Emma: Part One (Outpost Nine Book 1) (3 page)

Max's chest tightened. "You're engaged?"

Emma's forehead creased with annoyance at his abrupt change of subject. "No."

Relief swamped Max. If she had belonged to another male, he would have immediately dropped his pursuit rather than behave dishonorably. "Then you are available to us."

"Us?" She looked from his face to Jack's. "What do you mean us?"

Max wondered if Emma knew anything about cyborgs. "We mate in groups, Emma. Usually pairs of cyborgs choose a female, but there are some units with three or four males in them. Soldiering is risky work, and we aim to keep our mates safe and protected, especially if they are Originals. If one of us dies, there is always another to continue to care for the mate and any children."

"What?" Emma glanced back and forth between them. Her wide eyes reminded him of a spooked deer. "Oh, hell no!" Emma put up her hands and stalked away from them. "You two are nuts. No and no. I'm not interested."

Max frowned as she stomped away and continued checking her fence. Jack moved closer and spoke softly. "She is an isolated female, Max. I doubt she's ever known the touch of a man outside her family. The idea of mating with two males as large as us has probably scared her."

Max swore and kept an eye on Emma as she jabbered to herself and wildly swung that hoe. "I was simply trying to give her the facts."

"A little finesse next time, old friend." Jack clapped him on the back. "She acts very brave, but I believe she is skittish. If we want to convince her that we can offer her a better life, we should tread lightly."

“I’ll try.” Max grunted and shook off Jack's hand. His longtime friend had always been better at reading emotions and interacting with humans. He trusted Jack's judgment.

They caught up with Emma and continued to escort her. Max noticed the way she so painstakingly inspected the fence and the surrounding ground. The smallest weed was immediately slammed with the hoe and ripped free of the gravel. She took no chances and no shortcuts. Max's estimation of the tiny little sprite rose.

"What about the gravel on the outside?" Jack had stopped to study the tree line. Like Max, he had no doubt picked up on the horde of undead lingering in the trees. Their stink was so very faint, but easily detected by their enhanced senses. Even though Emma couldn't smell them or see them with her human nose and eyes, she seemed to know they were there. Every now and then, her frightened gaze would flick to the trees.

"I make notes when I see something that isn't quite right and then power down the necessary sections to make repairs or remove weeds."

Max's gut clenched. She spoke as if this were any everyday occurrence and not an incredibly dangerous endeavor. "Your males should do this," he growled angrily. "You are much too precious to risk outside the fence."

"My male did do this," she snapped back at him. "My father always protected me and put my safety before his."

"Protected?" Jack said carefully. "Past tense? Your father is dead?"

Emma swallowed hard and nodded. "Four years ago. He caught the flu in New Town on a market run and developed pneumonia. He was dead before I could get a doctor to our home."

Max tried to wrap his mind around what she had said. Was she admitting that she had been alone out here for four years? "But you have a mother? A sister? Some aunts?"

Emma shook her head. "My father was the last surviving member of my family. It's just me now."

In that moment, a feather could have easily tipped Max back on his ass. This human—this fragile, innocent, tiny woman—had survived four years on her own in the Outlands? Simultaneously horrified and indescribably proud, Max simply stared at her. No wonder she had been such a good shot up there in that tower. She had been defending her home from zombies, skin traders and worse for four long and lonely years.

It infuriated him that she had been left alone. Her father should have seen to her care and should have made provisions for her upon his death. Emma should have been taken in by a larger family or sent to the more easily defended settlements at New Town or Borden's Crossing.

Thinking of all she had survived in those four years, he wondered how much more luck she had on her side. Eventually, she would make a mistake during one of her walks outside the fence. She could be kidnapped or bitten or worse. The violent imagery of what might happen to her twisted up his gut.

Max made up his mind to the imaginary screams of Emma being taken down by a swarm of zombies. "You are coming home with us tomorrow."

"The hell I am!" Emma lifted the hoe menacingly. "I'm not going anywhere. I’ll leave my house and my farm on my own terms, not when some mercenary on steroids tells me to do it."

Max's jaw dropped. "I am not a mercenary, and I've never used steroids in my life."

“Wow!” Emma scoffed. "Way to completely miss the point, Max."

"Perhaps," Jack interjected diplomatically, "we should table this discussion until tomorrow." His gaze jumped to the sky. "We're losing light, and I have no idea how much fencing you have to check."

"Not much," Emma said. "I'd already checked three-quarters of the fence by the time you two showed up at my gate."

Max hated the way Emma warily sized him up before lowering the gardening tool. Without a word, she pivoted and walked away from them. Jack hurried to catch up with her. His mouth was shielded from Max so he couldn't make out what his friend was saying. No doubt it was exactly the right thing.

Max sensed he had gone too far, too quickly with her. It wasn't in his nature to be as thoughtful and patient as Jack. They had been created for different purposes. Jack had been bred and enhanced for extreme patience and intelligence to ensure his work as a sniper and scout always proved successful. He would happily lie in wait in the nastiest muck imaginable for days if it meant a kill.

Max wasn't like that. He had been bred and enhanced for strength, physical prowess and the ability to lead and act. He had commanded some of the most successful units in the Cyborg Forces. He did that by taking no shit from anyone and making split second decisions, some of them ugly and painful. The success of the mission was his only care.

But he was quickly realizing that style wasn't going to work on a girl like Emma. If he wasn't careful, he would alienate her completely. What if she chose Jack and another cyborg instead of him? Max's belly soured at the very idea. Jack wouldn't betray him like that. They were blood brothers, sometime lovers and had promised one another they would share their female, if they ever found one.

Emma was that female. Max believed that with every fiber of his being. Now he just had to get his shit together and not scare her off. Jack was right. Issuing orders wasn’t going to work. This was one time where finesse was needed.

Max's mind raced with scenarios as he took up the rear position. Dozens of sexy ideas sprang to mind. His cock throbbed in his tactical pants as he considered all the ways he could persuade Emma to return to the Outpost with them. They had the whole night ahead of them. By sunrise, Emma would be theirs.

2
Chapter Two

Jack loved the way Emma smelled. The pleasing scent of lavender swirled around him and tickled his nose. The light notes of the lavender suited her very well. She seemed like such a natural, outdoorsy type of young woman. He imagined she spent a good deal of her time out on her land. Her small plot probably required a great deal of work, especially for one person.

The way she handled her firearms impressed him. As a sniper, his skills were unparalleled, but he would have gladly taken Emma under his wing as a sharpshooter if she had been an Enhanced female. That she was an Original made her abilities all the more surprising. They weren't supplied with the neural implants that allowed him to calculate and compensate for wind speed or other factors. She had simply taken one look down that scope and fired on instinct. And not one miss! She had pegged every zombie chasing them. That was real talent.

"How long have you lived here?" Jack halted as she reached out to whack at a weed with that mean hoe of hers. He glanced back and saw Max keeping a safe distance. The other cyborg looked out toward the trees. The set of Max's jaw told Jack all he needed to know. Max was worried about that group of monsters tracking them through the trees.

"My entire life," she said as she resumed her slow walk. "Twenty-one years. My parents and their parents settled here a while before I was born."

"How long before?"

"Eleven years, give or take a few months." She shot him a confused look. "Why?"

Jack shrugged. "Just curious. We haven't been at the Outpost very long. We're still trying to get our bearings and meet the settlers at Borden's Crossing and New Town. Are there others like you?"

"Human females?"

He smiled. "No, I meant settlers in the outlands."

"Oh. Well, yeah. More than you'd think."

He noticed her cagey answers. He decided to press her to see just how much she would divulge. "How many?"

She smiled at him. "More than a dozen and less than a thousand."

"I see." Jack liked the way she protected her friends. "You know we're not out to hurt you or other Originals like you."

"It's not about you being a cyborg," Emma explained. "Most of us out this far west are descendants of the original pioneers. We're born with an ingrained sense of mistrust of the government and that includes its soldiers like you."

"Pioneers?"

She nodded and paused to check a few inches of the fence. "At the end of the Last War, after Houston was breached by the zombies, the government decided to blanket bomb the city rather than risk spreading the infection. My grandparents were college kids and barely survived. They threw in with other survivors and came west to resettle. My father and mother and their generation were raised to view the government as the bogeyman."

"So you hack out your livings in the outland, rather than submit to government rule?"

"Yes. We're totally self-sufficient people. It's one of the reasons I stayed after Dad died. I couldn't risk going to New Town or Borden's Crossing and losing my family home and everything that we had built.” She shrugged. “I guess I just feel safer out here, away from it all. I control this place. I make all the decisions for my life. No one tells me what to do."

"I understand, Emma. Our entire lives," he gestured back to Max who seemed to be listening intently, "have been centered around following orders. We're only just becoming autonomous and gaining access to rights that non-enhanced humans like you have enjoyed your entire lives.”

"I'm glad to hear that. Really." She reached out to touch his forearm. The electric sensation of her fingers against his bare skin sent little shockwaves through his stomach. She smiled at him before dropping her hand and reverting her attention to the fence. Jack gulped at the wild sensations she had evoked with the mere touch of her hand. Max chuckled as he brushed by and followed Emma. Obviously his response to the little human hadn't escaped Max's notice.

As Jack stepped back into place beside Emma, he picked up on her worry. She had stiffened and her gaze flicked toward the woods. "What is it, Emma?"

"They're stalking us." She snorted with amusement and looked at him and then Max. "Not that you two didn't already know."

"We will not allow them to harm you, Emma." Max's tone resembled a growl. "If you give your permission, we will use any and all weaponry at our disposal to defend you."

"They won't attack us." She seemed confident. "I've had a few zombies get ballsy and try to scale the fence. One good shock and they're dead meat." She wrinkled her nose. "The stench is gag-inducing, though. Shoving their crispy bodies off the fence is just plain nasty."

Jack decided not to dwell on the imagery. "What do you do with them?"

"I burn them. I dig in a small fire pit, drag them over, douse them with fuel and set their dead asses on fire." She pointed to a ring of stones maybe fifty yards from the outside of the fence. "That one hit the fence over the summer. I had to wait three days to burn him because of the wind."

"So you go outside your fence often?" Max wore an irritated expression. "That is too dangerous, Emma."

"I'm always armed. I'm careful. Besides," she shrugged, "I get bored here. Sometimes a walk in the woods helps me feel alive again."

“You walk in the woods? Alone?” Max looked as if he were about to have a stroke. “Risking your life makes you feel alive?" Eyes wide with horror, he glanced at Jack. "We can't leave her here like this, Jack. She is clearly on the verge of a mental breakdown."

"A mental breakdown?" Emma gaped. "Are you out of your mind?"

"No," Max shot back angrily, "but I'm beginning to wonder about the state of yours."

"You don't know shit about me, Max. I didn't say I have a death wish. I'm not suicidal."

"And how is walking through a forest teeming with zombies not suicidal?"

Jack sensed this discussion was going south fast. He gently stepped between them. "I think we can all agree that it's not safe for Emma to walk in the forest. At the same time, Max, you shouldn't play armchair psychologist. It's probably insulting to Emma to have her sanity questioned."

Emma and Max continued to make faces at one another, but their argument stayed dead. Jack began to wonder if it was worth getting his hopes up when it came to Emma. If she and Max couldn't get along, they would never be able to make a union work. Playing referee was already exhausting him. He couldn't imagine embracing that role for years on end. These two were going to have to figure out how to play nice sooner or later.

Desperate to change the subject, Jack pointed to the fence. "How many hits can it take?"

"Before I deplete my power?" She inhaled a long breath and scrunched up her forehead as she considered her power supply. "Forty. Fifty maybe. I can show you the electrical setup when we get back to the house."

"The fence is continuously electrified?"

"It's low voltage unless touched. It's set up like a stun gun, if that makes sense. There are smaller battery stations like that one—" she pointed to a spot up ahead, "—that offer a burst of power every time contact is made. It'll the zap the shit out of you.” She grimaced. “Literally.”