Mercury Striking (The Scorpius Syndrome #1)(78)

He hummed and kept hold of both the syringe and the lantern as he walked into the room. Vivienne sat, shackled to the wall, mumbling.

Damn it.

Bret walked to her and kicked her ankle.

She giggled, spit sliding from her mouth. “You’re such a dork.”

He grimaced. Hell. He glanced at the syringe in his hand. Well, he couldn’t waste it. Crouching, he slid the needle into her exposed arm and pressed the plunger.

She gasped, and her chest filled with air.

He slapped her face. “Tell me the truth about Lynne.”

“You’re gonna die soon.” Vivienne’s head lowered, and she sang the words. “I am psychic and I know that to be true.”

He grimaced. “You stink.” When was the last time he’d allowed her to shower? Of course there was no running water, but they kept barrels in the garage. Soon they’d be out of water and would need to leave the desert.

Her head lagged, and she began to sing a Garth Brooks song an octave too high.

He sighed. “Where’s the Bunker?”

She stopped singing. “Under the ground, of course.”

His heartbeat picked up. “Where?”

She opened her mouth and started singing “Jingle Bells.”

Damn it. Drawing a key from his back pocket, he unlocked the shackle around her leg and jerked her over his shoulder.

She protested with an oomph, her legs dangling uselessly against his chest. He easily stood and stalked out of the small storage room. How much did she weigh, anyway? He hadn’t kept close track of feeding her, but she felt like a bag of bones. Another country song, one he thought was by Trisha Yearwood, mumbled from Vivienne’s lips as he crossed through the guest house to the sunlit yard outside.

She stopped singing and moaned as sun hit her legs. “Psychics don’t see what isn’t there,” she muttered.

The woman was losing her mind. He eyed the sparkling mermaids at the bottom of the now full pool. Pretty and shimmering. Without exerting much effort, he ducked and tossed Vivienne into the shallow end of the pool.

She hit with a splash and then screamed.

Interesting. Bret studied her. Pain creased into her face in harsh lines. Ah. The chlorine probably burned the raw flesh around her ankle where the shackle had been. He strode to a small table and grabbed a couple of hotel shampoo bottles. Vivienne could sit with her head above the water. Otherwise, with the drugs in her system, she’d probably drown.

He squirted shampoo into his hand and dropped it on her hair. “Wash yourself.”

She blinked, confusion filling her face.

Maybe he shouldn’t have given her another dosage today. He snarled. “Now.”

She shook her head, obviously trying to concentrate, and lifted her hands to her hair. “Where am I?”

Yep. Too many drugs. He sighed. “Vegas. Where is Lynne Harmony?”

“Dunno because you don’t dunno. Dumbass.” All of a sudden, Vivienne’s eyes focused. “I hope I’m there when you die.” She shrugged out of her stained jacket and slowly started scrubbing her hair back to blond.

He smiled. “I have a destiny to fulfill first. Believe me, you’ll die long before me.” He focused as Lake stepped out of the house. “What?”

“We reached a rival group in L.A. on the ham. They’re calling themselves Twenty. You’re going to want to hear this,” Lake said.





Chapter Twenty-Six





A shadow is a slice of reality combined with mystery.

—Dr. Franklin Xavier Harmony




Her knees still shaking from listening to Vice President Lake on the ham radio, Lynne followed Jax from the small office into the main war room. Someone had wheeled a whiteboard into the far corner, complete with markers. “Nice,” Lynne breathed.

Sami rubbed bloodshot eyes. “There was a school a few blocks away, and when we made our home here, we raided the place. Too bad there wasn’t more canned food.”

Lynne sat next to Sami. Tace sat on her other side, and Raze loped inside to sit next to Lynne.

Jax shut the door and stood by the whiteboard, grabbing a blue marker. “I’ve asked Lynne to sit in on this meeting because she’ll be going on the mission to Myriad tomorrow morning, which we think is in Century City, based on her calculations. My hope is she’ll see the documents we need to take as well as identify compounds and medical shit to bring back.”

Lynne clasped her hands on the table. Hopefully she’d find medical shit. Her life had gone crazy. Nobody protested her presence, so she sat back.

Jax drummed his fingers on the table. “I hope we’re back before the president calls, but if not, Ernie can make the arrangements for a meeting. I want the Myriad information in my hands before we meet.”

Lynne nodded. “I agree.”

Jax focused on his soldiers. “This morning I finished hearing reports from all the squadron leaders, so I’m well versed on what’s happening with the entire community. Let’s get your reports out of the way now, starting with Tace.”

Tace leaned forward, elbows on the table. “We have the one box of vitamin B, and that’ll last through another month. Then we’re in trouble. No current cases of Scorpius. Far as I can tell, and while most don’t admit it, we probably have many survivors of the fever and probably a few hundred who haven’t contracted it yet. The total number of folks in our little slice of heaven is just over five hundred, so I’m totally guessing about statistics.”