Mercury Striking (The Scorpius Syndrome #1)(93)

“I’m not sure lack of emotion is a mental strength,” Tace said slowly. “But I like that idea better than my becoming a cannibal.”

Sami leaned away from him. “Do you, I mean, wanna eat people?”

Tace snorted. “No. Not at all.”

Jax shook his head. He didn’t have time to worry about Tace’s mental state. “If you get urges, tell us. Other than that, let’s keep going the way we are.” He really couldn’t afford to lose his head medic. Lynne knew anatomy, but she was no medical doctor.

“Just put me down before I hurt anybody,” Tace said.

“No problem,” Jax returned. The fact that Tace worried about harming other people said more than any brain scan ever would. “We have information about a manufacturing plant of cereal and granola bars that might be far enough off the grid to still hold food.” He grabbed an old map from his back pocket and stuck it to the whiteboard. “We’ll have to send a team out, but I want to wait until we call the president and his Elite Force. Raze and I will meet them.” He hated using that much fuel, but there wasn’t a choice.

“I want to go,” Tace said.

“Sorry, no.” Jax shook his head. “I need you here, Doc. You’re the best doctor I have—the only one with combat experience.”

Sami sat up. “What about me? I missed the last mission.”

Jax lifted an eyebrow. “You’re not going anywhere until you shoot decently.” He softened his voice. “Plus, I need you to continue with the hand-to-hand lessons and grappling practice. At some point, we’re gonna run out of bullets and will need both knives and combat skills to survive.”

She sat back, mollified. “Fair enough.”

Tace turned toward her. “You never talk about your life before Scorpius, which is fine, because neither does Raze. But no way did you learn to fight like that just training with the police.”

She swallowed, her dark eyes turning hollow. “No. My dad owned a kenpo studio, and my uncle owned an inner-city boxing club.” She shrugged and smiled. “I trained both places. When I went to college, I studied wrestling to round out my knowledge.” Silver glinted when she pulled a serrated blade from her back pocket. “Dad wanted boys and he got two girls. So he trained us, and it was actually a lot of fun. I’m still learning blade fighting.”

“What happened to your sister?” Raze asked.

Surprise rocked through Jax. Had Raze just expressed interest?

Sami’s mouth dropped open and then quickly closed. “She was stabbed in the riots when Scorpius got bad and didn’t make it. Our parents died before that from the disease.” She rubbed her nose. “I couldn’t save her. I should’ve.”

It struck Jax once again how little he knew of the folks around him. “When the riots got bad, I gathered the people I knew and took over this place and the food distribution center next door. Then we started letting people in, so long as they followed my rules.” He glanced at the old map and back. “We were in fighting mode from day one and have never stopped.”

“We can’t stop,” Raze returned.

“I know, but shouldn’t we know more about each other than how well we each can fight?” Sami asked. “We lost Wyatt, and he was the one who shared the most.”

Tace leaned forward. “I share. You know all about me.”

“That’s true,” Sami said. “You all know my past except about my sister. Now you know that.” She elbowed Raze in the ribs. “You and Raze are the ones who don’t share anything.”

“Maybe we don’t have anything to share,” Raze countered.

Jax scrubbed a hand through his thick hair. He needed to find somebody who could give a decent haircut. “You all know I grew up in Twenty, went into the army, and came home to discover my brother had died, so I set out to avenge his death. Then Scorpius got bad, and here we are.”

“What’s going on between you and Lynne Harmony?” Sami asked.

Raze shook his head. “We are not turning into a knitting group here. So long as whatever is going on doesn’t fuck with my life, I don’t want details.”

“Man, you’re a prince,” Sami breathed, rolling her eyes. “Why are you here, anyway?”

Raze turned his head, slowly, to meet her gaze. “For now, I’m here to go on missions and fetch granola goodness.” He focused back on Jax.

Jax lifted his head. Fuck, he was tired of the secrets. “What exactly is your plan, Raze? You’re a great soldier, and we’ve needed you, but you definitely have an agenda.” Something told him it had nothing to do with Twenty. “Do you really want Twenty wiped out?”

Raze lifted a shoulder. “Twenty is a blight on L.A., and Cruz is a bastard who terrorizes innocent people, especially women. Sure, I want them wiped out.”

That didn’t sound personal, though, did it? Saying he wanted Twenty demolished had instantly put Raze and Jax on the same side. Had he been so blind he was that easy to manipulate? Even so, Raze had held his own and covered Jax’s back more than once. He didn’t owe Jax anything.

Jax studied his group of closest confidants, his mind settling. He had an excellent doctor who might be turning into a Ripper, a former LAPD officer who couldn’t shoot worth shit and wanted to gossip more than fight, and a former special-ops killing machine with an agenda he wouldn’t share. Not to mention a woman in the other room who’d stolen his heart and wore a bull’s-eye on hers. “Do you ever just stop and wonder how the hell you ended up here?” he asked.