Cheating Time (Longevity, #1)

by T. R. Graves

Chapter 27

  Ferocious Animals

  Carlie

  Jayden's machete and my gun would never be enough to take on the wild creatures that were already hissing, growling, roaring. Two of them had their backs arched while the other two hugged the ground of the cave in a position that told me they were about to pounce.

  As if the animals were not wild and ferocious, the fearless boy clapped his hands once. "Sasha, heel!" Clap. "Vixen, heel!" Clap. "Jadbalja, heel!" With a final clap, he said, "Bagheera, you heel, too!"

  With each command and clearly against their better judgment, since we looked like their next meal, the animals dropped to their bellies and ducked their heads into their paws.

  Rewarding each of them, the boy threw a single strip of jerky near the nose of each animal. None moved. None looked toward the meat sitting before them.

  "Eat!" the boy ordered, and instantly the four beasts swiped a paw and pulled the treats to their mouths.

  As if the scene before us was everyday and normal, the boy glanced over to us and said, "Follow me. Sean's this way."

  He led us down a tunnel that seemed to go deeper and deeper and get smaller and smaller and tighter and tighter. At some point, I wondered if we were being set up. Sitting ducks. Finally, the claustrophobic tunnel opened into a giant cavern, one complete with stalactites, stalagmites, and a pool of water that looked like it was lit from below by radioactive creatures.

  "Simon!" Someone weakly bellowed before surrendering to a fit of coughing.

  The boy who'd tried to kill us ran toward one of the cave's natural columns. "Sean! I've brought people who can help you. You're… you're not going to believe this."

  Jayden and I stepped toward the crumpled bundle of blankets, and at the same moment, we sucked in a shocked breath.

  Holy crap on a cracker!

  Jayden cursed under his breath at the same time the boy before us uttered the same words, using the same tone, lilt, and cadence. I'm not sure why I was surprised since the boy crumpled in a heap on the floor might well have been Jayden's identical twin.

  Sean may have been sick and curled up before he laid eyes on Jayden, but the minute our presence registered, he was up with a knife in one hand and a sword in the other. His back was against the wall, and he was edging his way toward the boy who'd led us to him.

  "Simon, what the hell have you done? No one is supposed to find the cave," he shouted over his shoulder, and his words echoed through the cavern.

  Jayden's movements mimicked Sean's. It was eerie just how much alike they were. I wasn't sure if identical twins born and raised together could have been more similar in their looks, actions, and reactions.

  "Who are you?" Sean asked Jayden with the exact same bewilderment we all felt.

  It took Jayden a long time to respond. "Look… we don't want to hurt you. In fact, I think the two of us have lots to talk about," Jayden finally said, waving his hand between them, alluding to the fact that they were too much alike for it to be coincidence. "Let's put our weapons away. Then you can tell us what's wrong with you… why you're hiding out in this cave and dying."

  As if I were his mortal enemy, Sean glared my way.

  "I don't trust a Surrogate in the presence of a Procreate,"—cough—"and pretending as if Procreates don't want to keep us down." Cough. "They treat us like shit and expect us to lap it up like it's a gourmet meal." Cough. "I'm done living like that. If I die in this cave, at least I'll die a man who refused to compromise his morals"—cough—"and his ethics. A man who refused to pretend as if I were not born a"—cough… cough… cough—"slave."

  It took everything in me not to run to the side of this man and see if there was anything I could offer him. He looked too much like Jayden for me not to care that he was dying before my very eyes.

  "I-if I leave, will you talk to Jayden? Let him know what's wrong with you so we can go back to camp, get you some medicine, and see if we can save your life?" I asked, peeking my head around Jayden's arm.

  Jayden had stepped between Sean and me, shielding me as much as possible from the man he considered a threat.

  "You'll never leave here"—cough—"if I have anything to do with it." Cough. "If I let you do that, you'll bring every Surrogate you can find back here,"—cough—"and they'll murder my brother and me in cold blood for treason."

  "What would make them do that?" Jayden asked calmly, tucking me farther behind him.

  Sean shrugged. "I am Surrogate Sean Serkis. I left my post. I didn't tell anyone where I was going." Cough. "I had to get to Asylum to save my brother. I'd heard Barone was going to begin a targeted attack there." Cough. "He planned to rid the nation of as many of the genetically mutated as possible." Cough. "I may not be anything more than a Surrogate in their eyes, and they may have kept me away from my brother as much as they possibly could,"—cough—"but I-I couldn't let them do that do him." Cough. "He didn't deserve"—cough… cough… cough—"that."

  Never skipping a beat, Jayden asked, "How is it your brother got mixed up with a bunch of Outcasts?"

  Simon's laugh was wet and wheezy. "Who the hell would be better?" Cough. "They hate everything to do with Barone and our government. As long as…"—cough—"as long as I kept hidden, they'd"—cough—"protect him with their lives."

  "So you've been holed up here. How long?"

  "I've been here"—cough—"for about a month. Simon's been staying in a different cave with the Outcasts. They've been taking care of him"—cough—"and he's been coming by here periodically, making sure I knew he was okay."

  As soon as Sean was finished answering Jayden, he broke into a full-out fit of coughs. One was so bad that his faced turned purple, the vein on his forehead bulged until I was sure it would rupture, his eyes watered, and he pulled away a palm full of bloody phlegm.

  I couldn't take it another second. I stepped around Jayden and asked, "Did you start getting sick about a week and a half after you moved into this cave?"

  All three men looked at me as if I'd just grown three heads. Sean and Simon because I dared approach Sean while he was dealing with his fit of coughing. Jayden because I dared step around him and pretend as if his protection wasn't absolutely necessary.

  Simon didn't wait for Sean. "He's been here for thirty days, and he's been sick at least twenty."

  I smiled smugly. "Did you have to rid the cave of bats?"

  Again, the twins leveled identical stares of disbelief my way.

  Simon murmured, "How did you know?"

  I shrugged. "I think you have histoplasmosis… a fungus that grows in soil and material contaminated with bat or bird droppings. Its spores become airborne when the contaminated soil is disturbed. Breathing the airborne spores causes infection. The good news is the treatment is as simple as taking an antifungal medication."

  "The treatment is simple. The treatment is simple." Sean, laughing sardonically, waved his arms around the cave. "Does it look like I have a pharmacy available to me, princess?"

  Princess. Jayden calls me princess.

  I shook my head. "No, but there's drugs at the camp and a doctor I trust," I explained.

  Again, Sean laughed his wet, wheezy laugh. "Back at the camp. You don't say. You'd like me to go back with you. Better yet, you'd like to go back by yourself so you can bring people back to capture my brother and me. Kill us?"

  I shook my head. "You don't have any reason to trust us, but you don't have a lot of options right now either. You're dying. The treatment might be simple, but your fate is inevitable without it. If you die, who'll look after Simon?"

  Jayden intervened. "If I wanted to kill either of you, you'd already be dead. You're too weak to fight me no matter what kind of delusional opinion you have to the contrary. Same goes for your brother. I could've killed him long ago. That's not who we are."

  Sean nodded his head toward me. "She's a Procreate."

  Jayden bowed his chest. "Yes, she is, but she's unlike any I've ever met. She doesn't consider herself better than us. In her
eyes, we are her equal." Jayden reached around and intertwined his fingers with mine. "We're together, and I love her more than I love anyone or anything. She'd never betray me or any other Surrogate. I'll stake my life on that."

  I love her.

  I love her.

  A Surrogate admitting aloud he loves a Procreate.

  As if his words were the catalyst that opened the floodgates for a love-based hormone, warmth bloomed in my chest and spread throughout my entire body. I stood stunned. I was too surprised to do or say anything. When Jayden squeezed my hand tight, I glanced up and saw he was waiting for something. A response.

  My face flushed and my smile was shy when I squeezed his hand back. It wasn't the public declaration he'd made, but he knew I'd at least partially forgiven him.

  Snapping our attention back to him, Sean began with a new round of coughing and ended up with another palm of bloody sputum. I jumped into action.

  "I'll go and get Thorne," I said to Jayden.

  I tried to pull my hand back so I could dash back toward the camp without a second's delay. Jayden refused to let go of my hand.

  "No. I can't leave you wondering around the forest by yourself. You've already almost died twice this week," he said.

  I wrinkled my brow and he answered my unspoken question. "The snakes and the Outcasts. The forest isn't safe. Sean and I are going to change clothes. We're all going back toward the camp. Before we make it all the way into the perimeter, Simon and I will take cover within the forest. You and Sean will stroll back to the infirmary and pretend as if Sean is me and I need my MicroPharm refilled." Jayden's glare turned toward Sean. "I'm assuming you have a MicroPharm?"

  Sean nodded. "Yeah, but it's been empty for a while."

  "You get Thorne to check him over good, give him whatever he needs to get better, and refill the MicoPharm. If he won't do that, tell him I won't help carry out his father's plans to get the three of you—you, him, and Rorie—away from Barone. Do you understand me?"

  I focused on Jayden's every word, analyzing his plan for holes. It was as solid as it got. I nodded.

  With a wink, Jayden said, "I know you'd love nothing more than to see me stripped naked, but you'd be forced to see my doppelgänger in the nude if you stayed, so I'd like you to go back out into the tunnel and keep your back to the cavern while we change. As soon as we're finished, we'll meet you out there."

  Jayden gave me one last reassuring squeeze before leaning down and kissing me thoroughly. He was taking full advantage of my disadvantage and, I suspected, making sure Sean understood just how close we really were. That I am a Procreate who can be trusted.

  His motives were irrelevant. His kiss left me breathless and dazed. I wanted to squeeze myself into him and demand more, but Sean and Simon were standing slack-jawed staring at us. The last thing I wanted or needed was an audience.

  Jayden leaned into my ear and palmed my cheek. "I've been trying to tell you I love you all day… that I'll never do anything to put you in danger… and beg you to trust me no matter what Barone says. I know more than you give me credit for. I won't let him hurt you. I swear," he whispered before giving me one last tight squeeze and releasing me to stumble my way to the cave's tunnel. To wait for them to change and for me to enlist Thorne's help.

  What if he refuses? What if he turns us in to Barone?

  Without a doubt, he'd do whatever put Rorie in the least amount of danger. What I didn't know was which of his options that would be. Would it be the option where he pretended as if Sean were Jayden, treating him and then letting him go before anyone was the wiser, or would it be the option where he turned us in and risked his father's plans for Jayden to get us to the secret safe house Dr. Angleton and Gran built for us, one that no one—not even my parents—knew about.

  When the three men joined me in the tunnels, I was shocked again at just how much Sean looked like Jayden. If I hadn't known they were changing clothes, I'd have instantly sidled up to the man dressed as Jayden had been earlier. Fortunately, I knew better. I walked over to the real Jayden and slid my hand into his.

  For some reason, I naïvely thought touching him would give me the comfort I needed to prove he was my Surrogate Soldier. His touch was familiar and his squeeze reassuring as we headed back to camp.

  The only break we took was when Simon slowed and ordered the panthers to heel, which they instantly did.

  In a distant way, it occurred to me that these panthers were the four-legged versions of a Dominant Soldier. Fiercely loyal and unconditionally subservient.

  Barone would love them.