“Yep. There’s water in a jug under the sink.” He drew on fresh jeans and a faded Metallica T-shirt before taking his turn in the useless bathroom to brush his teeth.
When he emerged, his shaggy hair smoothed back, she smiled. “You didn’t shave.”
“No.” He’d shaved the other day, so the shadow lining his jaw could stay for a couple more days. The room already smelled like her. Calla lilies with a hint of spice. “Thanks for letting me crash here last night. I was exhausted.”
She nodded and tugged the door open. “It’s your place.”
True, but now if felt like their place. He grabbed his gun off the top of the cupboard and tucked it into the back of his waist before following her into the hallway. They made it to the end just as Jax Mercury and Lynne Harmony stepped from the landing, plates of scrambled eggs in their hands as they headed to their apartment.
Lynne stopped and eyed Vinnie and then him. “Good morning,” she said, her green eyes twinkling.
Jax’s rough face, as usual, held no expression. “Sleep well?” he asked silkily.
Raze held his gaze and fought the urge to explain that nothing had happened. “Yes. Good morning.” He grasped Vinnie’s hand and tugged her past the couple.
“Morning,” Vinnie said as she passed. “Don’t worry. We didn’t have sex, although he had a raging erection.” She gasped and jerked free of his hold, running for the landing.
Raze continued after her, ignoring Jax’s low chuckle behind him. The woman really had to learn to censor her thoughts before they entered the world.
“We go on mission in an hour,” Jax said from behind him.
“Copy that.” Raze followed the scent of calla lilies.
Jax Mercury watched his new psychiatrist and his most dangerous soldier escape around the landing before shoving open his door with his hip.
Lynne followed behind him. “That was interesting.”
He shut the door and strode to the ratty sofa and rickety coffee table to set down his plate. A pretty green blanket stretched across the back of the sofa, while a fairly new and almost matching bedspread covered the neatly made bed. He surveyed a couple of new prints on the walls. “Have you been decorating?”
She put her plate on the table next to her father’s treasured journal and sat in a comfortable leather chair facing the sofa. “A little.”
The place had felt like home, as crappy as it was, from the first step Lynne Harmony had taken into his life. “It looks nice.” He’d grown up on the streets in a gang and then had entered the military before Scorpius infected the world, and while he’d dated plenty, he’d never had to search for flowery words. “I, ah, like it.”
Lynne smiled then, her eyes sparkling. “I’m glad.” Her blue heart glowed through her white blouse. She’d given up trying to hide the blue after he’d rescued her from her crazy ex-boyfriend.
Jax tossed plastic utensils to her before taking his seat. He glanced at a picture of his brother, Marcus, pinned near the door. “I had Byron sketch some pictures of Marcus to send out with scouts. Just in case they come across survivor encampments. To see if anybody has seen Marcus.” It was a long shot, but Jax had recently discovered that his little brother might still be alive, so he’d tried to figure out a way to find the man. Thus far, nothing had panned out.
“We’ll find him,” Lynne said softly. “I just know we will.”
“Faith is not wanting to know what’s true,” Jax murmured.
Lynne tilted her head. “Nietzsche?”
“Yep.”
“He was wrong about that one. Faith is good, and we will find your brother.” She smiled.
Her belief helped him. He concentrated on her. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine.” She dug into the watery eggs.
“Your wounds have healed physically, but I want to know about your mental state,” he said evenly, taking a bite of eggs. Yep. Watery without any salt. He sighed.
She lifted an eyebrow. “I’m well. Bret only had me for a few hours before you blew up his world.”
It had been a week since she’d been kidnapped by the president. Jax had saved her, but he had failed to kill the bastard. “I needed more explosives.”
She tilted her head to the side, easily reading his emotions. “It’s not your fault I was taken. You saved me, remember?”
“Everything that happens to you is on me,” he said, forcing himself to eat another bite of the eggs. Oh, an educated and cultured woman like Lynne wouldn’t completely understand his claim, but she’d support him. He was raised on the streets and understood this new life much better than she did. “You shouldn’t have been in danger.”
“Danger is everywhere,” she breathed.
“Not for you.” Jax finished the crappy breakfast. “We don’t have a clue where Atherton or his forces are, but we’ll find him.” While Jax wanted to be strategic and use Atherton, if they came face to face again, the president would bleed. No way could Jax let a threat to Lynne continue breathing.
“I know, but keep in mind that the military, what there is of it, answers to him.” She choked down more eggs. “I’m worried that he knows where we are now, you know? I think Tace is right and Bret will attack at some point.”
Oh, the bastard would definitely attack at some point. “Maybe, but we’ve shored up the perimeter for now, and Atherton needs to consolidate his forces before launching an attack. Hopefully we’ll be long gone from here when that happens, because I’d rather attack him on my terms.” Jax needed to move everyone out of inner city Los Angeles and go north to more fertile land soon. Food was becoming scarce. “We need to pick up a farmer or two.”
“We have a couple,” Lynne mused, eating more eggs. “We just need to find good land.”
“We will.” Jax studied the woman who’d stolen a heart he hadn’t realized he had. “How is the research going?” Lynne was the former head of infectious diseases at the CDC, and lately they’d raided several local labs and obtained reams of research files.
“It’s going well.” Her frown belied her words. “The last lab had some interesting theories on how to create permanent vitamin B in the body without monthly injections.”
“Good, so why are you frowning?”
“I need a lab. A good working lab.” She sat back in the chair. “The newest batch of research materials has references to the Bunker. I’m starting to think the place might actually exist.”
Jax rubbed his chin. “It kind of makes sense. I mean, the government had to have some sort of plan in case of a plague, right?” The Bunker was an almost mystical place whispered about in survival camps. A place beneath the ground with generators, labs, food, and medicine. But nobody knew its location or if it really existed.
“We have to find it. I need a lab.” She eyed the remaining scrambled eggs on her plate.
“Eat it all, Blue.” He couldn’t afford for her to get ill.
She sighed and picked up the plate to finish off the eggs. “You’re tense. I mean, more than usual. What’s going on?”
He shook his head. “Nothing.”
“Don’t lie to me.” She pushed her empty plate away. “We’re past that.”
“There are some things you don’t need to know.” She was good and kind and he didn’t want her carrying a burden that belonged to him.
She blew out air. “You’re planning something that has you tied up. So don’t do it.”
“How did you know?” Jax asked, more than ever intrigued by her ability to read people, especially him.
“We sleep together every night and see each other every day. There’s love here.” She picked at a loose string on her jeans. “If I had to guess, and apparently I do, this has something to do with Raze Shadow. You seem tense around him, but I know you like him.”
His woman was both brilliant and insightful. Usually he liked that about her, but sometimes it was a pain in the ass. He gave in and told her the truth. “I like parts of Raze, but he’s definitely a threat.
His reason for being here is a bad one for us or he’d share it. I’m finished waiting for him to come clean or make a move. So he has to be neutralized.”
“That’s a lovely word for stopping his heart,” Lynne snapped.
Jax nodded.
“When?” she mumbled, her body stiffening.
“Today, scouting.” Jax kept his voice even and his face determined.
She looked him right in the eye. “Whatever his agenda, even if it’s bad, he won’t carry it out. He won’t let harm come to Vanguard. I just know it.”
“I can’t take that chance.” Heat slammed through Jax to roll into a hard pit in his gut. He loved her and he trusted her, but leadership of Vanguard belonged to him. “I have a job to do, Lynne.” That was the end of it.
Lynne ran her hand over her dad’s leather journal. She seemed to take some sort of comfort from the ramblings inside. “You’ll do the right thing today. I know you will.”
“Agreed.”
Chapter Seven
We never truly know the people closest to us.
—Dr. Vinnie Wellington, Perceptions
Raze met Jax outside the brick headquarters in the parking area that fronted the building.
“You ready?” Jax asked.
“Yes.”
They maneuvered between a tipped-over soccer mom van and a rusting semi truck to reach a small waiting Datsun, dented and yellow. A young soldier jumped out of the back, nodded at them, and hustled back inside the gate.
Raze paused. “I thought we were patrolling the eastern fence on foot?”
“Nope.” Jax slipped into the driver’s seat and ignited the meager engine.
Raze paused, the hair rising on the back of his neck. “I don’t like surprises.”
Jax turned to face him out of the rolled-down window. “Then the postapocalyptic world must really suck for you.”
Whatever. Raze crossed around the front of the truck and stretched into the passenger seat. “You have no clue.” Was Jax on to him? The weight of the weapon at his back pressed in, and he moved his right foot out so he could reach his knife if necessary. “Where exactly are we going?”
“To find explosives.” Jax jerked the gear shift into place and turned the wheel to head east along a road they’d cleared months ago. Dawn cracked over the horizon and dew still clung to the earth. “I’ve had the younger kids going through old phone books, and they found several construction companies outside of Compton. We need explosives, Raze.”
Yeah, or this was just a good way for Jax to shoot Raze in the back of the head without any witnesses. Soldiers failed to return from missions every day. “I’ll keep an eye out, then. Why just the two of us?”
Jax lifted an eyebrow. “You think we need backup?”
“No.” Hell no. If they were working together, they’d be the most dangerous force in Vanguard. Were they on the same team? At least for the day? “But it’s the first time we haven’t taken additional backup.”
“No room in the truck.”
Yeah. That was Jax Mercury . . . a man of few words. Of course Raze could relate. “Fair enough.” He tugged his gun free and rested it on his jean-clad leg, watching out the window for threats. The roads had been cleared around Vanguard territory, and most buildings had been torn or burned down, leaving clear views in case of attack.
They left Vanguard territory and turned into what used to be Watts. Vines and weeds were already climbing up dilapidated small homes, while vehicle carcasses rusted across empty lots and in the middle of streets. The smell of nature, dust, and death filled the air.
For a while, as Scorpius infected the land, there had been community burn piles for bodies. Then there weren’t enough people healthy enough to gather the dead.
Now many of the dead decomposed wherever they had fallen.
Raze swallowed and calmed his system. The dead weren’t his problem right now. He had to deal with the living.
The houses turned to small businesses, all crumbling and dark. A man, dressed in what might’ve once been a flowered dress and ski gloves, barreled out of a shack with “Pete’s Ink” burned into the shingles. A straggly beard covered his jaw and wild red striations marred the whites of his eyes. His hands gripped what appeared to be Barbie dolls.
He yelled something unintelligible and ran toward the truck.
Jax punched the gas. “Insane bastard.” Sorrow darkened his tone rather than anger.
“Should we shoot him?” Raze asked, turning to watch the Ripper run across concrete, rocks, and glass behind them, screaming incoherently.
“No.” Jax sighed. “Not today anyway.”
Raze nodded. Sometimes he didn’t feel like shooting anybody either. “Do you think there’s a cure? I mean, do you think it’s possible we’ll ever find a cure for Scorpius?”
“No.” Jax jerked the wheel to avoid a crumpled Honda motorcycle. “I don’t think we can make the insane sane again, you know? Maybe we’ll come up with inoculations to protect people from being infected, but I figure once it’s done, it’s done.”
“You’ve been infected.”
“Yeah, and I had B the second it happened, so hopefully I won’t go nuts. But who the hell knows?” Jax glanced up at the sun. “Vinnie has had the fever.”
Raze nodded, noting the Ripper had stopped following them. “I’m not planning on hitting that, so it doesn’t matter.” He kept the language crude on purpose so Jax would drop it.
“You could use a condom.”
Jesus. “I don’t need a pimp, Mercury.”
“I’m just saying. Life is short, and she seems to like you for some damn reason. You moved her into your place.” Jax slowed down to drive around a couple of facedown bodies partially decomposed in the center of the street.
“I’m bunking with Tace. Not interested in Vivienne.” Not for the right reasons, anyway. Raze jerked his head toward a bunch of smashed mirrors up ahead. “Avoid the glass.”
“Copy that.” Jax had to drive up on a sidewalk and over lumber. The truck jumped and hitched, but they made it back to the street all right. “Did Vinnie say how yesterday afternoon went with the patients?”
Ah-ha. So Mercury wanted the dish on everybody. Suspicious bastard. “No, and don’t push her.” Even as he said the words, Raze bit back a wince.
“No need to be overprotective,” Jax drawled.
“I’m not, but you haven’t heard her screaming late at night.”
Jax slowed down and squinted out the window. “Pine Street.” He turned and drove down a street canopied by palm trees. “It’s interesting you’ve heard her scream so often. You time your patrol to be within hearing distance?”
“Just doing my job, boss.” Raze stretched his neck as homes, nicer than the earlier ones, started to line the street. Brick homes, small but probably well kept at some point. “We’re going the wrong way.”
“No.” Jax tugged a page from the phone book out of his pocket and unfolded it on his leg. Glancing down, he pursed his lips. “Twenty-seven-O-Two Jacoby Street.” He drove farther down Pine Street and then turned at Jacoby, which held more homes. “Humph.”
Raze eyed the silent brick sentinels. “We could raid here. Looks fairly untouched.” They could really use prescription drugs as well as canned goods. And condoms, although not for him.
“Agreed.” Jax downshifted to move around a green barrel. “I don’t like having somebody I barely know cover my back—it makes me twitchy.”
Raze preferred not to know anybody right now. Even so, he understood the sentiment. “Fine. What do you want to know?”
“Not your biggest dreams or fears, asshole. How about telling me why you went into the service.”
That made sense. As former soldiers, they had that in common. So Jax was looking for common ground? Raze kept his focus on the threats outside the truck. “My dad died in the service, and my mom worked hard but didn’t have much money. The service seemed like a good idea, and I enjoyed it. Made friends, and I miss my good ones
every day.” So damn many people had died from Scorpius. “You entered the military because a judge made you, right?”
“Yep. Either prison or military. Either way, I had to leave gang life or I’d be dead.”
It seemed like that background had actually served Jax well after the world became infected. Raze cleared his throat. “Speaking of gang life, any news on your brother?”
“No. I’ve sent out sketches with his face, but nobody has seen Marcus.” Jax slowed down to cross over a bunch of crumbled bricks in the center of the road.
It’d be a miracle if Jax ever saw Marcus again. The gang leader Jax had killed when rescuing Lynne had hinted that Marcus, another gang member, was still alive. It was likely that the gang leader had just been messing with Jax’s head. “I hope you find him,” Raze said.
“Me too. What about you? Siblings?”
Raze purposefully kept his body from stiffening. “A younger sister named Maureen.”
“Ah. Where is she now?”
“Not with us,” Raze said. He couldn’t exactly tell Jax that Maureen was being held by the Mercenaries up north.
“I’m sorry.”
“Me too. She was everything good in this world, you know? I pretty much raised her since our mom had to work so much, and she ended up so damn smart. Got a scholarship to Harvard.”
“Wow.”
Raze nodded. “Studied food production. Wanted to end world hunger.”
“Sounds like she was a sweetheart. I would’ve liked to have met her.” Jax slowed down. “There it is.” He pulled into an empty driveway with 2702 on a plaque near the dusty red door. Another sign had been mounted on the house near the driveway: “Jack’s Construction—Go around back.”
A home business. Raze’s heartbeat sped up a little. “Unless scavengers bothered to look in the phone book, if they could even find one, this type of business wouldn’t be easy to find.”
“Nope. Let’s hope Jack didn’t take his goodies with him if he left.” Jax stopped the truck and jumped out.
“Let’s hope Jack left,” Raze muttered, exiting the truck, leaving his door open for a quick getaway. He settled his stance and took a moment as Jax did the same thing, not moving.