“Good.” Jax walked back and forth in front of the line. The kids were smart so far. “Do you ever go out of your ordered area?” he asked.
“Only in extreme situations to avoid Rippers.” The blonde spoke up again.
“What’s a Ripper?” Jax asked.
A couple of the kids chuckled. “Zombies,” one muttered. Jax cut a hard look at Wyatt.
Wyatt shook his head. “Zombies don’t exist, dumbass.”
The kid with the goatee shot an elbow into his buddy’s gut. “We know that. First of all, zombies aren’t real.” He stood at attention. “Second of all, if zombies did exist, then they’d be what was left over after a human died. The person dies, and then the zombie bug takes over. Everyone who ever watched The Walking Dead knows that.” He sighed and looked down at his feet. “And third, zombies don’t exist in real life.”
“That was number one,” his buddy drawled.
“No shit.” The kid rubbed his eyes. “But if they’re still human, it seems like we could reason with them.”
Jax rolled a shoulder. So long as the kids knew how to scavenge and how to defend themselves, he had to send them out. “You have to understand that the bacteria does not always kill human beings; sometimes the patient survives, but the Scorpius bacteria still remains within the body, stripping a small part of the brain. The contagion alters brain activity in everybody who is infected, but only turns half of the folks into killers. We don’t know why. It might have something to do with oxytocin, which is a chemical we think relates to empathy. Some folks lose it all, and some only part or none.”
The kid nodded. “So there’s no hope for Rippers.”
“No.” Jax kept the kid’s gaze. “Don’t try to reason with them. There are two main types of Rippers. The first is organized and intelligent like a serial killer. If one of these attacks you, it’s planned, and they have bad things in mind for you. The second is disorganized and just plain crazy, and they’re more likely to rip you apart like an animal. Run from either.”
The kids started to shuffle their feet.
Jax put a bite into his voice. “When you’re out on a mission, your goal is to be as quiet as possible. Don’t be seen, and definitely don’t be heard. What’s your motto?”
“Shoot first, question later,” the kids said in unison.
“Good.” Jax clasped his hands at his back and walked toward a small girl, another blonde, this one with bright blue eyes. What was her name? Haylee. Yeah, that was it. Her mother, April, worked as a cook at the soldier headquarters. “Who’s the enemy?” he asked softly.
Haylee kept his gaze. “Everybody not in Vanguard.” Sadness and determination lifted her chin.
“Yes. Out there you’ll find Rippers, rival gangs, and just ordinary people willing to kill you over a bottle of water. You wouldn’t be wearing that patch if you weren’t fit and prepared to fight.” He’d set the training requirements himself, and they included learning how to fight hand-to-hand, with a knife, and with guns. The kids were as much soldiers as scavengers, but he needed supplies more than protection right now. “We require medical supplies, food, water, and gas. Go out and find some.”
Haylee drew in air. Her eyes held both an old wisdom and a desolate acceptance. “To what end?”
Jax paused. “That’s a good question. Right now, it’s to survive. The bacteria is still running its course, Rippers are either getting reckless or planning big, and rival gangs want our supplies. For now, we fight.”
She swallowed. “For now.”
Smart kid. “Then hopefully we find a cure or at least a way to live with the infection, and we build anew.” Including some sort of civilization.
“But now we fight,” she whispered, her face too pale.
He tried to infuse confidence and arrogance into his voice. “And we win.”
The kids stood at attention and then slowly filed out.
Jax eyed Wyatt.
“I know. They’re young and have no clue what a Ripper will do.”
Yeah, but who did? Jax loped toward papers taped to the west wall where the entire seven square blocks of his territory had been painstakingly drawn. The outside buildings had all been fortified with turned-over trucks, vans, and other vehicles. Kids and the elderly were in the dead center near the hospital, which used to be an elementary school, and the current food depot, which had once been a small grocery store.
He’d planned every single inch of Vanguard territory with protection and survival in mind for his force of five hundred people, but it was getting more difficult to keep the enemy outside. “We need to shore up the eastern edge,” he said, pointing to a series of old apartment buildings.
Wyatt nodded. “We have a new force of soldiers ready to defend, but none have seen combat.”
“They will soon enough.” Jax rubbed his left eye to get rid of the pain behind it.
“When’s the last time you slept?” Wyatt asked.
Jax shrugged. “Day before yesterday? Maybe?”
Wyatt shook his head. “How do you do that?”
“Military training.” Jax turned to recheck the security for headquarters. Training wasn’t all, though, was it? He swallowed and kept going, not looking back. Now wasn’t the time to share his secrets, not even with Wyatt.
Chapter Five
Instinct rules man as much as animals . . . perhaps that will be our ultimate trump card in this global fight for survival.
—Dr. Franklin Xavier Harmony
Lynne awoke cocooned in warmth, her body luxuriating in the feel of fresh clothes, her mind clearing after sleep. Real sleep. She stretched and instantly stilled, her eyelids crashing open. A hard body spooned her from behind.
Panic ripped into her and shot adrenaline through her veins. Sunlight slid in from the boarded-up window, making it maybe late afternoon?
“Relax,” a deep voice rumbled.
Slowly, like prey, she rolled over to face Jax Mercury, bare chested, cascading heat. A jagged tattoo made up of complicated lines and sharp edges wound over his left shoulder. She could make out a 20 in the center, covered and crossed over by lines. A special ops tat with a 44 in it shifted in the muscle on his left arm. A military designation of some type? “You promised,” she whispered.
He opened one brown eye. “I’m not attacking you, am I?”
“Well, no.” She inhaled, trying to slow her heart rate before a panic attack swamped her. She eyed him, tousled and relaxed. His right bicep held a tattoo with sharp lines, a shield, and the word VANGUARD written through a heart. A dark lock of hair had fallen over his forehead, and a bristly shadow covered his square jaw, giving him the look of a lazy panther.
Panthers didn’t really get lazy, now did they?
He sighed and reached for the comforter, frowning when she flinched. Sighing, he pulled up the threadbare fabric to her neck, covering her completely.
“I need to know what I’m dealin’ with here, darlin’,” he rumbled, opening both eyes and focusing on her.
She curled her knees up toward her chest, hitting his hip bone on the way. “What do you mean?”
His gaze roamed her face, lingered on her lips, and returned to her eyes. “The world has turned shitty-times-ten for women without the ability to fight.”
She blinked. “I know.” Predators always found the weak.
“What really happened when you disappeared from the CDC? Kidnapping or escape?” he asked.
Apparently the questioning would begin in bed. She tried to move back, but the wall stopped her. “I’d rather discuss this later while clothed.”
“That’s unfortunate, because we’re discussing it now.” His tone remained gentle.
She’d have to crawl over him to get to the floor, and no way was she getting in a tussle in bed with him. “I escaped.”
“Three months ago.”
“Yes.” She plucked at a string on the comforter. “The contagion spread, and soon the people in control weren’t the people who should be in control. I ran.”
He nodded. “Right about that time, the news stopped.”
So many people had succumbed to the illness, the world had seemed to stop. “I know.”