LustAfterDeath (10 page)

Bane’s voice soothed her.
Steins take a long time to die,
but with that injury, they shouldn’t be able to bring him back.

Why didn’t you have me shoot him?
She stepped over
her fallen maker, who reached for her ankles. Moving under Bane’s directions,
she felt sure, powerful.

Would have been too loud. I can’t be sure they wouldn’t
have heard it over the engine noise.

Her fingers rifled through Adam’s pockets until they fell on
a set of keys. Josie pulled them free from the twitching stein. Though she felt
her own hesitance and guilt, a layer of detached surety shielded her, as if
Bane stood between her and her actions, taking the blame.

A small pocketknife hung from the keychain, and Josie heard
Bane mutter
Jackpot!
Josie slipped it into her pocket and peeked out
into the hallway.

Keep your mind open so I can see what you see, okay,
babe?

Josie nodded and stepped outside the door. The motor rumbled
louder in the narrow hallway.

D’you know where they’ve stashed me?

Josie slipped down the passage. When she neared the stairs,
she spotted a row of screens showing the insides of three tiny rooms. In one,
Bane lay on a gurney. The screen was marked number two and Josie saw numbers on
plaques alongside doors.

I think you’re in that one.

Josie unlocked the door the same way she’d seen Adam do
earlier. The catch released and the metal slid open. Heart pounding, she rushed
inside and closed the door behind her.

Bane lay on his back strapped to a board. An IV line ran
from his arm up to a bag hanging from a hook. Josie lowered her lips to his.

I missed you.
His voice was a rough caress in her
mind.

“I missed you too.” She smiled and started loosening his
bindings, but her hand stilled. Then, without her conscious direction, Josie
opened a small cabinet and plucked out a scalpel.

What are you doing?
She asked Bane in her mind. Her
hand shook.

Bane gripped hard on his control, forcing her hand towards
his head.
You’ll be a lot steadier if you don’t fight me. Synaviv chipped me
with a GPS. It needs to come out.

When the knife touched Bane’s temple, Josie allowed her
brain to float, gave over her body entirely to the other stein’s direction. She
felt his pain as a long, searing tear, but his body didn’t twitch, and his
directions came sure and fast, urging her hand to angle the blade more deeply
in his flesh and pry the tiny computer chip from its shallow lodging.

Sweat covered Josie’s body in a slow, sickly trail, but when
her wrist flicked upward, the metal popped off its fastening. She pressed a
square of gauze to the shallow wound.

Josie felt his relief, as exquisite as her own. She released
his bindings and pulled the needle from his arm.

Bane’s head lolled to the side. Then her warrior eased his
torso up from the gurney. He pressed his eyes tight. His nostrils flared from
the heaviness of his breaths, but when he opened those searing eyes to meet
hers, Josie knew she beamed like he’d created the sun.

He touched her face. Despite their nonstop mental
communication, this was a different kind of intimacy. Josie drank in the feel
of his hand sliding around her shoulders to cup her nape, the sight of his
lovely face nearing hers. Bane kept his eyes open as he kissed her. Likewise,
Josie didn’t want to miss a second of seeing him.

A groan reached her ears and Josie realized it came not from
the man she kissed, but from the one still not dead a door over.

“Oh for the love of fuck…” Bane hopped up and strode out of
the room. Josie followed in his wake into the room where Adam lay. Bane plucked
the scalpel from her trembling hands and then grasped the dying scientist by
the hair. He studied the injury with a detachment that made Josie shudder. Then
he crammed the blade into Adam’s ear and wedged it upward.

This time when the scientist fell to the floor, he didn’t
move.

“Sorry, babe…miscalculated. He should be out for good now.”
Bane didn’t meet her eyes, and Josie tried to shuffle her disgust to a back
corner of her mind that he couldn’t reach.

He turned to her with an expression of understanding, his
mouth hitched up in one side. “I can hear you thinking.”

She shuffled his direction, her palms raised. “I don’t think
of you like that.”

Bane shrugged and placed Adam’s gun in the waistband of his
pants. “Yeah you do.”

Josie opened her mouth to answer, but Bane passed by,
grabbing her hand. He pulled her to the stairs and started studying the various
security feeds.

“That’s okay, babe,” he told her absentmindedly. “I do too.”

* * * * *

They waited until the boat docked and noises from the crew
above settled to venture out of the hold. Bane approached the steps, his arm
out to keep Josie safely behind him.

“Where are we going?” Her hot breath tickled his ear.

“The Underground’s got a rendezvous point a few blocks from
here. Someone should be waiting for us.” Bane placed both hands on the hatch
and listened. No footsteps sounded, and he eased the panel up.

Josie grabbed at his belt right as a hand shot through the
door and grabbed him by the hair.

One fist slammed into his head while another dragged Bane
out of the hole and onto the deck. Bane yanked his skull trying to break his
captor’s hold, skin and hair ripping from his scalp. Two soldiers grabbed his
arms and pulled him to his knees. A pair of uniformed thighs met his vision.

You want to put me under?
Josie’s voice whispered in
his head.

Bane scanned the deck. At least five steins surrounded him,
with a couple of lifers stationed behind them. The living ones wore lab coats
and carried guns.
No. I’ll figure something out.

“Come on out, Josie!” the leader shouted toward the hatch.
Bane remembered him as the one who’d kicked him.

Bane bent his head and calculated their positions for his
attack. From her location behind the hatch, Josie said something in his mind.
It didn’t register over his internal roar of frustration.

I said, duck!
Josie screeched in his temporal lobe.
Without thinking, he did what she said, just in time for a bullet to whiz
overhead. Bane slammed the heel of his hand into the outer edge of his captor’s
knee, and the stein fell before three more bullets zoomed past, taking both the
humans and the gun-toting steins to the floor.

Bane turned to the door in time to see Josie’s head and
shoulders emerge, the gun pointed straight ahead. “Get the hell down…um…you
assholes!”

He almost laughed. Despite the fact he was face down on the
ground and scared for both their lives, Bane knew he’d throw wood every time a
curse word left Josie’s lips.

The steins and one remaining human did as she said. Bane
hopped up and gathered the guns.

“Should I kill them?” Josie’s voice was hollow as she stared
down at her handiwork.

He grabbed at her arm and pulled her forward. Another round
of Synaviv’s people was sure to show up any minute. “Only if you want to, babe.
But we gotta go.”

She followed as he dragged her onto the dock and started
running on the smooth concrete of the parking lot. The asphalt stretched for
what seemed like miles, and Bane worried how long it would take him to figure
out their position. He only hoped Q-ter was ready and waiting.

Josie rattled off some numbers and Bane slowed his stride.
“What?” He looked from one side to another, searching for a landmark to orient
himself.

“Those are our coordinates. I saw them on the boat’s
navigation equipment before we got off.” Josie looked at him as if he were
slow. Though he heard shouts from the docks, signaling more were coming, Bane
stopped in his tracks.

“Coordinates?”

She smiled at him. “Yes!”

Without looking, Bane triangulated the location of Synaviv’s
steins based on the beats of their footfalls. He raised his pistol on a
straight arm and shot them down, grinning at his lady. “Then I know where to
go.”

A white van screamed into the lot, sliding its door open.
Bane shouted to Josie to dive into the cab, and when the vehicle slowed to a
near stop, she leapt like a gazelle into the back.

Bane followed, landing on the carpeted cargo area. He rolled
to his knees and grabbed the plastic door handle, sliding the panel shut. “I’m
in!” he called through the perforated metal barrier connecting the back of the
van to the driver’s cab. The van screeched off.

“Did you have a nice cruise in the islands?” Q-ter called.

“Very funny, dick!” Bane scooted to Josie’s side and laid a
hand on her shoulder. He stroked down her arm and braced himself for her to
shake and sob.

Instead her top lip pinched on her bottom one, as she tried
to stifle a laugh. Her eyes brightened and a grin stretched her features. Her
bell-like giggle filled the cabin, and she tossed her leg over Bane’s lap to
straddle him and kiss his cheeks.

“Um, we’re not alone, Jo.” He brushed a quick kiss over her
lips. He felt the question in her thoughts. “It’s not really normal to make out
in front of other people.” He wrapped his arms around her back and squeezed
hard before lifting her off his lap.

“How’s it been going with her special needs?” Q-ter called
through the divider with an adolescent snicker in his voice.

Bane’s hands fisted and he resisted the urge to cover Jo’s
ears in case Q-ter said something rude. “Her name is Josie, and you’ll keep
your commentary to yourself.” He felt Josie following the stream of his
thoughts to figure out what he meant.

“Jo…” He took her hands in his but looked at her firmly. “I’d
appreciate it if you’d stop poking around in my brain, okay?”

She bit her lip. “Okay.” She nodded, and when her chin fell,
Bane gripped it between his thumb and forefinger, raising her face.

“Not that it isn’t fun hearing you.”

Her eyes darkened and an image shot into his mind of her
climbing on his lap and writhing them both to climax.

Bane’s eyes closed, his forehead drew together, and his
mouth opened. He wiped a hand down his face. “Babe, you are going to have to
stop thinking that way.”

A grin lit her lips. “Now who’s listening?”

“I'm almost going to miss it when you get reprogrammed.” He
wasn’t sure if the surge of sadness he felt came from Josie or himself.

“And what will happen then?” The van swerved into a turn,
throwing their bodies together. Bane gripped a hand-hold to stabilize them
both.

“Sorry!” Q-ter laughed.

“Watch it!”

The van rumbled under them and Bane kept a hold on her hand.
“Frank’ll see how much of your programming he can strip without doing a
complete reset of your operating system.”

She watched out the window of the van, and Bane wondered
what she thought of the trees and buildings passing by. When she didn’t answer,
he started talking to fill the space.

“You probably won’t be able to function without a husband
unless he seriously alters your programming. It may be a little add-on Adam
installed, in which case it’s not a big deal to take it out. But given that you
died…”

Josie watched the world roll by. “And that would be horrible
for you?”

“You dying?” His heart leapt into his throat.

“You really are stupider than you look.”

Bane pretended he hadn’t known what she meant. He looked out
the window, around the van, at his fingernails, anywhere but at her.

Chapter Eleven

We’re here.

Frank stood outside Pike Place Market, phone in hand, but
didn’t bother replying to Q-ter’s text. He watched Bane approach from uphill,
his hand clasped on that of a willowy female with pale skin. She followed the
assassin without hesitation.

When they reached him, Bane put a hand on the girl’s
shoulder and placed her tiny fist in Frank’s outstretched grip. “This is Frank,
Jo.” Bane petted long lines down the young stein’s back with a gentleness Frank
didn’t realize he had in him.

“Welcome to the Zombie Underground.” Frank kept his voice
quiet and his grip steady. The girl, Josie, didn’t shrink from his handshake,
though he noticed her move an inch closer to Bane’s side. “Let’s get inside so
we can talk.” He started pulling her forward, but Bane gripped her around the
shoulders.

“I got it. Your office?” Bane wouldn’t look at him, instead
focused on the girl as they wound through the market and into the ZU’s
headquarters.

When they filed into Frank’s office, Kuri was just waking up
on the couch. Deep creases lined her face where her cheek had rested on the
pillows. “I should get home.” She directed her attention to Josie standing in
the doorway. “Geez, sorry I’m such a mess.” She slapped down the creases in her
sweatpants and held out a hand. “Hi, I’m Kuriko.”

“You’re gorgeous!” Josie stared at the Asian former love
doll with open fascination. Her inquisitive gaze would have been rude had it
not seemed so innocent.

Josie’s eyebrows stabbed down and she jerked her gaze in
Bane’s direction. His eyes shot open, and he shook his head vehemently. Josie’s
eyes scanned the corners of her line of sight, checking within her programming
for answers.

“So I take it you’re…” Frank didn’t finish, but Bane nodded.

“Yeah, we’re networked. Can you fix her?”

He noticed Josie’s lips pinch. Kuri must have too, because she
rolled her eyes and shot Frank a parting glance. “Good luck!” She pushed out
the door, shutting it softly behind her.

Frank strode behind his desk and watched while Josie hovered
next to Bane. When Bane sat, Josie climbed on his lap. For Bane’s part, he
wrapped an arm around her shoulder and let her bury her head in the crook of
his neck.

“I need to talk to Josie alone.”