Destiny's Shift

by Fall, Carly

  “Hey, man,” Jovan said.

  The guard turned to him, looking bored.

  “I’m going to be sick.”

  “And that involves me how?”

  “Rules of physics, dude. I toss it while I’m strapped down and I’m going to drown in it. Nowhere for it to go but back down. Do you want to be responsible for my death? I’m pretty sure the good doctor was looking forward to taking care of that himself.”

  The guard sighed and looked away.

  “Seriously, man, I’m going to lose it.”

  The guard looked at him for a long moment. “I’m just going to undo one hand. You can lean over the stretcher. I’m not letting you loose.”

  Jovan nodded, and the guy came over, pulling keys from his pocket. Jovan closed his eyes and waited for the click of the lock coming undone on his left hand.

  When he heard it, he pulled his hand free and leaned to the right as if he were going to be sick, but quickly came back around and had his free hand around the guard’s throat. The guard struggled, his eyes wide and his face turning red.

  Jovan didn’t let up on his grip, and after a couple of moments, the struggle ended and the guard went limp next to Jovan.

  He picked up the keys the guard had dropped and unlocked his other hand and then his feet. Standing up slowly, he noted his headache getting worse and a little dizziness as well as he touched the bandage on his forehead. He had to pull it together if he was going to get out of here. He didn’t know who was out there running this ambush, but he had always counted on himself, and that wasn’t going to change. He sat back down on the stretcher, took some deep breaths, and closed his eyes. Focus. Get it together. He wondered if that doctor was in the cab of the truck and tried to find any thoughts from the front, but found none. He wished like hell his gift was a strong as Liberty’s.

  Speaking of which, he needed to get out of here so he could get her wet and soapy in the shower. Man, he wanted sweet, little, Liberty slick from head to toe with her legs wrapped around his waist as he pounded into her. And she had said she wanted that too. Nice.

  Smiling, he stood up, stretched his arms above his head, and cracked his knuckles. Looking down at what he was wearing, he decided that it was going to be tough to be a bad ass in a hospital Johnny, especially in the rain.

  Chapter 45

  Blake stepped into the dark highway, silently cursing the rain, the crisp air biting his skin. He was sweating like a sinner in church on Sunday. He aimed his gun at the oncoming truck, unable to see the truck tires, but he had a damn good idea where they were based on the headlights. He fired and waited. Nothing. He shot off two more rounds and knew he hit when the truck started to weave back and forth. For good measure, he fired off two more rounds into the grill, then ran to the side of the highway and clamored up the rocks. This plan didn't involve him getting run over by an out-of-control truck.

  Blake watched as all the elements of the situation collided at once. The driver got out of the cab of the truck, his gun drawn, while the back door of the truck flew open and Jovan jumped out, his ass being kissed by the breeze. Noah pulled up, and both he and Liberty got out of the car.

  Noah tossed a gun to Jovan and yelled at Liberty as she rushed up to Jovan. A shot was fired from the guard who had taken cover across the highway by some rocks, and Jovan grabbed Liberty and took cover by one of the open doors in the back while Noah took cover behind his Hummer.

  Another guard got out from the passenger side and moved down the side of the truck, his gun drawn. He was going to take Jovan by surprise if he made it to the back, so Blake took aim and fired, hitting him in the shoulder and the leg. He wanted to incapacitate the guard, not kill him.

  “Sorry, buddy,” he mumbled as the guard fell to the pavement.

  The firefight continued, and it looked as if Jovan and Noah had things under control, but then in the distance Blake caught a glimpse of more headlights coming their way. It looked as if someone had called in the cavalry.

  From his perch, he decided the best way for all of them to get out of there was in one vehicle, and that was in Noah’s. He was the only one who needed to get down there, and he could cover the rest of them while they got in.

  He scrambled down the rocks and found Jovan and Liberty still taking cover by the back door of the truck. Liberty stood with her hands over her ears, and Jovan spun around and put his gun in Blake’s face.

  “I’m getting a little tired of you guys doing that,” Blake said.

  Jovan smiled and turned back around.

  “Nice ass as well.”

  Jovan ignored him and fired off a round.

  “We need to get out of here, Jovan,” Blake said. “They’ve sent in reinforcements.”

  “Got it. We need to make it to the Hummer.”

  “Agreed.”

  Jovan turned around and stared at Blake over Liberty’s head. “She’s priority number one, got it? She gets there.”

  Blake nodded. “Yep.”

  “I’m counting on you, Blake.”

  Blake met his eyes and gave another nod. “Understood, my friend.”

  “I’m going to cover you. Get her to the Hummer and down on the floor in the backseat. I don’t care if you have to sit on her, make sure that’s exactly where she stays.”

  “Okay.”

  “On the count of three.” Blake and Jovan stared at each other for a moment more.

  “Three!”

  Blake was glad Jovan wasn’t a guy who liked to screw around with the one and two.

  He grabbed Liberty’s arm and pulled her in front of him through the rain, shielding her with his back. She fought him for a moment, then allowed herself to be pushed toward the Hummer.

  Hearing the shot, but feeling the searing pain in his shoulder a moment later, Blake cringed and pushed Liberty to run faster. The second shot caught him in the side, and that one hurt like a bitch. He threw open the back door and pushed Liberty in and scrambled in on top of her. Through the intense pain, he heard Liberty crying.

  “I’ve got you covered, Jovan!” Noah yelled, and Blake heard more shots, one right after the other, and then the front passenger door opened and slammed shut, the driver’s side door right behind it.

  The Hummer roared to life and spun around heading out the way they came. Blake could still hear Liberty crying and his head was spinning. He was certain he was on the verge of passing out.

  “Please, Blake, get off me!”

  He tried to speak, but he couldn’t. He would love to get off of her, but he couldn’t move.

  “Stop!” Jovan yelled.

  “Don’t even think about it, Jovan,” Noah said.

  “Stop this fucking car or I’m jumping out! That cocksucker is mine!”

  Breaks screeched, and the car came to a violent halt.

  The last thing Blake heard was the passenger door slamming shut.

  Chapter 46

  Jovan stood in the middle of the highway behind the Hummer, the rain pounding around him. He had gotten a glimpse of the occupants of the car they had just passed, and he saw that cocksucking doctor.

  The guy was going to die.

  He watched as the break-lights from the doctor’s car lit up and the car turned around. Jovan realized he must look ridiculous standing in the middle of the road in his wet hospital Johnny waving in the wind, but a male had to do what he had to do, and he needed to kill this fucker.

  The car raced toward him, then slowed, and finally came to stop in front of him. The driver stuck a gun out the window, and Jovan raised his own gun and fired through the windshield, nailing the guy in the head. The dead man’s gun clacked to the ground.

  Jovan walked toward the car blinking the rainwater out of his eyes, and the doctor stepped out, raising his gun. Jovan took aim and shot the gun out of the doctor’s hand.

  The man screamed and looked at his hand, which was missing a few fingers.

  “I didn’t get a chance to do that last time you pointed that thing at me,” Jov
an said, continuing his walk.

  The doctor looked around as if searching for an escape route.

  “There’s nowhere to go, asshole.” Jovan stepped up to the doctor, towering over him.

  “We don’t need this to end in violence,” the doctor said in his best I’m-in-control-voice. “You can go your way, and I can go mine.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really.”

  Jovan chuckled. “See, doc, that wasn’t your plan two minutes ago. Two minutes ago you wanted me flat on my back strapped to your table so you could stick some more needles in my eyes and drill another hole in my head.”

  The doctor swallowed heavily, but remained quiet, the rain soaking him.

  “And that’s not going to happen,” Jovan said, reached out, grabbed the man’s head, twisted quickly, and only stopped when he heard a snap.

  Jovan dropped the doctor to the pavement and walked back to the Hummer. He slid in the front seat and was about to tell Noah to gas it, when Liberty screamed.

  “He’s bleeding! Please! Someone get Blake off of me!”

  Chapter 47

  Jovan sat at Blake’s bedside, watching the male sleep under a thick, dark-blue comforter pulled up to his chin. He put his head in his hands and thought about the past six hours.

  After Liberty screamed, he had jumped out of the car and hauled Blake off her, ready to make him bloody for upsetting her. However, she’d been correct; Blake was bleeding all over her and he was passed out cold.

  Jovan hadn’t realized Blake had taken two slugs to protect Liberty.

  He rubbed his face and looked back down at him. Any reservations he had carried about Blake were gone. The guy was a solid, stand-up male, and one they could use on their team.

  When they had finally hit the road after Jovan killed the doctor and pulled Blake off Liberty, Noah had called Reno and told Hudson to get Cohen’s ass on a plane, which he had done immediately. Being the healer of the group, Cohen could take care of Jovan’s hole in the head and probably Blake’s wounds.

  He and Noah had tossed around the pros and cons of having Cohen mess with Blake.

  “He’s part Colonist,” Jovan had said.

  “And he’s part human. We don’t know what Cohen’s healing capabilities will do to him.”

  But in the end, they had to roll the dice and let Cohen do his magic because hydrogen peroxide and gauze weren’t doing the trick.

  Blake slipped in and out of consciousness. The moments of lucidness were filled with ripe curses.

  Jovan had tried to be kind. “Thank you, man. Thank you.”

  “Go fuck yourself, J-man, and get me some drugs.” Blake’s eyes had then rolled to the back of his head and he passed out.

  There was a light knock on the door, and Jovan stood to answer it. Cohen stood before him and Jovan was surprised by how thin he looked.

  “Hey,” Cohen said.

  “Hey, man. How are you?”

  Cohen rolled his eyes like it was the stupidest thing Jovan could have said, and didn’t say anything. Jovan stepped back and let him in.

  Jovan stood by the door and watched as Cohen knelt by the bed, laying his hands on Blake.

  “This bullet just missed making his liver into pâté,” Cohen murmured.

  Twenty minutes later, Cohen stood.

  “I’m on my way to heal the trooper Annis. Do you want me to close that up before I go?” he asked, pointing to Jovan’s forehead, “or do you want to wait for human time to heal?”

  Jovan immediately jumped for human time as he still felt the waves of sadness coming from Cohen when he had his shield down, but then he had second thoughts. If Cohen could heal the hole in his head while Jovan had his shield in place, then maybe it would be a win-win for him.

  “Let’s do it, Cohen, but if I tell you to stop . . .”

  Cohen nodded, the bags under his eyes looking like they were carrying ten pounds of water each.

  They went into Jovan’s room. “Lay down,” Cohen instructed, pointing toward the bed.

  Jovan had actually been able to get through the healing, although Cohen’s sadness was nearly insurmountable. But Jovan had been able to block out Cohen’s feeling so they were barely a dull roar, and all he felt was a tingling in his forehead as Cohen repaired the damage from the drill.

  “Thanks, man,” Jovan said.

  Cohen nodded and left without another word.

  Jovan lay on his bed for a few moments, thinking about what he had to do next. There was one person he needed to exchange a few words with.

  This wasn’t going to be fun. SR44 males were a protective bunch, and that went for mates as well as family. Jovan had deflowered Noah’s sister, and Jovan was certain he wasn’t happy about it.

  Sighing heavily, he went upstairs to the kitchen area. Blake was resting, Annis was with Cohen, Rayner was still sick from the dart he took, and Faith and Liberty had gone to the store to get something for dinner. It was just him and Noah in the kitchen area.

  “I need to talk to you,” Jovan said.

  Noah turned to him, his anger evident. “You slept with my sister,” he said in a quiet voice, “and I don’t want to even see you, let alone talk to you.”

  No sense in denying it. Liberty had already told Noah.

  “Come on, Noah, knock it off. We’ve got to talk about it sometime.”

  “You slept with my sister when I specifically asked you to keep your fucking paws off of her!” Noah bellowed, his voice echoing off the tiled floors and counters.

  Jovan sat down at the kitchen table, realizing where this was going. Noah was on a roll, and once he got to this point, there was no stopping him or getting a word in edgewise. He paced the kitchen, throwing out a few curses, pointing at Jovan and went on and on.

  “It is my duty as her brother to protect her. I simply asked you not to have sex with her. You told me not to worry about it! I trusted you! She’s was a fucking virgin, Jovan, not just physically, but she’s almost childlike in every way!”

  And judging by how loud Noah was, it was going to be a while before he calmed down.

  A few minutes later, Noah sat down across from him, breathing heavily.

  “Look, Noah—”

  “You of all people, Jovan. Do you know she cares about you? In her innocence, she’s probably got visions of a big mating ceremony. You, who skirts on the outside rim of life, the guy who prefers to be alone, the guy who sometimes seems like he would rather be locked in a box than—”

  “I love her, Noah.”

  Well, that shut him up.

  Noah sat back in his chair and rested his ankle on his knee, stunned into silence. He just stared at Jovan.

  “I love her, and if she will have me, I want to mate her.” While getting his head drilled, he realized that he really wanted to live, and it was because of her. He had gone and done the one thing he never thought would be possible: he had fallen in love, and it felt like the right thing with the right person. Liberty, the one person on this planet who understood him and had given him the greatest gift of all: the ability to control his own.

  Mating ceremonies on SR44 were always done in the color of the female’s form, and a clear, crisp vision of Liberty walking toward him in a light pink dress flashed through his mind.

  There was a long silence.

  “Are you kidding me?” Noah said.

  “No. I’m dead serious. I plan to ask Liberty to become my mate, and I wanted to get your blessing. I love her.”

  Noah looked around the kitchen. “I didn’t see that one coming,” he mumbled. “That one pretty much came out of left field and blindsided me.”

  Jovan shrugged. “Sorry, man. I was surprised as well.”

  Noah exhaled loudly and looked around the room, his gaze coming back on Jovan. “If my sister will have you, then you have my permission to mate her.”

  Jovan smiled, feeling like he had won the lottery. “Thanks, man.”

  “But don’t fuck it up, Jovan. Don’t hurt my s
ister. And I do think she deserves better than you.”

  Both laughed and Jovan said, “I do too, my friend.”

  It occurred to him that if he did mate Liberty, by Earth customs, he would somehow be related to Noah. How, he wasn’t sure, but he would definitely look it up.

  They stood, clasped hands, and did a quick guy hug with a tap on each other’s back.

  “I still want her to come back to Fernley with all of us,” Noah said.

  Jovan didn’t like it, but he knew Noah was right. This mansion was safe, but the silo was like Fort Knox. He wanted Liberty as protected as possible. And the next steps he would be taking wouldn’t exactly fall into the definition of safe.

  It had been discussed before that he would stay in Phoenix with Blake, and they were going to see if they could at least get a read on the other group of SR44 males who called themselves The Platoon. It would be strictly recon, but he didn’t want Liberty anywhere around in case things went bad.

  “Agreed. I want her in a secure location as well, Noah.”

  There was a stretch of silence while they eyed each other. Jovan decided he needed to get moving. “I’m going to check on Blake,” he said, and left Noah in the kitchen.

  Back downstairs, he quietly slipped into Blake’s room and sat down.

  Blake had saved Liberty, even taking two bullets for her simply because Jovan asked him to, and he thought of everything Blake had given up to help them. His job. He had gone against his government, and if they ever identified him, he would be wanted for treason or some shit like that. Basically, Blake had given up everything in his human life to understand what he was and to help their people.

  Their people.

  Although Jovan hated Colonists, it was interesting to think that him and Blake were carved out of the same stone, so to speak. Blake was part SR44ian, even though Daddy had gone bad, his soul turned to black, and he had become a Colonist. However, he still had SR44 DNA floating around in there, so Blake was part of their people.

  And lying in front of him was proof that just because someone’s parental heritage was bad news didn’t have to mean that the progeny swung that way. People could come from bad situations and make something of themselves, just as Blake had done, and gave it all up for them.