Point one five rules und.., p.12
Point One Five (Rules Undying Book 4), page 12
“But magic is ridiculous, no?”
“I’ve heard that before,” Gail said, furrowing her brow. “Well, maybe it is a little ridiculous, but it is fantasy. Still, it’s nice to have someone who wants to discuss my silly books. You seem so passionate about it, that’s all.”
“I am passionate about so many things, Gail. Whatever is worth doing in life is worth doing with passion! These stories shape our minds and form our opinions. In many ways, fiction is just as important as the facts of our lives. An old . . . friend . . . she told me that a good story is more powerful than a thousand swords.”
“And you’re passionate in your hatred for werewolves?” Gail asked as she led him towards the next storefront. “I don’t think I’ve seen you even annoyed by anything before, let alone genuinely cranky.”
“What can I say? Werewolves are monsters. Angry, violent, monsters. When I was younger, I had run-ins with monsters of my own . . . .”
He trailed off and shuffled a little more awkwardly than normal. Gail looked at his leg. Javier stopped and toyed with his hair for a minute while Gail waited for him to continue. He kicked his fake foot a few times before he finally motioned Gail towards a lovely planter box full of rainbow Gerber daisies. She settled on the concrete lip and watched him pace awkwardly.
“I suppose we should just address el elefante in the room, should we not?” Javier asked as he eased next to her. He knocked his shin with his fist, creating a hollow tapping sound. “When I was young, I was a very cocky, arrogant fool. I thought I was invincible. Where I grew up, there was always fighting. It was like there was a war all the time, but not one you would ever hear about. It was always a fight for control of the town, for the people there, and no one fought fair. I wish I could tell you more, but there are some things . . . some things that cannot be said.”
“Oh, Javier,” Gail whispered as she wrapped an arm around him and let him lean his head on her shoulder.
“When you grow up like that, you end up one of two ways. You either end up hating violence, or you end up in love with it. There are others I know, friends, family, that love to fight, and can never have enough blood on the streets, but I. . . I am not that man. You must think it’s silly—”
“Me?” Gail asked, squeezing his arm. “I’m terrified of the Golden Girls and I don’t even know why. I’m not going to judge you for hating werewolves because they remind you of violence. I’m guessing that you weren’t born with only one foot, then.”
“No,” he said, wrapping his arm around her waist. “You could say I met my own werewolf. When I was young, I thought I was fast enough to outrun him, but as you can plainly see, I was not. He got his claws into me, and the rest is history. I noticed that you had a scar as well, Gail.”
“Stab wound to the neck,” she said flatly. “It’s a miracle I survived the blood loss, but I don’t really remember anything about what happened.”
“Maybe it was a vampire, no?”
“Vampires are not real, Javier. I suppose, though . . . wound to the neck, blood loss—”
“Yes, but you don’t seem to hate vampires,” he said, finally looking up. He gently tilted her chin and stared into her eyes.
“Yeah, I guess you could say that I’m in love with them,” she confessed. She leaned over and gave him a quick kiss. “You know, it is technically our third date, and I don’t have an annoying houseguest currently—”
“Señorita, are you… suggesting something?”
“I’m only suggesting that it’s getting late, and that I’ve had a good time with you, and I really don’t want to wait until your next day off to spend time with you . . . that’s all. We could curl up and read for all I care—”
This time, he kissed her. “Just tell me where you want me to go, and I will follow you.”
She led him back to her car and all but whispered her address. “I’ll be there,” he said with a smile before wandering back to his rather broken-down looking old van.
“Oh my god, this is happening,” Gail squealed to the rearview mirror and she started her short drive home. “I can’t believe that this is happening!”
She opened her purse and whipped out her phone. Mercifully, there were no more messages from “J.D.” or anyone else that could possibly interrupt her evening. Javier pulled into the parking spot beside her. “Is this really happening?” she muttered before hopping out of her car.
“I told you I’d follow you,” he said as they wandered towards her apartment. “I brought the books, too.”
She eyed the bag of paperbacks in his hand. One on top had yet another shirtless, pale dude. She fumbled with her keys in the locks.
He waited on her welcome mat with a sheepish grin. “Are you sure you want to invite a guy like me inside?” he asked. He looked down and kicked his feet. “I’m not exactly—”
“Javier, don’t be silly. I invited you here, after all.”
“Why yes, yes you did,” he said as he slipped into the hall. Gail gulped and flattened against her entryway wall. They stared at each other awkwardly until Javier finally took a tentative step forward. He dropped the bag on the floor and slowly slid one finger along her shoulder and under the strap of her sundress.
“Javier, you don’t think that I’m, you know . . ?”
“No, I don’t know,” he whispered before leaning over her neck. “But I would love to find out.”
Gail held her breath for a moment, but her phone didn’t ring, there was no knock, or any other sort of tragic interruption, just warm breath on her neck and a hand sliding around to unhook her bra.
She dropped her own purse and wrapped both arms around his waist. She leaned her head back so he could keep kissing her neck, and she half-moaned, half-giggled as he continued to tease her skin. She could feel his teeth tracing her collar bone and his other hand sliding lower.
“Oh, my god,” she said, just before her head began to spin.
14
“Awkward,” she muttered as she woke up alone, safely tucked in her bed. A dreadfully neat little note rested on top of her nightstand.
“Sorry you weren’t feeling well. You asked for medicine and then wanted to sleep. Sweet dreams and ¡Hasta mañana! - Javier.”
She glared at her bottle of sedatives next to her lamp. She pounded her fist into her pillow and growled. “Fuck you, anxiety,” she snapped.
She didn’t have too much time to rage, as her alarm reminded her it was a workday. “At least he saw me in my underwear,” she muttered as she found her dress draped neatly over her reading chair. She glared at her reflection as she hopped out of the shower. She slapped on the bare minimum of makeup and settled for a messy bun day.
She stopped cold as she entered her sparkling clean kitchen. Another note sat on her counter – “I hope you have a better morning” – alongside a bag of donuts and a thermos of coffee.
“OK, he’s a keeper,” she said before heading off to another day in the office. She had no sooner polished off the chocolate glaze with sprinkles and slipped out of her car when she saw a strange cluster of cars in the handicapped spots. Gail stopped cold as she saw a van marked with MedCentric logos.
She hustled through the lobby while a group of strangers carted boxes mark biohazard into the lab. Drs. Nakano, Ahmed, and Iwashi were all in attendance, barking orders to the crew. Gail slipped by unnoticed in the chaos, changed into her scrubs, and soon found herself in an empty workroom.
She had no sooner turned on her workstation that Lori peeked into the lab. “Heya!” She raised a brow at Gail’s messy hair and beaming face. “Someone looks happy today.”
“Maybe,” Gail said with a sly grin. “What’s with the circus?”
“Bunch of new samples, and I mean a bunch. Want to explain the grin while we schlep boxes?”
“Sure,” Gail said as she followed her friend. “What is all of this?”
“Who knows and who cares,” Lewis said as he passed them. “It’s probably blood and piss.”
“Speaking of, someone definitely pissed in Lewis’s cornflakes today,” Lori muttered. “There were different security guys here, and they had Lewis in there when I got in. Hey, have you heard anything from J.D.?”
Gail shook her head.
Her boss pointed her towards the propped open front door. “Get a box and take it where you are told,” Dr. Nakano snapped.
“Stan hasn’t called or texted,” Lori said, biting her lip. “Do you think he’s forgotten about me already?”
“I don’t think he’s forgotten you in twenty-four hours.”
“It’s been more like thirty,” Lori moaned.
A man in coveralls handed a box to Gail. “Second floor. Be careful,” he ordered.
“Yes, sir.” She doubled checked that she had the right side up and took the box slowly towards the stairs. Lori followed her, still moaning.
“I mean, a guy like Stan, out on the road—”
“You could just trust him, you know. They are off on a job, not a booty call—”
“Well, did J.D. spill where they were going or anything?”
“It’s Jonathan, not J.D., and I don’t know any more than you, OK? Stop being a worrywart or I’ll have lunch with Lewis today.”
She took a deep breath before tackling the stairs to the second floor. “Have you even been up here?” Gail asked as she saw the door open for the first time. It was Lori’s turn to shake her head.
Both girls peered into shiny, brightly lit upstairs lab. Gail paid particular attention to the pressurized door in the back and the bright yellow and red safety notices on the wall. A man in a lab coat snatched the box out of Gail’s hand while a tall, no-nonsense woman with spiky, frosted tips barked orders in a thick Russian accent.
“Get those samples into the cold or I will start cracking heads, boys. Oi! That box should be in the back,” the Russian woman snapped when she saw Lori still holding a crate. She stomped over to both confused girls and glared. “You, get the rest up here! Shoo!”
At this distance, Gail could just make out a strange series of scars across the woman’s cheek. Even the massive amount of foundation she had decided to wear couldn’t quite conceal what looked like four slashes across one cheek and a nearly perpendicular single line along her jaw.
“Something wrong with my face?” she snarled as she stared down at Gail.
“Sorry ma’am,” Gail said quickly as she hustled to the stairs. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a familiar pile of five files on one of the stainless-steel tables.
The woman muttered something that sounded distinctly unpleasant in Russian, but Gail dutifully ran for the next box. “She sounds like she came right out of Rocky and Bullwinkle!” Lori hissed as she caught up to Gail. “I wonder where Boris ended up.”
“Who are these people? Why are they in the lab?” Gail asked.
“Higher paid teams from other labs, I reckon,” Lewis said in passing. “We’re probably all being replaced.”
“Oh god, I can’t look for a job, not after losing Stan!” Lori moaned.
“You are panicking over nothing, and I am an expert on panic,” Gail muttered. By the time they reached the van, the new security guys were already shutting the doors. They were shooed into the building by more men dressed in black. Lewis and the doctors were all in the lobby as well.
“Wait here,” a rather imposing man told the girls.
“Yup, here it comes – the firing notice,” Lewis muttered just loud enough for Gail and Lori to hear. The lobby grew remarkably quiet even as it was filled with people. Their normal affable security guard had been replaced by two stone-faced men dressed in suits and wearing sunglasses. Only the nervous tapping of Lewis’ loafers echoed against the laminate floors. Dr. Nakano shot her assistant tech a dirty look, and even that noise quickly silenced.
Finally, the front door opened and both Gail and Dr. Nakano blanched as the tall, muscular figure of their MedCentric so-called sales rep strode into the lobby with an even larger and more imposing man at his side. Gail fought to keep her breath under control as the platinum blond supervillain wannabe stared pointedly at her boss.
“Good morning, everyone,” he said in a perfectly level, inflectionless voice. “I know some of you may know me as your friendly neighborhood medical supplies sales rep. Some of you may even know me a little bit better.”
Dr. Nakano gave him a stare that sent literal shivers down Gail’s spine. The massive blond scanned the room, pausing pointedly at Gail. He smiled.
“I suppose it is time to point out to all of you that I am not really a sales representative. My name is Ivan, and I represent the board of directors for both Biogenesys Labs and their parent company, MedCentric. I have been called in, along with my partner, because there has been a series of data breaches across the country, with an alarming number coming recently from this very facility. Furthermore, it has come to my attention that a former employee of this facility has disappeared, and that patient and financial data was found in his vehicle. Now, do you understand why this is a cause for concern?”
“Ivan,” Dr. Nakano said, as if it was a dirty word. “We are well aware that there was an issue with Mr. Williams. However—”
“However, we are not sure that Mr. Williams did not have an accomplice, and because of that, the board has assigned an additional team of consultants to review your policies, your records, and your staff, Reiko,” Ivan said.
“You have already had those three monkeys poking around—” Dr. Nakano snapped.
“Those are merely associates. This has become a family matter.” He motioned to the very large, very dark man to his left. “Allow me to introduce you to my esteemed associate, Mr. Sugar.”
“Thank you so much for the kind introduction, Ivan,” Mr. Sugar said. Unlike Ivan, he spoke warmly and with a faraway accent. He smiled broadly to the nervous crew in the lobby. “I am here to assure you all that this is merely an investigation. I know that you are all very busy, and I do not want to take up too much of your day. You have people to help, science to do, and we are in your way. I will be stopping by each of you this afternoon just to ask a few questions. If Mr. Williams indeed acted alone, then this will be only a brief annoyance, my friends.”
“And who is the other team?” Gail asked. Everyone in the lobby turned their eyes on her.
“Dr. Antonova needed some workspace,” Dr. Iwashi chimed in.
“She will be working in the second floor with her own team. We will do introductions later, Foster,” Dr. Nakano said. “Now, as you said, we are busy, Mr. Sugar. May we go back to work?”
“All except for you, Reiko,” Ivan interjected. “I think I’d like to get an update from you first.”
“Go to hell and make an appointment,” she snapped. “Everyone, back to your stations. I want the overnight results on my desk in fifteen minutes!”
“I don’t know if she is awesome, or terrifying,” Lori said wide-eyed as the assistants all hustled back into their labs.
Gail rushed to check her results and messages on her tablet. While she was sorting her last few notes, she furrowed her brows. “Mr. Sugar? Why does that sound so familiar?”
“That guy was enormous,” Lori muttered as she too hustled through her work. “I’m pretty sure his hand was bigger than my head.”
“He seemed nicer than that Ivan, though. He just looks like . . . does he look like anyone to you?”
“Like a football player, maybe?” Lori offered. “I mean, he has the face of a boxer—”
“Or a pirate, argh!” Gail offered. “I have no idea where that came from.”
“It is probably the earring,” a new voice said from behind them. Both girls jumped. Gail turned and paled as a large shadow loomed over her. Mr. Sugar smiled warmly and pointed to his rather flashy bit of bling in his ears. “Ms. Foster, is it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Don’t worry, child. I don’t bite.” At the dulcet tones of his voice, all the tension left Gail’s body. She blinked a few times as he walked over to her computer and pointed to the password prompt. “Do you mind logging in? I just want to check a few things while you take those results to Dr. Nakano. She is not the type of woman I would ever want to keep waiting.”
“Of course,” Gail said, quickly unlocking her machine. “Anything else?”
“That is all for now. Thank you. Do not worry at all. Have a lovely day and I will see you later.”
“Why yes, I think I will,” she said before taking her tablet down the hall. She did indeed have a lovely day, peacefully running blood through various tests while minding her own business. It was only when her stomach finally growled around noon that she dared pop out of her lab.
“Hey, space case,” Lori said. “Earth to Gail. I missed you at coffee and gossip time.”
“Sorry, I was just having a nice, quiet morning,” Gail said as she shuffled into the breakroom. “After the morning meeting—”
“Hell yeah. It’s been a freak show around here. Do you think that Lewis is gonna bolt next? He and Williams were all but joined at the hip. What do you bet he was the accomplice?”
“Um, do we even know there was an accomplice?” Gail asked while grabbing her frozen dinner.
“Oh, come on, why else would all those scary goons be here? Stan and J.D. off on some sort of crazy hunt for Dr. Nakano’s son? Our boring little lab has gone from zero to soap opera in just a few weeks. It all started when Dr. Nakano’s crazy son showed up—”
Gail waited patiently by the microwave, trying to focus on her mac and cheese getting all hot and bubbly rather than Lori constantly conspiracy theorizing. As her food finally beeped, Lori leaned over and whispered, “Maybe it’s actually the boss lady that’s the accomplice.”
“Yeah, sure. She’d totally risk everything and use the biggest office fuck-up when she could just access things herself,” Gail said. “If she did that, she’s probably the dumbest genius ever.”
“Good point. So, do you think you could possibly just send one teensy little text?”
“Wow, you are obsess—” Gail trailed off as she saw a morose looking Lewis flop into a lonely chair at the other break room table. As he slowly tore open his bag of fast food, both Gail and Lori looked on with pity.
