Cheating Time (Longevity, #1)

by T. R. Graves

  * * *

  I wasn't sure what the camp's parameters were, but I didn't care either. If I went outside of them, would it really matter? I had my own special, jackass Lead Surrogate Soldier running beside me. We ran for what felt like hours. It wasn't like running on a road or on a machine. This was up and down hills, over logs, between trees, under limbs, over tiny brooks, and through large creeks.

  It was just Jayden and me. The more I thought about what he'd done, the harder I pushed. The more I thought about how much I missed Mom and Dad, the harder I pushed. The more I thought about Gran and Tawney, the harder I pushed.

  I didn't stop until the forest whirled and a bout of nausea seized my stomach. It may have been early spring, but the day was warm, especially when you considered the terrain I'd been covering at brisk speeds.

  I dropped to my knees and heaved. I bent over and planted the palms of my hands on the forest floor and threw up stomach acid until my toes curled and tears streamed down my face.

  "Jesus, Carlie! Why did you have to push yourself so hard? Why wouldn't you just stand still for one second and talk to me?" Jayden seethed, rubbing his hand up and down my back.

  Everything about his touch, his concern, the fact that he was still with me made me want to turn toward him and bury myself in his chest. I didn't, though. My heart wouldn't betray me the way he had.

  Soon, my retching stopped. When it did, I sat back on my ass and scooted until my back was against a tree several feet away from where I'd thrown up. Jayden slid down next to me.

  "I know you don't trust me. I know I've not given you any reason to. Still, I want you to. I'm… I'm asking you to. Everything I've been doing, I've been doing for the good of Aspect Nation. It's not about you or me. It's about people that don't have the same luxuries and freedoms you have, Carlie. You are the one person in this world who I thought would understand that sometimes there is a greater cause," Jayden said with the emphasis and passion of a man prepared to change the world.

  Jayden was a leader before he was anything. I wanted to be on board with him because he was right. I did care about the rights of those who'd had their freedom stripped away because they were genetically altered Surrogates, or worse yet, their lives stripped away because of a genetic anomaly passed down to them by their parents. The problem was I was a teenage girl who wanted the person she liked—loved—to care more about her than his cause.

  It was with extreme guilt that I admitted just that to myself. I knew I was being worse than the most selfish, self-absorbed brat to ever exist, but that's what I wanted because Tawney's books had taught me that true love was the kind where two people are willing to put each other before anything and everything.

  Jayden had just freely admitted his agenda was more important than keeping me in the loop or telling me the truth. The fact that he saw nothing wrong with what he'd done and showed no remorse painted for me a picture worth a thousand words, and each and every one of them had the same underlying message:

  Caution.

  Hurt.

  Betrayal.

  Avoid.

  Run.

  Ignore.

  Lies.

  When I looked over at the beautiful man beside me, I knew it would be easy for me to give in to him. Accept him and his offer without the first ounce of hesitation and pretend as though following him blindly was the right thing to do. It wasn't for me. It never would be for me.

  We would be equals, or we would not be. He would put me before his cause, or his cause would be all he had.

  "I believe you, Jayden. I believe you did whatever you did for the greater good."

  His relief was evidenced in the smile he offered and the lifting of his weighted shoulders.

  "The problem is… I'm not okay with how you went about it. Will I support you and your cause? Hell yeah! All day. Every day. Will I follow behind you like a blind warrior who is willing to take it on the chin the next time it's more convenient for you to lie to me or manipulate me rather than tell me what I need to know and give me the option of following along because it's the right thing to do? Hell no! Not now. Not ever."

  Like the band holding it wide had been cut, Jayden's face-splitting grin popped and turned into open-mouthed shock.

  "Don't look at me like that. You know me better than that. I've never mindlessly followed your lead. What in the round world would make you think I'd do so now?"

  With a glare, he said, "I thought since your father trusted me… since I care for… you. I thought all of that would be proof enough for you that I'd only do things that are in your best interests."

  "Tell me this, Jayden. If my best interests and the cause you've embarked upon were at odds, where would your loyalty lie?"

  "I don't answer hypothetical questions. There's nothing to be gained," he said, swearing under his breath.

  "In other words, you're with me and you'll fight for my best interests as long as you don't have to put your plan for Surrogate equality on the line. Here's the thing… Jayden. I get it. I understand it. Really, I do.

  "The problem is I'm worried there's going to be a day real soon when you're going to have to choose between me, the original MicroPharm recipient, or your fight for Surrogate soldiers. If this all gets as frenzied as I suspect it might, there'll be fanatics who will demand that anyone—Mom, Dad, Gran, Tawney, and me—associated with the Aspects and MicroPharms be executed. When that happens… will you stand by and watch or will you put the family who took you in, the people who've loved you your entire life, before your cause?"

  Jayden looked torn. Like a man who was being ripped from the inside out. A long while later, too long for me to believe him, Jayden whispered, "I'd never let anyone hurt you, Carlie."

  His words hurt. Not what he said, but rather the reality that he'd merely wanted to believe them more than he actually did.

  "Like I said… I'm there for you. I'll help in whatever way I can, but I'm the only one who is looking out for my best interests. For Mom's, Dad's, Gran's, and Tawney's best interests. They need me, and for me, they are as important as any cause.

  "Without them, there's no cause worth living for. If I didn't just hear where your loyalty lay, you easily would have been included in my list of people I'd be watching out for. Now I realize if the circumstances were right, it'd be you against me. That hurts, but I'd rather know the truth than be blindsided," I said, putting my hand over his and patting.

  I didn't want there to be hard feelings between us. We'd known each other too long for that. There was only one situation where he and I would be enemies. I didn't have to pretend we were enemies on every front.

  Jayden took my show of compassion, comfort, and respite as a sign that he'd be allowed to be more to me. He tried to intertwine our fingers at the same time he leaned over to kiss me, assuming he'd still be able to hypnotize me with his good looks, charisma, and strength. Instead of giving in to him, I pulled my hand back and stood up before he landed anything more than a brush of a kiss on my chin.

  That's when hooting, howling, and hollering, the kind that reminded me of Gran's black-and-white westerns when cowboys and Indians were in the heat of battle, rose up behind Jayden and me at the very instant a machete came swishing toward Jayden's throat. He ducked in the nick of time, and it was in an effortless way that made it seem as if he'd known at that exact moment a blade was going to come out of nowhere and attempt to behead him.

  Either Jayden, a warrior who was prepared for battle at all times, had heard their approach and expected the attack, or his reaction time was shorter, swifter, and more decisive than I could ever have imagined.

  Before I could suck in a breath of astonishment, Jayden gracefully jumped to his feet, chopped the hand holding the machete, and punched the face of the man hooting a bizarre war call, knocking him to the ground.

  In this situation, there was no such thing as unarmed or mercy. The derelict man sprawled out before Jayden had tried to kill him. His fate had been sealed with that decision. Jayden
snatched the machete up and drove it deep into the man's chest, stopping him mid-hoot as blood spewed from his bearded mouth and nose like a fountain. The stranger clutched his chest like he was desperate to seal the fatal wound and ebb the flow of blood gushing from his chest.

  Jayden was all Surrogate Soldier. He spun around, wielding the machete in front of him and sizing up the man's gang. The most dangerous of the remaining three was the banshee woman who was charging Jayden and yelling, "ABOMINATION! DIE!"

  I observed from the side and saw when Jayden's jaw clenched with her vow. As graceful and beautiful as any avenging angel I'd ever imagined while reading Tawney's paranormal romance novels, Jayden stood ready. Stood proud.

  When the woman lunged toward the Surrogate, he whipped the machete through the air before him—exactly where she was flying—and watched as her stomach was sliced wide open. The rain of blood splattering and speckling everything near the fight, including me, felt surreal. I saw it. I felt it. I just couldn't believe what was happening.

  Behind the woman who was now falling to the ground was a younger man. He couldn't have been any older than Jayden. He glanced to his side as if trying to decide who would be the next of them to attempt to murder the atrocity Jayden.

  "You'll want to think a little longer and a little harder before you try to take me on," Jayden warned.

  When Jayden, the abomination in this brainwashed man's eyes, spoke to him, his determination was fueled. With the same battle cry the first man had bellowed and a gutting knife in hand like the one Jayden used on the hog, the younger man put himself between Jayden and the final member of their group.

  He didn't sneak around or lunge toward Jayden. The difference between him and the others was he was nearly as graceful as Jayden as he danced toward him and his confiscated machete. The grin the man brandished was almost as sadistic as Jayden's weapon.

  "You know you're an abomination. You know you shouldn't exist. Why don't you just let us end all of this right now? I'm sure there's a place reserved in hell just for you and your kind," he taunted.

  "Alongside your friends," Jayden said, waving his hand toward the woman and man he'd already eviscerated, dishing out his own form of mental torture.

  The man didn't even glance their way. "I-I'm not loyal to them. I'm loyal to the cause. We're Outcasts who've been shunned by our nation. We refuse to have MicroPharms inserted into our women, to let Barone's fledglings decide if our people live or die. A perfect society isn't the one God meant for us to have. Sometimes the flawed are our greatest assets."

  The man might not have risked a glance toward his fallen friends, but when he mentioned the flawed and took a quick look over his shoulder, I suspected his speech was meant as much for us as it was for the hooded person behind him. I had no idea if it was a woman or a man. I only knew the person was standing by like me and watching the scene play out before him/her.

  When the hooded figure lifted a powerful fist and pounded it against his or her chest, the man before Jayden bellowed the now familiar battle cry and dove toward Jayden's legs. Faster and more lethal than the avenging angel I suspected he was, Jayden jumped up and came back down, embedding the machete firmly into the back of the taunting man.

  This time I was ribboned with blood. It dripped from my face and joined the sweat soaking my clothes. A scream bubbled from deep within me and burst out.

  Jayden glanced back just long enough to see I wasn't in any real physical danger and flipped his attention back toward the hooded figure who stood by watching. Waiting.

  Jayden crouched. He was ready for the next battle, one that wasn't about to come to him based on the gun that was suddenly revealed from beneath the black robe. Jayden ran toward the figure, purposefully keeping his body between me and the armed person. There was a click that told me Jayden would have been shot if the gun had been loaded properly.

  An instant later, Jayden was on top of the person, rolling across the forest floor and wrestling for the gun until he had full control of it. With it in hand and while waving it toward the person who was now curled up into a ball and sobbing, Jayden, not sure what to do, shouted, "Get up and show your face! Get up now!"

  I almost gasped when the hooded figure crawled to its knees and lowered the hood. Before us knelt a boy who shared several similarities with Rorie. They looked to be the same age, they both had Down syndrome, and he was every bit as intelligent and loyal. He also shared something with Jayden. His eye color. He was a Genetic Anomaly and a Surrogate.

  Holy heck!

  "Who are these people to you?" Jayden shouted.

  Scared, the boy jerked his stare to the ground and remained quiet. Jayden—ignoring any special needs he might have—snatched him up by the collar of his jacket and shouted, "I said for you to tell me who these people are to you."

  The boy was sniffling when he said, "They… they took me in." Suddenly, the boy stared Jayden directly in the face, and recognition that said he knew exactly who Jayden was sank in. "Oh my God! You're… you're…"

  He was shocked, confused, and—dare I say it—awed. Jayden awed him. His words were every bit as thick as Rorie's as he glanced toward the heap of bodies. "My brother… He's sick. He needs medicine. You can help. You're the only one who can help."

  Jayden looked around. "Where is he? We can help him. There was no need for all of this. We would've helped him."

  I watched Jayden and tried to decide if he was telling the boy the truth or if this was one of those moments when he was manipulating the boy—much the way he manipulates everyone—in order to make his way to their camp and kill the boy's sick brother. I hoped he wasn't lying. I wanted to believe Jayden would give the sick boy the benefit of the doubt.

  The boy before us, the one who'd just been with the people who were just trying to kill us, instantly trusted Jayden. As quick as a flash, he jumped up and ran toward the deepest part of the forest.

  "He's this way," he shouted over his shoulder.

  Jayden glanced toward me. I swear he wanted to check on me, see if I was okay. Instead, he said, "Carlie, go back to camp."

  I shook my head. "No, I'm coming with you."

  He planned to argue with me and demand I do as I was told, but the boy was fast. If Jayden stood by ordering me around for another minute, he'd lose the boy and his chance to find the boy's brother.

  He was pissed, but he didn't say anything else. He just took off fast and hoped I wouldn't be able to keep up. Fortunately for me, the battle royale had sent a surge of adrenaline through me that might have me up for days. With it pumping through my veins, I had no trouble at all keeping up with Jayden. Much to his irritation.

  Before long, we were scaling the side of a steep hill that was so eroded the roots and vines making it up protruded from the soil, offering me the rope I needed to pull myself up and behind Jayden and the boy. When we were almost at the top of the hill, the boy disappeared, ducking into a dark black hole.

  Jayden looked back at me. Again, he wanted to demand I go back to the camp, and again, I ignored his unspoken orders. I stood next to him outside the cave entrance with every intention of following him inside and letting the chips fall where they may. No matter how much he'd hurt me, I would not abandon him here with people who might actually kill him. Us.

  Machete in one hand and gun in the other, Jayden stepped into the cave first, making sure to keep himself between whatever and whomever we might encounter and myself. Like a two-year-old who was afraid I was about to be left, I reached up and grabbed the back of his T-shirt and followed close behind him.

  The contrast between the bright, sunny day and the dark, dreary cave was temporarily blinding. It took several seconds for my eyes to focus and for me to take in what was before us. Confirming for me that we'd just walked into a trap bigger than the Gulf of Mexico, Jayden reached back and slipped the gun into my hand. He'd forced me to spend hours at target practice during our survival training. He knew I was nearly as good a shot as him. What he'd not expected was to
find my hands shaking convulsively.

  In my opinion, and if the four giant black panthers staring back at us were any indicator, we were about to die.