“Nice, Jax. Geez.” Her shoulders moved down from around her ears. “Last night wasn’t planned, and I didn’t have any ulterior motive like to ease tension. It’s just, well, I wanted to.”
“Thank you.” He kept his gaze on the road. Should he have thanked her the night before? Hell, he’d gone down on her, truly enjoying himself, and made her orgasm twice. “In fact, you owe me one.”
She chuckled, and sounded surprised. “Shut up. We are done talking about blow jobs.”
Good thing, too. His pants were becoming too tight in the groin, and he needed to focus.
“Besides, we don’t have a relationship,” she muttered.
He glanced along the broken store windows. “What else would you call it?”
She kept silent.
Yep. He wasn’t sure, either, but it was more than sex, and more than convenience. In fact, not much about Lynne Harmony was convenient. “Now you tell me about Bret, your uncle, and the last time you met up.”
She stiffened. “No. Need to concentrate on the mission.”
“With the safest route, we have a couple of hours in the car. Time to multitask.” He kept his voice low, but she would talk, and she would tell him everything. “Don’t mess with me, Lynne.”
“You have got to stop threatening me.”
Unfortunately, he didn’t have time to be gentle, and he was losing the patience needed to use reason. “How long after Bret killed the president did you escape?”
She held the gun in her lap, one hand over it, as if she didn’t want to pick it up. “About a month. Communications went down, and the Internet failed because of all the hacking.” When she thought, her lips pouted just a little. “Although the Internet would’ve failed at some point anyway. Not enough people to man the servers.”
“I know.”
“After I figured out Bret was a Ripper and that the CDC would soon shut down because we were losing people right and left, I stayed for about a month to gather as much information as I could find. We’d printed out all reports coming in throughout the world on Scorpius, figuring we might lose power at some point, so I just read and made notes.”
“Where are your notes?”
“Bret had his contacts in the CDC confiscate my records. But I have a pretty good memory, so I’ve been doing my best to reconstruct them.”
Jax swallowed, not wanting to ask the next question. “During that month, what about you and Bret?”
Her hand tightened over the gun. “We were both very busy. He had to get sworn in and up to date on everything presidential, and I had intel to gather and more blood to give. Even though I was a test subject, I was also a key researcher.”
“You were the head of infectious diseases for the CDC before Scorpius unleashed itself, right?” Jax asked, turning down a side alley that looked fairly clear.
“Yes.” She ran her fingernail along the gun’s safety. “Bret couldn’t be seen with me, even though news coverage was spotty. But ultimately the CDC reached its end, and the buildings in D.C. and Atlanta were blown up—but I’m not sure about other locations.”
That’s right. He’d heard about the explosions. “The two facilities were blown up on purpose?”
“Of course. Once the power grid failed, we had to incinerate all the infectious diseases still present. We couldn’t have them getting loose without safeguards.” She swallowed, and her hand trembled. “I was to move to the White House that night.”
“So you called your uncle?” Jax asked softly, watching some shadows in the crumbling apartment building to his left.
Lynne leaned over to look out his window. “Rippers?”
“Maybe. You called your uncle?”
Lynne settled back in her seat. “We’d met up at my parents’ funeral months before and had kept in touch. The second Bret killed the sitting president, I called Uncle Bruce from a lab phone. Phones were still working at that point. We had a plan in place.”
“Your plan was to get to me.” That still didn’t make sense.
“My ultimate plan was to find Myriad, to prevent Bret from getting their research. Once I discovered Myriad was in L.A. somewhere, you became a necessary stop because if I could get your help, I could keep Bret off me long enough to get there. And I’d hoped through your raiding that you’d found the location of Myriad, even if you didn’t quite know what you had. Which was what happened, really. Although I certainly didn’t expect to lose Uncle Bruce, and I didn’t expect to choose to be in your bed.”
Choose. It was an important distinction. “I’m glad you did.”
A half-smile played around her mouth. “So am I.” She cleared her throat. “Make me a promise.”
“Another one?” he asked, warning tickling the base of his neck.
“Yeah. My chances of longevity aren’t good—either from enemies or from this blue heart we haven’t figured out. When I, ah, go . . . don’t regret us. Okay?” She kept her gaze out the window and not on him.
The words hit his chest harder than a hammer attack he’d lived through once. The woman didn’t want to be a mistake in his life. Every once in a while, she showed a sweetness that flayed him through and through. “I won’t regret us, and I’m not letting you die.” He hadn’t connected with a woman the way he had with Lynne, well, ever. It didn’t make sense, and they sure as shit didn’t make sense, but he wasn’t letting anybody kill her. “You can trust me.”
“I do,” she sighed. “I wish I didn’t, but I do.”
“So you and your uncle made it out of D.C.”
Lynne set her head back on the torn headrest. “Yes. At first I was trying to find my friend Nora, because I thought she might help me get to you. But when there was no sign of her, Uncle Bruce and I headed west.”
“Who’s Nora?”
“Nora McDougall. She’s a microbiologist and my best friend. When Scorpius got bad, I brought her in to help with the research.”
Jax frowned, memories surfacing. “McDougall? Any relation to Deke McDougall?” He had been the president’s first choice for military defense against Scorpius and had briefly given a frightened nation hope with his Brigade.
“Yes. Deke is her husband.” Lynne snorted. “I forced their marriage when I was in a hospital bed. To protect my friend.”
Jax remembered seeing McDougall on television while there still was television. The guy was a huge former soldier with a Scottish accent. “Any idea where McDougall is now?” If Lake was speaking for the president, it didn’t look good for Lynne’s old friends.
“No.” Lynne sighed. “But Deke is one of the toughest guys I’ve ever met, and he would do anything to protect Nora. She’s alive. I just know it.”
“Okay.” Jax doubted it, but why take away any ounce of hope? He pulled over in a deserted parking lot and waited for Raze to draw up alongside, both rolling down windows. “We can probably get on the freeway. What do you think?”
Raze frowned. “It’s risky. Even if we find an on-ramp that’s not blocked by abandoned cars, once we’re on the 405, we could get stuck. A lot of people tried to make it out of the city and abandoned their cars when they ran out of gas.”
“Then finding an off-ramp with maneuverability might be a problem.” Jax glanced around the empty neighborhood, his instincts humming. “But sticking to back roads opens us up to Rippers and small gangs. We need to get to Myriad and back home before darkness falls.” He calculated the risk and reward. “We’re going for the 405. Follow me.” He waited for Raze’s nod before rolling up his window. “It’s our best chance,” he said to Lynne.
“Your instincts are good,” she said.
Shit, he hoped so.
He drove the truck back onto the road and skirted several abandoned cars before reaching the nearest on-ramp. Cars and trucks littered the side, but if he drove slowly, he could maneuver between several. Just as he reached the top, his gut boiled. A line of silver compacts barred the entrance.
“Damn it,” he muttered.
Gunshots echoed, and metal tinged.
Adrenaline blew through his veins. “Get down.” He grabbed Lynne’s head and threw her onto the floor.