Chapter 5
Daria froze at the sight of Josiah’s bare back, and the way his muscles rippled. Her breath caught in her throat as a raw, unexpected wave of desire tore through her and left her speechless and hot.
Holy gods...
Had anyone ever told her that she’d feel such for a human being she’d have laughed them off the planet.
Yet there was no denying the way her heart picked up its pace as he quickly added weapons to the concealed holster at his waist and underarms. Worse? Unwanted fantasies of her running her hands over his body flashed through her mind faster than she could stop them.
What is wrong with me?
She hated humans.
But they weren’t supposed to look the way he did. Ripped and lean. Handsome beyond measure. Delectable.
Lickable.
He was exceptionally well formed, for any species.
And when he turned and caught her staring at him with the full weight of her teenage hormonal surge, she felt heat instantly scald her cheeks. Time seemed to stand still as he froze with one hand on the locker door.
For several agonizing heartbeats he said nothing as her mortification claimed her completely. They merely stood there in awkward silence.
Until he pulled his shirt over his head and closed the locker in front of him. “Did you need something?”
That deep, resonant voice sent another shiver over her. It made her entire body tingle. Stop it, Daria! Get a hold of yourself! She wasn’t some prepubescent child. Technically, she was a grown Maten.
Though at the moment, she felt some inexplicable urge to giggle and hide her face.
Or runaway and hide.
Yeah, that would be a bad idea.
So, she made herself take a step toward him and at least pretend like she still had some sort of brain activity. “I just wanted to thank you. It was rude of me not to do so earlier.”
He tucked a peculiar black knife into a sheath at the base of his spine. “It’s fine. I wasn’t expecting any kind of thanks.”
From the likes of you. He wasn’t rude enough to add that last bit out loud, but the tone of his voice implied it.
As he started past her, she stopped him. His nearness hit her with another wave of desire that made a mockery of the earlier one. Every part of her was alert to him now. And it took everything she had not to kiss those lips that seemed to be made for just such a thing.
She drew a ragged breath, wishing that they weren’t so different. “I also wanted to say that I was sorry, Commander. I didn’t mean to get anyone hurt.”
Josiah hesitated as he saw real remorse in her dark eyes. And he hated himself for letting it weaken him. She was a Drab. Plain and simple.
His worst enemy. She symbolized everything he despised in this world.
Yet when she stood this close to him, with her hand on his forearm, all he saw was an attractive woman.
A scared, vulnerable one. Especially given the way her hand lingered and trembled on his flesh.
And that weakened him even more. He’d always been a sucker for anyone in need, especially a woman or a child. It was what had caused him to join the police force against his father’s wishes.
Protect and serve those who couldn’t defend themselves. Might shouldn’t make right. It was the duty of the strong to bleed for those who couldn’t hold their own.
He just wished he’d done a better job protecting his wife and family.
“Don’t be afraid, Daria. If your parents are alive, I’ll bring them back to you. You have my word on that.”
The pain in her eyes was one he knew intimately. It was the same ghost that haunted him with every breath he drew. Day and night. It even stalked his sleep and made him dread those few hours when he had no control over his mind that ever wandered off, and left him exposed to his rawest emotions. Those hours when he would venture to the past to be with his wife and live in a time before the Drabs had destroyed his life.
They had taken everything from him.
She hadn’t. Daria hadn’t even been born yet, and she had nothing to do with their cruelty. You know this, Joey.
But it was hard to remember that when all he wanted to do was lash out, and use her as a scapegoat for all the injustices that had left him gutted and bitter.
Left him alone and bleeding.
The world was callous, and it had turned him into a monster long ago. Sadly, it was easier to be that monster than the man he once was.
“Xed told me that I could trust you.” Unshed tears made her eyes shine in the dim light. “I pray he’s right.”
Josiah stamped down his urge to hurt her in retaliation for all the ills of the past. Yet it was hard.
Indifference was the best he could strive for, given his innate hatred. And even that was difficult. “I won’t hurt you.” He hoped that wasn’t a lie.
She offered him a shy smile. “Again, thank you. If you need anything from me in terms of intel or insight, please let me know. . . . Stay safe, Commander.”
With those words spoken, she stood up on her toes and laid the most chaste kiss imaginable against his cheek.
Yet for all its innocence, it left his skin burning for reasons that didn’t bear thinking on.
She’s a child.
And a Drab!
Too bad his body didn’t listen. Drab or not, she was a beautiful creature. One who smelled like sunshine and spring. And it’d been way too long since he’d last held a woman in his arms.
Far too long since he’d allowed himself to look at one as anything more than a sister in need of saving.
But he was looking now ...
I need to gouge out my eyes.
Only problem was, he didn’t want to. And before he could stop himself he heard himself making an offer to her that wasn’t as disgusting as it should be. “Would you like for me to show you around later ... after we get back?”
Her cheeks darkened again, and she nodded. “I think I’d like that a lot.”
Why was he so breathless?
Why was she?
She stepped away, then hesitated and turned toward him. “How do humans say ‘roundabout’?”
He intended to answer with goodbye. Really, he did. Yet somehow, he pulled her against him and kissed her instead.
Daria gasped the moment Josiah’s lips touched hers. At nineteen, she’d only kissed Frayne, and he’d never tasted like this. Raw and powerful. All masculine.
Like divine paradise.
Closing her eyes, she inhaled the warmth of Josiah, and gave in to the fantasy she’d had earlier of rubbing her hands down his back over those bulging muscles. His body was every bit as ripped as it’d seemed.
She sucked her breath in sharply, wishing for a lot more than just this hot, insane kiss, and knowing better than to even think about it.
He tensed and pulled away. “Sorry,” he breathed with a sincerity that should insult her.
Yet she suspected it came from more than just the obvious.
In fact, she had a good idea of what might truly be bothering him. “Just how old are you? Really?”
Josiah ran his thumb along her bottom lip as if debating on whether or not he should kiss her again. That action made her chest tighten. “Physically, only five years older than you. Realistically, I’m horrifying and should be ashamed of myself.”
“But you’re not.”
A wicked gleam darkened his eyes. “Hard to be truly ashamed when every woman my age is long dead and decayed into dust. Can’t exactly date in my age group, you know?”
He had a point.
“And the one time I tried to date an older woman, it gave her such a complex over my age and appearance that I haven’t tried it again. Every time we went somewhere, everyone thought I was her son and she couldn’t deal with it.”
“Well, your age isn’t what bothers me,” she reminded him.
“My species does.”
She squirmed uncomfortably at his accurate guess. “Are you saying that mine doesn’t bother you?”
He dropped his hand from her lips. “It’s not as much a factor at the moment as it was before.”
“Truly?”
A deep, dark pain settled behind his eyes. It was so profound that it brought a lump to her throat. “I’ll make a deal with you, Daria Stazen. I won’t hold your black blood against you if you don’t hold my red blood against me.”
He held his hand out to her in a peculiar manner that suggested she was supposed to do something.
Arching her brow, she tapped her hand against it.
Josiah laughed, then took her hand and showed her what he wanted her to do. “It’s called shaking hands. This is how we humans make bargains.”
“You don’t post your bargains?”
With a snort, he shook his head. “No, we don’t.”
“Humans are a strange lot.”
“That we are, Miss Stazen. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a few of us to save.”
“Good luck, Commander.” And this time, she actually meant it. Most of all, she looked forward to his return. For once, she wanted to get to know him better and see what lay beneath his dark and sinister façade.
Hours later, Josiah flew through the darkness of what had once been the Yorktown Naval Weapons Station, silent and watching. No longer part of the military he’d once known, the station now belonged to their enemies who used it as a detention facility for the humans they captured. Worse? They used it to conduct auctions for, and operations on, the Scraps of humanity.
Scraps. That was what the Drabs called them. It was how they viewed them. Nothing but cast-off remains to be used and discarded at will.
Worthless. Except to the ones who needed human body parts or those depraved beings who should be jailed for their crimes. It was nauseating that humanity had been reduced to this by a bunch of hypocritical creatures who thought of themselves as enlightened and morally superior.
Rise up and slam them to the ground. That had been his father’s teachings. Strike fast. Strike hard. Let no one see you bleed. The world belongs to those who have the cojones to face adversity and make it their bitch.
If you go down, you go down swinging.
Yeah, no one would ever confuse Takoda James Crow with Gandhi. His father had been a staunch naval commander who brooked no lip, or attitude, from any of his seven sons.
Or anyone else.
And little did the Drabs know that their base was one Josiah knew like the back of his hand. It’d been one of his mother’s favorite haunts while his father was out at sea for months on end.
He’d come of age here and the surrounding areas.
Now he came here for blood vengeance.
Josiah swooped down to get a better view of his enemies and the ones they were holding prisoner.
The Drabs lay far below, going about their business as if they had every right to exist on this planet. It galled him to the deepest part of his soul. Nothing had been right in the world for so long that he had to struggle most days to remember why he kept fighting when every omen seemed to foretell his doom and the end of humanity as a whole.
But in spite of the ache, he knew why.
Mohani. She would be the first to tell him to stand strong in this resistance. If you don’t fight for what you want, then don’t cry for what you’ve lost.
God, how he missed her and her sayings that had once driven him crazy. Never cry for a person who cares nothing for the value of your tears. She’d had something to say about everything. The perfect kick in his butt whenever he needed it.
The perfect kiss whenever he saw her. She could humble him with a simple smile. Wrap him around her finger without any effort. For her, he’d always been a fool.
Josiah winced as memories sliced through him with talons made of steel, and him feel guilty that he’d kissed Daria earlier. They burned deeper than his soul and left him raw and screaming inside.
But the one that never left him was those last moments of Mohani’s life when she’d struggled so hard to stay with him. When her pain-filled gaze had looked up at his. Not with accusation or regret.
Only love.
And though she’d been unable to speak past her pain, he’d heard her words clearly in his mind. “In times of great sorrow, we have no right to ask, ‘Why did this happen to me?’ unless we ask the same question for every joy that comes our way.”
To this day, he had no understanding for why he’d lost her. Any more than he’d ever had for how he’d been lucky enough to find her in the first place.
I will fight for you, Mohani. Yesterday, today and tomorrow. So long as he held breath in his body, he would battle for them all.
No one else would ever mean as much to him as she had. He knew that. Because no one compared to her.
And his love of her was why he tolerated Lobo and hadn’t banished him for his supreme lunacy. Well, not so much Lobo as his younger brother David.
David Wayland was still their best asset and most vulnerable member. He alone held the key to Mohani’s research, and knew what it would take to save them and make sure the Drabs never again took the upper hand.
If only the boy would speak and let them know how best to proceed. David’s Autism had been bad before Mohani’s death. Without her here to guide him, David had locked down entirely and sat in a corner of his mind in bitter isolation that made Josiah’s look normal in comparison.
Mohani’s precious Avatar refused to communicate with anyone.
Even his big brother, Lobo.
“If something ever happens to me, Joey, you have to make sure that David survives. Remember what the Bhagavad Gita says—Whenever righteousness wanes and unrighteousness increases I send myself forth. For the protection of the good and for the destruction of evil, and for the establishment of righteousness, I come into being, age after age.”
The fact that David had been born a decade and a half before the entire world had gone into crisis was almost enough to make Josiah believe Mohani’s prediction that the boy was a true avatar. Vishnu was said to always appear at such times so that he could right the balance and set the world to order again.
Would make sense. Stranger things had happened... such as the earth being invaded by Drabs with a plague that virtually wiped out the human race.
Him kissing Daria when he knew better ...
Yeah, the devil was definitely sitting on icicles today.
“Crimson Ninja Leader in position. Over.”
Josiah smiled at Mia’s call sign he could hear even in his bird form, as she notified their forces she had made it through the dark to slide through Drab security and come up to the rear of their installation.
She and her strike team had dubbed themselves Skateboard Ninjas. Though the way they maneuvered through things a quarter of their size with grace and ease, he usually referred to them as Skateboard Ninja Hamsters. No one could navigate the underground sewers and pipes better. It was why he’d made her a leader at an age when most were just joining their ranks.
“Horus? You there?”
He would never get used to his call sign that Anjelica had given him as a joke years ago. Horus, as in the Egyptian war god who was known for protection and wrath. Except Horus was a falcon, not a crow.
Huginn or Muninn would be more apropos. But then Josiah didn’t answer to anyone. For anything.
Not even the gods.
“In position.” Josiah used his powers to relay his thoughts to his team. “Drabs are due north of your position. Little activity. Hold until I get a better vantage point.”
He dove lower so that he could glide on the wind toward the armed station where Daria’s parents and some of their members had been stashed. Even with his heightened sight, it was hard to detect any details about their location. The Drabs weren’t taking any chances.
Heading for the brig, he made sure to keep to the shadows. While the Drabs didn’t know about his abilities, they did know about Shifs and shapeshifters. For too long, the Matens been experimenting on survivors, trying to learn just how humanity had mutated in order to overcome the disease the Drabs had spread among them.
Unlike the politicians who’d denied it, Josiah had known from the beginning that their exposure was no accident caused by the Matens using a form of Polonium as a fuel source. Rather it’d been strategic bio warfare. Like the Europeans giving Native Americans pox-ridden blankets to thin their numbers.
“Sss!”
Josiah pulled up short at the hiss that caught him off guard. Blood exploded over his feathers, weighing them down and throwing him off balance. With no way to clean them off midflight, the extra weight and thick viscosity sent him careening toward the ground.
Even though he knew it was all kinds of stupid, he transformed and rolled to keep from breaking anything during his crash-landing.
The moment he did, he saw what had happened on base, and his heart went still.
This was bad. A Remnant hit that was much harsher and more blatant than any they’d imagined in their worst nightmares. Blood and entrails coated the walls around him, while bones had been scattered about in warning.
And to cause fear among their enemies.
“Remnants!” he snarled at his team. “Pull back! Fast!”
Josiah barely had time to dodge an attack before a giant, diseased creature grabbed him. Twisting, he turned back into a bird to fly off. He almost didn’t make it. The Remnant swatted at him with a speed that was inhuman—their gift from the Drabs.
No wonder there had been so little activity here on his arrival. The Remnants must had beaten them to it and killed everyone at the base. Their specialty.
Once they had a target, they executed all with extreme prejudice. And without hesitation. Young, old. It didn’t matter. If it breathed and had blood and protein, they made it dinner.
“It’s an infected zone,” he warned his team. “Retreat!”
Mia cursed. “What about the others?”
“If they’re here, it’s too late for them.” They’d already been eaten from the looks of the gore around him.
He didn’t bother to report how much blood, bone and other things he saw strewn about the facility and grounds. That was the thing about Remnants, they were extremely thorough with their slayings.
Not just because they were messy eaters, but because it was a psychological game they played with their enemies. Designed to frighten and intimidate. To mentally debilitate anyone they might face in a fight.
The thought made him sick to his stomach. If only he could do something to help the poor bastards. Both those who’d been caught here by the Remnants, and the Remnants themselves.
Unfortunately, the disease that had created him and the rest of the Scraps, had also created the Remnants. And to his knowledge, there was nothing to be done to cure them.
Larger and faster than the humans of old, the Rems were also highly intelligent. As in IQs that made Stephen Hawking appear average. There was no telling what the Remnants would have been capable of achieving if not for one serious drawback to their disease ... it left them with a rare form of anemia and a vitamin deficiency that caused them to crave raw, fresh meat to such an extent that they’d eat any live protein source they could lay their hands on.
Even other people.
Which unfortunately caused a rare brain disease related to Kuru that resulted in tremors and a neurodegeneration that would ultimately kill them. Sadly, they would all eventually die in miserable agony with something none of them had wanted to contract.
Thanks, Drabs.
The gray bastards had left the once great human race with barely anything that was recognizable.
Disgusted, he headed back to his men.
The moment he reached them and transformed, Mia grabbed his arm with a panic he understood all too well. She’d lost her younger sister and father to a Remnant attack, and had only escaped because her father had sacrificed himself so that she and a small group could launch a helicopter out of their nest. Her sister had been snatched right out of the seat beside her as they launched, and her last sight of her family had been the Remnants tearing them apart.
To this day, she had nightmares from it.
“Did they scratch you?”
Josiah shook his head. “I’m not infected.”
“You sure?”
“We’ll know by morning. If I start to eat one of you, shoot me.”
Unamused, she grimaced at him. “Believe me, it’ll be my pleasure, Commander.”
“Just remember to tie my shoelaces when you bury me.”
Mia rolled her eyes at their old zombie joke. Which wasn’t too far from the truth. If only the Remnants were zombies. At least then they’d be stupid.
And slow.
But even once the neurodegeneration kicked in, the Rems could live for years with their genius level IQ, and their superior strength and reflexes that would rival Olympic athletes. That was what made them so lethal. Like Josiah and his Scraps, they wanted to reclaim the earth, too, and they were the ones making problems for the rest of them, as they kept going up against the Drabs directly and threatening their authority.
Only if the Remnants took it over, they’d use the rest of them as a food source, since the Scrap uncontaminated flesh was what they needed to prolong their lives and stave-off the eventual madness that came with it.
Their own flesh didn’t have the same nutrients in it. Apparently, whatever had caused the mutation to them had also destroyed whatever it was they needed to ingest. That little nugget only existed in the flesh of the Scraps and Drabs.
Lucky them.
So, like the Drabs, the Remnants captured as many of the Scraps as they could in an effort to use them for experiments to see if they could find a cure for their own disease.
And when they couldn’t find that gold nugget of happiness, they ate them.
If the Remnants could score a Relic—humans with pure, untainted DNA—then it was a stellar day indeed. Relics were the holy grail of all creatures. About as rare as finding a unicorn in a pink tutu, dancing on the third Sunday of the sixth month during the light of a full moon.
No one had seen or heard of one in decades. They were thought to have all died out long ago.
Sighing, Josiah glanced around his gathered team. “Sorry, guys. The risk is too high now. Between the Drabs and the Rems ... we need to cut our losses and get back to base.”
With a reluctant sigh, Mia and the others nodded. “Understood, Commander.”
They might understand, but it didn’t make it right. They’d lost an entire team today. No one liked that.
Least of all him.
And it was the last thing they could afford. They needed every member they had, if they were to survive this.
Josiah turned back toward the base at the same time a loud explosion rocked the ground under their feet.
They all stumbled from the force of the impact.
Lobo sucked his breath in as he saw the destruction that lit up the night sky around them with a bright purple and yellow hue. It was an ominous glow that continued to burn and twinkle. That would bring the Drabs down on all of them. “I hate the Rems almost as much as the Drabs.”
Josiah could understand that. But they were all on the same side. “Don’t, Lobo. They’re hurting. Just like us.”
More so, in fact. Unlike them, the Rems lived with a death sentence.
“Yeah, but we need to be pulling together, not fighting each other. We’re human, too. Not food.”
Not to them. And Josiah could understand that, too. Remnants didn’t have their magic or psychic abilities. So, they viewed the Scraps as Drab knock-offs.
Something they hated them for. Something they held against them, as the Scraps had something the Remnants didn’t. A benefit that the Rems would give anything to possess—just like there were Scraps who begrudged the Rems their superior strength and intelligence. And since they couldn’t have it or weren’t blessed with it from birth, the alternative was to hold it against them and begrudge them every breath they took over it.
It’s not fair! Why you and not me!
The rallying cry of humanity.
“The more things change, the more they stay the same.”
They turned to stare at Josiah.
“It’s an old human saying.” He sighed. “At any rate, head to base. Take separate routes and watch your backs.”
He for one, intended to guard his.
By the time Josiah reached the base, he was completely defeated. The last thing he wanted was to face the rest of their people and tell them what had happened.
That their team had been eaten by Remnants.
Honestly? He wished the Remnants had eaten him and spared him this confrontation.
At least that was his thought until they entered the main hall and found a small group gathered there, waiting for them.
Dread filled him. Ah, God, what now?
It had to be bad for Angie to be here with her daughter. She never did that. Not unless it was something catastrophic, and they were trying to calm the masses.
He slowed his approach even more as he caught sight of a tall, lean man in their midst he didn’t recognize.
What the...?
They never got visitors. Or anyone else.
Ah, shit. This was going to be apocalyptic. Maybe he should take a minute to find some Kevlar.
Or a grenade.
“Josiah! We’ve been trying to reach all of you.”
His gut tightened even more at Angie’s excited tone. He narrowed his gaze. “Why?”
The man stepped forward and extended his hand. “I’m Dr. Leon Waters, Commander… the head research physician for the Phoenix colony.” He said that as if it should mean something to him.
Anjelica stepped around him so that she could meet Josiah’s gaze. “They were hit because they hold the location of the last batch of untainted human DNA, Joey.”
Josiah’s jaw dropped at her unexpected bombshell. Forget the Kevlar. He needed a stretcher. Had he heard that right? “Pardon?”
Leon nodded. “It’s true. There’s a DNA repository outside of Phoenix where I’ve been working. We’re called Noah’s Ark.” He handed Josiah a slide of that appeared to be human tissue. “This is a sample of one of the specimens so that you can verify it. It’s a catalogue of every human race that ever existed. From the past, and at the time the Matens arrived. Complete and untainted. I’m from a small colony of survivors who guard it.”
“Relics, Joe.” Angie was practically dancing with her enthusiasm. “An entire colony of Relics, who have saved us!”
He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Was it even possible?
Leon tightened his fist around Josiah’s hand. “We desperately need your wife’s research, Commander. Dr. Crow was the only one who had a vaccine for the toxin the Drabs released on us. We have to redevelop her inoculation before the Drabs or Remnants find the last Relics and destroy them. You’re our only hope. If we fail, the human race will die out.”
Now that had to be the most terrifying thought of all. That he was the only hope.
Shit.
He met Angie’s gaze and laughed. “Wow. My father’s rolling in his grave. The thought of the fate of mankind resting in my hands ...”
Sobering, Josiah sighed. “Sad to say, I can hand it over, but you’re still screwed.”
“What do you mean?”
“Meaning it’s coded. No one can read it without the key.”
Leon’s skin turned ashen. “You don’t have the key?”
“No. Only one person besides my wife had it.”
“Let me guess. They’re dead?”
Josiah shook his head. Then pointed to the razor-thin dark blond kid in a corner wearing an oversized Pokémon headset while he played Call of Duty oblivious to everyone and everything around him. Dressed in baggy clothes so that they wouldn’t bind him and set off one of his epic tantrums, he kept his hair shaggy on top, and cut short on the sides. “He’s not exactly communicative.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s Autistic. You can’t touch him. He mostly ignores everyone and everything. But occasionally when you ask him something, he’ll write an answer down and hand it to you.”
Leon’s gape widened. “You’re serious?”
Josiah let out a tired sigh. “Even though he was only fifteen at the time, Davy was my wife’s assistant. He can run calculations faster than most computers, and keep track of everything in his head. He was high-functioning—one of those brilliant minds that graduated college at age twelve—until the Matens shot Mohani in front of him. We haven’t gotten a word out of him since. Some days, we don’t even get a squeak.”
“Unless you touch him.” Lobo grimaced. “Then you get more than a squeak, and whole lot more than you bargained for. Personally, I’d rather fight a Remnant, butt-naked. And I mean me being butt-naked, not them.”
“Yeah,” Josiah concurred. “And he’d know. He’s Davy’s brother.”
“Which means, he actually likes me. Yah,” Lobo said sarcastically.
“So, it’s hopeless, then.” Leon winced. “We came all this way for nothing.”
“Maybe not.” Josiah raked his hand through his hair. “Mohani reached him, once. Surely, we can do it again.”
A tic worked in Leon’s jaw. “Yeah, but can we do it before the Remnants and Drabs get to the Relics or find the Ark and destroy it?”