The unthinkable idea that she was snuggled up to Jax Mercury, rebel leader of Los Angeles, showed just how bizarre reality had become.
Jax held the woman close as Manny barreled through a devastated area of Los Angeles. A surprising amount of greenery had started poking through concrete and climbing crumbling slum buildings. Some of the greenery was edible, so the homeless and crazy were probably close by. The number of Rippers in the area concerned him, and the really insane ones wouldn’t hesitate to attack a moving vehicle.
Manny swore and skidded around a tangled mess of what appeared to be a massive motorcycle accident. “Need lights.”
“No,” Jax whispered, stretching his damaged arm. When the atmosphere changed, right before a storm arrived, his scarred flesh ached. “The sky is bright enough even though the sun hasn’t risen.” Thank God. Thunder clamored in the west as clouds over the ocean gathered force. They had to hurry, damn it.
Lynne Harmony didn’t move. Finally, she’d fallen asleep—a testament to how exhausted she must be to finally lose consciousness on his lap while hooded. Jax removed the hood from her face so she could breathe, and she snuggled her nose into his neck, igniting a wave of protectiveness that pissed him right off.
Manny glanced in the rearview mirror. “Do you think she’ll tell us about the outside world? What she knows?”
Jax nodded. “She’ll tell us. Although it’s doubtful she knows about specific people.”
“I understand.” Manny turned back toward the road.
Jax sighed. The man had family in Florida, and he hadn’t heard from them in months. Chances of their survival sucked. “I’ll ask her after she gets some sleep.”
“She’s prettier than I thought,” Manny said quietly.
Yeah. She was. “The cameras didn’t do her justice.” Jax shifted his shoulder to rest against the door. “She’s also younger than I expected, considering her job at the CDC.” She had been the head of infectious diseases, and when she’d gotten infected, she’d been up front with the news as soon as she’d come out of the coma. Until somebody in the government had stopped allowing news out.
“Do you think she knows a cure?” Manny asked.
“I don’t know.” Jax forced his eyelids to remain open. With a warm, snuggly woman in his arms, his body wanted to rest and enjoy the moment. “I think she has information we need about the current status of the government and hopefully a possible cure for the plague. Or maybe a way to find a cure.” Almost absently, he rubbed his chin against the top of her soft hair. “Though I’m struggling to figure out her agenda.”
“Agenda? You mean why she just walked into Vanguard territory?” Manny jerked the wheel to the left to avoid a downed bread truck.
Jax tightened his hold so Lynne wouldn’t awaken. “Yeah.”
“For protection. The world either wants her dead because they blame her for not stopping the illness, or they think somehow there’s a cure in her blood since she’s the only one with a blue heart. She came to us for protection,” Manny said.
“No.” Jax leaned back his head again. “When we decided to take L.A., we sent out news and rumors, warning the world to stay the fuck away. This is not where a woman would come for protection, especially this woman.”
“You’ve heard the other rumors about her, right?”
“Yes.” Refugees from different camps had whispered of tales that Lynne Harmony carried a more dangerous form of the Scorpius bacterium and wanted to infect the entire world. The Mercenaries, a deadly group from the north, were known to be ferociously hunting her because of a reward posted by the government for her return. “I don’t listen to scary stories told around campfires,” Jack said evenly.
“What if they’re true? Maybe she’s a Ripper and she’s crazy,” Manny whispered, his shoulders stiffening. “I mean, not one of them disorganized Rippers, but one of them supersmart genius ones. There’s two main types, right?”
“Yeah.” Jax inhaled the scent of woman. “If she’s a genius serial killer, I still don’t see why she’d walk into my territory.” He could break her neck with minimal effort if she tried to infect anybody with a new contagion. “She definitely has an agenda, and it has something to do with either me or our land. My guess is that it’s the territory, but I could be wrong.” The woman had asked for him by name, and the desperation in her initial plea had rung true.
“I think we should’ve left her on the side of the road.” Manny shuddered.
Thunder bellowed louder, obviously creeping closer.
Jax glanced down as very weak light slid over the delicate features of Lynne Harmony’s face. They had a distance to go before he needed to hood her again. Hopefully he hadn’t made a colossal mistake in letting her live.
He’d find out soon enough.
Chapter Three
Alliances ebb and flow with man, and sometimes, true friendships emerge.
—Dr. Franklin Xavier Harmony
What had she done? Lynne had actually fallen asleep on Jax Mercury. She awoke, blinking inside the stifling hood, just as he lifted her into the cool morning air and easily strode over uneven ground. A slight change of temperature hit her, and his steps leveled out.
Inside. They were inside somewhere. The smell of dust and burned tomato soup tickled her nose, but no sound provided a clue as to their whereabouts. All but blinded, she tried to tune in to her other senses. Jax’s boots clomped heavily across a hard surface, and his heart beat steadily against her shoulder.
His stride didn’t hitch as he climbed stairs, turned, walked in a too-quiet area, and opened a door. The world tilted, and he placed her, gently actually, on what felt like a fake leather sofa.
He yanked the hood off.
Light from halogen lamps assaulted her wide pupils, and she winced, her eyes tearing. “You’re an ass.”
Silver flashed, and he cut the zip ties. “So it has been said.”
Heat climbed into her face. The man had carried her easily and didn’t seem winded a bit. Even so, the legends whispered around campfires and refugee camps across the country had to be exaggerated. Nobody was that tough. “We need to talk,” she gritted out.
He yanked a kitchen chair toward her, turned it, and straddled it. Now, in the light, she was struck by how young he really was. Maybe midthirties, black hair, dark brown eyes, and rugged facial features. Handsome in a pissed-off kind of way. A scar cut under the left side of his jaw, white and deadly. “So, talk.”
She swallowed and tugged her backpack to her chest, glancing around what appeared to be a small apartment. A kitchenette took up one wall, an unmade bed the other, with dented furniture in between. Sofa, metal coffee table, wood-laminate kitchen table, paint peeling pink kids’ dresser, and mismatched kitchen chairs. Maps covered the table, spread out haphazardly. “Where am I?”
“You don’t get to know that.” He rested his arms on the top of the chair, muscles flexing.
She bit her lip. Men’s clothing littered the unmade bed, and the smell of musk and male filled the atmosphere. “Whose place am I in?”
“Mine.” He lifted a shoulder, his gaze unwavering. “And yours now, I guess.”
She pushed back into the torn leather. “I’m not, I mean, I—”
One dark eyebrow rose. “You’re here because I’m keeping an eye on you and making sure you don’t infect anybody else.”
“I won’t infect anybody else,” she said slowly, her nails digging into the couch until the pads of her fingertips protested.
“We don’t really know the truth about that statement, now do we? You’re the ultimate carrier of the most dangerous plague to ever attack mankind.” He lowered his chin, the movement somehow menacing. “You’re also here so I can make sure you’re not ready to check out.”
She rolled her eyes. “If I’d wanted to kill myself, I wouldn’t have traveled this far to do it.”
“Fair enough.”