Safe (The Shielded Series Book 1) Read online

  And Foster never contacted him.

  His mother’s condition worsened without the medicines, and he had no materials to make her well again. He couldn’t bear to see her suffer and did the only thing he could do to relieve her of her suffering.

  He wasn’t sure he could do it at first, but the pillow slipped easily over her face while she slept. She struggled as she fought for air, but Mikale was so much stronger than she was. He held her in place until she no longer moved beneath his hold. When he removed the pillow, peace had crept onto her features.

  Mikale wandered the beat-up streets of Boston, barely surviving. The fighting raged on while the world struggled to plug itself back in, but he wasn’t a soldier. He was a chemist, a scientist. His brain was his only weapon. The more he saw what the Anarch had done to the human race, the more he became convinced the world needed a significant reboot. A total purge and repopulate.

  So he set to work. Using unsavory methods, he acquired more wealth and built his own empire.

  And his plague was pure genius.

  A vicious virus that infiltrated the body’s internal organs, turning them to powder, similar to acid’s effect on metal. A steady breakdown of elements until rust flaked off like orange snowfall. The blood-filled dust seeped through the pores and eventually the body shut down, leaving a shell of a human to decay wherever it dropped.

  Once a good chunk of the human race was gone and the globe was cleansed, repopulation could begin.

  If Foster didn’t succeed in bringing a cure, of course.

  Mikale knew Foster succeeded in most everything he did… except maintaining friendships it seemed.

  “Not this time, Ashby,” he growled. “This time things are going to go my way.”

  They had to. He’d worked tirelessly for too long to see his mission fail. After his mother’s death, he’d found her diary. A tablet containing her personal thoughts about everything from the best way to clean a stain off her favorite sweater to whether or not God existed. The woman did superficial and deep with equal amounts of careful attention and detail.

  One line, though, had snagged him. One line that propelled him into action after reading it. One line that fueled him.

  I’ve done my best with Mikale, but he deserves better.

  She had been proud of him when he worked for Emerge Tech, but after he got fired, she’d felt she’d gone wrong somewhere in his upbringing. She’d blamed herself because he’d been worried about her. Her guilt ate at Mikale’s soul.

  But things would be better once his plague took full effect, and the world could start again.

  His ex-best friend wanted to stop all that with his cure.

  Foster Ashby had to die.

  ****

  He’d made it beyond the walls. Technically, they’d made it. Darina hadn’t left his side since they’d been granted access at the gates. Foster understood it was her job, what Emerge Tech had paid her to do, but it was totally unnecessary. He wasn’t in any danger within his company’s domain. They wanted him to succeed with the cure as much as he wanted to succeed, even if they were pissed he’d left without their approval. He could have parted ways with Darina at the gates.

  “Seriously,” he said now. “My domicile is right there. Why don’t you head to the main offices to collect your payment?”

  “I will.” Darina fingered her weapon in its holster at her hip. “As soon as I see you to your living room, I’ll be on my way.”

  Foster puffed out a breath, realizing by now it’d be a waste of time arguing with her and her determination. “Fine.”

  He quickened his pace, eager to be rid of her.

  That’s not true.

  She’d gotten him to his destination without either one of them being pummeled by pepperblast or bullets. No one had plucked them from the streets. It hadn’t even seemed as if they were being pursued anymore. Darina knew the city layout and had done as she’d promised.

  She’d kept him safe.

  He probably wouldn’t have made it on his own. Not that he wasn’t capable, but his enemies weren’t dummies either. They had a leader with an intellect that matched his own. They’d be able to anticipate his moves. Plus, most of his brain was focused on trying to find the cure. He wasn’t paying attention to anything else.

  Also not true.

  Darina was something he’d been paying attention to since she’d hauled him into that abandoned building. Paying too much attention to, in fact. She threw the unknown into the mix. He didn’t need that, but here he was, pushing his key into his door, opening it, and not wanting her to leave now that she’d completed her mission.

  But I have my own mission. One that couldn’t afford distractions.

  He turned to face her. “Thank you.”

  She gave him a tight nod then glanced over his shoulder. “Mind if I check out the place. Cop instincts tell me to search the area.”

  He stepped aside to let her pass and didn’t mind when her shoulder rubbed against his chest. Even after sprinting through the streets, she smelled good. Like aloe, maybe? Following her inside, he closed the door behind him and watched as she wandered around his living room.

  “You live here all by yourself?” She lifted one dark eyebrow at him.

  “Yes.”

  She frowned and shook her head. “Figures.”

  “You think it’s too much for one man?” He folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the wall by the door.

  “It is too much for one man.” The disgust in her voice perturbed him.

  He swung one arm out. “I’ve worked hard for all this.”

  “I work hard too, Dr. Ashby.” She peeked down the hall and went left.

  He followed her. “And yet you live in a tiny domicile?”

  “Miniature,” she said as she peeked into his bathroom and bedroom. “Doesn’t even qualify as a domicile.”

  “Alone?” He followed her to his office and library.

  “What?” Her eyebrows lowered as she turned and stared at him. Even slightly pissed off, she was gorgeous. All that reddish-brown hair looked soft, and Foster had the urge to bury his fingers in it as he feasted on that long, slender neck of hers. Her eyes were an unusual hazel, concentric circles of green and brown around black pupils. Her eyelashes were full and feathery.

  “Alone. Do you live alone in your miniature non-domicile?” He was overstepping his bounds, but an unexplainable drive to know more about her prevailed.

  “No. My son, Zeke, lives with me.” Her features softened. “He would love this place.”

  And his father? But Foster didn’t ask that particular question. Too prying. Instead he asked, “Who watches the boy while you’re busy being a bodyguard?”

  “He’s hardly a boy anymore,” Darina said, a slight smile on her lips that made Foster’s throat go dry. “He’s sixteen, and most likely hanging out with our neighbor, Ghared.”

  “I see.” Just a neighbor?

  An awkward silence stretched on as she scouted around the rest of his place. She moved gracefully and quietly, offering Foster the chance to appreciate her female form. She had curves right where a woman should have curves and muscles right where a woman trying to survive in 2025 should have muscles.

  She pointed to a door across the living room. “What’s behind there?”

  “My lab.”

  “You have a lab in your domicile?”

  “I work around the clock, Officer Lazitter. Emerge Tech thought it would be convenient and more productive for me to have a lab right here.”

  She left that one alone and went to one of the large windows. Bracing her hand on the wall, she peeked out but reared back when she saw the view.

  “Don’t like heights?”

  She shook her head and turned from the window.

  He grinned at her sickly expression. “And here I was thinking you didn’t have any weaknesses.”

  “Shut it or I’ll knee you in the head again.” With that threat, her badass aura returned.

>   “You’re only allowed one of those.” Though he wouldn’t mind if she wanted to put her hands on him in other ways.

  “I never said I was playing by your rules.” She brushed some dirt off her pants.

  “Can I get you something to drink or eat?” After all, the woman did run through the filthy city with him, some of it with hot summer sun beaming down on them. She was getting payment, but that wasn’t from him directly. He wanted to show his gratitude. Other ways to do that kept creeping into his subconscious the more he looked at her, but he had to keep it polite and professional.

  “You have clean water?”

  “Of course.” His response made her scowl, and he immediately regretted his superior attitude. “My apologies. I didn’t mean to sound like a—”

  “Rich bastard?” she finished. “You probably can’t help it. You are, in fact, a rich bastard.” She gestured to his domicile.

  “Rich, maybe,” he said as he filled a glass with water at the sink in the kitchen then handed it to her. “Bastard, definitely not.”

  She made a noise as if she didn’t believe him and drank the water. When she tipped her head back to get the last of the drink, Foster had to look away for fear of descending upon her exposed throat. All caramel-colored smooth skin in one long line… no, that was too damn tempting, especially because he hadn’t touched a real woman in so long. She clearly wouldn’t appreciate an advance from him though, rich bastard that she assumed he was.

  Handing him the glass, she said, “Thanks. Good luck with your work, Dr. Ashby. We’re all counting on you.”

  As if he needed the reminder.

  She started for the door but turned around before reaching it. “What were you doing in the city anyway? Why leave the safety of this place when your employer clearly didn’t want you to? I mean, there’s a plague raging out there. One you specifically are aware of.”

  Foster chewed his bottom lip. It wasn’t any of her business why he was on the outside, but something inside him didn’t want her to rush off. Explaining his trip to the streets would get her to stay a few more minutes. He rather enjoyed having a live, flesh and blood female in his domicile. She was far more interesting than the hologram partners he turned too every now and again to take the edge off. They were programmed to bend to his wishes, his demands.

  Officer Lazitter didn’t strike him as one to bend. She’d challenge and question. Why did he find that so arousing?

  He unzipped his pocket and extracted his tablet. “You obviously know I’m working on a cure for the plague.”

  She nodded as she approached him. “They say you’re the only one who can find it.”

  “That may be so,” he said as he sat on his couch and motioned for her to do the same.

  She hesitated for a moment, appearing to have an internal conversation with herself, then walked over and lowered to the cushion beside him.

  Trying his best to ignore the physical reactions her close proximity caused, Foster fired up his tablet and scrolled through pictures. Finding the one he wanted, he angled the tablet toward her.

  “I needed this,” he said, deciding a picture of the sample would suffice. He didn’t want to risk showing her the real thing still buried in his other pocket.

  She took the tablet and stared at the red powder. “Is this… ?” She squinted at him then back to the image. “Is this from a body?”

  He nodded. “I need samples of what the plague does to the human body in order to test my cures.”

  “Surely someone else can get this for you.” She handed him the tablet and shifted over on the couch, no doubt wondering if he were contagious after being close enough to an infected body to collect such samples.

  “Why risk getting the plague myself you mean?”

  “Yeah, if you get it, then we’re all screwed.” She gathered all that hair of hers and twisted it into a knot at the base of her neck. Her face was even more beautiful now that her hair didn’t hide it.

  “I’m not going to get it.”

  “We all hope we’re not going to get it. Zeke and I are super careful and stay away from the active zones. Ghared too, but that’s no guarantee. We’re all at risk.”

  She shuddered a little beside him, and Foster now wanted to find the cure more than he did before. For people like Darina and her son. People just trying to live their lives the best way they could, considering the circumstances.

  “I’m not going to get it,” he said again.

  “Money doesn’t make you immune, rich bastard.”

  “No, but being a GEC does.”

  ****

  “You?” Darina rubbed her ear as if it had suddenly been taken over by an alien technology that made her hear things that couldn’t possibly be true. “You’re a GEC?”

  Foster nodded once, his eyes focused on the tablet resting on his thigh.

  “And GECs are immune to the plague?”

  “Yes. The plague targets DNA code that genetically engineered individuals do not have.”

  “All GECs are immune?” Zeke? She didn’t have to worry her Zeke would get the disease?

  “Every last one of them. It’s impossible for us to contract the disease. Our bodies can’t host it.” He wiggled the tablet in his hand where the image of the red powder was still on the screen. “I could roll around in this stuff and not get sick.”

  Darina sifted out a long breath. Zeke wouldn’t get sick. One worry off her gargantuan list of worries. Excellent.

  “Does Warres know GECs are immune?”

  Foster shook his head. “I don’t believe so. If he did, he’d already have unleashed a new strain to target us. Most GECs are in hiding, so I think he hasn’t considered them.”

  “How do you know all GECs can’t get the virus?”

  At this question, Foster shifted uncomfortably, as if he didn’t know what to say or he was hiding something. Typical. Rich bastards didn’t know the meaning of the word truth.

  “I just know,” he said.

  “Tight-lipped on that, but just tossed it out in the open that you’re a GEC. Why would you tell me? You don’t know me.” That was dangerous information to share with someone he’d just met. As he’d said, most GECs were in hiding. She prayed every day no one ever found out about Zeke.

  “I don’t know why I told you.” He shrugged one shoulder, looking a little shy, and she instantly got the feeling Dr. Foster Ashby didn’t have many human connections. “Maybe because you’re a cop. Maybe because you got me back here safely. Maybe because the secret is eating me up inside. Maybe because I trust you for some reason.”

  Darina stood. Sitting so close to him on his couch had suddenly become way too personal. “You can’t trust anyone.”

  “You won’t expose me, will you?” He followed her to the door, a note of unease in his voice now.

  She turned to face him. He was close again and the clean smell of him swirled pleasantly around her. She had to raise her head a little to look him in the eyes. His green gaze was intense, zeroed in on her eyes, locked. One step forward by either of them and their lips could touch.

  Why am I thinking of touching his lips?

  No time for that stuff. And hadn’t she told him not to trust anyone? That went double for her. Especially stupid to trust a rich bastard.

  But smart to see if a rich bastard can help me.

  “I won’t tell anyone if you can do something for me,” she said.

  “A bargain?” His eyes dropped down to her lips. “Name it. I owe you for your protection today.”

  She waved that off and ignored how her body had heated under his gaze. “Emerge Tech has that debt covered.” Maybe it hadn’t been such a terrible job either. She’d learned Zeke was safe from the plague. Valuable information indeed. “My son…”

  “Zeke?”

  He’d been listening.

  “Yeah, Zeke.” She brushed some stone dust off her tank top and wondered if she looked like a city rat. Here in Foster’s tidy domicile, she felt like a giant dirt stai
n. “Well, he has these episodes. Seizures. They come on out of nowhere and exhaust him.”

  “He’s epileptic?”

  Darina nodded. “The seizures are awful to witness. His eyes go blank, his entire body tenses up, and the shaking is wild.” She shook her head, trying to clear the image of Zeke in full seizure mode. Unfortunately, that image would never clear. Every time she looked at him, she saw him in this state and wished she could take the experience away for him.

  “How long do the seizures last?” Foster hadn’t stepped back at all, hadn’t given her any space, and she needed some. Desperately.

  But she didn’t move either.

  “When he was younger, they were short, lasting only a few moments. He’d be a little sleepy, but a short nap would revive him, and he’d be back to his usual self. Since he was about thirteen, however, they started happening more often and lasting longer. Afterward, he’s shot. He’ll sleep for a whole day and have no appetite. Sometimes his speech is slurred.”

  “Sometimes the onset of puberty can worsen the condition,” Foster said. “Does he have any memory issues after a seizure?”

  “He says he doesn’t remember having the seizure, which in my mind is a good thing.” She swallowed loudly, her throat stinging. “Seeing him like that is… difficult.” Blinking rapidly, she fought to keep her tears to herself. No reason to come unglued in front of Dr. Rich Bastard.

  Only he didn’t seem like a bastard. Not the way he was listening to her and asking relevant questions as if he truly intended to help her.

  When his hand rested on her shoulder, she jerked back, hitting the door behind her. He immediately retracted his hand, looking at his palm as if he wasn’t quite sure how it had gotten on her shoulder in the first place.

  “I can give you medicine to prevent seizures. I just need a few minutes to make it. Can you wait?” He put both his hands in his pockets now.

  Did he put his hands away for him or for me?

  “I can wait. Thank you.”

  “It’s no trouble.” He stepped away, heading for the door he’d said led to a lab. Looking over his shoulder, he asked, “Actually, do you want to see how it’s made?”