Page 75 of Deadly Strain

This obviously wasn’t the ladies’ room.

She pulled a biodegradable tissue from a pocket, pulled down her pants, and squatted over the hole. As she finished, she caught herself falling forward.

Get yourself horizontal.

Grace pulled up her pants and stumbled her way back to where she’d left her pack and sample container. Sharp was sitting next to her stuff, drinking some water. He held out the bottle and she swallowed three times.

“I have to sleep now,” she mumbled to him as she handed the water back and crawled a few more inches to collapse on the floor.

“Not there, Doc.” Sharp’s hands slipped under her shoulders and pulled her forward. God, they felt good. Too bad they weren’t alone. “How about here?” He let her collapse on the ground, only it wasn’t as hard as it should be. It was lumpy and...

Chapter Seventeen

Sharp watched sleeptake Grace between one second and the next.

“She’s out?” Runnel asked from where he sat a few feet away, sounding surprised.

“Yep, like a switch.”

“Cool,” Clark said. A couple of seconds later he asked, “What the fuck are we gonna do now?”

“Option one,” Sharp said, sitting on the stone bench next to Grace. He leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “We wait here for the situation to be cleared by a higher authority and head back to Bostick. Two, we wait here for the doc’s boss, Max, to come to us with more gear. Three, we split up, draw attention away from the doc, so she can get the samples to Max.”

“I don’t like the idea of leaving her without protection,” Clark said. “Splitting up might work for a little while, but once it’s out that she’s not with us...” He shook his head. “She’d be even more vulnerable.”

“Together we’re a larger target,” Smoke added.

Sharp frowned. “Those samples need to be processed. Whoever created this bug could use it anywhere on anyone. That’s our number-one priority.”

“This mission has been fucked up since go,” Runnel said in his deep drawl. “Too many coincidences.”

“That’s been worrying me too,” Sharp said. “I wonder if our helicopter getting shot down was more than just a lucky shot.”

“A traitor?” Clark asked.

“Or an infiltrator maybe.”