Sleeves (33 page)

“Thank you. Keep my family safe,” Kel said, then helped Peanut and Casey off his lap and propelled them toward the agent. “And I want full access to them anytime I want. The same goes for them. If they want to see me, you bring them to me no matter what I’m in the middle of.”

Casey peered at him over her shoulder with a scowl. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Getting this taken care of so we can start our life from scratch. No more running, no more hiding. We live on our terms,” he said, then kissed her nose, too.

He’d intended to keep them both at his side while he worked at a cure, and it was killing him to part with them, but he realized if they were there with him, he wouldn’t get anything done. They’d be in his arms at all times.

“I like the sound of that, but—”

He stopped moving and put his finger over her lips. “No more buts. Excuses are over. We take down the fuckers that did this to us, and we move on. I love you, and you’ll be kept safe. We’ll be together constantly after this.”

She smiled through her sealed lips and his finger.

When he let her mouth free, she smiled wider. “You know you need my help.”

“Do not.”

She had this crazy glint in her eyes. “We’ll see . . .”

She picked up Peanut, followed the agent out the door and walked with confidence.

Bitch had something up her sleeve, and it was making his dick twitch.

* * *

Peanut was asleep in the corner on a lounger, and Casey was touching Kel’s ass.

“Good work,” she purred in his ear.

“Bitch, I can’t concentrate when you’re touching me like that,” Kel said. “Go back to the apartment with the boy. I’ll be there in an hour, maybe sooner.” He tried to wiggle his ass away from her hold, but the woman was gaining more and more strength every day.

She was starting to show, too.

Two weeks. He’d been working on the cure for two grueling weeks without much to show.

His goal had been to have it available and working by now.

Casey was the ultimate distraction though. She was horny as hell, and so was he.

The stress amped up his desire for her.

They were constantly making trips back and forth to the apartment at the dismay of the feds.

But fuck, he always concentrated better after he had his come exploding into her tight body.

All she had to do was give him a look, and he was flying out the door. But today, he was getting close . . . He could feel it.

“Why are you so hell-bent on working today?” She groped lower, hitting the back of his balls with her fingertips.

He yelped and jumped out of her grip. “Case—I swear to God . . . I need to keep going.”

“No, you don’t. Time for a break.” She nipped at his neck and rubbed her tits on his tricep.

Good Lord her breasts looked even bigger today. Would they leak soon? He hoped so. He kept thinking they should be doing that by this point.

And now his thoughts were on her pink, slick folds, the feel of her clit on his tongue as she writhed around him.

“Go sit with Peanut,” he told her, closing his eyes and taking a few breaths to try and clear his head of her.

“Are you putting me in a time out?” She snickered, reaching around and cupping his cock.

“Goddammit, woman. I’m working here!” He chuckled and then turned to her, grabbing her hands and pinning them to the countertop. He bent her over at the waist, leaning his chest into her back so her breasts were squished onto the cool counter. He ground into her.

“This what you want? My heavy, thick cock, leaking for you? I’m trying to work, bitch, and you’re making it impossible. I wanna get out of this depressing sterile environment so we can start being a family. Don’t you want that?”

“Yes,” she squeaked, her butt cheeks clenching.

“Then stop hounding me for sex today. I’m close, Case—real close.”

“God, I can’t help it. You smell so good, and you look better than ever. When you’re working—I don’t know—it gets me so turned on, I can’t stand it,” she confessed.

He let her up, smacked her ass playfully and growled. “You’re gonna have it all you want once we leave this shit-hole lab. Fuck, I mean, they don’t even have a full fridge in here.”

She rolled her eyes. “Picky asshole.”

“Slutty cunt.”

She laughed, smacked his chest and roamed over to Peanut, swaying her hips suggestively. “Hurry up, will ya?”

“Whatever you say.”

“Maybe I’ll go visit Marie when Peanut’s awake,” she shared.

“Fine, fine—yeah, good.” His eyes were back on his work.

“Do you need any more blood from her?”

“Huh?” This couldn’t be right!

He curled around the microscope, placed another drop on the slide, and he’d done it.

The cure was his.

“Yeah, but send her to me. I wanna ask her some questions. You say hi to her, then take Peanut back to the apartment. I’ll be there soon. I promise.” He fought off a smile.

“Forget it—I’ll leave now. I can see you’re sucked into your work again, and I’m so horny, I may just start humping your leg like a dog. And since I want to keep some shred of dignity, I should go.” She picked up Peanut, and he curled himself around her, dropped his head on her shoulder, yawned and waved at his dad before Casey exited the lab with him.

Kel’s heart was in his throat; trapped there.

He had to do this for his family otherwise the feds might keep them indefinitely for their own sick experiments.

This was their key to the lock on their cage.

Kel grabbed a syringe, hid it and his arm under the ledge of the counter, and injected it straight into his veins.

He gasped at the icy feel of it slipping through the passages.

How long ‘til it worked? How long ‘til he was back to normal?

His head tingled and his sight went fuzzy for a moment. He was dizzy, so he sat his ass down and set the syringe on his lap.

Mom would be here soon . . . He had to get a needle ready for her and figure out how to get it inside her.

Would she fight him off? Could he convince her, or would he have to administer it against her will?

He wasn’t sure how long he sat in a heap, but when he looked up at some point his mother was standing there, gaping.

“You did it?” she asked so softly, he barely heard her.

“Yeah. I’ve done it.” His cheeks were moist. Had he been crying?

He couldn’t remember.

“Give it to me,” she said, holding her right arm out, inner arm facing up. She was striding up to him like she might not stop and collision wasn’t a factor in the swift movement of her feet.

She slid next to him, leaning her lower back against the edge of the counter.

“You’re sure?” He gazed up at her through his wet lashes.

“Yes.”

He prepared a vial and syringe for her.

For a moment, he paused, considering keeping it from her. If one of them was still infected with the serum, then they’d have a way to bargain. He could leave his mother behind for these vultures to dissect. After all, didn’t she deserve that as penance based on the shitty decisions she’d made over the years?

But then she gave him a look of complete faith and pride, and he swallowed his heart back down, setting it back in place, bringing his humanity back.

“Okay . . .” He gripped her wrist, and none too gently, he slipped the needle into her vein and plunged that shit right into her without another thought.

She hissed as it went in.

While it emptied into her, she went pale as a cloud, her skin almost looking translucent, and she crashed into him, her breath gone.

He pushed her body up onto the counter. Vials, petri dishes and other glass containers plummeted off the counter and crashed to the ground.

Kel checked her vitals, and there was nothing. No pulse—no warmth.

He began CPR and yelled for help.

Moments later the doctor and her two assistants ran inside and took over.

They kept saying words like she’d coded and they needed a defibrillator, so Kel rushed out and barked orders at the nearest person. He told them what the medical team needed, but by the time he got back in the room, his mother was breathing, her color had returned, and she was sobbing about how everything was different now.

He was at her side in the next second, asking questions. “How do you feel?”

“Better because it’s worse. I can feel my disease is back; my heart’s struggling and my kidneys are failing . . .” She smiled and her head lolled from side to side. “It worked, honey. It worked. You’re a genius!” Her arm struggled to lift, but she found a way to cup his cheek. “I love you!”

And then she was taken out of the room on a stretcher by two men.

His heart was torn, and all he knew was he loved his mother, and he’d probably just killed her by giving her the antidote.

Fingers trembling, he reached for two more syringes and two more vials, pocketed them and then his legs were straining, running to get to the rest of his family.

It wasn’t too late.

He could save his unborn child from ever being an unnatural creature. Casey could have a normal pregnancy and Peanut a standard childhood. His mother hadn’t been built to withstand all she had, and now it was all crashing down on her without the crutch of the serum holding her together.

No one should be allowed that. Not even his family he loved dearly.

His heart pounded as he shoved the door open to his apartment and found Casey asleep on the couch with Peanut’s head in her lap.

He pulled out the syringes, got them ready and approached his sleeping victims.

Two more . . . Two more and then he’d eradicate what should’ve never been.

No more experimental super-soldiers, and his life would be his—no one else’s.

Chapter 16

Casey felt a prick and a sting, but when she rubbed her arm, the bug that had bitten her was gone.

She yawned, stretched and went back to sleep, but when she woke she was no longer on the couch. She was in bed, tucked up against Kel’s hard chest.

Something was wrong though. She could tell he was awake, but he didn’t have his perpetual hard-on. What was going on?

She flipped over, looked up into his eyes, and saw nothing there.

They were lifeless.

Her heart stopped and her throat constricted. “What’s wrong?” she croaked.

“Nothing. It’s over.”

“No cure?” She sat up, shook her head and set her hand on his chest. “Oh, no, baby. It’s not hopeless. We’ll keep trying.”

“No, it’s over. I created the cure and gave it to you already.”

Her heart crashed through her body and ricocheted around in her stomach, making it tighten and go nauseous.

“What do you mean you already gave it to me? How?”

“Injected it in your veins and Peanut’s, while you were both asleep,” he intoned. He stared past her.

Her veins fed her misplaced heart icy sluices of sludge. “What . . . I don’t understand.” She sucked in a gasp. Her mouth went dry. “How could you . . .” She jumped out of the bed, paced at the foot of it, gripping her hair at the roots on the back of her head. “You fucking gave me a cure without my consent?”

“Yeah. I had to.” He continued with his robotic act.

“What the fuck were you thinking? What if I lose the baby now? You may have . . . Oh God!” She clutched at her heart and crumpled to the ground, then held her stomach with her hands as she rocked and cried. What if her ovaries atrophied or disappeared completely? And if this baby within her died, she’d never have another chance to bear his child. “How could you? How could you?” she chanted, sobbing on the floor. “Our baby!”

He slid off the bed, moving with a graceful ease that for some reason pissed her off.

Her eyes turned to slits and the moment he was near her, that heart of hers exploded into flames. She pounded her fists on his chest, scratched at his face and howled vicious words at him.

“You goddamn asshole! I trusted you! I love you and this baby and Robbie, and now I might lose this pregnancy. What if that serum was the only thing making my body hold it together? What if you just messed up the baby’s gestation? It might be deformed, and I’ll miscarry! You bastard! I hate you!” She screamed so hard her head pounded and her vision clouded.

He pulled her into his arms and within seconds, he was crying harder than she was. “I had to . . . I’m sorry, baby, but I had no choice. If we stayed that way, the government would have a reason to own us.”

“They will anyway. They’ll get ahold of that formula and inject it back in us,” she said, believing her words with her entire being.

“No. I won’t lead them to the facility,” he vowed.

“Doesn’t matter—because
I
will! If you want it destroyed completely, then we have to bring them there. Otherwise we’re running again from those monsters instead of the feds, only now we’re weakened.” Her chest convulsed as a fresh wave of racking tears took over.