Book of the Dead: AESLI-00: (A reverse harem, post-pandemic, slow-burn romance) (The JAK2 Cycle, Book 1)

by V. E. S. Pullen

  Book of the Dead: AESLI-00

  The JAK2 Cycle, Book 1

  V.E.S. Pullen

  Copyright © 2020 V.E.S. Pullen

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without written permission from the author, by any electronic or mechanical means including but not limited to: exporting to file, photocopying, recording, information storage and retrieval systems, or other means known now or hereafter invented. Exclusions: brief excerpts or quotations for use in reviews or tattoos (pix or it didn’t happen).

  This is a work of fiction. While references might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places, and incidents are products the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons — living or dead — businesses, or locations is purely coincidental.

  Written with Scrivener.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Playlist

  For Dave.

  You’ve given me many things,

  including the greatest gift of all: time.

  Chapter One

  Azzie

  Is there anything in the world more ominous than middle-aged white men in suits emerging from a dark, nondescript sedan?

  The answer is no. No, there is not. At least not in my world.

  Rachel, my foster mom, turned away from the kitchen window with raised eyebrows and I shrugged. She didn’t seem surprised, but I had no idea why they were there.

  “Okay, kiddos, time for school,” she said, brisk and unfazed, grabbing up the packed lunches and backpacks for her two kids, shuffling them toward the door leading straight into the garage. I picked up my own backpack and slammed back the rest of my smoothie before following them, hoping she’d fill me in on the drive.

  The two old-school police detectives or agents or whatever they were, hit the doorbell as I shut the door behind me and crossed in front of the ginormous SUV as Rachel got the kids into the back seats. I raised an eyebrow of my own and she shrugged right back at me. “Let Greg deal with them.”

  I laughed, putting on my sunglasses and reclining back into the seat. I owed him, big time.

  We settled in and she hit the garage door opener, the fancy bifold doors folding back silently, and reversed the vehicle out of the garage as Greg gestured the besuited men into the house. He shot us a look behind their backs as they disappeared through the door. They completely missed our exit in the transition between the porch and the kitchen: had they been in either place, it would have been hard to miss our escape, but they were essentially blind in those few feet of hallway between the front door and archway into the kitchen. I flashed Greg a big thumbs up and grin as we backed out into the street and then accelerated forward, but he just shook his head in defeat as he shut the door.

  “What do you think they wanted?” I asked quietly as Heather and Michael argued over whose backpack touched the other backpack first — the dire consequences of which no one knows besides siblings under twelve — and Rachel shrugged again.

  “Nothing good,” she replied, and turned on the radio, letting me know without saying that A) she either knew or suspected why they were there, B) she didn’t like it, and C) she definitely didn’t want the kids to know. Fan-fucking-tastic. So I had that to look forward to.

  We dropped the kids off at their various schools, Heather at the junior high and Michael at the elementary school, and headed over to the hospital. Even after the kids were out of the car, Rachel didn’t say a word, until I finally turned off the radio and pinned her with a really fierce stare — I’m talking military-grade-interrogation level of intimidation — but she ignored me. “You aren’t going to give me anything? Not even a heads-up?”

  Rachel scowled out the windshield, ignoring my terrifying visage. “Let Greg handle it,” she repeated, and I heaved out a dramatic sigh of resignation. My foster parents weren’t exactly loving or affectionate but they tended to be protective; so far, I had zero complaints about them, their rules, or their decisions. They mostly left me alone and did what they were supposed to, especially the last year or so; I wasn’t naïve — they were looking out for their family and their lifestyle just as much as me — but I still appreciated it.

  Things could be so much worse than they were.

  We pulled into the staff lot near the west entrance. I unbuckled myself and exited the car while Rachel texted with someone that I assumed was Greg. Since she still hadn’t finished the conversation by the time I’d gotten my bike free from the rack on the back of the vehicle, I walked by myself up to the security cage. I waved at Reggie as I leaned my bike against the side of his booth, my backpack sitting on the ground beneath it, and paused as I was scanned and buzzed in.

  “Morning, Miss Azzie,” he called out in his surprisingly high voice for a man that large and that armed, and I waved at him once my scan cleared and the green light beckoned me through the doors. I’d given up long ago on getting him to drop the Miss even though it bothered me when he said it. A lot of the soldiers guarding the medical center called me “Miss Azzie” and I knew for some it was intended to be respectful, but for others (Reggie included) it was just a reminder that I wasn’t one of them. I wasn’t military or family of military, or even a girlfriend or “good friend”; nor was I a doctor, nurse, researcher, or even an employee of the hospital; I was just a patient here, albeit one they saw frequently. I was a tolerated outsider with no special privileges or importance.

  That I’d been coming here since long before any one of them stepped foot within the city limits was ironic but irrelevant. This was their world now and I was a necessary evil — a civilian local with medical issues that stuck around — and it was imperative they all continued to believe that.

  But at least I didn’t have to go through the hassle of locking up my bike and checking in my backpack any longer, at least Reggie was willing to let me just leave it within his sight now. It only took a few years to make it into the circle of trust.

  My playlist had been running since I’d exited the truck, volume low through only one earbud until I cleared security, but now I tucked the other one in and amped up the volume. I started my trek through the hospital to Mouse’s phlebotomy lab where she’d draw my blood for the day, the lab that was on the opposite side of the complex from where Rachel worked and thus parked.

  Long corridor after long corridor, and one elevator ride, faded away around me as the music set my pace — it was a “sad bastard singing about hopelessness” type of day so my normally ten minute walk took twenty — and before I’d even realized it, I was pushing through the unmarked metal door. It had the narrowest of windows inset with chicken wire, just enough to see if someone was on the other side trying to exit at the same time as you, but no one ever was.

  Mouse never leaves her lab when she’s working, becau
se then she might have to talk to people.

  I’m convinced there’s even a secret dumbwaiter behind one of the wall panels, so the cafeteria can deliver sustenance to her, but I have no idea about the bathroom situation, and I don’t want to know.

  I breached the doorway, fumbling with the controls on my phone to turn off the music, and called out to the figure I saw hunched over a microscope out of the corner of my eye. “Fear not, my princess, for it is I, Lady Azrael, here to save you from certain death—” the figure that I assumed was Mouse, since there’s never anyone else in the lab, raised their head up “—and I ask only for a small boon in return.”

  “Oh God, you’re such a nerd!” I heard Mouse cackle from nowhere nearby, she sounded like she was in a different room even, and my head shot around in shock. I blinked, confused, and stared.

  Of course it was the hottest guy I’d ever seen in real life. Of course it was.

  “Dear Lord, I hope it’s a kiss,” the deep, rumbly tones of the man’s voice vibrated in my bones… and other places I was unwilling to admit to, as a mixture of embarrassment and pure lust rolled through me. Then I registered what he said, and his self-satisfaction, and a different kind of humiliation cut me deep, the kind that made my eyes burn and mouth twist into a scowl at having to deal with such an asshole.

  Fucking beautiful people.

  I don’t understand why it’s so much fun for them to taunt the less fortunate. And it’s never openly hostile, it’s always a cruel tease about something totally out of reach, like they want to make sure to drive home what you’re missing out on.

  They know what everyone wants, and they dangle it in front of you like a carrot even when it’s obvious all you’ll get is the stick.

  Even my metaphors were getting phallic. Goddammit.

  It was just as much shame at my own weakness as annoyance at his offensiveness that caused me to blurt out “Mouse, why is there a douchebag in your lab? I thought those were all kept up on four in gyno?”

  He froze, staring at me for a long, pregnant moment (hahaHA… gyno jokes…), his thickly lashed, almond-shaped eyes narrowing slightly. A muscle ticked in the sienna-brown cheek that lay between his razor-sharp cheekbone and chiseled jawline, his almost too-lush lips curving down in a frown, before he exploded into a deep belly laugh that had him clutching his gut with arms thick with muscles, thicker than my thighs even. The laughter actually seemed genuine.

  Goddamn was he absolute perfection, from the black velvet of his military-style brush cut down to the combat boots he wore under his scrubs. Clearly a soldier, and definitely of some kind of Native American descent, he was no one I’d seen before and the medical center wasn’t a place with high turnover.

  I allowed him to get his laughter under control, and it wasn’t easy to fight my own impulse to laugh with him. He was the kind of delectable that made you want to go along with anything he did just to keep his attention for a few moments longer, but I mustered up my best glare, one even more intimidating than what I blasted Rachel with earlier. “Who are you and why are you in Mouse’s lab?”

  “He’s my new backup,” Mouse sang out as she swept across the room from a door I’d rarely seen open before, one that usually had a cart of equipment and boxes sitting in front of it. “So I might be able to take a vacation or something. I think. I’m not sure why he’s here but I’m not about to complain about the eye candy, amirite?”

  I fucking love Mouse. And as I watched Soldier Boy blush a deep crimson, I fell a little bit more in love with her. “Please tell me you pat him on the ass when he does a good job,” I smirked, leaning back against the door as he glared between the two of us.

  She held a hand up to one side of her mouth like she was confiding a big secret. “If he ever did a good job, I would,” she whisper-shouted, “but so far he’s been a super dud.”

  “I’ve been here fifteen minutes,” he snapped, pushing off the steel lab table so his stool rolled backwards as he swung towards us. “You haven’t even asked my name yet.”

  “Don’t need it,” Mouse caroled, tossing a dusty box of disposable gloves onto the counter beside the microscope he’d been peering into. “I’m just going to keep calling you Pretty Boy in my head.”

  “I’m partial towards Soldier Boy,” I said, and held up my hand for the incoming high five. Mouse did not leave me hanging.

  “What the fuck is going on?” he asked the aether, but we both ignored him. As enjoyable as it was to harass the new guy, I didn’t have much time for this.

  I tucked my phone in my pocket and shrugged off my jacket followed by my hoodie, hanging them on the hook on the door, then peeled off one side of my long-sleeved t-shirt and pulled it up over my head, leaving it to hang off the other arm. I had a cami on underneath, and this wasn’t the time or place for misplaced modesty. Mouse’s lab was my safe space even with a stranger here.

  I crossed the room to the blood draw chair with the adjustable padded arm, settling into place as Mouse uncovered the tray with the collection kit sitting on the counter next to me, then began to scrub her hands at the sink. “Glove up, Pretty Boy,” she tossed over her shoulder, “I’m not letting you touch a needle but you still aren’t going anywhere near her without a latex barrier — words to live by, amirite?”

  I blushed as furiously as him, not thrilled that she was making me the butt of the joke again, and an awkward silence descended. It didn’t faze her one bit, she went about her prep routine without even noticing my discomfort, but apparently he did and I just knew that something mean was impending.

  He stared at me pointedly as he finished washing his hands and snapped on gloves from the box Mouse had supplied, a size sixty-three times larger than what she was using. “Note to self: must use proper protection with Lady Azrael,” he drawled, “even though I won’t be poking her today.”

  I wish I had a snappy comeback — or any comeback for that matter — but I was left staring at my hands as my face burned and eyes clouded up. Only Mouse’s brisk, no-nonsense adherence to routine kept me from transforming into a puddle of mortification and sinking through the chair. “Palm up, make a fist, you know the drill,” she commanded as she positioned my arm on the plastic bag-covered cushion, listened to the blood flow in several places through her stethoscope, tied on the tourniquet, and swung the magnifying light into place. “Is your elbow on the X?” I muttered a confirmation and she smacked my knee with her free hand. “Sit the fuck up, you know the angle has to be perfect. No slouching!” She was as effective as any drill sergeant, and my eyes flickered up to see Soldier Boy staring at her in disbelief.

  “Are you— are you creating a buttonhole fistula?” he asked, ruining everything.

  “I SURE AM!” Her delight was palpable, she lit up like a Christmas tree and beamed up at him before continuing her inspection. Since he clearly knew what he was talking about, he was no longer just eye candy to Mouse, and fuck if I didn’t get a surge of jealousy.

  His eyes widened as he crowded closer, trying to see over her shoulder. It was easy because she was so tiny, but the way he was looming over her put his face awfully close to mine — close enough that I could see the gold flecks in his dark brown eyes.

  “Incredible,” he whispered in awe as he peered down at my extended arm and the series of holes punched into the knotty, vine-like raised track of my fistula. I was incredibly self-conscious of my arm on a regular day, let alone when a guy as gorgeous as him was staring down at it in all its glory, and a dull, sick feeling settled in my gut. I wanted nothing more than to cover my arm up and run from the room, never to return, but that wasn’t an option. “Can you talk me through it?” His eagerness wasn’t helping.

  “Sure,” she replied, distracted by the examination of my insertion points. Once she was satisfied there was no swelling, redness, heat, or other signs of infection, she rolled backwards — him barely lurching out of her way in time — and plucked a surgical mask out of a dispenser. “You need to wear a mask, staph can be carr
ied by aspiration and saliva.” She was all business now, and he followed her lead.

  Once the masks were on, she began to disinfect my whole arm but talking him through the procedure distracted her, and the cold liquid ran down onto the plastic sheet. It was about to drip into my lap but then he was there with a paper towel to catch the excess and a pad to protect my clothes. I blushed again as he fumbled around trying to position it over my legs, his knuckles brushing against my abdomen. It had to be an accident, but the damn butterflies it set loose didn’t seem to care, and I looked up to catch him watching me instead of what he was doing.

  “Sorry,” Mouse muttered, only then realizing how close she’d come to coating me in the messy slop of disinfectant and antibacterial liquid. I grunted, trying to keep my mouth shut since I wasn’t masked.

  He didn’t say anything, but he made a point of smoothing the pad out over my thighs, sending those damn butterflies into gymnastics routines.

  “I’m in the process of creating a third buttonhole for rotation purposes.” An oblivious Mouse maneuvered my arm by degrees until it was exactly right, all her attention focused on my arm. “Ideally I’d like five total, like a combination of a rope ladder and buttonhole, but I’d be happy with four and settle for three. She’s got some weak points from a sloppy butcher that I’d like to perforate myself a few times, someplace delicate.” Soldier Boy flinched.

  “I haven’t seen this kind of thing outside of a dialysis clinic,” he finally dragged his eyes away from mine and watched dispassionately as she removed the scabs on the two access points she was currently cultivating. Neither of them noticed my wince.