Safe (The Shielded Series Book 1) (6 page)

“No, I didn’t. I couldn’t.”

“Why? Didn’t you know where to find him? If you guys were such buddies,
wouldn’t you know where to look for him on the outside?”

“Am I on trial or something here, Officer Lazitter?” He folded his arms
across his chest.

A slow grin curved her lips, and any hope he had of getting angry with
her sifted into the seat beneath him. How many men had she reduced to mere ash
with those lips?

“Not on trial.” She shifted in her seat, threw a glance to Zeke in the
front, then focused back on him. “I’m just trying to understand what went
down.”

“Trying to decide whether I’m worth protecting or not.”

She gave a little shrug. “Maybe.”

He supposed that was fair. “I did know where to look for him, but Emerge
Tech wouldn’t let me go. They gave me two choices. Look for Mikale and suffer
his same fate or don’t look for him and continue to work on solving the biggest
problem the globe had ever faced. Would you have chosen differently than I
did?”

Darina shook her head. “The world needed you more than Warres did.”

“That’s what I thought. Originally.” He rubbed his forehead. “But if I’d
gone looking for him, maybe he wouldn’t have unleashed his disease while the
globe was trying to get back on track from the Anarch assault. Maybe I could
have reasoned with him. Maybe I could have gotten him back into Emerge Tech to
work on getting everything back online again.”

“Maybe, maybe, maybe,” Darina said. “Can’t play the What If game, Doc. If
we do that, we’ll have to go all the way back to what if the cops had caught
the Anarch before they unplugged us all.” She blew out a breath and drummed her
fingers on her knee.

“Wait a minute.” Foster leaned toward her now, the small space between
their seats growing smaller. “The cops knew about the Anarch?”

“They had tried to shut the world down more than once, but they were a
tricky bunch to track down. Amazingly we were only able to find them after they
zapped all our tech.”

“Old-fashioned methods sometimes work the best.”

“Simplicity is often the most valuable tool.”

“If you two are done trading philosophical quotes,” Ghared interrupted,
“I believe we’ve just crossed the Vermont border. Now what, Ashby?”

Foster peered out his window at the treetops below. While Boston and most
cities had fried with the blackout, the fighting, and Mikale’s plague, the
woods of Vermont had remained miraculously immune. Most of the people who lived
in Vermont had moved to the woods to get away from the bustle of crowded city
life. They lived simply off the land and didn’t give a shit about the latest
technology. With acres and acres of land—mostly filled with trees—between
properties, the plague hadn’t spread as quickly either.

Vermont was the perfect safe haven.

And I’m bringing these three into it.
Foster hoped he wasn’t
making a colossal mistake.

****

Darina couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen so much green in one
place. Probably not since she was a little girl and her parents owned a cottage
in Maine on a gorgeous lake. They’d spent summers there. She, Deo, and Dixon
were wild children, running free—and often barefoot—through the grass, playing
hide-and-seek in the woods, swimming like fish in the refreshing waters of the
lake.

That seems so long ago.

She felt as if she’d lived a hundred lifetimes since those carefree days
when she had her whole family together and survival wasn’t her main goal. Back
then, she and her brothers had been invincible. Now every day brought more
challenges to her existence such as what they were going to eat next, staying
plague-free, catching the next person to go crazy on the streets, protecting
genius doctors from people that wanted to kill them. Deo and Dixon had been
cheated out of their futures too. Shit, she missed them.

Zeke turned around and gave her a smile.

At least I have him.
And Ghared. She had people. She wasn’t
totally alone. Sometimes, however, when she stared at the cracked ceiling in
her tiny bedroom at night, she felt alone and burdened.

And furious.

She hated what her life had become. She hated that Zeke had to live in
the world that now existed. She hated that she didn’t have time to do anything
else but hunt down bad guys or, as in the case right now, protect what appeared
to be the good guy. She hated that there wasn’t anything else to do anyway. She
hated that everything had depended so heavily on technology that one flick of
the proverbial switch had upended the entire globe. She hated that people were
dying because some crazy chemist had a warped mission of cleansing and
restarting the human population.

She hated that sometimes she thought his mission wasn’t a bad idea.

“Can you get us lower?” Foster asked, leaning toward Ghared. “I’ll be
able to pick out my property if we’re a little closer to the ground.”

She looked out the window again. Every once and a while, a break in the
treetops indicated cleared land. Off to the east, mountains pointed up at the
hovercopter, and Darina had an urge to climb to the top of one and scream her
lungs out. Maybe then she’d be rid of the perpetual frustration swirling inside
her.

“Descending,” Ghared said. “Zeke, what do you have on radar? Anyone
following us?”

Darina smiled. Though Ghared wasn’t a cop, he thought like one. Actually,
he thought like a soldier—and a tech geek—and that was even better sometimes.
She was glad to have him as backup on this assignment that had become much more
than an easy paycheck.

She probably should have let Emerge Tech take care of its own people. The
huge company had been under fire for erecting its walls and seemingly shutting
out the outside world, but Darina knew its employees were working on solutions.
They couldn’t do that if the plague reached them. They couldn’t do that if they
didn’t have labs to work in. They couldn’t do that on broken down city streets.
She was probably one of the few people who got it. That didn’t mean she liked
it. The idea of rich bastards and bitches living the high life while she and
the rest of the regular folk lived like homeless wretches didn’t sit well in
her stomach.

But if they can bring change for the better…

If they could do that, they’d be an answer to a prayer.

“No one is following us,” Zeke reported, a note of confidence in his
voice. Flying with Ghared always made him happy. The kid was good at it too. 

“There.” Foster shot his arm into the front between Ghared and Zeke’s
seats. “To the northwest. See that open patch and the lake?”

“Got it. Can I land in the open patch?” Ghared asked.

“Yes.”

Darina pushed closer to her window. She squinted at parallel lines etched
into multiple fields adjacent to the open patch. “Are those… are those rows of
crops?” She turned back to Foster to see him smiling.

He waved his hands, wiggling his fingers. “Be prepared to be shocked and
amazed, Officer Lazitter.”

I’m already aroused.
Why shouldn’t she add shocked and amazed to
the list? What other long forgotten emotions could Dr. Foster Ashby bring to
the surface in her?

Ghared lowered the hovercopter in the open patch and guided Zeke through
post-flight checks while Darina climbed out from the back. Foster met her on
her side of the craft as he stuffed his tablet into his pocket and zipped it
closed.

Grabbing her arm, he stopped her from taking a step toward the fields. “I
think we need a little group meeting before I let you all loose here.”

“You make it sound as if we’re animals.”

Foster shook his head. “Not animals, just the unknown. I’m not the only
one who lives here.” He rubbed a hand down his face. “In fact, out of everyone,
I live here the least.” He looked past her and a dreamy expression washed over
his face. “I hope to change that one day.”

Ghared and Zeke joined them, and Foster addressed them all.

“This property is sanctuary for me… and some others.” He looked at Zeke
and gestured between the two of them. “Others like us.”

“GECs?” Zeke eyes brightened as he looked around. “Where are they? How
many?”

“Fourteen.” Foster glanced at Darina, waiting for her to… waiting for her
to what? Tell him he was crazy for harboring fourteen GECs? Who was she to say
a damn thing? She harbored one, but if she found more, she’d take them in too.

Besides, he had them hidden away where no one would look for them. He was
playing the game way better than she was.

“How long have you had them?” Ghared asked.

“Different lengths of time, but all of them have been here for at least
five years.” Foster stepped ahead of them. “And I’ve never had guests like you.
I just got off the phone with one of them, letting her know we were on our way,
but that doesn’t mean you’re going to get a warm welcome.” He scratched at his
slight beard. “I’m not sure
I’m
going to get a warm welcome.”

Releasing a breath, he walked toward a stone path and as soon as Darina
could tear her gaze away from the way his cargo pants showcased his toned ass,
she looked at Ghared and Zeke.

“What have we gotten involved in?” Ghared asked, waves of protectiveness
coming off him.

“I don’t know.” Darina reached for Zeke’s hand. “But you feel better,
right?”

“I feel fantastic. Whatever he gave me totally lifted the fog.” He
pretended to search her pockets until she slapped his hands away. “Tell me
there’s more of it.”

“There is.” She arrowed her thumb to Foster, still walking. “He’s got it.
I handed it back to him after administering some to you in the hovercopter.”

“Then we’re going wherever he is.” Zeke jogged past Darina and Ghared,
his long legs allowing him to catch up to Foster easily.

Darina watched Foster clap Zeke on the back when he noticed the kid next
to him.

“Are we being stupid?” Ghared asked.

“When have we ever been stupid?”

“This is true.” Ghared elbowed her. “C’mon.”

She stopped him and tugged him around to face her. “Thanks for coming to
get us.”

“You know I’ll always come when you call, Darina. We always have each
other’s backs.” He leaned back and checked out her ass. “And may I reiterate
that your back is really something?”

Now it was her turn to elbow him. “Sometimes I think all that flying you
do has turned your brain to mush.”

He stuck his finger in his left ear, pulled it out, and inspected it. “Nothing
leaking out yet.”

With a gruff chuckle that crinkled up the scar on his cheek, he jogged
ahead as Zeke had, and now Darina watched all three of them as Foster pushed
open a wooden gate. Curious as to what waited beyond that gate, she sprinted up
the path, arriving just as Zeke and Ghared passed through.

Foster held open the gate and motioned for her to go first. “Rich bastard
or gentleman?” he asked so only she could hear.

“Haven’t decided yet.”

“Let me know when you come to a conclusion.” He followed her and closed
the gate behind him. After unzipping his pocket, he extracted his tablet. “Wait
here, please.” Stepping away from them, he tapped the screen of his tablet and
put it to his ear.   

Darina couldn’t hear what he was saying, but imagined he was telling
someone to clean up all evidence of illegal activity. She nearly laughed aloud
at that.
Ridiculous.
Foster Ashby was as clean as they came.

At least she hoped he was.

Foster led Darina, Ghared, and Zeke to the main house. He’d called
Estoria, the first GEC he’d offered sanctuary to, and told her to gather the
others in the great room. Best to do the introductions all at once. Better to
outnumber the outsiders upfront. He wanted to trust them wholeheartedly, but
that would be pretty stupid. He and the others had gone undetected as GECs all
this time by not being stupid.

And then I go and tell three outsiders I’m a GEC.
Nice going. What
had caused the false sense of trustworthiness when it came to Darina? Was it
false? Was he picking up on… on
something?

Hell, he hated having doubts. He hated putting his fellow GECs at risk. He
hated being out of the lab. He hated how his gaze kept roaming to Darina as she
silently followed him, taking in her surroundings. Cop instincts most likely.
She was probably looking for the quickest way to leave should the need arise.

Why did that thought bug him? He didn’t want her to want to leave.

Shaking his head, he led them up the half-log front steps, pausing when
Ghared crouched to inspect the stairs more closely.

“Did you make these?” he asked, squinting one eye at Foster and looking
like a 17
^th
century pirate with his long hair, scruffy beard, and
scarred cheek.

“Some of them,” Foster said, noting how Darina’s eyebrows rose over her
beautiful eyes. “Then I showed others how to make them. People, even GECs, like
to have a purpose.”

“Can you show me how to woodwork?” Zeke asked. “There’s no wood in the
city to make stuff. I’m sure I can trade one of my skills for a lesson.”

“Oh yeah?” Foster said. “What skills do you have? Aside from copiloting
hovercopters, that is.” He gave the kid a smile and was rewarded with a
megawatt one in return.

Ghared slung his arm around Zeke’s shoulders. “This guy here? There’s
nothing this guy can’t do.” He gave Zeke a little playful shove to which the
boy responded with an equal shove. They pretended to scuffle with each other
until Ghared got Zeke in a light headlock and messed the boy’s dark hair.

Something unwrapped in Foster’s chest at the familiar way Ghared and Zeke
interacted. While Carielle had shown him unconditional love, a strong bond with
a male role model had not been part of Foster’s early years. Sure, he’d learned
guy stuff along the way on his own—he had an aptitude for learning after
all—but to have had a living, breathing, experienced male show him the ropes?
Well, that would have been fantastic. He tried to be that for some of the
younger male GECs on the Vermont property, but
being
the role model
wasn’t the same as
having
one.    

“If you really want to learn, I’d be happy to show you,” Foster said.

“He really wants to learn,” Darina and Ghared said at the same time. A
look passed between them—one also born out of familiarity.

What’s the deal with them?

Darina was clearly a gorgeous, intelligent woman. Ghared appeared to be a
healthy male. A healthy, tall male whom Foster was sure would get some looks
once introduced to the others. The guy had a ruffled, ex-military look, and he
knew what he was doing in a hovercopter. He was different, and the others
hadn’t had a great deal of different in their sheltered lives in Vermont.

Had Darina sampled that different?

He shouldn’t care. None of his business. In fact, now that he’d arrived
safely in Vermont, Darina, Ghared, and Zeke didn’t have to stay. They hadn’t
been followed. He’d be fine here.

He kept those thoughts to himself.

“Foster?”

Turning around, he found Estoria at the front door, a nervous look on her
face.
Shit.
He didn’t want anyone to be anxious.

“Estoria.” He gave her a wide grin, and her expression relaxed as she
smiled back. “I’ve brought some visitors.”

“I can see that.” She peered past him, her eyes wary again. “What are you
doing?”

“We’re not going to hurt you,” Darina said, causing Estoria to jump at
the sound of her voice.

“Foster said you’re a cop?”

Darina nodded from her position on the stairs. She seemed to understand
that any sudden moves might spook Estoria. “I am. That’s my son, Zeke, and
that’s Ghared.”

“He a cop too?” Estoria jutted her chin out to Ghared.

“No,” Ghared answered, his voice gentled. “Retired soldier. Though the
serve and protect mission still applies.” He winked at her, and Estoria’s
tensed shoulders lowered slightly.

“Did you get the others together?” Foster asked, stepping to the door and
opening it. He motioned for Darina, Ghared, and Zeke to follow him.

All three of them moved together, slowly, carefully. He liked how much
they were respecting the fact that Estoria was not yet comfortable with their
presence. He didn’t blame her for feeling that way. He hadn’t given them many
opportunities to interact with outsiders, but it was safer that way.

Some GECs like himself and apparently Zeke could hide among regular
people. They looked like everyone else—except when in the throes of a seizure.
Fortunately, medicine could hide that too.

But some GECs had visible and… unique traits. He always hated the word
imperfections.
In about ten seconds though, his visitors would see what had gotten Estoria
cast off after her engineering.

Though they wouldn’t understand at first.

Estoria backed up to let them all in. With pursed lips, she flicked
another wary glance at their guests then looked back at Foster. “Almost
everyone’s in the great room.”

“Good.” He turned back to Darina. “This way.”

But Darina was already studying Estoria. “How far along are you?” she
asked.

Estoria patted the mound at her belly, a protective motion. “A week shy
of nine months.”

“So you could give birth at any moment.” Was that longing in Darina’s
eyes? She blinked, and whatever Foster thought he’d seen was gone.
“Congratulations.”

“Condolences is more like it.” Estoria shut the door behind them and took
a different route to the great room.

Darina looked at Foster. “What’s that about?”

“She’s been nine months pregnant once every year since she hit puberty.”

With a quick glance toward Zeke who had walked farther into the house,
Darina lowered her voice. “I thought GECs were infertile.”

“They are. Estoria got cast off because she’s not and because she doesn’t
need a male to become fertilized.”

“Well, that’s handy.”

“Not when every single one of the babies is stillborn after nine months
of her carrying them.”

Darina’s mouth dropped open a little. “How awful.”

Foster nodded. “I tried to help her, but she immediately became pregnant
again. Her body insists on going through the cycle once every year no matter
what.” He scratched his whiskered jaw. “I want to work on her situation more,
find a solution, but—”

“The world keeps needing you to work on something else,” Darina finished.

“Yeah.”

“Must get annoying.”

“Slightly.”

Darina looked to where Estoria had disappeared. “Should I apologize to
her?”

“You didn’t do anything wrong. How could you have known what her
situation was?”

She shrugged one shoulder. “I still feel like an ass.”

“No need. I’ll smooth things over with her. She’s been here the longest
and is probably pretty angry with me for bringing you all here.”

Stepping closer so Foster couldn’t inhale without catching a teasing
whiff of her, she said, “Why did you let us in? I could protect you in any
number of neutral places. Bringing us here makes it…” She looked up to the
ceiling and chewed on her full bottom lip as she thought.

“Personal?”

“Very.”

“This is the only place I could think of that would allow me to continue
my work. I have everything I need here. I have to find the cure. Soon.”

She glanced down the hallway to where Zeke and Ghared had wandered. “How
does this place even exist?”

“Do you remember reading about how the entire nation used to be like
this? Simple. Self-sustaining. Natural. Do you?”

“Yes. It never seemed real to me, but we had a lake house and I got a
taste of it, of this way of living.” She pointed out the hall window where a
few GECs were finishing up in the closest garden and heading toward the house.
“I just didn’t think places like this could still be found.”

“The government wants you to think that.”

She let out a short laugh. “I wouldn’t be surprised if that were the
truth. I always suspect the government is up to something. If I hadn’t seen the
effects of Warres’s plague in person, I’d think that was something the
government invented as well.”

“Unfortunately, there’s nothing fictional about what Mikale has done.”

“Then we’d better get on with things.” She brushed past him to join
Ghared and Zeke.

Foster took a moment to figure out what he was going to say to his… his
people.
They trusted him to look out for them. If they didn’t live in Vermont, they’d
be out on the streets just as he had been as a young boy. Maybe someone would
have taken them in, but that didn’t happen often.  

Most of the time, runaway GECs got caught and that never ended well.

Foster rubbed his right thigh, remembering when he’d been caught at age
twenty. He’d gone so many years without being found, and then one night, he was
crossing the college campus to get to his next class, so caught up in the notes
he was still studying for an exam, he hadn’t heard their approach in the
darkness. About thirty yards from the door to the building, he’d been slammed
to the ground; his tablet of notes fell from his hands and skidded along the
pavement like a skipped stone.

The black night had gotten suddenly blacker. The way his head had hit the
ground had caused an awful ringing in his ears. Loud and constant, the noise
had paralyzed him somehow. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t fight back.

Then another sound took control—the buzz of a reciprocating saw.

To this day, loud noises hurt his ears and gave him phantom pain in his
thigh where his leg had been severed from his body.

“Foster?” Darina’s voice pulled him from his past.

Shaking his head, he pushed the memory aside. Now wasn’t the time to
think about old wounds. Instead it was time to allay the fears of his comrades
then bury himself in his lab.

That cure wasn’t going to find itself.   

****

The house itself was a marvel. All natural woods, stone accents, and
rustic charm, Foster’s
home
—for this was much more than a city
domicile—made her feel as if she’d stepped into the pages of a history book on
early America. The artwork hanging on the walls of the hallway belonged in a
museum, and she stopped to take a closer look at one. A red barn sat in a field
gone yellow after the harvest. The sky was a shade of blue that no longer
occurred in the city and puffy white clouds cast shadows in the field. Trees
with gold, red, and orange leaves rose tall behind the barn like an autumn
embrace. Darina wished she could climb into the painting.

“Estoria painted that.” Suddenly Foster was standing right behind her,
his breath pushing wisps of her hair forward. The urge to lean back into him
disturbed her.

I don’t lean on anyone.

People leaned on her. That was the way it had to be.

Or is it?

She shook her head. It had to be. The world they lived in wasn’t made for
happily ever afters where people gave and took in equal measures. Stupid to
think for a moment such a life was possible. Not now anyway. Maybe someday.

“She’s got a real talent.” Darina motioned to the painting.

“That barn is on the property,” Foster said, not taking a step back, not
giving Darina the space she required. “It looks totally different in the
summer. I’ll show you later.”

Would that tour be a private one? Did Darina want it to be?

Not going to answer that.

Too risky. She turned to face Foster and exhaled the breath she’d been
holding when he took a step back and motioned to the room where Zeke and Ghared
already stood at the threshold.

“Should we wait out here?” She indicated the hallway.

Foster shook his head. “Best to hit them fast and get it over with.” He
offered her a smile that sent a warm buzz through her body.

She made a note to ignore that warm buzz. Warm buzzes were distracting, and
she was technically still working on keeping Foster safe.

“C’mon.” He put his hand on the small of her back and edged her into the
room. The touch was light, but she felt it everywhere.

Inside the great room, people were on couches and chairs. The room itself
was welcoming with its earth tones and leather furniture. The atmosphere,
however, was the exact opposite of welcoming. Darina’s cop instincts darted her
gaze to all four walls, noting exits, windows, possible weapons. She made eye
contact with each person, quickly counting fourteen total, just as Foster had
said lived here. All of them were adults, but some of them younger than her and
Foster.

Estoria sat toward the back of the room, her large blue eyes zooming in
on Zeke standing next to Ghared. Was the sight of a teenager—a child—painful to
her? Darina couldn’t imagine giving birth to stillborn babies once a year.
She’d never given birth herself, but she’d considered it now and then. Of
course, the world as it stood now was no place for a baby.

“Okay, everyone,” Foster began, “nice to see you all.” He moved to the
middle of the room and turned in a circle to see the assembled group.

A few hellos came back to him, but the tension hung heavy above them.

“So I know I’ve broken my own rule by bringing these guests here, but it
was necessary.” He cleared his throat, his hands going into his pockets as he
continued moving to see everyone. “As you know, I’ve been working on a cure to
the disease my former colleague released into the air. While on a run into the
city to collect samples, I was pursued by some of my colleague’s associates.”