Mercury Striking (The Scorpius Syndrome #1)(5)

She considered her options.

“If you even think about going for the knife strapped to your calf, you won’t like my response,” he whispered. One hand banded around her neck and drew her face against his upper chest.

“I hadn’t,” she protested without thinking, her cheek against his shoulder. “I have an IQ well into the triple digits, Mercury. Killing you right now surrounded by your people would be incredibly stupid. I’m not stupid.” Plus, she needed him. Needed not only his protection but his resources. So he’d noticed her knife. It was a little insulting that he’d let her keep it, obviously not fearing her ability to use it on him.

His breathing evened out.

On all that was holy. She carried a blade, was feared by half of the remaining world and hated by the rest. Against all logic, Jax Mercury had just fallen asleep holding her.

Of course, she’d known he was well trained. Didn’t soldiers learn to catnap whenever there was a brief break in the fighting? But she wasn’t a soldier and never would be, so sleep was out of the question.

The car jumped and hit several potholes before leveling out. Her nails dug into his chest to keep her upright. She could push back up and sit like a stiff board, or she could keep her face against his broad chest, where he’d put her. Where for the briefest of moments, it felt safe.

While she couldn’t relax enough to sleep, considering she had no clue what he was going to do to her once they arrived at his headquarters, she could at least concentrate on loosening her neck muscles and diminishing her constant headache.

The unthinkable idea that she was snuggled up to Jax Mercury, rebel leader of Los Angeles, showed just how bizarre reality had become.

Jax held the woman close as Manny barreled through a devastated area of Los Angeles. A surprising amount of greenery had started poking through concrete and climbing crumbling slum buildings. Some of the greenery was edible, so the homeless and crazy were probably close by. The number of Rippers in the area concerned him, and the really insane ones wouldn’t hesitate to attack a moving vehicle.

Manny swore and skidded around a tangled mess of what appeared to be a massive motorcycle accident. “Need lights.”

“No,” Jax whispered, stretching his damaged arm. When the atmosphere changed, right before a storm arrived, his scarred flesh ached. “The sky is bright enough even though the sun hasn’t risen.” Thank God. Thunder clamored in the west as clouds over the ocean gathered force. They had to hurry, damn it.

Lynne Harmony didn’t move. Finally, she’d fallen asleep—a testament to how exhausted she must be to finally lose consciousness on his lap while hooded. Jax removed the hood from her face so she could breathe, and she snuggled her nose into his neck, igniting a wave of protectiveness that pissed him right off.

Manny glanced in the rearview mirror. “Do you think she’ll tell us about the outside world? What she knows?”

Jax nodded. “She’ll tell us. Although it’s doubtful she knows about specific people.”

“I understand.” Manny turned back toward the road.

Jax sighed. The man had family in Florida, and he hadn’t heard from them in months. Chances of their survival sucked. “I’ll ask her after she gets some sleep.”

“She’s prettier than I thought,” Manny said quietly.

Yeah. She was. “The cameras didn’t do her justice.” Jax shifted his shoulder to rest against the door. “She’s also younger than I expected, considering her job at the CDC.” She had been the head of infectious diseases, and when she’d gotten infected, she’d been up front with the news as soon as she’d come out of the coma. Until somebody in the government had stopped allowing news out.

“Do you think she knows a cure?” Manny asked.

“I don’t know.” Jax forced his eyelids to remain open. With a warm, snuggly woman in his arms, his body wanted to rest and enjoy the moment. “I think she has information we need about the current status of the government and hopefully a possible cure for the plague. Or maybe a way to find a cure.” Almost absently, he rubbed his chin against the top of her soft hair. “Though I’m struggling to figure out her agenda.”

“Agenda? You mean why she just walked into Vanguard territory?” Manny jerked the wheel to the left to avoid a downed bread truck.

Jax tightened his hold so Lynne wouldn’t awaken. “Yeah.”

“For protection. The world either wants her dead because they blame her for not stopping the illness, or they think somehow there’s a cure in her blood since she’s the only one with a blue heart. She came to us for protection,” Manny said.

“No.” Jax leaned back his head again. “When we decided to take L.A., we sent out news and rumors, warning the world to stay the fuck away. This is not where a woman would come for protection, especially this woman.”

“You’ve heard the other rumors about her, right?”

“Yes.” Refugees from different camps had whispered of tales that Lynne Harmony carried a more dangerous form of the Scorpius bacterium and wanted to infect the entire world. The Mercenaries, a deadly group from the north, were known to be ferociously hunting her because of a reward posted by the government for her return. “I don’t listen to scary stories told around campfires,” Jack said evenly.

“What if they’re true? Maybe she’s a Ripper and she’s crazy,” Manny whispered, his shoulders stiffening. “I mean, not one of them disorganized Rippers, but one of them supersmart genius ones. There’s two main types, right?”