New Species 04 Justice (16 page)

obviously not happy to be assigned to drive her anywhere.

“Do you not like humans in general or is it just me?” Jessie kept her smile in place.

“I don’t mean to be rude.” She glanced at Jessie with a softer look. “I’m not used to

dealing with your kind and my experiences haven’t been good.”

“I see. Well, I’m a total smartass but I’m always nice to people unless they aren’t

nice to me first. I don’t think you’re being rude. I just wish you’d give me a chance

before you decide not to like me. I’m open-minded about you.”

Midnight smiled. “I see.”

Jessie had to learn how to break the ice all of her life. As the daughter of a public

figure she’d had to deal with a lot of strangers in different types of scenarios. She could be more open and blunt with New Species than with humans and she liked that. Species

didn’t play games or lie easily. They were straight up.

“So, are you the one who’s going to tell me where I work, what I do, where I’ll be

sleeping and when I start? I’m kind of in the dark except that I have a job and I’m living here.”

Midnight flashed her blue gaze at Jessie. “I’m just supposed to pick you up and take

you to one of the cottages. I was told to show you the home, wait around until you’re

ready and then take you to the Medical Center. I don’t know anything else.”

These people need help with their job orientation program
, Jessie decided. “Fair enough.

Will I have to live with someone or do I get my own room?”

“You will get your own cottage. We don’t share living space unless we live at the

women’s dorm but we all have our own apartments. We just share common areas. It’s

for New Species only and visiting humans are assigned cottages. They are houses

located in secured areas cut off from the rest of the general population.”

Jessie grew silent, allowing that information to sink in. Secure areas cut off from

general population sounded pretty grim. Midnight wasn’t a talker and didn’t seem to

mind the silence that stretched between them. Jessie glanced around her surroundings.

There were a lot of buildings that didn’t have names but they did have letters to

identify them. She realized she didn’t see any numbers at all, on anything. She

shrugged it off. They left the buildings and drove through a large park. There were tons

of trees and an obviously manmade lake.

“That’s really pretty.”

Midnight glanced at the water. “I like Reservation better. They have a really large

lake and it’s pretty. I did four weeks there last month and want to go back.”

“What do you do there? Is it better than driving new employees around?” She

meant it as a joke.

“Slade, he runs Reservation, requested female help while construction was being

done there. He needed help with security so twenty of us lived there. Once everything

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was done we were brought back here. We missed it. This is nice but Reservation is

better. Now we trade off shifts so I go for a month but then we switch. It works well

and that way our females are divided equally between the two locations.”

“Is being divided equally important?”

Midnight hesitated. “We are a lot fewer than the males and they are protective of

us. If something bad ever happens at one place they want to make sure not all of us are

killed.” She paused. “We get threats all the time by your kind to blow us up and hunt

us all down like animals. It makes the men worry about us and they divide our

numbers evenly.”

“I understand. Humans can be pretty shitty, can’t they?”

Midnight shot her a surprised look.

“I know how flawed my people are.” Jessie shrugged. “Some of us are good while

some of us deserve a bullet to the head.”

The Species woman smiled but tried to hide it by turning her head forward to

watch the road. “We are also needed here because Justice and the council decided we

should take care of all our people. Some of our females weren’t living here until

recently and they need us stronger females to care for them.”

Jessie shifted on her seat. “You mean the Gift Females?”

Midnight’s suddenly wary gaze cut to Jessie’s and she frowned. “What do you

know of them?”

“Actually, a hell of a lot. Until early this morning I was part of the team that

retrieved them and helped return them to your people.”

The woman hit the brakes hard. Jessie almost slammed into the dash. The woman

turned all the way on her seat to face Jessie, studying her hair. “You’re her! You’re
that
Jessie!” A grin broke out across Midnight’s face. “Tiny and Halfpint talk about you all

the time! They all do but especially those two.”

Jessie recovered from almost being a bug on the inside of the windshield and

shoved her ass back against the seat. “Tiny and Halfpint are here? Really? What

happened to the women’s retreat they were living at?”

“Oh, we don’t send them there anymore. It became too dangerous. We didn’t want

those nice human females or our females hurt. They were getting death threats for

harboring Species.” Midnight still grinned. “Wait until I tell them you are here. They

worship you. Whenever they are feeling frightened and scared, they think of you. You

are small like them but they said you are fierce.” Midnight glanced at Jessie and her

smile slipped. “You don’t look fierce. You look small and kind of weak.”

Jessie laughed. “I’m stronger and tougher than I look.”

Midnight didn’t seem convinced. “I will drive you to the cottage and to the Medical

Center. I will tell the females you saved that you are here. They might bake you

something. They are learning how and are proud of their skills.” Midnight lifted her

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boot off the brake and punched the gas. “Don’t hurt their feelings.” It sounded

threatening.

Jessie leaned back against her seat. “I wouldn’t dream of it. I love baked goods and

I’d love to see them.”

About two dozen really cute homes sat nestled on the other side of the lake. They

were all different colors. Jessie hoped she got one with a view. They were larger than

she thought they would be when she’d heard the word cottage. They didn’t really

resemble cottages but she shrugged that off too. The houses she saw had to be about

fifteen hundred square feet. Midnight didn’t slow the Jeep as they passed the gate

leading to those homes.

“Weren’t those the cottages?” Jessie stared behind them.

“Yes. I was told to take you to the other cottages.”

“There are more?”

“That was the human area for the humans who work or visit Homeland. You were

assigned to the New Species side.”

Jessie frowned, turning to stare at Midnight. “New Species side, as in only New

Species live there?”

“Yes. I don’t know why. I asked but was told do it. I do it.”

They came to another gated community. A guard shack with a Species officer in his

black uniform waited. Midnight hit the brakes.

“Is this the human female?” The man peered at Jessie curiously.

“Yes,” Midnight announced. “It is her.”

The officer smiled. “Welcome. Your home has been prepared and I was told to tell

you that if you need anything to let me know, Miss Dupree. If not me then whoever is

here on duty. One will always be posted at the gates. You just push the button inside

the door of your home to reach us. It is labeled clearly. It will let us know you need

help.” His gaze turned to Midnight. “It is the rose-colored one by the dark blue. It’s the highest on top of the hill.” He pointed.

“Thank you.” Jessie forced a smile.
Why would they put me here?

The officer opened the gate electronically and it swung wide. Midnight drove her

through. Jessie looked at the cottages they passed. They were similar to the cottages

they had passed where all humans lived. They were cute, newer homes but looked

slightly bigger than the human ones. The community was built on a hill overlooking

Homeland.

Midnight drove up the street to the top where one exceptionally large dark blue

home sat away from all the other homes but the slightly smaller rose-colored one next

to it. Large yard areas were located on each side of the two homes, spacing them from

the other houses down the street.

“There it is.” Midnight pointed. “It is big for one person.”

“Yes.” Jessie was in shock. “I expected just being assigned to a room.”

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Midnight parked in the driveway and climbed out. Jessie got out more slowly. She

reached into the back and gripped her gym bag, following Midnight to the front door. A

key had been left inserted in the lock. Midnight pulled it out and handed it to Jessie.

“Yours.” Midnight pushed on the door and swung it wide.

Jessie stepped inside. The living room was nice sized, fully furnished and had a

gray-stone fireplace. It was charming and she loved it. She dropped her bag before

turning to face Midnight again.

“Let’s go to the Medical Center.”

“Aren’t you going to explore?”

“Nope. I’ll do that later. I’m dying to know what I do now.”

Midnight blinked. “All right.”

Jessie locked the door and pocketed the key. She followed Midnight to the Jeep. The

officer at the gate stopped them with a deep frown.

“Is something wrong?”

Midnight shrugged. “She said she’d look at it later. She wants to go to work.”

He reached over and punched in a code to open the electric gate. “Have a good

day.”

The Medical Center was located near the front gates. It was a single-story building

with a glass front. It looked deserted as Midnight parked the Jeep at the curb. No one

was on the street either. Jessie climbed out.

“This is where I leave.” Midnight gave her a nod. “Enjoy your work, whatever it

may be.”

“Thank you.” Jessie hesitated. “How do I get home later?”

Midnight shrugged. “I don’t know. No one told me to pick you up.” She waved

goodbye and drove off.

Jessie shoved her hands inside her back jeans pockets and watched Midnight

disappear in the Jeep around a corner. She sighed. So far, this had to be one of her

weirdest days. She turned, studying the Medical Center and pushed open the glass

doors.

Inside were chairs against the window, one long counter and in the back behind the

counter were a few exam tables. They were in the open for anyone to see. Jessie’s

eyebrows rose. She glanced around the room but didn’t see anyone. She spotted doors

and a few hallways on the other side of the long counter.

“Hello!” Jessie didn’t exactly yell but she knew someone had to have heard her.

“Coming,” a man shouted from the hallway. He came down it and peered at her.

“You must be Miss Dupree. I’m Paul, the nurse here. Doctor Ted Treadmont is in the

back with Beauty. We’re so glad that you’re here. We’ve hated keeping her out but she

was really traumatized by last night. We want to wake her up and let her see you. We

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think it might calm her to see you at her side. When she woke up this morning after the

drugs wore off, she wouldn’t stop screaming. We had to put her right back out.”

Jessie walked around the counter. “I’ll do what I can.”

“Thank you. We were relieved to hear you were coming. Trisha, uh, Doctor Norbit,

is on vacation and unable to come back to help out. We thought a female would help.

We considered bringing other New Species in to sit with her but we didn’t want to

shock her more. Most of them were too young to remember much and when they see

their own kind they have freaked out. Some of them don’t know they look different

from us. They’ve only seen humans, so seeing a Species scares the shit out of them.”

Jessie blinked. “I never thought of that. I’ve yet to find a woman who had a mirror

in whatever prison she’d been confined in.”

“Yeah. It’s a learning process. I’ll be glad when Trisha comes back. They’ve needed

her at Reservation for some months now.”

Paul led her down a hall. The last bed in the corner was Beauty’s. Jessie studied the

older man with white hair who sat on a chair with a laptop on his lap. He wore glasses

and smiled at Jessie.

“You must be Miss Dupree. Thank you so much for coming. I was informed of what

happened last night.” His smile died. “Are you dizzy? Experiencing nausea?

Headaches?”

“I’m good.” Her focus slid to Beauty.

Jessie noticed they’d bathed the frail female. Her hair was now a beautiful, shiny

brown. It hung long, flowing down over her shoulders and she looked peaceful in her

sleep. The bedding this time was clean and she wore a pretty flower-print nightgown.

Jessie winced over the material. It was pretty in the “I’m eighty years old and it’s cool to want to resemble a florist shop” kind of pretty but the last thing Beauty needed to

worry about was having fashion sense.

Jessie stepped forward. “I thought the bruising would be worse.”

“Most of it was dirt.” Paul shook his head. “I heard she was really in bad shape

when she came in.”

Jessie gave him a sharp look. “You didn’t clean her?” She glanced at the doctor,

deciding he looked a little frail to handle that kind of job.

“Some of the women from the dorm came.” Paul hesitated. “Men aren’t allowed to

touch one of them without their clothing on unless it’s life or death. I think they are