Killshot (Icarus Series Book 1) (48 page)

              Aside from the smattering of bloody wounds that decorated my aching body, my heart and mind were in complete overdrive as I ran down the list of items on my pity-party check list. A random space parasite was trying to take over my brain. I had played a key role in my best friend having her heart ripped out. Micah was probably dead. Jake and Falisha were currently MIA. The last place we had seen them alive was at the hospital, which was now a burning pile of rubble. And after days of clawing and scratching our way across the county, I was no closer to finding Beans than I had been before the world had come to a screeching halt.

              Oh, and then there was that guy I killed. Let’s not forget that.

              “This sucks!” I slammed my elbow against the unrelenting door and buried my face in my hands.

              “Hey genius, maybe you should try
pulling,
” came a familiar voice that sent my heart catapulting into my stomach.

              “J—Jake?” I said it quietly, firmly convinced that I was hallucinating. “Jake, is that you?”

              “In the flesh,” he said, bowing dramatically.

              “Oh my God, Jake!” I didn’t even realize I had gotten to my feet, but before I knew it my arms were wrapped around his slender shoulders.

              He was really here.

              He was safe.

              He was…alone.

              “Falisha?” I said, my voice choking up as I held him at arm’s length. “No...Jake, did she—is she?”

              “Please, you know that girl is too stubborn to die,” he said, laughing as he peeled my hands off his shoulders and walked over to the double doors. He grabbed one of the handles, pulled the door open and shook his head as he gestured for me to walk through it. “See? Sometimes pushing is not the answer, Liv.”

              “Where is she?” I asked, stumbling numbly through the doorway. “Is she okay?”

              “She’s fine. I mean she still has bad hair and she’s still annoying, but otherwise, she’s good,” he said, shrugging. “She and Riley are helping Christa and the cowboy get settled in.”

              “Unbelievable,” I groaned, rubbing my sore shoulder as I stepped into the dark operating ward. “Wait. Did you say cowboy?”

              “Yeah,” Jake said, rolling his eyes as his smile disappeared. He followed me through the door, sulking as he shoved his hands into his pockets. “Don’t even get me started.”

Chapter 42

Ghosts

               “So, Christa has no idea where they took her?” I asked.

              “Unfortunately, no.” Jake shook his head. “Gran died the first day when the flare blew out her bypass machine. Mom and a couple of the other grown-ups helped the doctors and nurses get everyone they could down into the basement and locked themselves in.”

              “Wow, your mom’s bad-ass, Jake,” I said, gently nudging him as we slowly walked down the hallway.

              “Yeah,” he said, shrugging sadly.

              We walked further down the hallway, inspecting each of the rooms as we made our way back to the waiting room. The surgical waiting room, though empty, had a vending machine in it that still had a few items buried among the spiral wracking inside. We would definitely have to make a stop there before we left.

              “I guess my mom and the others started getting sick within a few hours, though. The doctors, they tried to set up their own quarantine, but there was only so much they could do, you know? The only thing in the basement was the morgue, so it’s not like they keep any good meds there,” Jake said, his voice shaking. “People were dying in the halls, only some of them didn’t stay dead. Christa said they ended up losing a lot of the healthy people to the leeches they had inadvertently trapped in the building.”

“Damn,” I said, shaking my head.

“Yeah,” Jake said. “Eventually, they were able to break down the doors and let the damn things out, but by then it was complete chaos. Everyone that wasn’t dead or dying was left fighting over food and medicine.”

              “Until
help
arrived,” I rolled my eyes and kicked a chair across the hallway. “Metz and his cronies are just as bad as the damn leeches, in my book. Worse maybe.”

              “As soon as the Army arrived, they divided everyone up into four different quarantine cells. That was the last time Christa saw our mom.” Jake said as he pushed the chair, neatly, back against the wall. “You should have seen them, Liv. There was like twenty of them in there. They had no food or water, they hadn’t showered in days, and there was no place to go to the bathroom. Liv, the smell…it was god-awful. I never saw my mom at all, but we found Christa and her precious
Ty
huddled together behind one of the lab tables, real
cozy
-like.”

              “And Ty would be the cowboy, I take it?” I asked, not missing his spiteful tone.

              “Uh-huh,” Jake said, staring down at his feet as he walked. He crossed his arms over his chest, and scowled straight ahead, but offered nothing in the way of an explanation.

              “
O-kay,
” I said, drawing the word out. “I take it you are not a fan.”

              “Not in the slightest,” Jake grunted.

              “Why?” I asked.

              “Because, I dunno, it’s just weird, Liv,” he said, his voice cracking. “The guy’s like seventeen or something and she is not even twelve yet. She has been glued to him since the get-go. The building was like, literally, falling apart around us and she still refused to leave unless the half-wit hick was allowed to come, too.”

              “It’s not like you could just leave the guy there, Jake.” I shrugged, not understanding what the problem was.

              “I wouldn’t have done that, but he didn’t have to come with us, either,” he pouted, pausing as I grabbed the handle to the door that led to the records room. “She acts like he’s fucking Superman or something.”

              “And?” I said, shining my flashlight in as I waved him through the door.

              “And, I’m her
brother
,” Jake threw his hands into the air, stepped into the small closet, ranting as he examined its contents. “I could have died trying to get her out of that that hell-hole and I didn’t get so much as a thank you. But, Ty? He calls her
darlin’
and smiles at her with his stupid cowboy hat, and his stupid dimple, and he’s her freaking hero?”

              “Jake she’s eleven years old.” I said as he stepped back into the hallway with me. “I think maybe you are over-thinking this a bit. Ty was there with her during a traumatic time and she got attached, that’s all.”

              “Whatever,” he said, pulling the door open and ducking through it and into the waiting room. “Doesn’t matter, anyway.”

              “Sarge!” Falisha launched herself at me and wrapped her arms around my shoulders.

              “Hey,” I said, returning her embrace. “Glad to see you are in one piece.”

              “Wish I could say the same for you,” she said, wrinkling up her nose when her arm came away covered in my blood. “What the hell did you do to yourself now?”

              “Long story,” I said, shaking my head.

              “I hear that,” she said, smiling broadly. “Looks like y’all picked up a stray, too.”

              “You could say that,” I said, glaring at Eli from across the room. He was hiding something and I was determined to find out what. “Jury’s still out on whether or not we are keeping him, though.”

              “Liv,” Jake said, waving me over to the receptionist’s desk.

              A young blond girl sat on top of it, dangling her feet carelessly over the side. She was so busy tossing her curls about and staring at the very tall, very good-looking guy by her side, that she didn’t acknowledge my presence. Based on the guy’s get-up, it was safe to assume this was Jake’s
cowboy
.

              He was about the same height as Zander, but where Zander was long and lean, Ty was more thick and stacked. His shirt was torn, revealing a very well-defined set of abs that disappeared into the waistband of his very tight Wranglers. Ty leaned against the wall, his arms crossed over his broad chest, feet crossed at the ankles. The wide brim of his dusty black Stetson was tipped downward— the cherry on the sexy cowboy sundae.

              “Liv, this is my sister, Christa,” Jake said, gesturing pointlessly. The poor thing was oblivious to anything outside of Ty’s orbit.

              “Hello,” I chuckled, fully aware I was essentially talking to myself.

              “Christa,” Jake shouted, snapping his fingers in front of her face. “
Christa!
”

              “
What
,” Christa bit back, finally tearing her eyes away from Ty. “Why are you screaming in my face? Jeez!”

              “Christa, this is Liv,” Jake said, waving toward me. “She’s the one I was telling you about.”

              “Oh, right. She’s the one with, like, alien brain damage or whatever,” Christa said, grabbing onto Ty’s bicep as she shot me an appraising look. “You are like, crazy tall, for a girl.”

              “Ignore her,” Jake said, rolling his eyes.

              “Whatever, a-hole,” Christa said, sticking her tongue out.

              “Nice, Christa. Very lady-like,” Jake said, shaking his head. He pointed vaguely over his shoulder as he walked away. “Oh, and that’s Ty.”

              Ty stood immediately and removed his hat, smiling wide as he reached out to shake my hand.

              “Ma’am,” he said, in what had to be the most adorable southern accent I had ever heard.

              “Liv,” I stammered, momentarily in awe of his gorgeousness. “Call me Liv. Well, you’ve already met Jake and Falisha. Let me introduce the rest of the crew.”

              “Much obliged,” he said.

              I felt my face heat for a moment and eyes burning into the back of my head. I snapped out of it, motioned for him to follow and hastily started introducing my friends.

              “That’s Riley, my sister, slash BFF, slash pain in my ass,” I smirked, as we approached. “Riley, this is Ty.”

              “Hi there,” Ty drawled, smiling genuinely.

              “Hi there, yourself, cowboy,” Riley said, sitting up straighter, her eyes trailing after Ty as we passed.

              “That’s Bella, the three-legged wonder dog,” I said, pointing to where she sat, curled up at Eli’s feet. I waved at him dismissively. “That’s Eli. He’s new and kind of annoying.”

              “Sir,” Ty said, nodding in his direction when Eli didn’t rise to shake his hand.

              “And this is Zander. He’s my…he’s, umm—” He’s my
what
, exactly? My friend? My almost-boyfriend? My post-apocalyptic, alien virus soul mate?

              “Zander James,” he said, cutting me off as he reached out to shake Ty’s hand.

              “Ty Bailey. Nice to meet ya,” he said, shaking Zander’s hand firmly.

              “Love that accent,” Riley said, sidling up with Falisha on her arm. “Where you from, anyway?”

              “He’s from Tennessee, right Ty?” Falisha was grinning from ear to ear.

              “Memphis, to be exact,” Ty nodded, sliding his hat back on. “My family owns a ranch down there.”

              “How on Earth did you end up at a hospital in Morrison, Illinois, of all places?” I asked.

              “I came up here to— I was visiting a friend,” he said. “I was at that little grocery store, you know the one with the funeral home right next door?”

              “Sullivan’s,” Zander said, lacing our fingers together.

              “Right. So anyways, the lights started going all kinds of crazy and there was this big flash of white outside. Then everything just went dark. At first, everyone thought it was just a blackout, you know, on accounta’ the flare and all? But then it started gettin’ real hot, real fast,” Ty said, rubbing at the back of his neck.

              “Yeah, that part we know,” Jake muttered, rolling his eyes and crossing his arms over his chest.

              “That must have been scary,” Riley said, touching his arm.

              “Nah, I mean, at least I wasn’t alone like some folks, ya know? It was me and about ten other people and we all took shelter in one of them giant freezers— right alongside the fish sticks and chicken nuggets.” Ty scrunched up his nose. “I tell ya what, that stuff starts to smell real bad when it gets to thawin’ out.”

              “I bet,” Christa said, a little too cheerfully.

              “Anyhow, once the backup generator went, people lost their cool, no pun intended, and got to bickerin’. Pretty soon ‘bout half our group decided they was gonna make a go at it. We tried to talk’m outta goin’ but they was determined. They busted down the freezer door and—” Ty’s voice hitched. He cleared his throat several times before he spoke again. “Anyways, we were in a real bad way when them army guys showed up, so when they rode on up in there with promises of fresh water, food, and medicine, we thought we was saved.

              “Next thing I know, we are bein’ herded into that hospital like cattle and scanned, poked, and just generally roughed up. They said they had to make sure we wasn’t infected; that we were clean, or whatever. Then this dude in a white coat hands me a peanut butter sandwich, a juice box, and a freakin’ wetnap, and they throw me flat on my ass into one of them rooms.”

              “And that’s how we met,” Christa giggled, appearing at Ty’s side. She wrapped her little arms around his thick bicep and hugged him. “I was starving and Ty shared his sandwich with me.”

              “Wasn’t nothing, sweets,” Ty said, patting her head adoringly. “Hell, the poor thing was nuttin’ but skin and bones. Looked like she hadn’t eaten in days.”

              “Yeah, maybe because I hadn’t,” Christa said bitterly. “Those stupid army a-holes locked us up and threw away the key. They’re all, oh here’s a sandwich and a baby wipe. Have a nice life. It was…it was
bullshit
.”

              “Jesus, Christa!” Jake scolded her but I had a hard time not laughing.

              “What?” she said, jutting her chin out. “It’s pretty much the end of the stupid world, Jake, so it basically doesn’t matter if I say a bad word at this point. What are you gonna do, tell Mom? Good luck with that one. You kinda have to find her first.”

              “Come on now, darlin’,” Ty said, chucking Christa’s impetuous chin. “I know you are worried about your mama, but your brother’s right. A pretty lady like you shouldn’t say such ugly words.”

              “M’kay,” Christa blushed, hiding her face behind a curtain of blond curls.

              “Ugh,” Jake groaned, rolling his eyes. “Moving on.”

              “What I don’t get,” I said, turning on him with fire in my eyes, “is how exactly you two
jackasses
managed to get caught in the first place, when you were just supposed to be doing surveillance. For that matter, how the hell did you manage to get out of there?”

              “She called you a jackass,” Christa laughed. “I like her.”