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

  “Yup, nailed it,” I said, yanking my notebook away from her. She’d used my pencil to decorate the top of the page with a bunch of obscene doodles and Sev’s name. I put my things in my backpack and walked out, not waiting for the bell, while Leia and Alessa erupted in giggles behind me.

  Jason might have carried my bag for me, or he might have made me feel like utter and complete shit, and I didn’t want to know which way the pendulum swung so I didn’t bother going to my locker. I headed straight for Geography class, stopping in the bathroom on the way.

  There were a bunch of Junior girls in the there at the same time, gossiping about Sasha and Bella Serra in U.S. History class — he’s apparently making his way through the Bellas today so I’m sure Bella Kynsi was somewhere prepping for her turn — and Clarissa Wegner driving in with them this morning.

  Sasha had made it sound like he won that rock-paper-scissors match to come talk to me, but I guess it was the other way around. I wondered whether, if Luka had won, would Sasha have been with Clarissa instead? Or Clarissa was Luka’s booty call and Sasha would have called someone else? And was Leia there with Sev?

  I have no right to feel like this.

  They aren’t mine. They can’t be mine. Even if the study wasn’t a complete boner-killer, I don’t get to have them.

  But I’m sure as fuck not bringing those girls with us. They better get them out of their system tonight.

  I got to Geography class late, sat by people I didn’t know, and didn’t look up from my notebook the whole hour. Since I skipped going to my locker, it was my Stats notebook, and I traced over Sev’s name in Alessa’s writing over and over, until it tore through that page and the one below it like my pencil was a scalpel slicing through flesh.

  I didn’t look up because I couldn’t handle Sasha, Luka, and Jason all at the same time, pretending not to know me. Making me feel like I wish JANUS-27 had killed me.

  Chapter Eight

  Sasha

  This was Snowpiercer: unstoppable momentum, always going forward and no way to slow it down. We managed to create a clusterfuck of epic proportions by once again trying to out-think Azzie.

  We were at the beginning of our senior year in high school when things went bad with JANUS-23. Most people in our position would’ve blow off school even before everything shut down — we were sons of a “community leader” guaranteed lucrative jobs post-graduation, ones that didn’t require an education to do. Other guys destined for the club did just that, they spent their time getting drunk or getting stoned, fucking every girl they could, and only showing up to class if they had to.

  We went to class, we studied. Sev could’ve been valedictorian, the nerd, and he was planning to go to college before doing his prospect time and patching in, but then the world ended.

  But the point was, our parents had instilled in us the importance of education. Maybe not for the same reasons as other people, maybe it was for the purpose of making sure no one fucked us over and we were able to squeeze as much profit and power out of every situation, but that’s immaterial. What matters is that we were good students with good grades… who still managed to get drunk, stoned, and fuck every girl we could.

  Senior year, people were getting sick and in the earliest days, they still weren’t sure if it was viral or bacterial; it was acting a little like an extreme staph infection in the blood, so bacteria was the prime suspect. Before the school shut down so that we could all stay home and isolate ourselves, we had a full day assembly to go over safety precautions (and let’s just ignore the fact that they brought us all together in one area prior to sending us off to self-isolate). Along with demonstrations of proper hand-washing and covering your mouth when coughing, the Biology teacher did a presentation on antibiotic resistant bacteria.

  We found out not long after that that JANUS-23 was viral, but two things have still stuck with me from Mr. Sturgess’s presentation: always take the full course of any antibiotics prescribed by a doctor, and half-assed precautions and treatment sometimes create more problems than not doing anything at all.

  The antibiotics thing was so basic, I couldn’t believe I never understood it before: our impulse with medication is to stop taking it once we feel better, and that’s usually fine with painkillers but not so much with antibiotics. The things that antibiotics are fighting aren’t necessarily dead once you start feeling better. They can be dormant. They can be in such small numbers that they seem to be gone, but they really aren’t. And especially if you take other medicine at the same time to treat the symptoms, you could still be really sick even though you feel better, and as soon as the bacterial infection gains enough purchase again, bam! You’re even sicker than you were before and you’ve possibly created antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the process.

  There’s a lot of benign or even good bacteria like what’s in your gut, or at least stuff that isn’t hurting you, and a normal environment has a substantial population of all kinds. Even when staph or MRSA or something shows up to party, there’s not a whole lot of room or resources for them to go crazy. That is, until you take just enough antibiotics to kill off all the neutral or mild bacteria, but only graze the really ugly shit by stopping early, and then it’s got free reign and the buffet is open for business with no waiting and no competition. Those fuckers get jacked up, become top-of-the-food-chain-apex-predator bacteria, and by the time you realize you’ve got something eating your flesh unchecked, antibiotics aren’t going to cut it. They’re either not strong enough, or the supermutant bacteria has been spending the last few years building up an immunity to iocane powder.

  Same thing with hand sanitizer: the instructions clearly state you need to use enough to completely wet your hands, and spend almost thirty seconds rubbing them together to cover all surfaces sufficiently. That’s longer than you should spend washing your hands with soap and water, a third whole “Happy Birthday” verse. Half-ass it? All it kills is the weak shit. Boom! Resistant bacteria.

  The lesson was that you make antibiotic-resistant bacteria by only half-ass taking precautions or treatment, or only half-ass following instructions.

  So what did we do in class today? We created the perfect environment for a virulent bacterial infection to take hold and spread. We opened the door, invited the vampire in, and pointed him in the direction of a napping Azzie.

  We followed the letter of the law — the instructions Tai gave us — but utterly failed to honor the spirit of it: show her we respect her, trust her, and will follow her to the ends of the earth.

  She told us to act like when we first got here, to act normal. So we did. We acted like man-whore assholes who didn’t know or like Azzie.

  Not a fucking thing happened with any of those girls, though they went out of their way to make it seem like it did — fuck, one of those crazy bitches stepped in front of the truck when we were driving through downtown and demanded a ride in to school, and since Luka was driving and he’s the sweet one, slightly less inclined to run a bitch over than Sev or I, we had to listen to her whining and giggling for five blocks. When I got up from my desk in Lit class, Bella crawled under my arm and wouldn’t let go, and first-day-Sasha wouldn’t have pushed her away, so I didn’t. Shit like that happened all morning — I was getting texts from my brothers and even the Callises asking if someone put Spanish Fly in their pumpkin spice lattes.

  Within twenty-four hours of meeting her, we’d become walls and a roof for Azzie, giving her shelter when we could. We were the bouncers at the door, keeping out the skanks and trouble-makers. We were the neutral-fucking-bacteria competing for resources and keeping staph and MRSA under control, but today, we were the half-ass effort that gave Gemma and Adriana all the resources they needed with no competition and no opposition.

  We weren’t thinking. We forgot what high school was: a petri dish loaded with putrescence. We forgot that Azzie had been out of school for a week, and basically so had we: rather than come to class, since we aren’t actually high school students, we to
ok turns going to the hospital to sit vigil outside her room, and slept, ate, and worried during the time in-between.

  With everything going on, none of us were putting much thought or energy into the people around us that weren’t her. After having her finally recover from JANUS-27, then all the emotional upheaval that followed, none of us were really thinking about anything at all besides ourselves and our relationship to her. And all of that is just excuses, made after the fact, when it really comes down to us fucking up. Again.

  One of us should have noticed.

  Instead of being so focused on why she wasn’t walking through the cafeteria door, a full fifteen minutes after we left class thinking she was right behind us, one of us should have realized that a hush settled over our table.

  One of us should have realized that the table of people itself might be a problem.

  One of us should have had our heads out of our asses for one goddamn second.

  But we didn’t.

  Then she was there, and I know I’d just seen her, but still she looked so fucking good. Tired, too thin, and in need of a hug, but she’s a fucking Amazon warrior commanding attention wherever she goes.

  I sensed that the first moment she walked into that classroom and became the only thing I could see, the one girl who didn’t even care enough to learn my name.

  “Look who it is, Sasha! It’s your girlfriend!” The voice grated on me, but all I could think was I wish.

  “Are you sure that’s Sasha’s girlfriend? I’m pretty sure she’s involved with Sev. They’ve been hanging out after school at that gaming store.” Sev, you bastard. For the first time, I wanted to learn how to play D&D.

  “Sasha carried her out of here that last day she was seen at school — when was that, two Thursdays ago?”

  “Where was she this whole time?” That question sounded planned, and I dragged my eyes away from my Azzie, and looked at Clarissa and her shit-eating grin.

  “She’s been sick, we were visiting her,” I said.

  “Oh, Sasha,” Adriana purred, “there’s no need to cover for her. We heard about you sneaking into her bedroom last night. She’s been with you three for a week, hasn’t she? That’s why you’ve all been absent… you decided to take Spring Break a little early, enjoy a little debauchery on your stay-cay?”

  “Really a shame things didn’t work out,” Gemma added, pretending to hide her smile. “The way you treated her in class today… guess the honeymoon is over, huh? You all are done with her?”

  “I’m surprised she kept their interest that long,” carrot-top said, in a voice loud enough to carry across three tables. The others had been speaking louder than normal but it was just on the border so you couldn’t tell for sure if it was intentional or not, but this was so fucking obvious. As was Gemma’s glare at her. I looked around, and realized they’d planned it down to the occupants of the surrounding tables, the same girls were scattered around that Azzie thought were going to dump their drinks on her the last day she was here.

  “What the fuck are you going on about?” Luka finally realized something was going on, finally paid attention to something other than Azzie getting her smoothie, and looked around with dawning horror.

  “Your ex and her inadequacies,” Adriana smirked. “I’m surprised you hooked up with such a freak to begin with. You biker boys usually have better taste.”

  What.

  The.

  Fuck?

  “What did you say?” And now Sev realized that some major shit was going down around us, we’d somehow walked right in the trap and sprung it, but Azzie was the target.

  “Biker boys?” Marina asked, utterly confused per usual.

  “Before they came here, the triplets were in a motorcycle gang,” Gemma confided to her loudly.

  “Club,” the three of us said automatically, and I could have smacked myself in the head. We are. So. Fucking. Stupid.

  “REALLY?!” Now we were being swarmed. Fucking bitches had their hands all over us, touching our ink, asking questions, all while Gemma and Adriana sat back and watched, satisfaction oozing out of their malevolent pores.

  “Must be why they’re so used to sharing girls,” Adriana lobbed that grenade into the mix. “Is Azzie your club slut in Salem?”

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  I swear, my head rotated completely around like the chick in The Exorcist when I heard Azzie’s voice. There she was, tray in hand, loaded with regular food for once. But the look on her face… there was no armor there, no mask in place. It had all been too much these last couple of days, and she was an open wound for these vultures to pick at. She met my eyes, and all I could see was hurt. She stared at me, completely lost, as Adriana’s blade slid in.

  “Oh, hi, Azzie! Sasha said the four of you have been together the last week or so that you haven’t been in school, and after he told us they’re in a motorcycle club, we were just speculating whether that made you their club slut. Although I suppose since they’ve booted your scrawny ass to the pavement, you’re just a plain ol’ slut now instead. But hey, I’m not shaming you, that’s not something I agree with ever. I’m just trying to help you out here. I’ve heard that Danny and Tyler had been interested in picking up where these boys left off, if you aren’t too stretched out that is.”

  “Like throwing a hotdog down a hallway,” Gemma giggled. “Make sure you do your kegels, hon.”

  “You’re right, Sev, she does look sick,” Emma said, shaking her head at Azzie. “Eat a fucking cheeseburger, you diseased whore.”

  “I didn’t say—”

  And then Adriana twisted that blade, making the wound fatal.

  “Sasha, isn’t it true that the only reason that any of you are fucking her at all is because her doctor is paying you? Isn’t that why you were brought here? Seems poor little Azzie is super sick,” she said the last with fake sympathy in a babyish voice, before delivering the coup de gras, “and her doctor wants her to experience at least some kind of real life experiences, so they hired Sasha, Luka, and Sev to come here and pretend to date her and have sex with her, so she wouldn’t die a virgin.”

  “That’s so altruistic of you boys!” Gemma clapped her hands as Azzie turned and walked away from us, tipping her entire tray into the trash before walking out of the cafeteria altogether.

  We were so surrounded by girls that none of us could even get up from the table without hurting one of them, and they were pawing at us and rubbing up against us so that I’d have to shower before getting anywhere near Azzie. And that’s when Jason and Ryan appeared at the table, looking confused and upset.

  “What the fuck is going on? What happened to Azzie?” Jason shouted, fury twisting his features as he plowed through the crowd to where Sev was trapped.

  “Get the fuck off them!” Ryan commanded, pushing through the girls around me with more roughness than I could ever justify, but I can’t say I wasn’t grateful. He dragged one of them off me — she’d been hanging over my shoulder from behind pressing her tits into me as she as asked about the ink on my hands, hands that had been clenched on the table to keep girls from fondling them — and knocked another that was climbing onto Luka’s lap onto the ground. “Jesus Christ, did someone put molly in the salad bar?”

  “Chicks dig bikers,” Gemma informed him smugly, and his face went blank. Then he narrowed his eyes at her with a grin last seen on a great white shark.

  “Oh Gemma, you stupid whore. You played your cards too early. And for what? Because a little girl embarrassed you in front of a cafeteria full of fucking ants? What do you care if they laugh at you? She’s the one…” He sang the last part under his breath and she went pale, sucking in a choked breath. “Oh yeah, you should be afraid. Daddy isn’t going to be pleased one bit. Your boyfriend’s head is going to look mighty fine up on a pike.”

  I almost felt sorry for her, but the three of us had finally broken free and were heading for the door. One glance back and I saw her beginning to cry, begging Ryan for something,
and he just shook his head at her with that same grin before turning to me and giving me a nod. “Sev,” he called out, and we waited for him to finish, “tell Mr. Chandler I won’t be in class today, I have a loose end to tie up.”

  Gemma burst into tears, Adriana trying to comfort her, as he pulled out his cellphone and Jason began to laugh.

  Goddammit. Now I owed them one.

  And the Callis brothers had some explaining to do.

  Chapter Nine

  Azzie

  Bikers?

  They lied to me. Again.

  It didn’t matter.

  None of it mattered.

  Those girls could say anything they wanted.

  They could call me any name they wanted. Club slut. Diseased whore. Sickly.

  It. Didn’t. Matter.

  I was leaving.

  And I could be the sad little girl that they all suspected I was, and take out my hurt and humiliation on these men, punish them in the worst possible way — with a death sentence — or I could be an adult.

  I could retain my dignity. I could do the right thing, and I could keep my word.

  That’s not to say I wasn’t tempted.

  But I’m not a sad little girl. I’m Aesli. My blood is in the veins of every person here.

  I’m tattooed on their arms.

  I went to my locker and got my things, then went to Comp Sci class early. I’d missed lunch, but I couldn’t eat right now anyway.

  The classroom was empty. It wouldn’t be for long.

  I sat at my desk, contemplated logging in but didn’t have the energy. Instead, I sat and thought about what just happened, picking at my fingernails and deciding to go to the salon after school. Might be my last chance to have it professionally done.

  Spider rushed into the classroom, looking around wildly until he spotted me… in the same place I always sat in this room, so I’m not sure why he didn’t notice me immediately. What was he expecting, me to be hanging from a beam up front with a suicide note declaring my unrequited love for Sasha?