Page 17 of He Is Jensen: Part One

A breath rushes from my lungs. “You’re only one man in a sea of soldiers.”

“I can handle myself. I’ll be the brawn. You be the brains.”

I think of that SAT sample test and say, “I seem to remember you being pretty smart.”

“I get by well enough. I’m going to look around for some food. One thing about being GTECH is we need a lot of food. You may well be the same.”

“I’m a little hungry.”

“I’m ravenous,” he says, winking, his eyes alight with mischief. “I better find that food before I distract you.” He pushes to his feet and walks behind me to the fridge.

His black eyes are a bit unnerving, but they don’t really freak me out, either. They might show off the way every demon in a horror movie shows off, but he doesn’t feel evil, which matters to me despite the fact that science is not about feelings at all.

“We have sandwiches and sandwiches as options,” he announces behind me.

I glance over my shoulder. “Sandwiches it is, then.”

“The options are turkey or turkey, but as a bonus, you get store-brand cheese slices.”

A few minutes later, he sets a plate with two sandwiches in front of me, as well as a bottle of water, and I count four sandwiches for him. “This is a snack,” he says. “I’ll need about double this to keep going.” He motions to the files. “Anything good yet?”

“At this point, I’m just stunned that we allowed such experiments to take place. It makes me question so many things about our government.”

“It was really one man. Powell.”

“I don’t believe that,” I say, rejecting that idea. “There are too many power-hungry people in our government willing to sacrifice a few people for the greater good. You have no idea how many times I’ve had to lecture people about the risk/rewards of alien organisms.”

“Well, I guess you’re staring at one big alien organism. And I can tell you that Julian and his followers see themselves as the stronger race. The price humanity is set to pay for that risk/reward wager is bigger than any of them imagined.”

He's right, and it’s terrifying. I hold up a sheet of paper with my instructions. “They want me to find out why people are dying from ICE usage, and not from withdrawal, but just randomly dropping dead. I guess that’s not good for the street drug business.” I swallow hard against the dryness in my throat. “I guess the idea is that I’m working against the clock. I could be next.”

“You’re not going to die,” he vows softly. “I won’t let it happen.”

It sounds heroic and amazing, but we both know he can’t save me. Only science can save me, and what these monsters want of me could take years, even decades, to figure out. And that’s with an entire team of scientists, not just me. My only hope is that I’m not one of the people who randomly die. I must fight.

Chapter thirteen

Layla

“You need to eat.”

I blink up at Jensen, wondering how in the world we ended up in each other’s lives again. It feels impossible, and yet here we are, and for just a moment, I’m transported back to that Texas library where we met, sitting across from him in casual conversation while wondering what it would be like to kiss him. Only the fantasy kiss of way back when has transformed into a flashback of my fleeting glimpse of him gloriously naked.

He arches a brow at me, the twinkle in his eyes indicating my expression reveals far more than I wish, and I delicately clear my throat. “I see stress doesn’t affect your appetite,” I comment, noting his second large stack of sandwiches. “And I assume the orange juice has to do with the chronic vitamin C deficiency the documents reference in a multitude of ways?”

He finishes off half the glass. “Yes. I can attest to the fact that GTECHs have a chronic vitamin C deficiency and a rapid metabolism that requires fuel. Lots of it, and often. If ICE users were the same, you’d have eaten that sandwich.”

“So, you’re stronger and faster than a human. And you can travel in the wind?”

“Yes. Exactly.”

“What else?”

“If you’re asking if I have an extra special skill, as a few of the GTECHs like Julian do, no. I do not. Not yet, at least. It seems as if we’re still evolving, whatever the hell that means. Even the healing process has changed.”

“I saw that in the file. You heal quickly, but over time it comes with an illness.”

“Yes. Brutal hours of healing. And, as for what else is changing, believe it or not, Julian wasn’t always a crazy fuck as he is now. It happened after he developed the ability to communicate with wolves.”

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