Shadow Falling (The Scorpius Syndrome #2) (8 page)

He was two seconds away from coming in his shorts. A guy had to have some pride. If there was a private shower somewhere, he’d find it and jack off until he could think again. As it was, he was out of luck, so he needed to get himself under control. “Enough, Vinnie.”

She rubbed against him, arching like a cat. “Are you sure?”

Hell no, he wasn’t sure. “Yes.” He released her and dug
both hands into her hair, lifting and easily controlling her head. “Don’t trust me, and for God’s sake, don’t give yourself to me. Trust me.”

She laughed out loud. “What a contradiction you are.”

“Look who’s talking,” he said, frustration lowering his voice to a near growl.

“What makes you think I won’t tell Jax you’re going to betray him?” she asked without an ounce of coyness.

“He already knows I have an agenda and doesn’t trust me,” Raze said evenly. “I’m needed right now because his forces are down, or he’d probably just shoot me in the head and neutralize any threat.”

Vinnie sobered. “That’s just sad. Why don’t you tell me your agenda and I’ll help you? So long as nobody gets hurt.”

“You’ll know soon enough, baby.” He rolled to the side and dumped her on the bed, his entire body aching for relief. “We need food. Get dressed and we’ll head down.” He had to stop saying
we
. There was no
we
.

She grumbled but did as he said, rolling to the floor and heading for the defunct bathroom. The sound of her brushing out tangles in her thick hair filled the apartment with a domestic feel. A happy shout came from her. “You have the good toothpaste.”

“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.”

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.