Book of the Damned: A-E5L1-01-00: (A reverse harem, post-pandemic, slow-burn romance) (The JAK2 Cycle, Book 2)

by V. E. S. Pullen

  “Where exactly did you think I’d be? Draped limply over Sev’s desk with an empty vial of poison clutched in my lifeless hand?” I made a face at him. Idiot.

  “Azzie,” he said cautiously, approaching me at a slow pace like I was a wild animal or active shooter. “I heard what happened in the cafeteria—”

  I sighed, rolling my eyes. “It’s fine, Spider. Relax.”

  He deliberately set what looked like a phone — but wasn’t — down on my desk, clicking a switch on the side. “Azzie,” he repeated, crouching down so he was eye level with me once he got close enough, resting one hand tentatively on my knee. “Those things they called you, you know they aren’t true.”

  I ran a hand over my face, huffing out a breath. “They’re true enough— no, don’t do that. I’m not being emotional here, I’m being logical. What she said was true enough… but I’m sitting here thinking where exactly did she get that information? It’s obvious she went digging for dirt on me after what happened, and proved herself quite the little Nancy Drew, but who did it come from? And what else does she know? And now I’m concerned, because as much as I loathe those girls, if they know something they shouldn’t, they’ll be executed. Do I want that on my conscience? Or should I expand my plans to include two more?”

  He blinked at me. He’d gone from worried to surprised, to concerned, to thoughtful over the course of my little monologue, and the hand on my knee settled more firmly — in fact, it inched up a bit and the thumb began to stroke back and forth along the inner seam of my leggings almost absently. These men… they were killing me!

  “I believe Ryan and Jason know them— the Viper Twins? That’s what you call them? Perfect,” he laughed at my internal nickname for the loathsome girls, his gaze focusing on mine. “Much like the rest of us, it seems that the Callis brothers are more than they seem. As are the Viper Twins. But it’s your call, Azzie. Personally, I wouldn’t want to spend any more time with them than I have to, and I’d consider them necessary casualties without giving them another thought, but your moral compass still seems to work whereas mine…doesn’t.”

  I sputtered out a surprised laugh, then I smiled at him with increasing affection. “The whole town died, Spider,” I said with a tiny shake of my head. “Every single person I knew but one, and all the ones I didn’t. I’d grown up here, lived here as long as I could remember. I went to school with hundreds of kids, went to birthday parties at their houses, met their families. All of them died. The girl at the Dairy Queen who always gave me extra sprinkles died. The librarian who did story time died. All my teachers, past and present. All my doctors. The woman who delivered our mail. My grandparents. My mom and dad. My brothers. They were only five years old, in kindergarten. All their classmates, and their classmates’ families, and their teachers, and… everyone. Everywhere I go, everywhere I look, I see their ghosts overlaying the soldiers here to guard me, the people brought here to make this place livable, the students enrolled in the high school so I’d have classmates. Sometimes I even see their bodies, stacked in the streets when there was nowhere else to put them, or dying as they tried to get past the barrier and the soldiers wouldn’t let them.”

  I watched his expression change as he began to comprehend the horror show this place had been. I gave him my truth, my reasons. “Everyone I’ve ever known and loved has died now, Spider, and I am alone. Utterly and completely alone. Those girls have families, they have lives. They can be mean to me, I don’t care. For me, there’s no such thing as necessary casualties.”

  Spider

  I didn’t know what to say to her.

  There were no words.

  She delivered that killing blow in such a soft, resigned voice, as if she was telling me bad news and hoping to comfort me.

  If I thought she’d punctured holes in my armor before, it was nothing compared to this — she stripped me bare.

  I’d never considered what it meant when Kane gave us her history, it was just one more horror in a litany of inhumanity. I’d never considered what it meant to have a whole town die around you, to have to walk out through the complete devastation, the bodies… It was miles from the medical center to the barrier’s gate, and something told me the whole road had been lined with the remains of people who couldn’t be properly buried or cremated, as they waited for the CDC or disaster relief agencies to step in. The whole town was a giant mass grave.

  I’d never considered what it meant to survive that.

  “How do you keep going?” I asked without thinking, instantly regretting it, but she didn’t take it in any bad way. She understood. Fuck me, she understood.

  “I have to, Spider. I’m the one that has to, I can’t ever give up. There are others out there but none like me. No one can do what I do, and so many people depend on me, how can I fail them?” She shrugged one shoulder. “And I would’ve kept going, doing whatever they asked until my body finally gave out, if only they’d kept up their end of the bargain.”

  She frowned, her fists clenching, looking down and taking three deep breaths, then met my eye again. “They told me the vaccine was being distributed to people as quickly and efficiently as possible, that no one had precedence over anyone else. They swore to me that it wasn’t based on money or influence, that it was based on need. They lied to me, for years, using me to play their games of thrones. And I think Mouse knew, which is breaking my heart.” She raised her hand up, reaching for my bicep where the vax marks decorated my skin. “Your number, is it like theirs?”

  I knew immediately what she meant. The number, it was…unique. We’d all spotted it immediately. I nodded.

  “When I saw that on mark on Ryan’s arm, then Sasha’s and Luka’s — it was the first time I’d ever heard that the vaccine was being used as incentive. Withheld from people. That you all had come here like contestants in a game to win life for your families. This blood in me that’s so special, it’s mine, Spider. I earned every fucking antibody. I survived the disease twice, to get all the precious antibodies, and I’ve lived with my fucked up blood disease for six years. I fucking earned this blood, and no one else gets to decide, ever again, what I do with it. No one else gets to use me.”

  She was pounding her fist against her chest, punctuating every word at the end, with a hollow slapping sound that I felt on my own skin, in my own bones. I reached out to grab her hand but stopped before I touched her, retracting back.

  She continued talking, anger fading into regret, continuing to break my heart. “It was my choice to go after the antibodies for JANUS-27, I injected the virus into my vein, no one else did. I knew we needed to leave, and Mouse and me… we had a plan. And then she was killed because I wanted to make sure that my blood was fully loaded before I gave it to your families. I was selfish, I wanted to prove to you all what I was worth…” she trailed off, wiping tears from her cheeks. “I was selfish, and they took Mouse because of it.”

  I wish I could have said something but my voice was strangled in my throat. All of it… too much. Too much. She smiled at me brightly, the tears making her eyes shine, and she didn’t bother trying to hide them.

  “I’ve got a plan, Spider, and we’re going to get out of here tomorrow, and then I’m going to make up for all the damage they did with my blood over the past four years. All the people they manipulated, all the sacrifices they demanded. I’m going to fix this. I promise.”

  “I believe you,” I finally stammered out, my heart pounding in my chest. “I want to help you. Please. You don’t have to do this all by yourself, you don’t have to be alone.”

  She shook her head, smiling and said “We’ll see” but I knew what she said was “No.”

  We needed to change her mind.

  Sev

  I came stumbling into the classroom, the last place I expected to find her, but writing to her was the only thing that kept me sane for the last week so I sought it out instinctively. Sasha and Luka had left, gone to look at her house.

  But there she was, sitting
as straight and proud as a queen with Spider a supplicant at her feet. His hand was on her leg, hers folded in her lap, and she was crying in the sense that her eyes were shiny and her cheeks wet, but she wasn’t sobbing. She wasn’t cursing our names. Gemma was left a weeping mess, but Azzie was just sad.

  Had we already destroyed her feelings for us so thoroughly?

  I stopped dead, staring at her dumbly. The corner of her mouth curled up and she shook her head at me. “Relax, Sev. Mean girls aren’t the end of the world. Ouch. Too soon?”

  She was making jokes. My mouth snapped shut when I realized it was hanging open.

  Spider turned to look at me, and the devastation I expected on her was all over him, he looked wrecked. And God help me, I immediately thought she’s not taking us with her. Then he shook his head at me, like he knew, and I relaxed and hated myself at the same time.

  But in my defense, it wasn’t dying that scared me, it was losing her.

  “Go sit down,” Spider said, standing up. I nodded, took one step towards her, and she shook her head.

  “Act normal, Sev,” she said, bobbing her head at my regular seat that I hadn’t used in over a week.

  “Normal is sitting in your seat,” I said, voice rough as though I’d been screaming, when all I’d been doing was keeping the screams in. “For the last week at least.” She tilted her head, brow furrowed. “Just… make sure you log in,” I mumbled, and went back to my old seat as Spider went to his desk. Thankfully it didn’t take long for him to fill us in.

  Spider: She’s okay.

  Sasha: OH THANK GOD

  Luka: Where is she?

  Me: Class…

  Sasha: What??

  Tai: What’s going on?

  Me: Fuck. So much. The Slope twins planned and executed an attack on Azzie in the cafeteria. It’s more than we can talk about right now unless the Callises are on?

  Spider: No, just us. There’s other things we need to discuss. The Viper Twins can wait.

  Tai: Viper Twins?

  Spider: That’s what Azzie calls them in her head.

  Sasha: I’d laugh but I’m too busy trying not to throw up. How is she really.

  Me: She’s making jokes.

  Spider: She’s okay. Seriously. I’M not, but she is.

  Tai: What happened? What’s wrong?

  Spider: Once again, she destroyed me. I’m not going to get into all of it now, it’s too much. It’s too much for me just hearing it, and she fucking lived it. But the thing you all need to know is that day in the cafeteria, when you told her about our families getting vaccinated if the study was successful, that was the first time she’d heard that the vaccine is being used as incentive. They’ve been telling her that it’s being distributed to everyone on a need basis, that money or influence have no role in deciding who gets it first. All this time, she’s been doing this because she believed that she was saving people, not being used in pursuit of power or wealth. THAT is why she freaked out. That is why she had to leave and couldn’t handle being around you because she felt ashamed that you had to do this to save your families.

  Me: Oh my god.

  Sasha: How did we not see that?

  Luka: Because we assumed the worst. That she’d judge us, like we judge her.

  Tai: I assumed the same. It’s human nature.

  Spider: Yeah, well, we have to stop thinking of her as being like anyone else. She’s not. Her plan for after we leave here? When she heard why we’re here, she decided then to leave to start “fixing the damage they caused” with her blood, starting with us. She infected herself with JANUS-27 so that her blood would be “fully-loaded” for our families.

  Sasha: WHAT???

  Tai: SHE DID WHAT??

  Luka: SHE did that to HERSELF?

  Me: I can’t. I can’t handle this.

  Luka: She did that for us. For our families.

  Tai: I’m gonna kill her.

  Sasha: Of course. Of course that’s her plan. Of course she injected mutated JANUS virus into herself to get the antibodies.

  Spider: Not only for our families. To prove her worth to us.

  Me: Do we need to talk about this? Right now? Because I can’t handle this right now. People are coming in the room and I’m about to tear this place apart.

  Spider: Should we talk about our intentions with her?

  Luka: I’m assuming they’re the same as mine.

  Tai: Not giving her up.

  Spider: She thinks she’s going off on her own.

  Sasha: Well she’s wrong.

  Spider: She’s not perfect. You all understand that, right? She’s damaged. Fundamentally damaged. This isn’t going to be easy, and it isn’t going to be quick to break down all the walls she’s put up to keep people away.

  Tai: Everyone is damaged. We’re damaged. Not trying to lessen her experience, but her experience doesn’t lessen her either.

  Luka: Yeah, no shit. But she doesn’t think she’s worth anything but her blood.

  Sasha: She doesn’t think of herself as a person.

  Spider: She doesn’t think she deserves anything because she survived and no one else did.

  Tai: PTSD?

  Spider: Shoulda been obvious. I can’t believe we missed it.

  Me: Can we help her?

  Tai: We can’t provide professional help for her, what treatments Spider and I know are because they worked for us. Military-approved treatments through the VA, not even sure if they’re the best ones. But we can support her, and understand her, and be there for her unconditionally when things get rough.

  Spider: Are we really the best people to do this?

  Sasha: Who else is going to care about her as much as us?

  Luka: The entire fucking world, dude.

  Sasha: Fair.

  Luka: Then again, who else is she going to let in besides us?

  Me: After how badly we’ve fucked up? Probably no one.

  Spider: So it’s our responsibility. That works for me.

  Tai: I’m selfish enough to justify it.

  Luka: Let’s just be clear, those Callis fuckers are NOT INVITED, right?

  Sasha: Oh HELL NO.

  Chapter Ten

  Azzie

  I didn’t even wait for class to start to log in, it felt too important.

  The first message was from the day I injected the JANUS-27 infection into my veins, from the Comp Sci class when I spent the entire hour contemplating humanity and what I was about to do. There were messages every weekday until the fever broke and I was considered cured.

  Thursday

  Sev: I’m so mad at you right now. Yesterday, you stood up on that table and blasted those bitches and it was *magnificent*. You were with us, I felt like you finally understood that it was us against the world, and then you find out we left our families to get the vaccine and you flip out? That’s so not fair. You have no right to judge us, NONE. You don’t know what it’s like out there. You don’t know how hard it is to get the AESLI vaccine, practically the only way for a regular person to get it is to join the military and hope we stay alive long enough to earn it, and that isn’t something we can do. People are dying because they can’t get enough food for their family or heat during the winter because without the vaccine, they can’t work most jobs. Only people who can work in isolation can be unvaccinated and get hired, like computer programmers and shit like that, but not regular people. We do what we have to, to get by. And you live here in this place with all this food and shit, it’s like janus never happened. We left our families to get the vaccine because if this works, we can get it for all of them, that’s the deal, but they won’t tell us what we have to do for the study yet. It’s so fucking frustrating, we’re all sitting around in limbo waiting, unable to talk to our families even, and not knowing if they’re okay while we hang around this place watching these fucks just waste food and go to the movies and fucking play GAMES in groups like nothing bad will happen. It’s not fair for you to judge us. Our family is PROUD of us for doin
g this, and it doesn’t matter what the doctors want us to do, we’ll do it for them. I don’t care if they want an organ. I don’t care if they want to cut off my dick if it saves my family. Okay, I care about that. I’d rather not have my dick cut off. Speaking of my dick… you know what’s even more infuriating than you judging us? Not even knowing whether you like us or not. And yeah, that’s related to my dick, because I’m a dude and you’re beautiful and fucking cool and I have a crush on you, Azzie. I can’t believe I’m telling you this, and tomorrow I’m going to be sitting at my desk waiting for you to log in and see this, DYING. Are you going to laugh? Are you going to get mad? Are you still going to speak to me? Are you going to blush pink in a way that makes me so fucking hard, and avoid my eyes, and I’m gonna have to coax a smile out of you? You’re killing me here. I feel like such a fucking teenager.

  Friday

  Sev: How did this happen? Are they trying to kill you, is that it?

  [Fifteen minutes later]

  Sev: I know who you are now. We had to go to a meeting this morning. They told us what the rest of the study is, what we have to do to be “successful” and get our families the vaccine. Azzie, you’re going to hate us. Or should I say Aesli? I can’t believe this. I can’t believe any of it. It’s you. You’re the source of it. All I keep thinking about is the day we met and you busted your lip open and bled all over Luka. How many people could have been saved by the blood that we just washed off? This whole time, it’s been you, the most infuriating, aggravating, fascinating woman I’ve ever met. The one I can’t stop thinking about. And now I don’t know if you’re going to live, and if you do live, we’ve got this fucking study that’s going to make you HATE us. You’ll never trust us, never believe it’s real. I want to tell you so bad what it is, but I also don’t want you to ever know. Which is worse? Telling you, and having you doubt everything we do or say, question it all and never believe its real? Or don’t tell you, live in fear of you finding out and hating us. Let them manipulate all of us. Maybe we can make it so real that if you do find out, maybe you’ll believe us when we tell you it was never the study. If I tell you, will you eventually be able to trust us again? I can’t lose you, Azzie, and it has nothing to do with your blood. I wish you weren’t Aesli, I really do, I wish you didn’t have to carry that burden, and I wish you were free. I wish you didn’t always have to wonder if people only wanted you because of your blood. Will you ever believe that I wanted you before I ever knew your blood was special? YOU are special, your blood is just bonus. You have to believe that.