She smiled and rocked her hips back against him. “I’ve missed you too, babe.”
He let go of her wrists.
Sonya turned to face Lloyd. “I was hoping it was you who broke in. Did you have any trouble?” she asked.
He laughed. “No. I parked a couple blocks away and walked over. Your lock wasn’t hard to pick.”
He pressed his body against hers, again pinning her to the wall.
She whimpered, wrapped her arms around his neck, and thrust her hands into his hair, pulling him down for a kiss.
Breaking off the kiss, he pulled back slightly and nibbled along her jaw, moving toward her ear.
“I could take you right here, against the wall,” he panted, tugging at her clothes.
She laughed seductively. “I’d let you too, but I need a shower.”
He stopped and pulled back. “A shower, huh? Well, let’s go wash you and get you all clean so I can make you dirty again.” He winked, took her hand, and pulled her down the hallway toward the bathroom.
***
Sonya purred and stretched, enjoying the feel of Lloyd in her bed beside her.
He opened his eyes and smiled at her when she lifted her head.
“Shit!” she exclaimed, spying the numbers on her digital alarm clock.
He was instantly alert. “What’s wrong?”
She laughed. “Nothing other than I’m supposed to be at a meeting with Jennings and the guys right now.”
“Fuck!” he exclaimed, and she laughed again.
“You’re supposed to be there too, huh?” she teased as she threw the covers off and climbed out of bed.
His eyes followed her every movement while she started dressing. “Can’t we just call the thieving bastard and tell him to fuck off?”
She turned to look at Lloyd and noticed he was getting aroused again.
“I wish,” she said with a sigh. “But you know I can’t do that.”
He grinned. “I know. He really bought the whole thing about you not knowing I was coming.” He climbed out of bed and walked up behind her, wrapping his arms around her and kissing her shoulder. “You did a good job acting mad about not knowing.”
She relaxed against him and let her head fall back onto his shoulder. “I did my best. I don’t think he caught on at all.”
“Let’s keep it that way,” he whispered in her ear, turned her body so she was facing the bed, and pushed her torso down gently, bending her over.
She put her hands flat on the bed and shivered with anticipation while he slipped off the panties she’d just put on.
Both of their cell phones rang a few minutes later, but neither of them made a move to answer them.
Chapter Nine
“Why the hell aren’t they answering?” Jennings snapped. “They can’t both be busy—I’ve called them five times each.”
“Wanna bet?” Roger asked with a smirk.
Jennings gave Roger a dirty look and slid his cell phone back into the pocket of his designer pants.
Jack looked back and forth between the two men.
“Why do I have the feelin’ I’m missin’ somethin’?” he asked.
Roger opened his mouth to tell Jack about Lloyd and Sonya’s previous relationship, and where he thought they were, when Jennings’ phone rang. He suddenly thought better of sharing the information with Jack and sat back to listen to Jennings’ conversation.
Jennings jerked his phone out of his pocket and answered it.
“So nice of you to finally call me back, Lloyd,” he said sarcastically. “Are you ever going to show up? I’d hate to take you away from something more important.”
“I have some things to take care of, so I won’t be at the meeting tonight,” Lloyd said. “Let me know if I miss anything important.”
“Fine!” Jennings barked into the phone and hung up.
“Lloyd won’t be joining us,” he announced. “Apparently he has other, more important business.”
Roger snorted a short laugh. “I bet,” he mumbled.
Jack frowned, still confused. “What aren’t you guys tellin’ me?” he asked.
“Maybe it’s something you don’t need to know,” Sonya said, walking into the small corner office on the ground floor of the abandoned building they’d designated as the meeting room.
Their heads all turned in her direction.
“Sonya,” Jennings said, “it’s so nice of you to grace us with your presence.”
Roger nodded, grinned, and turned away, folding his arms across his chest.
Jack looked her over with a puzzled expression as she walked forward and sat down in one of the rusty metal chairs. He didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary.
“I would have arrived sooner, but I blew a tire on the way here,” she said nonchalantly.
“You couldn’t have answered your phone when I called?” Jennings asked, obviously annoyed.
“I forgot my phone in the car and it was jacked up—I couldn’t reach it,” she said and smiled. “Then I figured I’d be here in a few minutes, so what was the point?” She shrugged.
“Did you get everything taken care of?” Roger asked, and then chuckled.
Sonya looked at him with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. “Yes, everything went great.”
Jack just sat back listening and watching the exchanges with a puzzled expression. He shook his head and shrugged, making a mental note to ask Roger what was going on later, since no one was going to tell him now.
“Well,” Jennings said, “since we’re all here now, I suppose we can discuss what we need to.”
Roger, Jack, and Sonya gave Jennings their attention.
“We brought in way more money on our last harvest than expected,” he said. “I wanted to let you all know that you’ll be getting double the normal rate.”
Jack smiled, happy to hear he was indeed making the profit—plus more—that he’d been promised.
“Too bad Sonya can’t find people with that blood type all the time,” he said.
“Sorry,” Sonya said sarcastically, “I can’t sniff out blood types like a damn dog.”
Roger laughed. “Would be nice though, wouldn’t it?” he teased.
Sonya stuck her tongue out at him.
Jennings smiled and continued: “I was actually wondering, Sonya, if the man spoke of his family when you picked him up. We know he was married, because he told you and his ring, but did he say anything about having children?”
Sonya frowned, thinking. “Nope, he didn’t say anything about having children. Why?”
“Well,” Jennings said, pursing his lips, “I was just thinking that if he had children, they might have the same blood type as their father.”
Roger sat forward. “We’ve never done a kid before,” he said. “I don’t know if I’m cool with that.”
Jennings glanced at Jack.
“What about you?” he asked. “Could you help us harvest a child if we chose to do so?”
“Doesn’t matter to me as long as I get paid,” Jack said with a shrug.
“Would it be worth it to harvest a child?” Sonya asked, doing calculations in her head of how much blood there would be to collect and the size of the internal organs.
Jennings nodded. “I’ve done some nosing around and there are a couple of people—some of them children—on the list needing organs from an AB-Negative donor, so yes, there would be a use for them.”
Sonya shrugged. “I’m okay with it then, but how will we find out if he had children?”
“You could look for pictures in his wallet,” Roger said stiffly. “Or did we get rid of it already?”
“That’s a good idea, Roger,” Jennings said. “I think the wallet is still downstairs—I was waiting until we had enough clothing built up to make a decent donation to a shelter, so we still have all of the man’s personal effects.”
“I’ll go get it,” Jack said, standing. “Is it still in the pants? Or did ya move it?”
“I believe it
’s still in the pants, yes,” Jennings said, nodding.
Jack left the room and turned right, heading for the elevator.
“You really won’t help if we bring in a child?” Sonya asked Roger.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. It would just be…different.”
Jennings nodded and looked at Roger. “If you can’t do it, that’s fine, but you won’t get a share of the money.”
“What are you going to do with the mother? Harvest her too?” Roger asked, rubbing his face with his hands. “I mean, how the hell are you going to get at a kid without taking the mother too?”
“We’d probably have to do that,” Jennings said. “We’d harvest the entire family.”
“It just sounds so heartless—killing a kid just because we can make more money off them,” Roger said.
“How is it any more heartless than taking the father?” Sonya asked. “We took the father, so already the family is suffering. If we take the wife and child, or children too, wouldn’t that lessen the hurt all around? They’d all be dead and no one would be left.”
Roger looked at Sonya and suddenly felt bad for her—she had no real sense of morals. He sighed, not knowing how to explain what he was feeling to someone who didn’t seem to have any feelings at all.
Jack walked back into the room and saved him from having to try to answer Sonya.
“Yup, there are children,” he announced, looking through pictures he’d found in the wallet. “Two girls and a boy, if they’re all his.”
“Great,” Jennings said. “We’ll have to find out if they’re his…would you and Roger mind staking out their house for a couple of days and finding out who lives there?”
“Sure,” Jack said.
All eyes turned to Roger when he didn’t answer.
“Sure,” he mumbled, stood, and walked out of the room.
Jennings glanced at Sonya, and she nodded before standing and following Roger.
***
“Roger, wait up!” Sonya hollered as she exited the decaying brick building and jogged toward the parked vehicles.
He stopped with his hand on the door handle of his pickup truck and looked back at her.
“What?” he called.
She didn’t answer until she reached him and took a deep breath.
“What’s going on with you?” she asked, staring up at him.
He shrugged and turned away to look off into the night.
“It has to do with the kids, doesn’t it?” she asked softly, laying her hand on his forearm.
He sighed and looked down into her upturned face, seeing real compassion in her eyes. He was shocked to see genuine caring in her when just minutes before he’d thought she was completely unfeeling and heartless.
“Yeah,” he said, “it’s weird thinking about chopping a kid up for parts.”
She nodded. “I try not to think of it that way. I try to think of all the lives we’ll be saving from one life lost. Think about it. We could save eight—or more—people’s lives, sacrificing one.”
Roger nodded, closed his eyes, and sighed.
“I know,” he said, opening his eyes again, “and that’s how I think of it normally, but kids are just so damn innocent. It’s one thing to pick up some horny bastard in a bar to slice and dice, but a kid…”
She stepped forward, wrapped her arms around his waist, and pressed her cheek against his chest while she hugged him.
“I know it seems wrong, thinking about it,” she said, “but you know they wouldn’t feel any pain, and we’d make sure they were unconscious before they even had time to be scared.”
He hugged her back, sighing. “I know you wouldn’t make them suffer.”
She pulled back slightly and looked up at Roger.
“I bet you would make enough money to retire,” she said with a smile. “I know you’ve been wanting to, ever since Peter quit.”
“You can read me so easily.” He reached up and tucked her hair behind her ear. “Did you really have a flat tire? Or were you with Lloyd?” he teased.
She pulled away from him as a grin spread across her face.
“You were with him!” Roger exclaimed, and laughed. “I knew it. I think Jennings did too.”
Sonya laughed. “I don’t feel bad about lying to him, especially when he didn’t tell me Lloyd was coming.” She bit her lip and rested her hip against the side of his truck. “Will you at least think about working with us on the family thing? You never know, it might not even happen, but the money would be great.”
Roger’s face fell serious again. “I’ll think about it,” he said, and nodded. “I don’t have to like it, though.”
“No, you don’t,” she said. “Just keep the money in mind…and the people who will benefit.”
He stood there for a moment just looking at her, blinking.
She frowned. “There’s more to this, isn’t there?”
He glanced down at the ground, up into the sky, and then back at Sonya.
“It’s just that…”
“Hey!” Jack yelled, charging out of the building. “I’ve got the address to the house.” He waved his hand in the air while coming toward them, showing off Bill’s driver’s license. “I’m gonna swing by there on my way home to see if I can find the place so we can check it out tomorrow.” He stopped beside them and looked down at the laminated card.
Roger snapped his mouth shut, clenched his jaw, and took a step back from Sonya while Jack was distracted.
She gazed at him questioningly.
He shook his head and looked at her with wild eyes.
She nodded and stood up straight again with a confused expression on her face.
“I’m going home,” Sonya said slowly. “I’m tired and have work tomorrow.”
“Okay, bye,” Jack said, still excited about his new task, hoping it would bring in the money he wanted.
Call me later, she mouthed to Roger.
He nodded and shrugged, watching her leave. There was a sadness in his eyes that caused her to pause and look back at him a couple of times.
On her way home, she wondered if he would indeed call and what was tearing him apart inside.
Chapter Ten
Sonya was walking into her house when she received a text.
Roger: I’ll be by in a couple hours.
Sonya: Great. Stop by when you’re ready. Door will be unlocked.
With a deep sigh, she walked to her fridge and opened the door, almost flinching at the bright light that emanated from its depths. The contents—sitting and waiting for her attention—didn’t look appetizing. She closed the door.
Sonya: Bring pizza with you.
She jumped when her phone rang just as she sent the message. She frowned down at it, waiting for the screen to display the name of the caller. It was Miles.
“Hello,” she said. “I was going to call you in a couple of minutes. Did you know I was thinking of you?”
“Maybe,” he said. “I was definitely thinking about you. Were you really thinking about me?”
She giggled playfully.
“How could I not think of you?” she flirted. “Oh, I have something to tell you…we made a lot of money and now everyone will get twice what we originally planned.”
“Wonderful!” he exclaimed. “I can really use the money.”
“We have plans to harvest his entire family,” she said. “We think his children might have the same blood type, and we’ve decided it’s worth the risk. Will that be an issue for you?”
“I’ll do whatever you need me to,” he gushed. “No matter how difficult.”
She rolled her eyes—he disgusted her with his puppy-dog eagerness to please her.
After flirting with him for a few more minutes, she lied and told him she had to go.
Glancing at the clock on her microwave, she sighed, knowing Roger wouldn’t show up for a while. With a huge yawn, she headed down the hall to her bedroom. She smiled at the rumpled condition of her bed, thinking about how i
t had gotten that way.
She sat down on the twisted, jumbled covers, took off her shoes—letting them fall to the floor—and laid down. In mere minutes, she fell asleep.
The room was dark and the light cast by the street lamp through the tree outside her bedroom window made eerie, dancing shadows on the pink comforter of her bed. Yelling from downstairs had woken her again. She wanted to go somewhere, to hide from the anger, fear, and confusion she heard in their voices—the voices of her parents—but there was nowhere to go.
Her bedroom door, which was left slightly ajar after she’d been tucked in for the night, began to move and her heart jumped into her throat. She held her breath in fear of what could be causing it.
The hinges creaked and the floorboards groaned as the door continued to move inward.
She shook with fear, gripped the edge of her blanket with sweaty hands, and hoped she’d be able to scream if she needed to. Squeezing her eyes shut, she mentally begged her parents to stop fighting and come upstairs to check on her.
Soft, slow footfalls advanced toward her bed, but she was too scared to open her eyes.
She whimpered.
“You awake?” a breathy voice asked.
Her eyes flew open to see her little brother, Tim, standing beside her bed.
His little body swayed slightly, and he shivered as his blood shot eyes darted around the room, looking at everything and nothing.
“What are you doing out of bed?” she asked, throwing back her covers and standing up to support his weak body. “You aren’t supposed to get out of bed.”
“I know,” he breathed. “I don’t feel good, and Mommy didn’t hear me when I called for her.”
She nodded and started walking him back toward his room, which was down the hall, between their parents’ room and the bathroom. They paused at the head of the stairs.
“Cover your ears,” she whispered, and tried to smile.
Almost slipping from her grasp and falling over, he lifted his arms and placed the palms of his hands over his ears.
Nurse Blood (The Organ Harvester Series Book 1) Page 6