This was why I couldn’t have friends. I clearly had obsessive behavior issues I’d never get over.
I found the building Chad directed me to and stuck my head inside. A man groaned on the table. His arm was broken, the bone showing through the skin. Margot examined him quietly while he screamed bloody murder on the bed. Two men tried to hold him down but he twisted with superhuman strength only displayed by non-Wolves when they were in that kind of pain. Adrenaline was really something.
Back in the first time I’d been alive, there would have been hospitals to deal with this, but outside of Icahn or Doubleday, no one had that kind of medicine now. It was like being back in the Civil War. I walked toward her, coming fully into the tent and leaned my elbow over the man’s chest. He cried out but quit moving, which was the point. Margot didn’t look, but she spoke to me. “Thanks.”
“Can you fix this?” I’d seen my father do this a lot in our time in this post-apocalyptic hell. She was going to have to break it again, reset it, all with anesthesia. It was going to be a giant mess.
When she lifted her gaze to mine it was steady, sure, calculating. Margot was a woman sure of her own power right in that moment and it made my breath catch as I watched her. “Yes. Of course.”
She was completely confident in her abilities. That was really something. I’d never been that way, ever. I stayed silent as she worked. Eventually, the patient whose name turned out to be George, passed out. That was probably for the best. I wouldn’t have wanted to be awake doing that and my bones regularly reshaped. I knew just how much that could hurt from the first times it had happened.
Eventually, Margot stepped back, checking her patient’s pulse. She nodded to herself before sending his two friends from the room. She raised her gaze to meet my own.
“Thanks for your help.”
I shook my head. “I did very little.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “I have to go do something that I won’t get permission from the board to do. I have to ask forgiveness when I’m done instead of permission. It won’t make them trust me any more than they do, but they’ll say no and I can’t compromise on needing it.”
Well, that had been a truly unexpected response. “What do you have to go do?”
“Would you be willing to break rules with me, Jason? I could use some help.”
I shrugged. “I don’t have to follow their rules. That wasn’t part of the agreement I made. That being said, I’m going to ask you what we have to do first before I agree to it.”
“You’re smart.”
I shook my head. “I didn’t used to be.”
“Well, we all get a chance to do things better. Particularly when they clone us. Or at least that’s what I’m telling myself. I need to go sneak into a Doubleday facility and steal antibiotics. George’s skin was open all the way to the bone. It’s not going to set well, not even with what I was able to do. That’s just the sad truth. I need an antibiotic or I might as well have cut off the arm and danced naked hoping that would cure him. He will have infection in the next week if I don’t get some antibiotic. I am bone weary of losing patients to things we’ve long been able to cure.”
“Well then.” I looked around. “Let’s go do that. I’m always up for a good smash and grab.”
She shook her head, a smirk starting to cross her face. “Jason, I should not have asked you to do this with me. It’s going to be dangerous.”
“That’s exactly why you should have asked me. I’m a Werewolf, Margot. We’re friends. I’m more dangerous than almost anyone else out there.”
Her face fell. “If only that were true.”
I wasn’t going to question why the first thing I wanted to do was make her smile again or why my Wolf stood up inside of me, willing to die to make that happen. I wasn’t going to ask myself to examine why I took her hand in mine and squeezed. I cared about this woman and so did my Wolf. We both wanted her happy.
In this world, where that was a near impossibility, I was going to see to it that it happened.
That’s what friends were for.
Getting out of Genesis was not a problem. It never had been for Rachel, too. For all that it was a militaristic existence out of necessity, there were few people keeping the population within its walls if they really wanted to go. A Warrior might strongly suggest a person stay put, but they couldn’t do anything about it. That seemed to not have changed.
Still, Margot wanted to sneak out in the middle of the night, so I waited for her, leaning against a tree just a short distance from where she strode out. I looked up at the moon. I could feel its cycles the way that some people could tell when they were hungry. I knew in my gut when I was going to be called upon to shift and lead the pack through a Full Moon. I was the only one who could resist the call. It hurt like hell to do so, but if they needed me, I could get that done.
I preferred to go Wolf during that time.
But no one was all that interested in what I wanted and didn’t want anymore.
Hell, I was so sick of my own internal thoughts. Poor me. Woe was me. I had to get my shit together if I ever wanted to do whatever it was I had to do next.
As it was, Margot knew right where to go to grab the drugs she needed. It was half a night’s walk. She didn’t try to fill the silence, which I appreciated. We were vulnerable enough being out in the darkness, just the two of us, with no backup. I could handle myself just fine, even if I ended up having to run for my life, but I couldn’t be sure I’d take proper care of Margot in the process.
I didn’t want to fail her in any way.
Silence was better. But when we came onto the lab that she wanted to get into we had to speak. She put her hands on her hips. “Most of the medical facilities are designed similarly inside. But it is possible we’ll have to look around for a few minutes. They don’t expect anyone to break in. There aren’t worried about it. There aren’t roving bands of humans ready to steal. Genesis has been downright easy to deal with as the closest neighbor. They don’t venture. They protect.”
“You just said they. Wouldn’t it be we for you at this point?”
She sighed. “If I ever have a we I’ll let you know. You have pack. That may not make sense to you.”
“Actually, it does. The truth of my pack is something we can get into another time.” I pointed at the medical area. “What should we expect to find in there?”
She shook her head. “It may be as simple as empty rooms and places where medicines are stored. It may be something much more nefarious. Badly formed clones. I don’t know. I’ve sometimes wanted to suggest to Chad that we raid this place but a, I’m not sure they’ll listen to me and b, I think maybe it’s better we leave it alone. If we raid it, they close it and then they stop sending supplies here. There won’t be anywhere to steal from. Genesis is nowhere near ready to create antibiotics.”
How would they even attempt that? How many years away from having those abilities readily available were we? Would I ever see it in my lifetime?
She walked forward and I followed her. This was her show. I was around to help and keep her safe. Besides, I could easily shove her behind me and get her out of the way if anything on the inside of the building set off my Wolf alarms. So far I wasn’t scenting anything alive. Just lots of metallic medical scents inside the building. I wouldn’t know for sure until I was inside.
Margot walked up the door. There was a key code that needed to be entered to open it, and Margot must have known it because she keyed in numbers. I memorized the code and it took me a second to recognize that it was the date readily considered Armageddon day. I sighed. What fucker had made that the code?
Well, the same people who worked for the scientists who put us in this situation to begin with. We stepped inside and the buzz of air conditioning hit me hard before I even felt the cool air. It had been such a long time since I’d felt any. Everything smelled cold and not alive.
“No one alive in here that I can smell.”
She nodded. “Last I heard there weren’t things you couldn’t. But I don’t know anything about daywalking Vampires so let’s be alert anyway.”
“Sound advice.” I liked how Margot thought. A low light lit our way. Maybe our entering the building triggered it. Maybe it was always on. Two thoughts dawned on me almost simultaneously. The first was that Margot’s hips swayed in an almost hypnotic way when she walked and I could hardly take my eyes off of them. And the second was that we were probably being recorded somewhere which meant someone watched me staring at her rear while she moved.
I raised my gaze and forced myself not to check her out. What was going on with me? I had a mate. She rejected me, but that didn’t negate the fact that I’d had her and that meant for the rest of my life I was not going to be sexually interested in anyone else.
Yet, my gaze fell again. I wrenched it up. I needed to focus on important things like the fact that we were being watched meant that whoever did the watching could send someone to get us. Yeah, that mattered more than whatever libido of mine had decided to turn back on right at that second.
Or at least my awareness of my first friend in years, I was so going to fuck this up.
“This is a fairly standard set up so far. I know where they’re going to keep the drugs.”
“When I was in high school that would have been in people’s parents’ bedrooms.” I shrugged. “Never mind, sorry. Bad joke.”
She smiled at me, turning around slightly to do so. “I never lived in that world. It’s one thing the people who they pull out of the Vampire lairs and I have in common. We don’t get the references you all make.”
She swung open a door in front of her, and I followed her inside. It looked like an old doctor’s office. Memories of physicals given to me by my father’s friend who was also a Werewolf rushed through me. We’d had to have the same documents as human children, the same shots, even though they did nothing for us. We’d handled that the way we did everything back then, we’d faked it.
Margot walked to the other side of the room and pulled a key out of a drawer. She was so at home here. “Are these places all really the same?”
“Almost entirely. Icahn liked things to be the same wherever he went. He didn’t want to have to remember where he was. I hoped things were the same. Otherwise I was breaking glass. I’d do it but I prefer simplicity.” She shrugged and then crossed the room again to open a large refrigerator. “Bingo.”
I guessed she found what she needed. While she looked I wondered around. There was a computer with a blinking light in the corner. When was the last time I’d seen one? I couldn’t even remember. I touched the mouse and the screen turned on.
A jolt of joy moved through me. It worked. I bent over it. Someone must have been here not too long ago. I scanned through the desktop, the use of the mouse coming back to me like muscle memory. I could probably still ride a bike, too. I guessed it was true, some things were never forgotten.
“Anything interesting?” Margot called out to me from in front of the fridge.
“I don’t know. There’s a video.” I clicked on it. What did mad scientists bent on keeping the rest of miserable watch on the computer?
A woman I didn’t recognize stood in front of the screen. She spoke in a loud, nasally voice. “I’m Alicia Jabra.”
“Hey,” Margot called out. “I know her. We used to work together.”
“If you’re watching this,” Alicia kept speaking. “Then we’ve abandoned this place and I’m going to suggest you get out, too. We made a mistake. We woke them up. Well, we didn’t know what we were doing. Doubleday did but we didn’t. There isn’t a lot I wouldn’t do but this was too far. I’m sure by now you’ve seen them. If we’ve left then they’ve gotten loose. They can walk in the day time, and as they are loose, they will only get stronger. They’re the original Vampires. They carry the virus, they spread it. They were the ones first made for war. This is how the virus got loose.” She looked over her shoulder. “Whoever you are, run.”
The screen went black. Margot stepped next to me. “Shit.”
My whole body had gotten cold. We’d always wondered how it happened. Vague answers hadn’t provided much information. Scientists. Viruses. Well, now it made sense. They’d tried to make monsters to make war even deadlier. Most of the world had died from it.
I sniffed the air. “I know she said run, but I can’t scent them.”
“She couldn’t have known you’d be with whoever watched this.” She bent over and picked up the hard drive, and then I took it from her. It would be heavy for her. “That’ll have more information on it. I can’t believe it. I never heard that, I mean ever. Original Vampires? What an implication.”
Margot wasn’t thinking about the millions of dead. She’d never have known them. I put my hand on her arm. “Let’s get out of here just the same. Did you get what you needed?”
“I’m going to take all of it. If things are really turning in such a bad direction then I don’t want to risk the antibiotics being destroyed. I might as well tell the others and them raid the place for tech. Thanks for being here with me, Jason.”
“Happy to.” I’d get her home and then I was going to get my pack. If all of this was true Genesis needed me to catch an original Vampire stat. I wouldn’t hesitate. The houses were important, but this fresh hell heading our way was more pivotal.
For all of us.
Five
“But they’ll cut off our heads.” Brandi, the oldest female in my pack wrung her hands together. “They call one of them the Wolf Killer. Deacon, I think was his name. Those Werewolves I met who aligned themselves with the scientists. They told me about it.”
I digested that information, keeping my face and my scent passive.
“I know Deacon Evans.” Somehow I couldn’t be surprised that he earned that title. If ever there was a person that I couldn’t stand it was Deacon. “But if he killed Werewolves like that, it was because they were threatening him. He has made no moves to become aggressive with me and he won’t with you. Remember we’re trying to be like the old days. We want to live in harmony, nearby the humans, and not fight with them unless we have to. They are not interested in causing us issue.” At least right now. “And they’re going to teach us some skills that frankly if we don’t get we’re going to die. That’s all there is to it. I’ll help them with this serious Vampire threat. It’ll all be okay. I promise. You wanted me to lead. This is how I do that.”
Brandi nodded and soon the others did, too.
I had to finish. “Gather up your things. We’re going to go, now.”
Forty souls who counted on me to know what the fuck I was doing. Not one of them had ever been able to tell me why. I’d been a teenager when last they’d known me and not a great one at that. Why had they wanted me back?
“Brandi.” I caught her attention and almost asked her. I’d wanted to know for so long and yet I could never bring myself to ask. What if the answer was we needed an Alpha and you were the only one with your DNA on file in the cloning machine? How would I deal with the randomness of that?
She was waiting for me to finish speaking so I quickly did. “Thanks for the question.”
She nodded, clearly pleased I’d singled her out. Internally, I sighed. I was glad she felt good from the attention, but boy was I bad at this if I was getting all worked up from even thinking about asking them a very basic question.
I shook my head. It didn’t matter. There were things to do. We needed to do them. Every day there was some right thing to do. If I kept walking the path I’d eventually get wherever I was going even if I didn’t know exactly what I would find there.
Our arrival at Genesis was done in the middle of the day just as everyone took a break for lunch. Or at least it felt that way. The council had said this would be fine, but the death glares we were getting from the group as we arrived told another story. The people didn’t want us here.
I stiffened my spine. That was fine. They could all kiss m
y ass. Who needed this shit anyway? They’d come to me and…
Margot’s scent wafted toward me, and I turned to regard her. She rushed to my side. “I was hoping you’d be here around now. I was going to worry something happened to you. How would I ever know if it did?” Her eyes widened, and she cleared her throat. “Sorry, that must sound… off.”
“I’d worry about you too if I couldn’t find you. How did they take the news about the nature of the daywalking Vamps?”
She scrunched up her face. “About as well as can be expected. Have they shown you where to settle in?”
A guard had pointed us in a general direction. “Sort of.”
Margot laughed. “No one pays that much attention to logistics around here. It took me almost twenty-four hours when I first got here to figure out where my tent was supposed to be. Follow me. I’ll show you. Your pack looks tired.”
“Yeah, well, we’re all actually really old. Hundreds of years when you stop to think about it. That virus halted our aging but maybe didn’t stop us from getting worn down.”
She nodded. “You look pretty young and fit to me, Jason. Body and soul.”
It was sort of amazing to be with Margot. She legitimately seemed to like being with me. The feeling was mutual. If I lost her friendship, even though I’d only had it such a short time, it really would be a hole in my life. I swallowed. Maybe I should start preparing for that hole because the universe really liked to fuck with me.
She took me to an area of tents where I guessed we were supposed to stay. They were sturdy looking structures, for being made to be temporary, and I remembered them from the last time I’d been in Genesis. I stepped inside the one designated for me. It wasn’t fancy, but for the first time in forever, I knew I wouldn’t get wet while I slept at night.
Margot followed me in and scrunched up her nose. “They gave you guys the old ones. I’m sorry. I’ll see if I can find better ones for you.”
I shook my head. “This is great. Seriously. That’s an actual bed.” It was really more of a cot, but I’d slept on the ground forever. “Thank you.”
Jason: A Dystopian Paranormal Urban Fantasy Romance (Warrior World Book 3) Page 5