Mercury Striking (The Scorpius Syndrome #1)(7)
He rubbed his chin. “Judge gave me a choice. Prison or military. I guess he saw something in me.”
She let her shoulders relax. “I wondered.”
“Yeah.” Jax eyed her shirt just at her neck. “Can I see again?”
Well, she couldn’t really blame him. She set aside the pack holding her father’s precious journal. Her fingers remained steady this time as she unbuttoned the blouse and drew open the sides.
Jax’s nostrils flared, while a tension, one she barely remembered as sexual, overtook the atmosphere. “Does it hurt?”
“The blueness?” She glanced down, her lungs suddenly too tight. “No. I don’t feel anything.”
He reached out and gently took her wrist, shoving the sleeve up to reveal the track marks on her elbow. “This must hurt.”
His touch stirred awareness deep in her abdomen, and surprise paused her at the feeling. When was the last time she’d felt desire? Or even warmth from another’s touch? She glanced down at the scars caused by drawing so much blood. So many times, and outside of normal medical procedures after a while. “Yes. That hurts.”
“I knew a junkie once with an arm like this.” Jax shook his head and unrolled her sleeve. “The irrationality of a thing is not an argument against its existence, rather, a condition of it,” he murmured, securing the buttons at her wrist.
She frowned as the familiar words rolled around her head. “Einstein?”
“Nietzsche.” Jax lifted an eyebrow. “Rumor has it you’re carrying an advanced form of Scorpius. True or false?”
“False rumor to isolate me.” She tried to keep her tired eyes open.
Jax gestured toward her pack. “I get the food and water you have, but what’s in the journal?”
She sighed. “Sorry, but there’s nothing about Scorpius. My dad was a physicist and a philosopher. He wrote a lot down.”
Jax blinked. “That’s quite the combination.”
“Yes.” The words on paper were all she had left of her parents.
Jax studied her and then looked toward the gas lamp on the counter. “We have lanterns left, but not for long unless we get more fuel. So keep an eye on the lamp but extinguish it if you go to sleep.”
“I understand.” The guy was quoting Nietzsche? What kind of an ex-gang member turned army special ops turned leader of a vigilante group knew philosophy? She shook her head. Time to negotiate. “I’m here for a reason.”
“I’m sure.” He eyed her blue heart again. “You can cover up.”
She fumbled in refastening her shirt. “I’ll teach you everything I know about the illness, and you provide temporary protection and one kill.” The mere idea she was contracting a murder banished the desire humming inside her and replaced the heat with a lump of cold rock.
A veil fell over Jax’s eyes. “What makes you think we don’t know everything you do about the illness?”
She shrugged, wondering if he knew what kind of information he might have stored away just from his ransacking labs. “The Internet went down fast, much faster than anyone would’ve thought, and the news and television thereafter. No way do you know what I know.”
He watched her patiently, as if waiting to strike. “The Internet went down because of a guy named Spiral.”
She blinked. Wow. So Jax Mercury had some seriously good intel. “True. He was infected with the illness and then reacted by creating a world-class computer virus. Figured if bodies died, so should technology, since it got us in this fix in the first place.” Her instincts hummed. Underestimating Mercury would be a colossal mistake. Suddenly, and for the first time in way too long, hope struggled to unfurl within her. “I still know more about the illness than you do.”
“Probably.” He studied her for a few moments longer before cocking his head to the side. “What else?”
She cleared her throat. “I assume you’ve scavenged the area you control?”
His chin lifted. “So?”
She swallowed, her body stilling. “Did you scavenge the emergency CDC outpost on the southeast side of L.A.?” Her blood pumped so fast she could feel a vein in her neck bulging.
“Yes. Why?” he asked softly.
The softness contained a deadly intent that rippled a shiver down her spine. Her fingers fidgeted. “They had the most recent research, and combined with mine, we might have hope.” They also had intel on where Myriad, the ultra-secret lab, might be located.
He studied her. “We raided the CDC outpost and took all the medical supplies and paper records. Our limited medical personnel went through the files looking for cures, but I have to be honest, none of them are researchers with your background.”
Lynne leaned forward. “I’d be happy to go through all the information and decipher it for you.” Oh God. Maybe the risk of heading into Mercury’s territory would actually pay off . . . if she could find Myriad. “Could I look through the data?”
He leaned back and studied her. “Sure. Are you telling me there may be a cure?”
“We haven’t found a cure yet, and I think it’s unlikely. But maybe possible?” How many times in her life would she have to say those words? “There was some cutting-edge research into vitamin B and protocols for making it permanent in the body.” The vitamin helped infected survivors retain their sanity, somehow halting the stripping of the brain that the Scorpius bacteria caused. It worked even better if built up in the human system before infection, hence the inoculations. She could tell him that much, which was all true. And if the location of the lab that had done that research was in those documents, she’d finally find Myriad.