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

by V. E. S. Pullen

  Mouse shouted “You fucked triplets?!” at the same time as Soldier Boy’s head shot up and he stared at me with an uncomfortable intensity.

  “No,” I said, eyeing him with blatant suspicion while talking to her. “I was using fucking as an adjective, not a verb. Just pointing out the absurdity of somehow ending up hanging out with a set of triplets while covered in my own blood. But anyway, my point is that I passed out a couple times and they took me to their place to get cleaned up but I fell asleep on the one dude’s bed and woke up seventeen hours later. So let’s not go crazy with the blood draw today, mmkay? I also missed like five meals, and feel like ass.”

  “Aww, I’m sorry sweetie, I was just trying to—”

  “I thought you couldn’t care less about what we talk about? Because you sure are paying attention right now,” I interrupted Mouse to call him out, and it was worth the lack of manners because he got so flustered.

  “Sorry, it’s just, I know them.”

  “Know who?”

  “The triplets. I mean, I’m assuming, but how many sets of triplets are there in this town? It was Sasha, Luka, and Sev, right?”

  I nodded, my neck still and shoulders rigid. I don’t believe in coincidences.

  “So you’re the reason he skipped all his afternoon classes?” S.B. asked, looking thoughtful.

  I tried to relax, not show how tense I was getting so I shrugged, very casual. “If he did, I’m unaware. I was out cold.”

  “Since you’re in the neighborhood, how about we draw some blood?” Mouse interrupted my apparently one-sided, passive-aggressive standoff because S.B. gave me a small smile then set down his phone and hit the sink as if there was nothing at all unusual or suspicious about them all knowing each other. She pushed me towards the phlebotomy chair, breaking my penetrating stare that would have otherwise forced him to confess everything.

  Mouse and S.B. went through their disinfecting routine as I stripped my arm bare and got comfortable. The paranoid conspiracy theorist in me was raging, but at the same time, it didn’t really matter, I’d figure it out eventually. In the meantime, in the brain movie I was working on, I concluded that all super hot guys went to a VFW-type hall where they could hang out and compare notes on how to be extra privileged while playing air hockey, drinking Gatorade, and snacking on barbecue potato chips. Of course they’d know each other.

  “Test my levels first. If you don’t have to remove any today, I’d rather just get some fluids,” I said as Mouse removed the scabs on the immature insertion points that had formed in the last twenty-four hours, after the generous application of an antihemorrhagic called Chitosan made from shrimp of all things. Apparently it was very popular in the military, and we had an abundance of it for sealing up my needle pokes. I carried around plain old, non-military grade styptic powder in my EDC first aid kit for small abrasions — not like my lip, which probably should have had stitches. Speaking of which… “Can you look at my lip too? Sevlukasha helped me glue it but it might need more.”

  “Sevlukasha?”

  “They’re a little interchangeable in my head right now,” I shrugged and S.B. snorted under his breath. “I can’t remember which one did what yesterday.” I thought for a second, then amended that statement. “That’s not true, the only time I couldn’t tell them apart was when I was leaving this morning and the room was dark. One of them that wasn’t Sasha told me the door would lock behind me.”

  “They didn’t give you a ride home?!” S.B. was borderline outraged by that and I made a face at him.

  “They thought I had my bike, although I couldn’t lift it out of their truck,” I mumbled the last part as Mouse rolled her eyes at me. S.B. was even more upset now.

  “So you walked home? What time was it?”

  “Uhh… around 5, I think? But no, I only got about a block away before a patrol picked me up and drove me home, which I knew would happen. It’s fine,” I reassured him, not wanting a fuss.

  That seemed to stop S.B. cold and he eyed me warily. “Why would a patrol pick you up?”

  I exchanged looks with Mouse — I’d fucked up and couldn’t think of how to cover for it.

  “It happens,” Mouse said nonchalantly as she pulled my testing collection. “After you’ve been here awhile, you’ll see that things don’t work the same around here as a regular base. Hey, can you go run the hematocrit for me while I get some fluids ready?” Mouse passed him the small collection tube and he took it but didn’t go anywhere right away, his stare a heavy weight pressing down on me. I finally looked up and met his eyes, keeping my expression and body language as neutral and disinterested as possible, but the intensity of his gaze was disarming and I ended up squirming and looking away.

  “I get that I’m the new guy,” he finally said, his voice soft but steady, “but eventually you’ll figure out that I’m not the enemy, and maybe even trust me someday.”

  I wasn’t uncomfortable any longer. Pretty sure he had no idea, but he just crossed a line.

  “See, that’s the problem, Soldier Boy,” I enunciated slowly, in a tone I knew was condescending but I didn’t want there to be any mistakes about the message I was delivering. “You think this is about you. You think my hostility is personal, but it isn’t.”

  “That right there is personal,” he replied, as calm as could be. “You calling me Soldier Boy. You know my name, I know you do, but you call me that instead. I can’t think of anything more personal than fucking with someone’s name.”

  This fucker had no idea what taking someone’s name away could do. No fucking idea what kind of damage it could cause. “I’m sorry I hurt your feelings. I didn’t realize how fragile you are.”

  “Now you’re just being a dick,” he said, shaking his head at me. “Look, I didn’t ask for this assignment. Like I said, I’m not your enemy, and I hope someday—”

  I cut him off. “It doesn’t matter how long you’ll be here, you will always be the enemy because you’ve invaded my safe space. I get a short time in the morning to spend time with Mouse and feel like a regular person, and now you’re here. And just to be sure things are crystal clear, you are an infiltrator because there isn’t a new anything in this lab — for the past four years, it’s just been me and Mouse, and now suddenly she needs backup? Bullshit. Take that message back to whoever assigned you here, and remind them I’m not fucking stupid.”

  “Aez— Azzie,” Mouse snapped at me, and I realized I’d said too much. I lost my temper and said way too much. S.B. was observing us closely through narrowed eyes, and I could practically see the gears grinding into place in his head. Fuck.

  Too late now to pretend ignorance. I caught his eye and held it, not backing down, not even blinking, until he broke the stare-off with an unexpected smile.

  “Cards on the table? We were recruited for a study about the genetics of multiple births but haven’t gotten all the information about it yet. I don’t know why I was assigned to this lab, or why I’m even here. But I’ll figure it out, and when I do? I’ll tell you.” It was a powerful promise to make, and if he followed through… whether it would be an olive branch or a strategic move remains to be seen. “And in the meantime, I’ll try really hard to stay out of your way and not do any damage. So if I ask a question that you don’t want to answer, you don’t need to lie about it, just tell me you aren’t going to answer and I’ll let it go. Okay?”

  “I’m not going to answer that,” I said, stone-faced, then Mouse and I cracked up while he shook his head with a wan smile.

  “Fair enough.”

  My CBC ended up being high again, so they did a normal draw and I got extra fluids. As I sat in the chair waiting for the bag to empty, Tai purposely moved to the other side of the room and turned the music back up, leaving Mouse and I sitting close together with a hint of privacy.

  She widened her eyes at me, confused and concerned. “What’s going on?” she asked in a hushed voice. She really did keep to herself in the lab, and I wasn’t completely sure
if it was because of her secret projects or because she’d developed a healthy amount of social anxiety over the years. The only time I saw her interact with people outside the lab was for game.

  “There’s a bunch of new people at school, including the triplets. Suspicious that he showed up the same time as them, right?”

  She nodded, brow furrowed, but let me vent, not saying anything.

  “Maybe I’m just being paranoid, but I can’t seem to get away from them. I only got to three classes yesterday but there was at least two of them in each class, and one of them — not a triplet — got a bit handsy with me. My skin start itching like crazy and I don’t even know if it was something real or just me freaking out over the unexpected touch.” She was well aware of how I was about my skin, and how fucked up it made me feel. She grasped my hand and squeezed, and my lips twitched in a reflexive smile; Mouse was my ride-or-die bitch, and always had my back. No matter what. “The triplets intervened, checked on me, tried helping me… and Mouse? They were touching me a whole lot without any problems. I got carried around by more than one of them, even sat in Luka’s lap in the car, and it didn’t bother me at all. In fact, I kept falling asleep.” Her eyebrows shot up as her eyes got big. “I don’t know what to do with this.”

  “You liked it.” It wasn’t a question, she knew the answer, but I nodded anyway. “So what’s the problem?”

  “You know what the problem is,” I looked away before her sympathy made the stinging in my eyes become actual tears. “Even if I thought it was something, you know it doesn’t matter.”

  “No, Aez, I know you think it doesn’t matter.” She squeezed my hand again, harder, jolting me out of my pity party and forcing me to look at her. She was angry now, fierce with determination. “You’re allowed to have a real life. You’re allowed to be a complete human being. You don’t have to give up on every dream you’ve ever had just because your blood is fucked up.”

  Now I really was going to cry. I know she thought she was being helpful, but she was wrong. Any chance at a “normal” life ended four years ago, and the last year had only cemented that belief. I changed the subject and she let me, then we finished the process and I put my layers back on, gathering up my things to go.

  I couldn’t help it, I glanced over at Tai as I headed for the door, and he was watching me, an unreadable expression on his perfect face. I gave him a nod goodbye and left, never looking to see if he returned it.

  Chapter Seven

  Azzie

  Lit passed quickly. I was still ahead in the reading, though less than I had been. Sasha sat next to me again, and borrowed another pen, but that was the extent of our interactions, though I did get the impression he was pleased that I wasn’t making anything of what had happened on Monday. I think that he liked it a whole lot that I didn’t take any of it the wrong way, or make assumptions about where we stood, and he was free to flirt with all the other girls without me acting butt-hurt.

  They’d paid some attention to me the day before, and I’d slept in his bed, but none of that meant anything. He didn’t ask me to wear his pin and be his bitch — we weren’t even really friends let alone anything more. I made sure to get my pen back at the end of class, and went to Statistics without saying another word to him — not like the silent treatment or anything, there just wasn’t anything to say.

  Sev got to Stats late, walking it with an arm around Alessa Jackson, who kept a hand on his chest — awkwardly, from my perspective — the whole time they were walking. I greeted him with a nod and smile as he took his seat a couple rows away from me and he grimaced back. Not sure what to make of that.

  Mrs. Ramsey called roll and I realized Jason Callis really was in that class too — I’d already seen him that morning in Lit though I didn’t remember his name being called — but when I looked over in the direction where I heard him say “here,” he didn’t look the same. For one thing, his shirt was different, and for another, he had a fucking black eye! And judging by the color, not one he got in the hall between classes, but I swear it wasn’t there twenty minutes ago…

  I must have been staring at him rather intensely because he looked over at me and furrowed his brow. I reached up and touched my own eye, silently asking him a question, and his expression morphed into something between disbelief and disgust as he shook his head and looked back at the teacher. I had no idea what to make of that either.

  After class, I was at my locker swapping books and paying much more attention this time when he showed up to deal with his own stuff, but he ignored me. Or tried to, at least. I shut my locker and got right up in his business, not letting him avoid talking to me.

  “What happened to your face? I saw you in Lit and you didn’t have a shiner — what the hell is going on?”

  “I don’t have Lit with you, Azzie,” he said quietly, then slammed his locker shut and turned on me, seriously annoyed. “And you know damn well what happened to my face, your fucking boyfriends jumped me.”

  “My— what?” My legit confusion caused his annoyance to fade rapidly. “And what do you mean you don’t have Lit with me? I saw you in class.”

  “My brother Ryan has Lit with you, not me,” he explained, then slumped sideways, resting his head against his locker, assessing my shock with narrowed eyes. “You really didn’t know.”

  “Know what? That you have a brother? No, sorry, I don’t pay that much attention to other people unless they make me, and I just thought it was you. Wait — is he your twin?”

  He nodded, rolling his eyes. “Yes, he’s my twin.” He continued to watch me for a few more seconds then said, “but no, I meant you didn’t know they jumped me.”

  “Who?” I demanded, almost panicking. Who the hell would hit him on my behalf? And why? Was it—

  “Those assholes Sev and Luka,” he said, squinting at me like I was being purposely obtuse.

  “Why would they hit you?”

  “For upsetting you.”

  “What? Why the fuck would they do that?!” Now I was really confused, and all of his annoyance had drained away completely, and he actually started laughing.

  “Oh this is priceless,” he chuckled, taking my bag from me and heading down the hallway while I stared after him, stunned into complete paralysis. It wasn’t until he crossed through the doors into the stairwell that I could move again, and I walked as fast as I could to try to catch up.

  I entered my Geography classroom and found my bag on the seat next to him in the first row. This class was in an auditorium-style room, with the door near the teacher’s desk at the bottom of a ton of rows of seats that folded up when not in use, and desk tops that folded down and tucked back in between them. Jason had put my bag down and pulled out the desktop for me too, and he was grinning straight ahead, a bit smugly it seemed, as I moved the bag and sat down. I rummaged through it looking for the right notebook and text, grumbling at him for stealing my bag the whole time I did, but he didn’t say a word.

  The class was still pretty chaotic — Mr. Kalkunen was late as usual — so it took me a bit to realize that someone was hissing my name. It took until a wad of paper hit me in the head, in fact, for me to then hear someone speaking to me.

  I looked around, irritated as fuck, to find Luka and Sasha glaring at me from a few rows back, an empty seat between them. I tilted my head and furrowed my brow, giving a wave in case they were mad because I didn’t acknowledge them when I came in.

  “Fucking hell, Azzie, why are you sitting with douchebag?” Luka whisper-shouted at me, causing everyone around and in the rows between us to fall silent and stare back and forth at us with great interest.

  “Because this was where he set my backpack,” I said, making a face at them. Why the hell did it matter where I sat? “And why the hell did you hit him? And when? What the fuck, Luka?”

  Luka and Sasha both stared at me, open-mouthed, as Jason set his head down on the desk, laughing so hard he was shaking my desk too. Mr. Kalkunen entered the classroom so I turned back
in my seat, figuring I could get an answer later, so I was a little startled when Luka appeared in front of me, grabbed my notebook and pen and backpack, and turned around and walked back up to his seat.

  “Now you can come sit where I set your backpack,” he hissed, making the same face back at me.

  Jason was still laughing but gestured with a “go ahead” as if I fucking needed permission, so I was equally annoyed with both of them as I stalked up the aisle to where my bag was sitting on the seat between Luka, who had my notebook under his, and Sasha, who was now using my pen. “What the fuck?!” I growled at them, trying to keep my voice down, but they both ignored me, staring straight ahead.

  “Ms. Vokaty, if you could take your seat,” Mr. Kalkunen said off-handedly, not at all interested in the number of personal violations these jackasses were racking up in this classroom in particular. I moved my bag and sat down, yanking my notebook away from Luka and my pen out of Sasha’s hand.

  A few seconds later, Sasha leaned towards me. “Hey, can I borrow a pen?”

  Leaving my elbow on the desk, I tilted my hand up and gave him the finger, then kicked my backpack in his direction. “Get it yourself.”

  Within a minute, Luka set a piece of paper on my desk that had “Why were you sitting with him?” in a messy scrawl.

  I passed it back. “Why did you hit him?”

  “He hurt you.”

  “No he didn’t. He might not have respected my personal space, but he didn’t hurt me. It’s not his fault my skin is fucked up and overly sensitive.”

  “He was fucking molesting you in the doorway!”

  I stared at Luka in astonishment, and he ignored me, glaring straight ahead and fuming.

  “He did not! He whispered something to me, then touched my cheek and neck. It wasn’t a big deal, it just startled me and I freaked out.”

  “He’s a douche.”

  Still focused on him, I shook my head. He continued to ignore me so I furiously scribbled on the note before passing it back again. “I have a couple classes with him. He has the locker next to mine. He carries my really heavy bag for me to this class, which I appreciate. Besides acting like a fucking guy that one time, he’s been decent to me. What the hell is your problem?”