Red Zone (Red Zone 1)

“It’s sleeping, but aware.”

Her eyes went wide, her back snapped straight, and her lips parted. “We can never have sex!”

The room erupted with laughter, and she turned a deep shade of red. There was really no stopping the woman’s thoughts from coming right out of her mouth.

“Why can’t we have sex, bébé?” This he had to hear.

She peered at the team from the corner of her eye. “We’ll talk about it later.”

“I think you need to say it now. Everybody’s waiting to hear your reasoning.” Something nasty gripped at his emotions, making the diamondback raise its head and narrow its eyes at him. “Is it because I’m a freak?”

“What?” She stepped toward him, her hand up as though to touch, but she remembered they had an audience and stopped. “Don’t be an idiot. It’s because the snake would watch.”

Relief surged through him, followed closely by annoyance when his friends made no attempt to smother their amusement. Striker growled at Jeremiah, who was laughing hard enough to have tears rolling down his face.

“I meant to whisper that,” Friday mumbled.

He mentally nudged his other half and told it to get on home. There was a second of protest before it slithered off Friday’s shoulder, rubbing against her as though the snake was petting the woman, which made her squeak, then giggle. It climbed up Striker’s body, curled around him, and he clenched his teeth in pain as they merged once again.

Friday was on him in an instant. Her hands running over his back to trace the body of the snake.

“Unbelievable.” She was clearly awestruck. “Do it again!”

He put his hands on his hips and hung his head. This was not how he’d thought this would go.

“Can you make it wink at me while it’s on your body?” She prodded the head of the snake on his neck. “Can it hear me? When I touch it, do you feel it or does the snake?”

“I take it back,” Mace said. “She’s worth the hassle just for the entertainment.”

Friday ignored the comment. Striker wasn’t even sure she was still aware there were people in the room. Her focus was on his weird DNA, and the little scientist was beyond excited. “Is this why you wanted my brain? You want me to study your genetic mutation?” Her voice bubbled with enthusiasm. “I didn’t need to be blackmailed into this. I’d have done this for free. This is amazing. Scientists spend lifetimes waiting for an opportunity like this. This is a dream come true.”

She scanned the rest of the team. “What animals do you have? Wait! Does this mean you’re immune to the red mist? What about aging? Do you age at a normal rate? I know you were essentially frozen for a hundred years but has your aging changed since you woke up?” She beamed at their medic. “Can we go to the lab now? Do you have some samples I can look at? Can I read your data? I’ve already been sworn to secrecy. I’m totally trustworthy.” She looked up at Striker. “Tell him.”

It was clear from the hysteria in the room that he’d had lost control of the meeting. He wrapped his arms around Friday and lifted her up against him, high enough to make her feet dangle above the floor. Without saying a word to the assholes he called family, he strode toward the back of the cave.

“Wait!” She struggled to get free. “I want to see what everybody else has. Who’s got the bear? It’s Mace, isn’t it? He’s huge, and he couldn’t work the scanner. I hear bears are big and not that smart, so it would fit.”

He tuned out the new wave of laughter behind him as he stomped his way to his room. Friday thumped his shoulder—the one without the snake tattoo, no doubt because she was worried about hurting the reptile. Obviously, she wasn’t that worried about hurting the man.

“Take me back. I have questions that need answering. I want to get started on my research.”

“We’re going to bed.”

“I told you, I won’t have sex with the diamondback watching our every move. You promised we wouldn’t have an audience. I don’t care how attractive you are. Sex is off the table. I can’t do it with a snake watching me.”

He shook his head in wonder at the stuff that went on in her head. The team’s laughter followed them down the corridor, telling him they could still hear every word coming out of her mouth. He took her into what was essentially a private room. His private room.

The cavern wasn’t brightly lit like the communal area had been. Instead, it was filled with the dim yellow glow emitted by a low-beam industrial lamp. Furnishings were sparse and looked completely out of place against the rough stone of the walls. A set of metal shelves held his clothing, all neatly arranged, a habit left over from his army days. Against the wall nearest the entrance was a small table he used as a desk. On top of it sat a top-of-the-line computer console, the kind they used in the Coalition Countries because you didn’t need implants to work it. Hunter, their tech guy, had rigged an old-fashioned keyboard to the state-of-the-art machine, making it a fusion of old and new—much like him.

He walked over to his bed and sat Friday on the edge. Her mouth was open, and her eyes were wide. “You were serious? You really expect us to go to bed now?”

“Yeah.” He was so damned tired he could sleep standing, which meant they were definitely going to bed. But first he had to make sure Mace had taken care of their transport to La Paz and the paperwork they needed to get into the closed city. “Get ready. I’ll be back in a minute. If you need the facilities, turn right out of this cavern and you’ll see them farther down the tunnel on the left.”

“I know where the facilities are.” Her nose wrinkled in disgust. “What I don’t know is why you’re using something called a chemical toilet.”

Man, she was cute, but these conversations tended to go on forever and he needed some shut-eye. “Bébé, this is a cave. The best we can do for plumbing is to heat the water that runs through it. The toilets are chemical because that’s what works in here. Do you really want to discuss the toilets?”

“No.” She sat up straight. “I want to talk about the animals. Have they changed your personalities?”