Page 1 of All of Me

Chapter One

Seven months after One Step Sideways

Shae

Picking up the last four trays of soda in one go made my back twinge. I tried not to think about what it might do to the rest of me, because despite being enhanced, as the world called it, thanks to the fuckers who had experimented on me, I now had heart problems.

No wonder Drake wasn’t interested. Everyone else called him Ringo, but he’d told me to call him by his proper name, which I thought was special but just showed how pathetic I was.

I knew it was a military thing, all the nicknames. But then only Drake called Diesel by his surname of Rawlings, when everyone else called him Diesel.

Drake had been cool while I was at Diesel and Pink’s home, but the first time I’d laid myself open to him—andshit, had that been humiliating—he’d shut me down faster that I could run. Then he’d bailed.

Which, long story short, was why I was working at Dave’s Deals and basically carrying shit for minimum wage. I knew I wasn’t supposed to with my heart issues, but as Dave said, I couldn’t work the register because the scar would scare customers away, so I was stuck being his stock assistant. He was my tenth place that had a “help wanted” note in the window, but all the others had taken one look and basically told me I didn’t have a chance. Some had been obvious, some just made excuses. Dave had taken one look and nearly salivated. I found out why that first day. Because I was enhanced, I was basically expected to do the work of three people. One had quit because Dave was such a shit. He’d fired another after I started, and of course I did Dave’s work as well, because his lazy ass never moved from the register and expected me to do everything else.

Pink would have wrung her hands in worry and tried to make me rest and feed me. Diesel would have been disappointed, and that would have probably been worse. Diesel was the dad I never really had, even if he wasn’t technically old enough, but because of that, I couldn’t sit around on my ass all day and eat their food.

And all of that was the reason I was living in a dump and had lied to Diesel and said I was sharing with one of the other guys from Dave’s Deals. Not that sharing with Jez would fly as he wouldn’t spit on me if I was on fire, but I guess losing your job because of someone else when you’d done nothing wrong would burn. I didn’t blame him.

I didn’t blame him for the threats, either. He was so mad when he’d stormed out of Dave’s office, he’d marched right up to me and told me I’d better be looking over my shoulder.

But I was out of choices. The most fucked-up thing was that the doc had told me I wasn’t to use my ability at all for the next six months because it might put too much strain on my already fucked-up heart. The delivery today had taken me three hours to put away. If I’d have been able to speed up, it might have takenten minutes max, but apart from not wanting to fuck my heart up more, I wasn’t going to do anything Dave might see. Who knew what he’d demand of me?

I was home by seven and the pack of cheap instant microwave meals that sat in the fridge wasn’t really appealing. I knew I’d lost weight, according to the last doc’s visit, and no one was happy about that either.

Maybe tonight, just to cheer me up, I could spring for a pizza? 911 Pepperoni was downstairs and despite them being thin and crispy when I really preferred deep-pan, it was cheap and they would run up with it so none of their customers would see me.

I grabbed my cell phone and sent a text to Marty, then grabbed my cash. The knock on the door came in ten minutes and I hobbled over there, every muscle in my body screaming. I didn’t even have so much as a damn chain, so I unlocked the door and opened it.

I wasn’t prepared for the punch that knocked me on my ass.

Drake

Why the fuck Diesel insisted on seeing me after the job was finished, I had no clue. He usually gave us a few days off and it wasn’t like looking afterLater Maybeor training their new permanent bodyguards had been challenging. In fact, the worst thing about the entire job had been listening to their wall-to-wall sugar-sweet pop songs. If I heard their breakout single one more time, I was likely to break something myself.

I let myself into the apartments Diesel kept for the team and eyed the stacked boxes. After stepping over the pile of them, I walked into the kitchen and bent to give Sadie, Danny’s service dog, a belly rub when she rolled over. Danny rushed into the room, dragging Kane with him. Not that Kane looked like he minded, and Magic, their lab puppy, barreled in right behind them.

I grinned because his paws were huge when he planted them on me. “You’re gonna be a big boy, huh?”

“We’re heading to the new place because I forgot to measure the closet,” Danny said in a rush. Kane rolled his eyes, but with affection.

“I can help move you guys tomorrow,” I offered, because they were getting their own place with a yard.

“It’s covered,” Diesel said, joining them. “Besides which, I have something else for you.”

Groaning, I sat down. “What happened to a few days off? Four months,” I whined. “Please just tell me it’s not some pop group.”

“No,” Diesel said. “It’s Shae.”

Everything in my body stilled, including my lungs. In fact, it was only when my chest grew tight that I realized I needed oxygen and inhaled. “What’s Shae? What’s wrong?” I barely managed to resist bringing my hand up to my chest and rubbing it.

Diesel sighed. “He’s killing himself.”

“The fuck?” I rose to my feet and started turning until Diesel’s hand clamped around my wrist.

“Wait. Don’t go running over there without the facts.”

I paused, then went to the fridge and grabbed a couple of beers for us both, convinced I was going to need it. “Tell me,” I demanded.

---