Scorch Road (Scorch Series Romance Thriller Book 1)

by Toby Neal

  JT finally looked at her.

  He’d never seen her eyes look so blue.

  “What about me? I did what I came for. I got you here. I’m going back to Philly.”

  “But . . . you should come inside, too. Meet my parents. They’ll want to thank you for getting me here . . .” Elizabeth’s voice trailed off as she took in his closed, hard expression, and her eyes narrowed as her temper flared in response. “Only you don’t want to, do you? Because I was just a distraction. Why bother shaking my father’s hand or meeting my mother, I just shot a man to save you and helped you bury your brother. You’re nothing but a paranoid Italian redneck, like you said. But you know what Jacob Teodoro?” She paused, holding his gaze—he couldn’t look away, she was magnificent. “You’ll regret this for the rest of your life.” Elizabeth stood, scanning the empty street, shotgun at the ready. “I’ll tie the flag onto the shotgun and wave that around. That ought to get their attention. Get moving.” She threw him a glare. “So we can get this over with.”

  JT swallowed, standing. The pit of his stomach hollowed with a terrible feeling, a deep and abiding emptiness.

  This was it.

  “Okay. I’ll send Pinocchio to you when it’s all clear.” Pinocchio could keep her company, and he knew she loved the dog. Pinocchio was all he had to give.

  The Catahoula, plastered against Elizabeth’s side, whined at the sound of his name.

  “No. Keep him. You need him more than I do.” Elizabeth thrust Pinocchio away and moved past JT to the corner, scanning the area. “I can tell when it’s clear and safe to make a move. I’m not an idiot, except when it comes to my choice in men.”

  JT hung back a minute longer, unable to tear himself away with those as their parting words.

  “All right, then. Stay safe. Please.”

  He didn’t mean to say please, but it popped out, in a strangled tone that showed how much he cared.

  He snapped his fingers for Pinocchio and made up for his weakness with distance, leaving Elizabeth at a run. His boots crunched on broken glass and debris as he ran around the block and down the road.

  JT began his approach on the enemy located behind the overturned Hummer by stashing Pinocchio inside an overflowing metal dumpster. The dog allowed himself to be lifted and shoved inside among the rotting garbage. It helped that he was hungry, and would entertain himself looking for edibles in there.

  Dog safety ensured, JT took cover and gradually worked his way up the block, sidling along buildings, ducking into doorways, working his way ever closer until he was able to finally get a good look at what he was up against.

  Six armed men hid behind the Hummer, all in civilian clothes. JT felt a shiver of worry—what if these were just people who wanted some medicine for the plague or something?

  But why would they be trying to break into a clandestine government facility and engage the National Guard?

  Simple looters would have moved on from such a show of force. He didn’t have time to ingratiate himself with these men and find out what they were trying to do. His mission was to get Elizabeth and her cells in to her parents, where they could hopefully work on a cure and a vaccine.

  He took out the rifle scope and scanned them. On closer inspection, swastikas marked the backs of motorcycle jackets, and their heads were buzzed.

  Skinheads. An organized gang like the one Dante had told them about.

  JT was one against six, but he was better armed—his ears only picked up small arms fire as the civilians engaged the government troops.

  A single sentry, hardly looking in his direction, was the only deterrent.

  JT worked his way as close as he dared, to a doorway fifty feet from the nest of shooters. He pulled the pin on a grenade, rising to launch it right into the wreck of the Hummer, dropping back into the doorway and covering his ears.

  There was a scramble and shouts when the innocuous green object was recognized, but too late.

  The blast, amplified by the narrow enclosed street and the solid metal bulwark of the downed Hummer, blew shrapnel all over in a deadly rain. The sound seemed to detonate inside JT’s head, and he heard screams even through the ringing of his ears.

  He glanced out from behind his cover. More skinheads boiled out of the doorway closest to the remains of the Hummer. They were inside the building, using the Hummer for cover.

  When at least another ten had come out, he launched the next grenade.

  Then he followed that up with a hail of automatic fire.

  No one else came out of the building, and no one moved when he was done.

  He waited for the smoke to clear, for the ringing of his ears to subside, for the bodies to stop twitching.

  And then he walked forward, holding his rifle overhead so the National Guardsmen could see he had no hostile intent. He stopped at the gruesome pileup of bodies and wreckage at the Hummer.

  “Elizabeth!” JT yelled. “All clear!”

  Elizabeth was already moving. She’d come out from behind her building, waving the shotgun with its fluttering little white flag, stepping forward firmly into the line of fire of the National Guard like she owned the ground she walked on.

  “I’m Elizabeth Johnson, Senator Johnson’s daughter, and I’m here with important scientific information for the CDC!”

  No movement behind the sandbags, then: “What’s your middle name?” came from behind the line.

  “Bailey,” Elizabeth shouted back. “It’s my mother’s maiden name.”

  Her parents had, indeed, left word for Elizabeth to be admitted to the safety zone.

  His job here was done.

  JT melted back behind the Hummer and ran away, feeling like he’d left his guts on the ground with all the blood he’d just spilled.

  Chapter Twenty

  Elizabeth

  Elizabeth watched JT go, his movement like smoke through trees as he faded back and disappeared.

  Her heart shriveled as he went, tightening into a tiny, twisted, painful knot in her chest.

  “Approach. We won’t shoot!” The commander yelled.

  Elizabeth walked forward, holding the shotgun upright, waving the flag. Her ears rang from the grenade blasts and automatic fire that JT had laid down, her nostrils were full of the smell of weapons discharge and blood, and her feet were far away and numb.

  JT had obliterated the nest of attackers like a one-man army.

  And now he was gone without so much as a goodbye, and she had to figure out how to go on without him. For the rest of her life.

  “Miss Johnson.” Several of the Guardsmen breached the barrier and surrounded her and the commander addressed her. “Who was that helping you? We’ve been pinned down for days by those terrorists!”

  “His name’s Jacob Teodoro Luciano, and he’s a hero for getting me here.” Elizabeth’s eyes filled and she blinked hard—JT might have run away from getting any credit, and he might be a jerk who slept with her and then threw her away, but he’d done exactly what he said he would. If only she’d listened better, maybe Elizabeth could have avoided getting her heart shattered. “Are my mom and dad inside?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” The Guardsman in charge plucked the shotgun from her hands. “The Senator left word that you might come. Said you were working for an important West Coast lab.”

  Elizabeth let them help her over the sandbag wall and into the compound. “Why were those terrorists attacking you?”

  “Word must have got out that we’ve got not only a lot of important people sheltering in the complex below the club, but this is the site where the docs are working on a cure. They want to get their hands on it, probably sell it to highest bidder,” the commander said.

  “Or maybe they just wanted the cure because they were sick,” Elizabeth gave him a sharp glance. “Sick people do desperate things.”

  “I just know they’ve been trying to get in since we went to Shield Level Five,” the man said. More soldiers, more barriers, more soldiers again . . . and then the entranc
e to the club.

  Instead of going to the dining and lounge rooms Elizabeth was familiar with, they turned immediately left to an elevator behind a security door flanked by guards. The commander hit the button. There were no floor markers, just a plummeting sensation in Elizabeth’s stomach as they sank deep into the earth.

  The elevator doors opened and Elizabeth heard her father’s voice. “She’s here! Where?”

  “Should be coming down any second,” a man’s voice answered.

  Elizabeth followed the guard out of the elevator. They stepped into a hallway with burgundy carpeting and cream walls. Her parents stood to the left, next to an open door.

  There was more silver in her father’s thick mane of hair. Her mother had lost weight and her skin hung on her elegant bone structure. The elevator dinged as the doors shut behind Elizabeth, and her parents turned, seeing her.

  Her father’s bright blue gaze blurred with tears as Elizabeth ran toward him. Her mother let out a sob and Senator Johnson’s arms opened wide as she smashed into his chest. His embrace was like a vice. Her mother’s hands fluttered, touching her hair and shoulders.

  Elizabeth’s throat was raw. Tears wet her cheeks.

  Her mother pulled at her arm and her father released her. She fell against her mom. Elizabeth was a few inches taller but she felt like a child again as she breathed in the woman’s familiar fragrance: a mix of Chanel No 5, face powder, and shampoo.

  Elizabeth’s father patted her hair, his hand stroking the tangled mess as her mother squeezed her with all her strength.

  “Oh Elizabeth!” Her mother wailed. “We just knew you were alive. We just knew it.”

  “Yes, baby. We did.”

  Elizabeth pulled free of her mom and stepped back so that she could see both her parents at once. Shadowed, bloodshot eyes gave a hint of the distress they’d experienced, but they both looked healthy. Neither showed symptoms of the virus.

  A man standing next to them, who her father had been talking with, cleared his throat. Senator Johnson wiped his face, and smiled, turning to the man. “Dr. Tether, this is my daughter, Elizabeth.”

  The doctor was in his early fifties with salt-and-pepper hair cut close, wearing a sharp uniform, stripes on his shoulder and an emblem on his breast. He had the build and bearing of a man who kept his body in shape. Dr. Tether extended his hand and Elizabeth took it.

  Hers was coated in soot while his was clean and white, but he didn’t flinch from shaking it. “A pleasure to meet you, Miss Johnson. Your father’s told me a lot about you. I hope that you brought those cells with you.”

  Elizabeth nodded, pulling herself together.

  Her shotgun had been taken from her upon entry but she’d kept the pack. Bringing it around to the front she lowered it to the ground and opened the top, pulling out the cryocase. “I made it just in time. The coolant is almost gone.”

  Dr. Tether reached for the container and Elizabeth hesitated. She smiled at him, her cheeks warming. “Sorry, I guess it’s hard to let go.”

  “I’ll take good care of them.”

  “Of course.” She handed the case over to him.

  “I’m sure you want to catch up with your parents. But we’d love to see you in the lab once you’ve had a chance to clean up.”

  Elizabeth nodded and Dr. Tether left.

  Her parents’ apartment had a large living room, kitchen and three bedrooms, each with their own bathroom. If there had been windows, the place could have been a luxury hotel.

  “I’m sure you want to shower, honey. And change into some fresh clothing.” Her mother’s voice quavered as she walked around and fiddled with tchotchkes that didn’t need adjusting. “We have your room ready, and I brought some of your things from the house, just hoping you’d make it.”

  Elizabeth hadn’t even checked her closets at the townhouse, nor had she thought to change out of Lucy’s baggy jeans and T-shirt. As her mother gathered things from around the apartment Elizabeth observed her, feeling as though she was standing outside of her body watching a play rather than being an actor in it.

  The orderly, luxurious apartment felt foreign.

  The reunion with her parents had brought her a brief joy, but now all she could feel was the emptiness JT had left behind. “Are you hungry?” Her father asked. He stood by the phone. “I can have something nice brought down from the kitchens for you.”

  Elizabeth shook her head. She didn’t want hot food. She wanted a cold can of beans with JT. “I just need to take a shower, thanks.”

  “Of course,” her mother said. “You need to wash this experience off you. It must have been terrible.”

  “Yes.” Elizabeth’s voice was wooden. “Terrible.”

  She turned on the water and watched the spray heat until steam curled through the room. She undressed and folded Lucy’s clothing neatly, setting it on the counter. The beige tile and white marble shower contrasted with her bruised body and soot-covered skin. She hadn’t showered since the last time she and JT had made love: under the tarp, surrounded by danger, nothing but a boulder, a dog, and their weapons for protection.

  But she’d never felt safer than in his arms.

  His rough hands on her hips.

  His strength inside of her.

  Elizabeth shut her eyes, leaning on the wall, and trembled. She didn’t want to be here.

  She hesitated getting into the shower, not wanting to wash away the memory of JT’s touch. She had to. She’d done what she set out to do. Elizabeth had gotten the cells to DC, and now she needed to put all her energy into helping with the vaccine.

  JT didn’t love her. If he did, he wouldn’t have left her like that, pushed her away so hard. A sob racked her body. She was a fool for thinking her feelings might be reciprocated. He was a widower—his heart was in the grave with his family.

  Elizabeth climbed into the shower and washed herself clean, then stood under the hot spray until her skin was red and stinging.

  Wrapped in a big white fluffy robe, Elizabeth walked into the bedroom. A part of her was expecting to see Pinocchio waiting for her, but she was glad he was with JT even though she missed his presence and the touch of his nose against her knee.

  JT needed the dog. She was protected here, but JT had to make it back to Philadelphia.

  He would be fine. The man was indestructible, hard and gruff as Stone Bear, his call sign.

  Elizabeth looked at the clothing her mother had left her: khaki capris, a blue button-down shirt, and a pair of striped espadrilles. This is what she was wearing to the apocalypse.

  Her parents were sitting on the couch. They both stood up as she opened her bedroom door, dressed in the clean outfit her mother had chosen. Her father crossed the room and hugged her, kissing the top of her head. “You look better, honey.”

  “Yes.” Her mother patted the fine Egyptian cotton of the blue shirt Elizabeth wore. “Much better. I’m so happy to see you.”

  “I should go to the lab. I want to check on the cells. And see what I can do to help.” Elizabeth was smothered by their fussing.

  “Of course.” Her father released her, but kept a hand on her shoulder, clearly not wanting to lose her again even just to go to another part of the compound.

  The guard led Elizabeth to Dr. Tether’s office, where he welcomed her with a big smile. “Can I offer you a drink? Tea, coffee, water?”

  “No, thank you. I just want to get to work.”

  He smiled, leaning against his desk and crossing his ankles. “You were on Dr. Fellerman’s team, so I’m sure that you can be very helpful to us here.”

  “I hope so. Where should I work?”

  “You’re very direct. You’ve obviously got a lot of moxie.”

  Moxie? The choice of word was sexist and Elizabeth’s gut churned. Dr. Fellerman had always treated Elizabeth as an equal to her male counterparts. Apparently, that wouldn’t be the case here. She rubbed the knife in her pocket; this wasn’t the first time she’d dealt with a man who underestimat
ed her and it certainly wouldn’t be the last.

  “Let’s start with a tour.” Tether came out from behind his desk and gestured for her to follow. The lab was top-of-the-line, with the newest technology, everything imaginable needed if a plague took out the majority of the population.

  They passed a conference room where a group of about ten scientists was meeting. Large screens at the front of the room displayed magnifications of the virus. Elizabeth stopped and stared through the glass wall. “Don’t worry about that. I’ll get you all caught up. I want to show you . . .”

  Elizabeth pushed open the door and stepped into the conference room, staring at the screen. Everybody in the room turned to look at her. “When is that from?”

  “Elizabeth,” Dr. Tether took her elbow but she tweaked it free.

  There was one woman at the table and Elizabeth turned to her. “When is that from?” she pointed at the screen.

  “This morning.”

  Elizabeth turned to Dr. Tether. “It’s mutated. That’s not the virus we isolated.”

  Dr. Tether raised his eyebrows. “Oh, really?”

  “You knew?”

  “Of course not.” He tried to take her elbow again but she backed away from him. “Let’s finish the tour.”

  “Finish the tour! Do you have any idea what’s happening out there!”

  Dr. Tether nodded. “We are aware of the situation.”

  “The world is falling apart. Everyone is dying! And the people who are not dying are under attack. And the virus has mutated? We’re a year from a vaccine. More than that.” Elizabeth looked around at the table of scientists. “There may not be anything left out there to save in a year.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  JT

  JT moved at a run through the streets, Pinocchio at his side. Everything he saw: the boarded-up buildings, the overturned, burned-out cars, the hazmat body-retrieval truck he passed—all of it reinforced how he needed to get back to Philly quickly and get moving on his family’s safety.

  But in spite of the adrenaline rush left over from the attack on the Hummer, he could feel a dulling of his senses, a leaden blanket of depression beginning to descend.