seemed like a bad time—”
“Stop talking, Tai.”
“—but the study, Azzie. It is about you. We’re supposed to seduce you, get you pregnant—”
I slammed my hand down on the metal counter, a dull bang echoing in the room. “I KNOW, TAI! Now shut the fuck up!”
He shook his head, staring at me — not in disbelief, not in shock. He was sad. “How? How did you figure it out?”
I closed my eyes and ran a hand over my face. “The patrol. They let Sasha break into my room.”
“That was the giveaway?”
“That’s a big fucking deal, Tai.” I rolled my eyes up, staring at the ceiling so I didn’t say something awful. No. Fucking. Clue. Twenty five hundred soldiers on this base, give or take a few platoons, all here to protect me, and they don’t see the significance of letting some rando break into my bedroom? I sighed. “I put all the pieces together, all the things that didn’t make sense otherwise. Like Kane taking me off birth control the week before you showed up. She’s not very subtle, and I’m pretty sure she’s not even a gynecologist.”
“She’s a fucking bitch. I— uh… I hit her.”
“WHAT?!” I sat up, suddenly no longer tired.
He nodded. “When you were sick, she showed up at the ICU calling you a stupid girl. She said some awful things I’m not going to repeat. Sasha was there with me, closer to the security guards so they took him down first, then pulled me off her. I think that security guard, Reggie, waited until I got a hit in. I thought I was going to be kicked out of the study completely, but all that happened was I got banned from the ICU for six hours until McNamara intervened.”
So many emotions at war inside me. So many thoughts ricocheting around my head. I just couldn’t. I needed some kind of connection, someone else to share this with who knew her, who liked her.
“That’s not me, Azzie, that’s not the type of person I am. I’m a big guy, I’d never lay hands on a woman in anger, but the way she was talking about you? It was like I had to stop her—”
“I think she’s the one who killed Mouse,” I whispered, wrapping my arms around my stomach protectively, the pain inside me was so brutal. “Or had her killed. She wouldn’t dirty her own hands.”
“Why would she? What reason could she have?”
“To punish me.”
“Oh Azzie,” he said, reaching for me then pulling back, realizing I didn’t want his comfort. “I’m so sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. I like Mouse a lot. And I’m not ready to give up on her. I want to help you find out what happened, but we can’t do that in Salem—”
“Quiet!” I commanded
in a hiss, shaking my head. I wiped my cheeks, and sat up. Nothing like abject stupidity to bring me back to earth. “What part of shut the fuck up do you not understand?”
He looked chagrinned. Fucking dummy! “I’m sorry. I didn’t—”
“You cannot talk about stuff you don’t understand. You can’t speculate, you can’t commiserate… not with each other and not with me. That means the topics off-limits are the base, the study, and me. If you fuck up — and it’s not out of left field for me to worry, you all have a history of doing that with me — you’ll say the wrong thing in front of the wrong people, and that’ll be it. Game over.”
He frowned, not meeting my eyes, and I couldn’t tell if it was what I was saying that was pissing him off, or if it was because it was me who was saying it. Like he shouldn’t have to hear this from me.
“Look, Tai, you still aren’t taking this seriously, which means you aren’t taking me seriously. Getting caught isn’t going to result in a slap on the hand and a gentle scolding, the consequences are fucking real. I don’t know what your problem is, whether it’s my age or my gender or what, but this is your last chance. You either do everything I say, or I’m leaving without any of you. Do you understand?”
He glared at me, not answering or even acknowledging that I asked him a question. Stubborn. Spider called him stubborn when I asked him to back off investigating my treatment protocol, and he was so right. Tai’s teeth were clenched and a vein was pulsing in his jaw.
And I knew. I just knew… he’d already set another plan in motion.
“Tai, whatever you think you know is not going to help you here. Whatever grand gesture you think you can make that will let us ride off into the sunset, is not going to happen. You need to call it off, immediately.” He blinked, but didn’t deny it. I tentatively set my hand on his arm, ignoring the way touching him seemed to burn under my skin, because I needed to make a point, make him understand. “Think about what I am, Tai. Really think about it. Do you actually believe that the people who want me here haven’t worked through every possible scenario for an outside force to relocate their asset? That’s what they call it, when they do the drills: relocating the asset. Don’t be so fucking stubborn that you get everyone killed, and listen to me.”
Book of the Damned: A-E5L1-01-00: (A reverse harem, post-pandemic, slow-burn romance) (The JAK2 Cycle, Book 2) Page 6
