Safe (The Shielded Series Book 1) (11 page)

At first, the girl had been tight-lipped, refusing to give away any
secrets whatsoever. A few threats on her person and her family took care of her
reluctance to cooperate. She’d made the phone call they’d asked her to make, said
what she was told to say, and now they waited.

“Wouldn’t you be more comfortable without that sweatshirt?” Mikale wiped
his own brow. “It’s at least eighty-five degrees in here.” Though the sun had
set hours ago, the temperature had not cooled.

The girl shook her head and hugged her biceps, retreating deeper into the
sweatshirt.

A shame.
Certainly a nice figure hid beneath the ratty garment. A peek
would have passed the time and gotten Mikale’s thoughts off Officer Darina
Lazitter. He felt as if he knew her intimately already after having gone
through her tiny living space. She didn’t own many items, but what he’d found
intrigued him.

A photo. A paper one. Three beautiful children with caramel skin all
looking to be about the same age. The intel his associates had managed to dig
up on the good officer stated she’d been the only girl in a set of triplets.
The picture had to be of her and her brothers. All three of them were smiling,
summer sunshine spilling behind them as they sat on a wooden dock, water
rippling at their feet.

Books. The old-fashioned print ones with covers and pages. Titles like
The
Collected Works of Edgar Allen Poe
and
Seventy-five Ways to
Immobilize Your Opponent
sat on a dusty shelf above Darina’s bed. A bed
that was especially tidy in a dingy apartment with its sheets and blankets
tucked in strict military fashion.

Clothes. Mostly tank tops and cargo pants. One whiff of the garments and
Mikale knew the woman herself would smell even better.

He couldn’t wait to meet her in person, though he still couldn’t shake
the familiar feeling seeing her image created.

She had some making up to do for the trouble she’d caused Mikale by
hiding Foster from him.

He didn’t like delays in his timetable, and he certainly didn’t love that
he’d had to leave his cozy headquarters and trudge out to the city’s streets.
His plague was doing its job out there—quite well actually—but he didn’t want
to be amongst the corpses decomposing in the gutters. He’d inoculated himself
and his associates of course, but he didn’t particularly want to see what his
virus did to the human body. Mikale only wanted to bear witness to the
repopulation that would happen after his disease wiped everyone out.

Darina would bear witness with him. She had a key role to play, though
she didn’t know it yet.

She will know soon.

Mikale regarded the girl still shaking before him. He reached out a hand
and pushed her hair out of her face.

She jerked back, knocking over the chair as she stood, and Dugan was
instantly in motion. He grabbed her arm, but Mikale gestured for him to release
her.

“How can I make you understand we do not wish to harm you?” He tried
using his gentlest tone, but his low, raspy voice didn’t do gentle.

“Let me go. Leave my family alone.” The girl’s words cut in and out as
she cried.

He hated to see her so upset. He did, but he’d had no other options.
Foster had disappeared along with Darina. Emerge Tech was reeling from the
fires his people had set inside its walls. His virus was spreading quicker than
he’d imagined, and without Darina, he wouldn’t be ready for the business of
repopulation.

He was on a schedule here and Foster was shitting on that schedule.

“I can’t leave you or your family alone, sweet girl. You are my only
lead.”

“Lead?” She shook her head and squared her shoulders a bit. It was the
boldest he’d seen her look since plucking her off the street and bringing her
here. “I don’t understand. What do you want?” Her dark eyebrows lowered over
beautiful blue eyes.

Why did he have to explain everything to everyone?

Wiping the sweat off his brow again, Mikale inhaled, prepared to spell it
all out for her, but a rumbling overhead stopped him.

“He’s here,” Dugan said.

“Please don’t hurt him.” The girl let out a wail, but Dugan clamped his
hand over her mouth.

“Be still now.” Mikale pulled his weapon out of its holster and turned
off the overhead light. He had one shot at this, and he hadn’t waited all this
time to have it screwed up.

The rumbling softened to a dull thudding followed by some metallic
squeaks. After about five minutes, footsteps sounded outside the apartment
door.

“Showtime.” Mikale grabbed the girl and pressed the nose of his gun into
her ribs. “I said I wouldn’t hurt you, but you’ve got to cooperate.
Understand?”

She nodded, her entire body nearly convulsing in his grip.

“Not a sound now. We want this to be a surprise,” Mikale whispered.

A tiny whimper slipped from the girl, and he tightened his grip on her.

More footsteps thumped outside the door. The knob jiggled. A moment later
a large shadowed figure filled the doorway.

“Mareea?”

A thud filled the quiet, followed by a grunt and what Mikale hoped was a
body sliding to the floor.

“Dugan?”

“Mission accomplished, sir.”

The dim overhead light came back on, and Mikale smiled victoriously at
the man lying in a heap at Dugan’s feet.

Mareea broke free of Mikale’s hold and kneeled by the body, tears
streaming down her cheeks. “Uncle Ghared!”

****

Darina listened to Zeke’s steady breathing in the twin bed beside the one
she occupied. The kid had cracked her up when he’d emerged from the bathroom
and did a complicated running flip onto his bed, landing belly down.

“We’d never have enough room at home for me to do that stunt,” he’d said,
laughing and flopping over to his back. Propped up on one elbow, he smiled at
her—a genuine smile, not one of the ones he often dug out for her.

She walked over to him and cupped his face. “You wouldn’t have such red
cheeks either at home. Did you turn the water all the way to scorching?”

“When was the last time we had a shower with hot water, Mom? How about
never?” He’d shaken free of her hold and had run a hand through his damp hair. His
bangs were getting too long, hiding his genetically perfected face.

“This needs cutting.” She’d stepped closer and ruffled his hair until he
squirmed out of reach.

“Mareea said she likes it longer.” Worry had crept into his dark eyes.
“You think she’s okay?”

“She will be once Ghared gets to her.”

Zeke chewed on his bottom lip, and Darina wondered if he was going to
finally admit aloud to being interested in Mareea. Instead, he grabbed the pillow
on the bed and bopped her with it.

“You asking for trouble, kid?” She’d jerked her own pillow off the other
bed and retaliated.

Five minutes later, they were both breathing heavily and giggling. She hadn’t
had that much fun in ages.

Well, that much mother-son fun anyway. She recalled some different fun in
Foster’s library earlier. Staring up at the ceiling now, the guest room
shrouded in darkness, she imagined Foster was with her, his body hovering over
hers, his lips doing things to stimulate her every nerve ending.

That man can kiss.

The last time she’d been kissed—really kissed—she’d been playing a game.
A game to get a free prosthetic hand. One she couldn’t afford on her own. Her
goals had been clear in her mind, but somewhere along the way, she’d let
herself fall in love.

With a rich bastard.

Fisting the sheets beneath her now, she shook her head. How could she
have been so foolish? Well, she’d paid the price. She’d learned her lesson.
Rich bastards were not her type.

Kissing Foster, however, made rich bastards seem not so much like
bastards. Words like
forever
and
happy
circulated in her mind
when she thought of him. Even now, hours later, her lips still buzzed with the
attention he’d given them. The rest of her body craved to know more of Dr. Foster
Ashby.

That would be a mistake. Huge.

She angled her head back and looked at the wall behind the headboard of
the bed. Foster was on the other side of that wall. Nothing but lumber,
sheetrock, and plaster stood between her and him.

Maybe I should check on him.

She was, after all, in charge of keeping him safe. It wouldn’t seem out
of the ordinary if she made a nighttime survey in the name of security.

Folding the pillow around her head, she released a muffled growl into it.
Going to Foster right now would be absolutely idiotic. Their worlds were barely
in the same solar system. The clean, fresh scent of the bed linens beneath her
and the vibrant colors of the property she’d toured today let her know she did
not belong in Foster’s life. She was used to musty, dark, and gray places.
Places where broken asphalt crunched under her boots. Places where the odds
were stacked against her.

Not this paradise.

But to have a taste of it? A taste to keep locked away in her soul to
pull out on especially tough days in the city? She couldn’t deny she wanted
that. She couldn’t deny she wanted Foster.

Looking over at Zeke and deeming that he was out cold, she sat up. She
hadn’t bothered getting under the covers. It wasn’t as hot in Vermont as it was
in the city, but something about settling in too deeply made her feel unable to
react quickly if need be. She actually still had her shoes on and her weapon at
her hip, though she’d changed her tank top and pants for ones that someone had
left in the bathroom. Though the clothes weren’t hers, they fit well, were
comfortable, and clean. While she didn’t make a habit of being filthy, city
life didn’t loan itself to regular laundry cycles or purchasing new clothes or
showering with hot water. This was definitely as fresh as she’d felt in a long
time.

A shame to waste all this freshness.

Foster hadn’t minded the scents of the city that had stuck to her
earlier. They hadn’t stopped him from wanting her.

She stood, glanced once more at Zeke who hadn’t stirred, and tiptoed to
the door. After opening it, she slipped into the dark hallway. A flashlight
beam instantly lasered her, and she froze.

“Everything okay, Darina?” Rasha asked.

Guards. Right. She’d forgotten about them. “Everything’s fine. Just
checking on you guys,” she lied.

“All clear out here,” Hydec reported. “Shift change in ten minutes.”

“Why don’t you two knock off early?” she asked. “I’ve got this covered
for ten minutes.”

Rasha raised her eyebrows. “You should be getting some sleep.”

“I should be, but it isn’t happening.” Darina shrugged then tapped her
weapon at her waist. “Go ahead. I’m armed and ready.”

“Something tells me you’re always armed and ready,” Hydec said.

“Better than being defenseless and unprepared.” A state she never found
herself in. Never. Though Foster had made her feel both rather unexpectedly. “Now
go on. Maybe you’ll succeed in getting some sleep.”

Rasha laughed. “Hydec will. Nothing interferes with his sleep.”

“And you’ve tried to
interfere
.” He hooked his arm around Rasha’s
shoulders.

“Oh,” Darina said, “you two are… together?”

“The woods can get lonely,” Rasha said with a sly smile and a quick
glance back at Foster’s door behind her. “A few of us here are paired up.” She
poked Hydec’s ribs. “I was the only one who could tolerate this guy.”

“Not nice, Rasha.” Hydec waved a finger at her as if scolding a child.

“I’ll make it up to you.” She winked at him as he smiled. “We have an
extra ten minutes thanks to Darina. That’s all you’ll need right.”

“Ignore her.” Hydec tugged on Rasha’s arm. “She knows full well I can go
all night.”

Rasha nodded and laughed. “Actually, that
is
one area where his
genetic engineering excelled.”

“Believe it, baby.” He grinned. “Good night, Darina.”

The two of them walked down the hallway, their hands joined, their heads
bent toward one another as they shared secrets in the dark. A great longing
swelled in her chest, and she turned toward Foster’s door.

To knock or not to knock?
Was he deeply asleep in there? He’d had
a long day, just as she’d had. Would he be annoyed if she visited? His
subconscious might be still working on the cure while he slept. She didn’t want
to get in the way of his progress.

Did his genetic engineering excel in the area of lovemaking too? If one
were to attempt to build a more superior human, wouldn’t improving their sexual
prowess be a fun enhancement?

Did he sleep in the nude?

Deciding she absolutely needed the answer to that last question, she
turned the knob and eased the door open. The room was dark, but she could make
out the shape of Foster’s bed against the far wall between a set of windows. A
lump in the middle of the king-sized bed let her know the man was a bed hog.

For some reason that made her grin.

The room smelled like the outdoors, and a quick scan revealed the windows
were open to let in fresh nighttime air. Inhaling deeply, she stood in the
doorway as the long curtains on the windows rippled in the warm breeze.

“Are you going to stay at the door or get your unbelievably sexy ass over
here?” Foster’s voice was low and whispery, sending goosebumps over her skin.

“You’re awake.”

“Did you actually think I’d be able to sleep knowing you were right next
door?” Sheets rustled and a shadowed form became visible as he sat up in the
bed.   

Darina’s eyes had adjusted to the dark enough to see his finger curling
to invite her over to the bed. She swallowed loudly—too loudly—and hesitated.
Yes, she’d been the one to bust into his room, but she’d expected him to be
asleep. She’d expected to look to see that he was safe—and if he was nude—then pop
back out of his room, returning to her own and facing a sleepless night alone.