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

by V. E. S. Pullen

  “Hmm. With triplets, I suspect you’ll soon discover what true pain in your ass is. Because it’s only fair. You know, like the saying: a hole for one and one for all?”

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  “Not a goddamn thing. Now go get you some of that fine triplet ass,” Mouse said, kissing Azzie on the cheek and winking at me. “Be gentle with her, she’s a virgin!” she whisper-shouted, and Azzie covered her face, muttering prayers for instant death.

  I wrapped an arm around her shoulder, hugging her close, and reassured her friend. “We’ll take care of your girl. We’ve got tons of lube.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Azzie

  We stood outside the game store, me refusing to talk to Sev as he cajoled and prodded me, telling me he was just messing with me, kidding around with my friends. They weren’t really intending to do any of that stuff with me.

  Well isn’t that just a kick in the face?

  “It’s good to know I’m actually super repulsive and you’re not interested. Thanks, pal!” I muttered, staring blindly out at the sporadic traffic cruising by.

  “You know that’s not what I meant,” he said, and when I didn’t reply, he leaned forward to look at my face. “Azzie, we’re friends… I was just messing with you in there—”

  I turned my head away, not wanting him to see the tears spiking my eyes.

  It isn’t like I’ve been daydreaming about them. I haven’t been writing “Mrs. Sevastien Kolek” in my notebook with hearts and flowers surrounding it, but their attention has been flattering and I did think it meant they were at least a little attracted to me.

  Given my current situation, it was quite possible I was going to die not only a virgin, but never having been in any kind of romantic situation. I’ve never had a date, never even been kissed, is what I mean.

  Not that I expected anything like that tonight, or any other night, but finding out it was never going to be an option was a little depressing.

  The past couple of days have been so weird, with these guys coming out of nowhere and embedding themselves in my life. I’ve been touched more, hugged more, held more in the last couple days than I have in almost five years because once my skin started getting sensitive, even my parents avoided any kind of touch with me. I think I’ve been starving.

  And not just for touch. They’ve been paying attention to me. Going out of their way to seek me out, talk to me, bring me close to them. The feelings I’m having — and not just for one of them, it’s all five of them. Five beautiful guys that I tried to keep at a distance, but now they’re stuck into me as completely as any needle in my vein.

  Turns out that like with many things, I’ve been naïve.

  I didn’t think I was reading into it, I really didn’t. They’ve initiated everything.

  But if they were interested, why did they let those girls hang all over them at lunch today? I saw them, even if I pretended I didn’t, and Sasha even had Adriana on his lap knowing she wants to hurt me. Sev still sat with G/Emma in class, and Luka sat with that whole group in Art History, whispering and laughing the whole time and making me paranoid it was about me.

  Then Sev makes all those innuendos and outright suggestions in front of my friends about what was going to happen tonight, and now says it was nothing but a joke? Is the idea of being with me really so fucking preposterous?

  I guess compared to those other girls, yes.

  This hurts, it really does, and I’m so angry at myself for beings so stupid. For all of it — for ever deluding myself about them, and especially for agreeing to see them tonight, but if this was my last night and there was any chance…

  There isn’t. That’s been made perfectly clear.

  I don’t know why I’m surprised. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that life is a series of disappointments and then you die an agonizing death as your blood cells explode in your veins and your body is leached of oxygen.

  I set aside my priorities on the off-chance I might get a new experience. I let them distract me.

  “Azzie, look at me! C’mon, you have to know that’s not what I meant— ”

  “Sev? Relax. Am I a little sad I won’t get a shot at that supposedly phenomenal ass? Of course I am. Can I live with the loss? Will I be able to find a way to go on? Golly gee, will I ever get over the disappointment?” I said, more bitter than sarcastic because I’m really not sure I ever will.

  “Well now you’re just being mean,” he mumbled, turning his own head away, his hands shoved in his pockets.

  We waited in silence for a few awkward minutes until their gigantic lifted truck rounded the corner and rolled down the street towards us. It stopped at the curb and Luka sprang out of the driver’s side, running around the front to grab me up in a big bear hug and swing me around in an arc. Mouse sometimes greets me in the same way, but the higher center of gravity meant my legs swung out and I wasn’t just crushed around the middle like a tube of toothpaste.

  “What are you doing here?!” he shouted, spinning around again for good measure, leaving me giggling breathlessly.

  “Azzie is my new DM,” Sev said smugly. “Bet D&D isn’t looking so lame now, eh?”

  “It’s not D&D that’s lame,” Luka answered, winking at me. “Always been you, bro.”

  “Whatever,” Sev muttered, stowing my bags on the floor of the passenger side and climbing into the backseat. Luka lifted me into the front, shut the door behind me, and then ran around the truck to his own door.

  Once he settled in and put the ridiculous machine in gear, Luka glanced between Sev and me. “So did you kids have fun?” he asked brightly. “You seem grumpy. Did orcs raid your village or something equally terrible or so I imagine?”

  “Not grumpy,” I said. “Just tired.” I turned towards Luka and held my hand next to my mouth like I was blocking the sound, then whisper-shouted, “Sev might be grumpy. I think he’s hangry.”

  “I’m not hangry,” came the hangry voice from the backseat. “You’re just a pain in the ass.”

  “Oh, now I’m the pain in the ass? Not ten minutes ago, you thought it was hilarious to tell the group how much lube you have so you three won’t be a pain in my ass.”

  “Wait, what?” Luka looked back and forth like he was waiting for one of us to deliver a punchline and laugh, and I had to tell him to watch the road. “No, hold on,” he said, pulling to the side of the road, “what?”

  “It’s okay, Luka. Sev made sure to tell me none of you would ever have regular sex with a disgusting monster like me, let alone anal. It was all just a joke.”

  “That’s not what I fucking said! You’re twisting everything around!”

  “No, no twisting around. Sex is off the table, remember?”

  “GODDAMMIT! Why are you being such a bitch?!”

  “Aww, I’m just messing with you, Sev! You’re right, it really is fun!”

  “Jesus…” Luka whispered, his eyes wide and mouth hanging open.

  “What’s the matter, Luka? Not used to girls fighting back? Should I blush and giggle and agree with everything you say so you’ll pay attention to me?”

  I don’t even know where this was coming from, but suddenly I was furious. After walking into the cafeteria to see all the meanest girls in our class getting all their attention and affection, to have Sev act like being with me was so repulsive was beyond cruel. My classmates treated me with disdain, but at least they were honest about it.

  No one that I thought actually liked me ever laughed about the prospect of having sex with me.

  I couldn’t have stopped at this point even if I wanted to, and I didn’t. I was done. “If I fawn all over you, do you think that Sev would feed me french fries? Do you think I’ll be able to sit on Sasha’s lap too? What about you, Luka? What would it take to get your tongue down my throat?”

  Luka looked back at Sev. “What the fuck just happened? What did you do?”

  “I have no idea. She was— we were just joking arou
nd— all her friends were saying the same things…”

  “Point of fact, no they weren’t,” I snarled. “They were joking about me having sex. They weren’t saying having sex with me was a joke. There’s a big difference. No, don’t apologize— I don’t believe for a second that you understand why I’m upset or are legit sorry, all you’re doing is trying to make me feel bad for being upset about it.”

  “I can’t win here.”

  “No, Sev, and neither can I. In the last couple days, you’ve all managed to make me feel more cherished and cared for, and more pathetic and worthless than I’ve ever felt in my life, and I really can’t do this anymore. You’re fucking with my priorities, you’re making me feel things I don’t want to feel, things I don’t deserve to feel— GODDAMMIT!” I slammed my palms on the dashboard, then fumbled for my seatbelt, grabbing my stuff and throwing myself out of the truck without another word then running back down the block away from them.

  Neither one of them came after me, which I expected, but fuck if I didn’t feel a twinge of disappointment right along with the relief.

  And fuck them for making me feel anything at all.

  Luka

  “I need to go after her,” Sev was frantically scrambling for his door, and I engaged the child locks.

  “Stop, you can’t,” I said as he cursed and threatened me. “Sev, you can’t.” I was suddenly exhausted, and I slumped against the steering wheel as he climbed over the seats, screaming at me to let him go after her. “Sev, stop. She’s gone. A patrol picked her up.”

  He collapsed in the passenger seat calling me every name he could think of, punching at my arms and face, and I let him. After a few hits, he noticed I wasn’t fighting back and fell back against the passenger window. “Why? Why did you stop me?”

  “What were you going to do, Sev? Grab her up in your arms? Kiss her? Tell her that you might be in love with her, and you’re dying to have sex with her? That you keep saying and doing stupid shit because you’ve never felt these feelings and don’t know what to do with them?”

  “I— I don’t know, maybe? I have to do something! You saw her, you heard her— I fucked up, Luka. I fucking hurt her!”

  “Yeah. We all did. And we probably will again. She’s not for us, Sev. You know that. She’s maybe seventeen, she could be even younger. We’re fucking twenty-one pretending to be eighteen! She’s got fucking cancer and lives in the fucking Matrix, and we live out there in the real world, where there’s no fucking grocery stores stocked with fresh food or high schools full of sheltered princesses and jocks still acting out fucking John Hughes movies.”

  “You were the one insisting that you wouldn’t ever give her up—”

  “Yeah, and then reality punched me in the face. And the fucking neck, you shithead. Jesus.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Are you? Or are you just sorry that I took it the way I did? What? Too soon?”

  “Too fucking soon, you asshole. Where are we going? This is the wrong direction.”

  “Tai and Spider’s. The party was moved there because they have an actual kitchen, since they get to be adults. Tai made soup for Azzie for dinner, and we have a bunch of snacks she should be able to eat. And a movie to watch. So this should be fun.”

  Sasha

  I saw it on their faces when they walked in the door, before they’d even said a word, before Spider even thought to ask where Azzie was. I saw it and I knew.

  “She’s not coming tonight,” Luka said, heading immediately to the fridge and pulling a bag of peas out of the freezer, placing it against his swelling jaw.

  “What do you mean? Did her aunt ground her or something? What’s going on?” Spider had grabbed up his keys like he was going to head over there to jailbreak her, bouncing on his feet while he waited for them to answer.

  “Not her aunt. Foster mother. The thing I had to do today? It was a D&D game,” Sev said, putting the bag of frozen corn that Luka handed him on his knuckles. He sat down on the couch, leaning forward to stare at the carpet between his feet, elbows resting on his knees as he held the ice pack in place. “Mouse was in the game and Azzie was the DM. The rest of the party was your Geography teacher, Saint, and three military dudes. It was incredible. And there was a lot of joking around and laughing, a lot of teasing Azzie especially, teasing her about us.”

  Tai and Spider were both standing near the little galley kitchen, Tai in the doorway with a chef’s knife gripped like no cook ever held one, and Spider’s fists clenching and unclenching by his sides. “And?”

  “And I fucked up,” Sev said, hanging his head. “I thought she was upset about the jokes that were made, and I was so stupid — I told her it wasn’t like that, we didn’t actually feel that way. And long story short, I hurt her feelings. Bad. She ended up exploding and screaming at us for fucking around with those girls today then treating her like she was repulsive. She said that we make her feel cared for and worthless at the same time. Then she jumped out of the truck and ran off, and a patrol picked her up.”

  “Jesus CHRIST,” Spider exploded, turning to bang his forehead against the wall while Tai silently shook his head in disgust and went back into the kitchen.

  “Wow.” I said flatly. “Well you’ve had a busy afternoon.”

  “Shut the fuck up,” Luka spat at me, “you’re just as guilty as us.” I raised an eyebrow at him.

  “Yeah?” I wasn’t feeling too happy with either of them. He flipped me off. “So why did Sev hit you?”

  “I wouldn’t let him go after her.”

  “Why not?” Spider asked tightly, glaring between Sev and Luka. “Do you think letting her dwell on this will help anything?”

  “No,” Luka replied, sounding exhausted. “No, but I think Sev was about to declare his undying love for her or something equally impossible, and that wasn’t going to help anything. Oh, you disagree?”

  “No, I don’t,” Spider said, wiping his hand down his face. “But we aren’t going to figure out what’s going on without her, and above and beyond that, I don’t like hurting her. She’s so… fragile.”

  “Sheltered, you mean? Because I’m not sure how fragile she is—” Sev said, his mouth twisting in a smirk. “You should have seen her in the game, she was incredible. And any time we took a break, people would come up to her to talk, ask her advice and shit. She was in complete control of a room full of soldiers, mostly men, and they weren’t hitting on her or anything, they fucking respect her. And nobody held back, they were giving her as much shit as anyone else, and she was dishing it right back—”

  “She fucking eviscerated me in the cage, she laid into me about the girls in the cafeteria, then fucking schooled us on all the various ways we’re assholes. It was brutal.”

  “Cage?” Tai was back, eating a bowl of soup.

  “He means the truck,” I said, throwing a corn chip at Luka. “You also called me Saint. Pay attention.” He nodded, grunting.

  “I did mean fragile, but mostly just health-wise,” Spider was peering into his brother’s bowl. “I don’t think she’s all that sheltered, not compared to the rest of them, and not after the conversation we had. She fucked up at one point, said there’s a few places like this out there, but she wished this was like a regular base. Said they think it’s necessary, then she caught herself and asked me to forget what she just said. I tried to get more out of her, but apparently it’s above my pay grade. That’s when she asked me to have Tai back off on investigating her treatments, told me it could get both of us killed.”

  “Yeah, you need to explain that.”

  “Azzie said a teacher was killed after he claimed he was going to rescue her, but there were also rumors he was dipping his wick in the student population. He was definitely killed, but the official story was that he was shot by accident when running in the woods, but Mouse heard gunshots outside the medical center at the time he was supposedly killed in the woods.”

  “Wow, that’s a lot of weight for a young girl to carry, no
wonder she’s so scared—”

  Spider shook his head. “That’s not what’s scaring her. I mean, she’s worried about me and Tai ending up like that, but she doesn’t feel responsible for the teacher.” He paused, gathering his thoughts. “Like she’s already carrying enough, she wasn’t going to take that on too. We keep telling ourselves she’s a young girl, she’s just a teen girl, whatever, but does anything about her seem like the rest of them? I don’t think she’s sheltered, I think we are. I think she’s trying to protect us from someone, and I don’t know who, but she said they forget she’s human. By the end of that conversation, I felt like a scared kid just wanting reassurance after she walked away. I really was shaking.”

  “This is weird,” Tai said, looking down at his phone.

  “What?” Spider leaned in, looking at it. “Is that a text from Mouse?”

  “Yeah. So get this? Mom texted me earlier, said she received a package in the mail from Mouse, asked me what it was. I said I’d find out and get back to her, so I texted Mouse. She just replied.”

  “You have a sat phone?!” Both those assholes ignored me.

  “What did Mouse say?”

  “She replied jack too.”

  “Was she calling you a jackhole? Azzie does that a lot.”

  “No, J-A-K and the number 2. It’s the gene that mutates to cause PV. I wonder if she was trying to text Azzie but I was at the top of her texts as the most recent?”

  “It’s possible,” Sev said. “She was taunting Azzie earlier, saying she had something top secret to do tonight but wouldn’t tell her what until the morning. She probably caved. Or it was another taunt.”

  “Is it possible she was replying to you?”

  “That makes no sense but Mouse routinely makes no sense so possibly? I’ve texted her back, asked her to explain more thoroughly.”

  “Why would she send something to Mom?”

  “I have no idea. Mom said the package was addressed to Mama Chandler, Hopi Rez, Arizona and the return address was Tai’s Friend Mouse.”