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

  But there were problems now. It was never supposed to be me alone, Mouse was just as fundamental to getting everyone on board. And it was one thing to plot and scheme on our own, but there are thousands of people in this town, and the weight of responsibility I was feeling right now…

  It was never supposed to be me, alone.

  Then Tai squeezed my ankle, and when I looked up, he said “Hey, we got this.”

  Maybe I wasn’t alone.

  It was not exactly an ideal mix.

  Pete and Sal were working, which was good, both of them were reasonable, practical people, but the people playing had a few exceptions.

  After we emptied everything out of the SUV, Spider even checking under the seats to make sure nothing was missed (and I saw him shove at least one thing into his bag), I informed Rachel that the groceries she included — against my instructions — were not going with us. She wasn’t going to back down, but neither was I; I wasn’t even going to compromise. It was a long walk, and I wasn’t going to ask a single one of the guys to haul heavy groceries along with everything else we had to carry.

  I could have told her that the bunker was fully stocked, but that wasn’t the point. She should have fucking listened to me. Maybe I’m being petty, but I needed to know they could follow instructions if shit went bad.

  I finally took Rachel and Greg off to the side, as much as I could out of the hearing of their kids, and told them to get their fucking heads together. “My loyalty to you only goes so far,” I hissed, trying to keep from losing my shit. “I’m about ten seconds — or one goddamn can of beans — away from leaving you to fend for yourself along with everyone else. You either follow my instructions to-the-fucking-letter, or I will leave you behind. Are we clear?”

  “I think that’s probably for the best,” Rachel said, haughty and somehow managing to stare down her nose at me even though she was shorter than me. “I’m not convinced there’s even a real threat here, let alone that you can somehow save us.”

  I stared at Greg, eyes wide, having to consciously keep my mouth from sagging open. Is this real? Could she actually be this willfully stupid?

  He shut his eyes, briefly, his head shaking almost imperceptibly. “We’ll follow instructions, Azzie,” he said quietly, ignoring Rachel’s gasp and death glare. “I’ll do anything to keep my kids safe.”

  Whether or not he intended it, the message I got was that if Rachel needed to be left, he’d be okay with that. I glanced over at her, and the mask of defiance had dropped: she was staring at her husband with wounded eyes, her folded arms now wrapped around her middle.

  I left them alone after that, not wanting to think about the long-term consequences of what just went down, when the four of them were stuck in that bunker for months with only each other for company. I had at least ninety-nine problems, and Rachel and Greg’s relationship wasn’t one of them.

  I gave Luka a kiss on the cheek as I passed by — he was keeping Heather and Michael occupied as far from where I’d been confronting their parents as possible in the crowded space — and he tried catching my hand. I shook my head and kept going, saying “I’ll be back in a few minutes, please just keep everyone here.”

  I didn’t look for agreement. He’d take care of it.

  Out in the store, I saw Sal sitting behind the counter with the register, sorting a giant bag of bulk dice by number of sides and material into multiple divided trays. Pete was dusting the wall of board games and talking to Joe, a cool dude that I’ve played a few one-shots with over the years. He didn’t work at the store but he might as well, he was there as often as most of the employees. I recognized the other “customers” who were scattered around the store: Damion and Lydia, a set of fraternal twins who graduated two years ago, were playing Gloom with August, who been assigned here last year; Kerrie had a ton of supplies for constructing terrain spread out over a table, and it looked like she was adding a real stained glass windows to a model of a ruined church; and Kate, who’d played in one of my games briefly before I kicked her out from sheer annoyance — she was never prepared for anything, even her next move — was playing Magic with a dude that I’ve seen before but never talked to or met.

  Pete noticed me come through the stockroom door and paused, confused. I froze in place. Once I did this, there was no going back, this was the domino that would set off all the others and I couldn’t control anything after this. If we were wrong, if Mouse and I trusted the wrong people, I could be signing everyone’s death warrants — either the entire town, or these men I took under my protection. If any one of them failed to do their part, or turned us in, or even spoke to the wrong person…

  I felt dizzy, and sick. Pete took a step towards me, and I shook my head at him. Sal looked up from the dice trays, glancing at Pete, then noticing me. She sat up straight.

  I raised my hand up and pointed at the mural on the wall, the map of the town layered over a stylized rendering of the steam tunnels underneath.

  Mouse painted it to look like a map in one of the original, first edition Dungeons & Dragons modules. She told me a long time ago that, as manager of the store, Pete knew what the map really was, and he thought it was awesome we kept this secret from base command. He’d grown up in the 80s and gamed through the “Satanic Panic” and the unfortunate association of campus steam tunnels that inspired so much propaganda. That bullshit almost destroyed the game — D&D and steam tunnels had an ugly history, and the mural was a tribute in a way.

  Pete dropped his duster. Joe stopped telling his story, mid-sentence.

  Sal stood up and came around the counter.

  The room went silent.

  It was like everyone already knew why I was here. Every person was looking at me as if they already knew.

  “Sal, call Ben,” Pete’s voice was low but it seemed to fill the room. “Tell him the LARP is next weekend.” I stared at him, confused. Maybe they didn’t know? Pete chuckled. “What? Do you really think we’re going to call it Operation: Get The Fuck Out Of Town over unsecured channels? C’mon Azzie, you know better.”

  I staggered to a table and sat down, almost missing the chair.

  “Get Azzie a drink,” Pete directed Lydia as Joe and Kerrie lowered the shades on all the front windows half-way, and turned the bar until the slats were all flipped upside down. Sal was already on the phone. Kerrie, Damion, Kate, and August were all pulling board games down from shelves and setting them up while Kate’s opponent looked around, confused. Pete moved over to him, speaking softly, as Lydia brought me a bottle of water.

  “You look like you just hit a poisoned needle trap,” she said, opening the bottle for me. “Is Mouse in back? Should I get her?” I shook my head dumbly. “Where is she? I haven’t seen her in days…”

  I shook my head again, feeling light-headed. What the fuck’s going on?

  “Shit!” she swore, shouting for Pete. “I think Azzie’s going to faint!”

  Warm hands cupped my forehead and the back of my neck, lowering my head between my knees. “Just breathe,” Tai soothed. “Just breathe, Azzie.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Sev

  If Azzie hadn’t almost passed out from shock, this would be hilarious.

  Tai and I’d been guarding the interior door while Spider and Luka were at the door to the alley, so we both heard someone call out that Azzie was going to faint. Tai was through the door and going full-on medic on her in seconds, with me close behind paying attention to everything he was doing.

  I’d already been planning to propose shadowing Tai, learning how to be his backup on doing Azzie’s blood draws, but now I was thinking that I should be his backup on everything. I might not be able to get a certification or anything like that, but I could learn what I needed to qualify for it even if I’ll never have the paper.

  He got her head between her knees, and without being told, I tracked down a can of coke and a blanket for her. He nodded approval, shooting me a smile, and I knew he’d run with my idea. Once
she was wrapped up and settled onto Luka’s lap, Pete helped Spider and I chain up the loading dock doors while one of the women — a black woman with long braids and glasses, wearing leggings printed with the Tardis and multi-colored Daleks — got Azzie’s foster family settled at a table set up with a board game I didn’t recognize.

  “Okay, here’s how it’s gonna go,” Pete called out, getting everyone’s attention. “As people trickle in, they’re going to spread out among the tables and start playing the games. Once everyone is here, we’re all going to gather at the back to talk. Leave everything as-is on the tables. If anyone gets close to the store that shouldn’t be here, me or Sal will give the signal and you’re going to return to your table, exactly where you were, and resume playing the game. As long as we’ve been legitimately playing to start out, it should all look real. Understand? It has to look real.”

  Every single person nodded in agreement, even the dude named Kyle that Pete told us to keep an eye on since he was new to the base. Pete led Kyle over to Luka and Azzie, cuddled up on one of the various couches set up around the store in small clusters grouped with armchairs and beanbags, always with a table in the middle.

  This really was the best gaming store ever.

  Spider, Tai, and I joined them. I let Tai sit next to Luka and become Azzie’s footrest, I was too jumpy to stay seated while the front door kept opening, bells ringing, on semi-regular intervals. And Pete wasn’t kidding, every single one of them immediately went to a table and sat down, filling in empty spots as needed, spreading out drinks and snacks while they created a realistic cover for the gathering.

  Pete sat in a chair opposite Azzie and grinned. “So apparently this is a surprise? I was sure Mouse would’ve told you.”

  I flinched, as did all of us except Azzie, and Pete was so focused on her that he missed it. Kyle didn’t though. “Who’s Mouse?” he asked, looking around.

  “Co-owner of the store with Azzie here,” Pete said, shocking the hell out of the rest of us. Azzie grimaced. “Azzie’s more of a silent partner since she’s still in high school, and neither one of them have been around much in the last two weeks or so since you started coming to the store, Kyle.” He looked at the man, and the friendly, middle-aged nerd was gone — he was projecting a kind of dangerous authority that reminded me of Dad. “You’ve seemed pretty cool so far, so you’re going to sit there and listen to everything that’s said without interrupting us so that you’re up to speed with everyone else. At that point, we’re going to decide if you’re trustworthy. Got it?”

  The man nodded, just scared enough to make me feel better about the situation.

  “Mouse is gone,” Azzie said, and Pete jerked his attention back to her, stammering out questions. She raised up a hand and he quieted. “I don’t think she’s dead. I did for awhile, but— but reasons. I think they took her away, she’s no longer in Salem. She disappeared the same night I went into the hospital. I think they took her to punish me, or warn me, because I did something they didn’t like. We don’t need to get into it—”

  “We know who you are, Azzie,” Pete interrupted her. “Well, I mean, we don’t know exactly who you are, but we know this is one of the bases that manufactures the vaccine, and they set up the town around it for you. Kill two birds with one secret military facility, one could say, since you need medical care and the vaccine requires scientists and shit to produce it. There’s been a number of bets placed though, so it’d be cool if you maybe threw us a bone? My money’s on you being the president’s illegitimate daughter—”

  I started choking, trying not to laugh, while Tai and Spider were a little more controlled and just bit their lips. Luka didn’t bother, he was cackling madly with his face buried in Azzie’s hair. She rolled her eyes and sat forward on his lap. “Uhh… nope,” she said, shaking her head at Pete who looked disappointed. “You really think they’d do all this for some politician’s kid?”

  “The world is a fucked up place, Az,” he shrugged. “Nothing surprises me anymore.”

  “My full name is Aesli Azrael Vokaty,” Azzie replied.

  Apparently there is something that can still surprise Pete.

  After some explanation — nothing that we didn’t already know from the meeting, although it was interesting to hear Azzie’s version of it, proving that woman is completely clueless — everyone that was currently in the store had managed to get back into their places. It took some time, there were a lot of questions, and tears, and genuine gratitude that I could tell Azzie was not expecting.

  She had no idea what to do when several people, men and women both, broke down into tears when they found out who she was and what she was doing, and they barely knew anything beyond the most superficial explanation. I think the worst was when a couple of her players arrived — the guy Matt that I replaced came in with Sean — and Matt had a mini-breakdown while Sean barely kept it together. Azzie was holding a sobbing Matt, looking around at us in absolute mystification as to what was going on, and all I could do was smile at her.

  “You’re going to have to get used to this, honey b,” I chuckled weakly. “You’re kinda a big deal.”

  “Big deal?” Sean swore at me, eyes rimmed in red, using a string of words so impressive that I filed it away in my memory to use back in the clubhouse. Bikers appreciate that level of vulgarity. “—she’s a fucking hero! No, not A hero, she’s THE hero— she’s the fucking sav—”

  “Okay, stop now,” Azzie scolded him, resting a hand on his arm while still hugging Matt. “I’d rather be worshipped for my mad DM skillz than some random genetic anomaly, okay?” Sean’s head spun towards me in disbelief, and I nodded back at him: sometimes Azzie’s humility was refreshing, and sometimes it just made me want to shake her, then go on a murderous rampage against all those who’ve never treated her with the level of appreciation she deserves. “Really, guys. I need to talk to Pete right now, before everyone else gets here. Go establish some plausible deniability,” she gave both of them hugs again before ordering them to go play games while the grownups talk.

  I love everything about Azzie taking charge, she’s so physically delicate and frail compared to everyone around her; it’s like a little terrier is the alpha in a pack of wolves.

  We settled back into our seats — I was still pacing restlessly, but that wasn’t too unusual here during games so it didn’t disturb anyone — and Azzie went right back to sitting across Luka and Tai, which I could tell made them both extremely happy.

  “Talk to me, Pete. When did Mouse read you in on the plan?”

  “I think it was about a year ago? Yeah, maybe a little more than that. She said that we needed to be prepared in case you were taken off base—”

  I wasn’t listening to him very closely, I was too busy watching something in Azzie break. I knew what she was thinking, I was thinking it too: Mouse brought him in after Azzie started getting sicker, and not getting better. She was making contingency plans if Azzie died.

  I watched her straighten her spine, tucking all the hurt away. I watched her fold it up and squish it down, and resolved myself to force her to talk about it later — she doesn’t have to keep all that shit inside anymore.

  “—so she told me what the map really was, and we started making plans on how to evacuate the town. Two plans, actually — one if it happened without any warning, and you were already off base before we found out, and the code for that is the LARP is this weekend. Since we have warning, the LARP is next weekend. Over the last year, we vetted people to bring into the plan, and we’ve had a few meetings about it, make sure we all still knew what to do. We’ve even done a few drills — the code for that is the LARP has been cancelled.”

  “How many people have been brought into the plan?”

  Pete looked down at the table, sheepish. “Uhh… pretty much everyone that’s at least out of high school. Don’t be upset! Everyone who comes here ends up being a regular, you and Mouse made sure this store was irresistible, and, well, someone always e
nds up vouching for them. After awhile, it just became SOP — I already started laying the groundwork with your friend Sev here, even before I found out that you guys are, erm, friends.”

  “The photo?” I asked and he nodded. “My first time here, he made me take a picture of the map, said it was like a secret handshake.”

  “I didn’t realize he was still in high school,” Pete made a face at me. “You seemed older.”

  “I get that a lot,” I shrugged.

  “How many people are you expecting?” Tai raised his chin in the direction of the room, and I was surprised to see the tables were all almost full, and there were a few people spread out on different couches and chairs. Everyone was pretending not to look at us.

  “One more person—” Pete started to say, then the door opened and Ben came in, flustered, still in his buttoned-down shirt and tie from school. He did a survey of the room, gave us a chin lift, then shut and locked the door.

  “Christine is down the block,” he called out, “she’ll signal if anyone else gets close.”

  Apparently that was the sign everyone was waiting for, because — almost like it was choreographed — everyone got up and moved towards the back of the store except Azzie’s foster family. It took them a few beats, but then they joined us. Spider and I both circled around so we were standing to the side, backs against the bookshelves, facing Azzie, Tai, and Luka, who were now all sitting up with Azzie between them. Pete moved to the arm of the couch on the other side of Tai, who was still crowding Azzie a bit so there was plenty of room.

  We faced the assemblage. I recognized many of them, but many more of them I didn’t. What mattered though, is that they all knew Azzie.

  “First off,” Pete started, loud enough so everyone could hear, but not so loud it would reach outside, “this is not a drill. Operation: Get The Fuck Out Of Town is live.” He gave them a few moments for the resulting hubbub to die down, then nodded at Azzie. “Can you explain?”