Jax shook his head. “We need to move soon, and I need data about the threats out there. The north of L.A. is controlled by a group called the Mercenaries, and they’re worse than Rippers.”
She internalized a truth she hadn’t fully realized. There was no safe place. Studying him, she frowned. “Most people would be afraid to be in a bed with a Scorpius survivor. Scared they’d catch the contagion.”
“Not much scares me.” He rolled his neck on the pillow. “Plus, that knowledge in your head? It’s pretty much our only hope. On the off chance that you’re carrying a more dangerous disease, I’d rather be a guinea pig than do nothing.”
“I’m not carrying a new strain.”
“I believe you.” He leaned up on one muscled arm, mimicking her pose. “Like I said, I don’t listen to rumors.”
“Good. But you have to know there’s a bounty on my head.” After she’d escaped, the Elite Force had been created to hunt her down, and they’d offered money for help.
He frowned. “Well, I know there’s a reward for your safe return. How is that a bounty?”
“How is it not?”
“Did you know the latest reward is not only money but stores of vitamin B for anybody who brings you back to the CDC?”
Her lungs compressed. Vitamin B was more valuable than money these days. “That would help a lot with infected persons.”
“Maybe. It seems to me that anybody infected with the bacteria is screwed.”
She shook her head. “Not everybody continues changing, especially if they keep up regular injections of vitamin B.”
“Uh-huh. If you say so.”
“Even if some folks who initially survived the plague turned into killers, that doesn’t mean they all will. There’s still a chance.” She knew more about the survivors than he did.
“I don’t think so. Anybody who caught the fever, even if they seemed to survive it, will eventually succumb and become a Ripper,” he said.
“I hate that name.” She flopped back down. “Jack the Ripper shouldn’t be immortalized, even if half of the survivors basically turn into serial killers with no empathy.”
Jax shrugged. “What else would we call them?”
She shook her head, not having a better answer. Silence ticked around them, and a new tension filtered through the room.
Vulnerability and an unwelcome sense of curiosity swamped her. She was in bed, practically nude, with Jax Mercury. What now?
Chapter Six
It is the individual, the heart in one humble man, where good and evil ultimately fight it out.
—Dr. Franklin Xavier Harmony
Jax kept still and tried to banish the hard-on partially hidden under the bedspread. The last thing he wanted was to spook the woman, and truth be told, he’d just had his best sleep in months. Something about wrapping his body around the tiny brunette, holding her close, and smelling her gardenia scent had relaxed him on a subconscious level. Yeah, she was dangerous as hell, but there was a delicacy within her that called to him. On too many damn levels.
Unfortunately, he needed to get his ass out of bed and get to work. Medical supplies were dangerously low, and he’d already planned three raids for the day at clinics in the Malibu area. Chances were the places had been raided already, but he had to find some penicillin. There were several pet shops between Vanguard territory and Malibu, so he’d scavenge there, too. Fish food held plenty of antibiotics, and most survivors didn’t know that fact.
First he had to get Lynne Harmony to Tace’s lab to go through documents. She obviously had a plan and needed his documents to make it happen. “What do you hope to find in the research we raided?” he asked.
She bit her lip. “I need the actual research results because ours were destroyed in the explosions at the CDC facilities. So much goes into synthesizing vitamin B that I can’t remember the formulas. Not all of them, anyway.”
His instincts started to hum. The woman kept a straight face, and her eyes remained focused, but he could almost smell the lie on her. “What else?” he whispered.
She shivered.
Damn, but he didn’t want to threaten her again. “Tell me, Lynne. You have no choice.”
Her pretty green eyes searched his face. Finally, whatever internal debate she was waging seemed to end. “There’s a top-secret lab called Myriad located somewhere in Los Angeles.” She held up her hand as he started to speak. “I don’t know where it is, but I’m hoping the location is buried somewhere in the data you stole from the other labs. It has to be.”
Heat flushed through him. “What’s at Myriad?”
She pushed away from him, setting her back against the wall again. “At a minimum? The formula for stabilizing vitamin B in the body.”
“At the maximum?”
“Maybe a cure?” She shook her head. “Or at least the beginning of the research for a cure to Scorpius.” Suddenly, she grabbed his arm with surprising strength. “But I’m not the only one looking for that cure. There are people coming who want to destroy any possible cure and let nature run its course.”
An alarm blared through the day before he could ask another question.
“Shit.” He jumped from the bed and reached for a walkie-talkie. “Status?”
“Attack from the south and straight at headquarters,” came the garbled response. An explosion rippled up, and the building shook.
“Damn it.” He yanked on jeans, T-shirt, and a refurbished LAPD bulletproof vest, donning his shoulder holster and shoving various knives into place. Two steps took him to the cupboard under the sink, where he yanked out pistols and an AK-47. Striding toward the door, he turned back to the bed.
Lynne sat up, her hair mussed, her green eyes wide. Defenseless and so damn feminine his gut ached. The woman had sought him out, and she had no reason to harm his people. Knowing it was a fucking mistake, he tossed her a pistol. “Get dressed and get ready to run. Stay in the room unless I come and get you—stay out of the way. Don’t let anybody, and I mean anybody, see you.” He paused. “Shoot anybody who tries to hurt you.”
Jumping into his boots and lacing them up, he elbowed out the door and quickly locked it from the outside. Lynne would have to lock the one inside, and he was the only person with the key to release that one.
He ran toward the stairwell as gunfire echoed outside the building. A large crash shook the ceiling tiles, and the smell of smoke assaulted him. He took the stairs down three at a time, his gun out, his senses on full alert.
Leaping through the outside door, he ran across the abandoned parking lot and dodged through the slightly open fence that surrounded the entire property. If it was open, soldiers had already hurried outside.
Keeping low, he quickly ducked behind a barrier made of three dented soccer mom vans and slid in next to Wyatt. The barrier of downed vehicles took up the entire road across from a vacant lot and a damaged three-story brick building he hadn’t been able to demolish yet. God, he needed some C-4 or good explosives.
A burning truck at the edge of the vacant lot set the surrounding weeds on fire, and the smell of charring metal corrupted the air. Several other vehicles flanked the burning one, with men firing from the other sides. The empty apartment building rose behind them, silent and dark. “What the fuck?” he muttered.
Automatic weapon fire pinged against the nearest van. Wyatt ducked, his weapon out. “They sent in a truck to explode.”
Jax jerked his head, his gaze focusing on Wyatt. “They wasted fuel like that? How much?”
“Too much.” Wyatt coughed. “Your boy isn’t thinking.”
“We don’t know it’s Cruz.” If it was Cruz, and he’d wasted so much fuel, he was using meth again. Without question.
“Yeah. We do.” Wyatt shifted over and pointed. “Check out the carcass.”
Dread dropping like lead into his gut, Jax peered through a broken window at the Twenty symbol painted and burning on the side of the Mazda. His old gang. “Fuck.” He checked his clip and yelled out, “Cruz? What the hell?”
The weapon discharge ended. “Mercury? That you, buddy?”