“Anyone know what this is about?” Nico asked as he stood next to Marc, surrounded by Jugs on all sides in the Sierra Company dormitory. They’d been pulled away from planting the first crops of spring to report for a last-minute briefing. Murmured speculation made the crowd buzz, and Nico’s head ached with the din, his ears straining for an explanation.

“Listen up, people!” Captain Valentino, Sierra’s CO, barked from the doorway of the dormitory. The soldiers fell silent with gratifying speed and snapped into as neat a standing order as they could manage, considering they were crowding between bunks. Nico tried to follow suit. Valentino rocked on the balls of his feet, a smirk lifting the corners of his mouth and his eyes glinting with something Nico couldn’t understand, something eager that he would have called glee if it hadn’t left him feeling vaguely afraid. “We’ve got marching orders,” he drawled. “Seems the military government in Colorado Springs is having a little trouble providing security for the civilian population, and they’ve asked for our help.”

Zach! A hundred questions flooded Nico’s mind, all of them concerning what was happening in Colorado Springs and if it meant Zach was in trouble. But something about the captain’s wry delivery electrified the crowd. Everyone felt it and grew a little stiller. Then they subtly started drawing away from Nico, and he felt their eyes flitting toward him.

“What?” he hissed to Marc, who—more than anyone in Sierra Company—had finally warmed to him. Marc looked anxious, his eyes flicking from the captain to Nico and back.

If Valentino caught the undercurrent, he gave it no heed. “Last spring, when we overthrew the guards and took over operations here at the CDC, the lieutenant colonel made a promise to all of us. He knew we had families we wanted to check on, to see if they’d survived, to make sure they were safe. He promised us if we held tight for a while, let them think we were still under their control, built up our supplies, waited for an opening, we’d get a chance not just to be free but to deal with the people who did this to us. Well, this is our chance.”

Nico closed his eyes, resisting the urge to smack himself. Suddenly everything that seemed odd about the way the quarantine was being run made sense. The Jugs were only pretending the CDC was still in charge; no doubt they had control of all communications in and out of the quarantine facility. They wouldn’t have let the government keep them imprisoned indefinitely.

No wonder they acted like he might be a spy.

No one’s attention was on Nico now, though. As Valentino spoke, the tension in the barracks transformed to a rage that echoed the anger in the captain’s voice. The whole company quivered with it.

But for all the fury under his words, Valentino spoke gently. “I’m not talking to you now as your CO. Let’s face it. There ain’t no Army anymore. Neither the lieutenant colonel nor I can order you to do anything here, any more than that illegal martial law committee running the show inside Cheyenne Mountain can give us orders. But I figure all of us stuck around for a reason when we could have taken our freedom and gone. We wanted our shot to handle the people who infected us without our permission, who unleashed this virus that’s killed billions of people. Now we got a chance to see it through. Are you with us?”

The roar was deafening. Nico wanted to shout along with them. Finally, finally someone was going to do something to bring McClosky and his cohorts to justice. But that sense of him being on the outside, of not being a part of the team, was stronger than ever. Why were they even allowing him to hear their plans? Didn’t they still think he might act against them?

When the yelling and cheers subsided, Valentino’s eyes settled on Nico. “There’s someone here who knows what the picture on the ground is in Colorado Springs.”

Nico froze.

“Rumor has it, you’re not a big fan of McClosky and his ilk,” Valentino said calmly, as if he’d never suspected Nico of being a plant or a spy. “What do you say? Want to go all in, help us take them down?”

Nico licked his lips and considered for a moment. When he pulled up images of Colorado Springs in his mind, what he saw were the intimidating, featureless masks of the armed and suited guards, whose authority over the quarantined population was as unassailable as it was terrifying. A part of him still felt that intimidation, still felt there was no hope for the people stuck in those pens against the people who kept them there.

If he helped the Jugs, he could be sending them to their deaths. Not only theirs, but possibly the deaths of the civilians in Colorado Springs. Even Zach’s. All it would take is one wounded Jug, and it would be all over for everyone except the Jugs, who couldn’t reproduce. Within a generation, humanity would be no more.

It was an unconscionable gamble.

So why did every part of him pulse with the need to tell them everything he knew?

Stupid question. If the Jugs scattered, he’d never see Zach again. Which he shouldn’t even be contemplating doing, anyway, except— What was happening in the Clean Zone that was so bad the military government felt the need to bring the Jugs into the fray, and how was it affecting Zach? If Nico didn’t help the Jugs, was it possible that he was leaving Zach to his own devices in a situation even worse than what they’d encountered in quarantine?

When he looked at it that way, it didn’t seem to be much of a choice at all.

“I’d given up hope that anyone would ever try to bring McClosky to justice.” He pitched his voice so they could all hear, kept his attitude relaxed but intent. “But I was in quarantine most of the time I was there, so I’m not sure how much information I can give you. They didn’t know until I’d been there for a couple months that I was like you.”

It felt strange to say that, to claim a place among them. Even now, he couldn’t call himself a Jug. Even if they hadn’t suspected him, he didn’t have the history they did, hadn’t trained and served with them, hadn’t been misled into accepting the Bane Alpha virus that would change his life and forever make him an outcast. They had an esprit de corps that only extended to him to a certain point.

And yet they were offering him that place, and he couldn’t bring himself to reject it. Especially not now.

“I can speak to the conditions in quarantine, but I never saw the inside of the Clean Zone proper,” Nico continued when he knew he had their attention. “I know they confiscated all our weapons when we arrived, and all our supplies, so Cheyenne Mountain has anyone who enters quarantine by the balls. I don’t know how things have changed there since I left seven months ago. I suspect they’ve deteriorated heavily if the committee is calling in reinforcements with as much potential for disaster as we pose.”

Valentino nodded. “Will you tell us what you can?” he prompted.

Nico grimaced and looked around, trying to catch as many eyes as he could.

“I’ll tell you everything I know.”

The journey through Tennessee and Missouri was miserable. The early spring heat wave was bad, but most of Nico’s agony stemmed from knowing he might see Zach again. Maybe even touch him again. But what about the future beyond that?

Well, maybe he could lay at least one worry to rest.

He picked up his pace, moving up the column of double-timing soldiers to catch up with the member of Sierra Company he knew best. He’d be more comfortable talking to Kaleo about this, especially since he’d confided in Kaleo about Zach. But Kaleo was marching with Delta Company alongside Schuyler. They were both doing much better than they had been the day he’d first met them in the storehouse. It was obvious to anyone who saw them together how attached they were to one another. Kaleo was like a big, smitten puppy, and Schuyler regarded him with all the affection and occasional exasperation she might have shown an actual puppy.

“Hey, Marc?”

“Hmm?” he answered as Nico shouldered his way into formation next to him. The column shifted effortlessly to accommodate the change.

“Question for you. I know we can transmit the Beta strain in our blood. Does anyone know if we can transmit it in any other fluids?”

Marc gave him a sideways look, his eyebrows coming up. “You mean like, saliva or jizz?”

“Yeah.”

“Why d’ya ask?”

Nico swallowed. “Well, if this works out, we’re gonna be around a bunch of non-Jugs once we get to Colorado Springs, right? If someone were to get involved with one of them . . .” He let his voice trail off suggestively.

Marc snorted. “All winter, you’ve been turning down everyone who wants to get in your pants, and now you’re thinking of boning a civvie? You got some sort of fetish?”

Nico sighed and shook his head. “Never mind. Forget I asked.”

He was about to fall back when Marc said, “Talk to one of the medics. They got the full briefing. Being around civvies hasn’t been an issue for us, yet, but now I suppose it’s something we all ought to know.”

“Right.” Nico nodded. “Thanks.”

That night, their progress was halted early by several roadblocks through Nashville they needed to deal with, and then a trio of revenants who’d been drawn by the noise, and later a clutch of survivors intent on killing anyone who entered what they considered to be their territory.

The Jugs looked sickened, though not as much as they had the first time they’d encountered revenants on the way out of Atlanta. They were obviously deeply upset to see just how much destruction their lethal blood had wrought, even if they had been powerless to stop what had been done to them. Their anger and determination for a reckoning grew sharper, a little more vicious as they burned the revenant bodies. Their fury was keen enough that once they had subdued the civilians, they flat-out refused to travel any more that day and made camp.

When they were settled in for the night, Kaleo picked his way through the maze of bedrolls on the ground and plopped down next to Nico.

“Hey. Coming down okay?”

Nico blinked at him. “Coming down?”

“Our adrenal responses are all fucked up now. Part of the changes: once we go into fight or fli—well, there’s really just fight for us, and then there’s not one of us who’s decent company for hours after.” Kaleo gave a helpless shrug. “Fucking it out is a good way to let off the residual tension.”

Nico laughed softly, remembering that day he and Zach had encountered the revs in the parking lot, and the bizarre, out-of-control lust that had followed. The way he’d ravished Zach against the truck in a maddened haze. “Yeah, I think I’ve experienced that. Good to know there’s an actual reason for it.”

Kaleo nodded. “Heard you were thinking of fucking a civvie,” he segued gracelessly.

Nico rolled his eyes and sighed at the inevitability of gossip traveling between companies. “You know exactly who it is I’m thinking of, and why.”

“Yeah, I do, which is why I took the liberty of feeling out Xolani on the subject for you.”

Nico sat up a little straighter. “What did she say?”

Kaleo grinned. “That the magic ingredients to trigger the mutation from Alpha strain to Beta are air and the clotting factors of an open wound. Unless you’re actually bleeding, you can’t transmit Beta.”

Thank you, God, Nico thought, unconcerned at the moment with his own agnosticism. “Thanks.” He offered Kaleo a grateful smile. “I appreciate you asking for me.”

Kaleo plucked at the grass. “Yeah, well, don’t exactly thank me yet. She says Alpha isn’t airborne, but no one knows if it can be transmitted in other fluids. I assume since you kissed your guy and he didn’t become a Jug, that’s safe, but I wouldn’t recommend fucking him or letting him swallow unless he knows what he might be getting himself into.”

Nico shook his head. “He doesn’t want to be a Jug. I know that for sure.”

“Well, then, guess now you know where to draw the line.”

Nico closed his eyes after Kaleo had gone, sighing. Not sure I’d say that, pal.

The Jugs were not permitted entrance to the underground facility within Cheyenne Mountain. Those massive gates, large enough for huge trucks to pass through, remained tightly shut. Instead, they were quartered in a large hotel resort not far from the mountain.

The hotel had been emptied when the home quarantine went into effect at the first outbreak of the pandemic, so there were no dead bodies to be disposed of, and aside from dust and the musty smell of disuse, it was generally quite clean. It afforded more privacy than the dormitories in their previous prison had, as well. Apart from the fact that some of the Jugs were wearing CDC guard uniforms and patrolling the perimeter to maintain the appearance that the Jugs were under the CDC’s authority and control, it almost would be easy to think that everything was normal.

No one had questioned the ruse, yet. As far as anyone was concerned, the Jugs were brainlessly following orders without the slightest qualm or hesitation. Which was exactly the way the Jugs wanted it.

The only problem now was how to actually get to the decision-makers inside the mountain.

At least, that was the only problem for the rest of the Jugs. Nico had another concern altogether. His entire being had begun pulsing with the need to find Zach the moment they had crossed the state line into Colorado. Where was he? Was he all right? Would they be able to find a way to see each other?

He tried not to sigh too loudly as he flipped in his bed in the hotel room he was sharing with Marc, who was presently snoring beside a guy from—was it Bravo Company?—named Paolo Chockly. They both came awake with a start when someone rapped softly on their hotel room door.

Apparently, Nico wasn’t the only one on-edge.

Nico got up to answer, though whoever was standing outside could have just walked in. They’d had to break the latches off the hotel room doors when they’d set up their quarters, since the electronic locks no longer worked.

“Invite me in?” Captain Valentino’s voice dripped seduction, and his eyes were intent on Nico’s, compelling him to pick up on some unspoken message. He reached out to trail a hand up Nico’s jawline and cup his face, leaning in close to breathe against Nico’s ear, “Cheyenne Mountain guards at the end of the hallway. Pretend this is a social visit.”

Ah. That made sense. Nico tamped down a surge of amusement and a wry comment about how his new life as a Jug was beginning to resemble his life from before the pandemic. Smiling as if the captain were a client he was focused on seducing, Nico slid his hands around either side of Valentino’s waist and down to his hips, hooking his fingers through the belt loops to tug him forward. He walked backward, keeping them pressed groin-to-groin and nuzzling Valentino’s neck until he kicked the door closed behind him.

He dropped back the moment he was sure they had privacy, gratified to know his skills hadn’t gone entirely rusty. At least, not if the swell beneath the gray urban camouflage of the CO’s fatigues was any indication.

“What’s up, Captain?” Marc demanded, unconcerned with his own nudity or that of his companion as he crawled out of bed to dig through their mingled, discarded clothing.

“Chockly, I want you to get back to Bravo Company and help your CO spread the word that we’re ordered to muster tomorrow at daybreak. We’re gonna accompany the Clean Zone security forces inside the perimeter to confront some civvie insurgents they suspect of stealing and hoarding weapons.” Marc’s companion nodded briskly at the directive and began pulling on the clothing Marc had handed to him. Valentino gave him an approving look. “Try to make it look like you’re playing musical beds when you spread the word. We want these fuckers thinking we’re undisciplined and lazy after sitting in quarantine for almost eighteen months. Let everyone know their security forces will be wearing hermetic suits in case someone takes a shot at us. If the signal goes up, first order of business is to about-face and rip their masks off. They don’t get a shot off at us without sacrificing their own, got it?”

“Got it.” Nico, Marc, and Chockly all responded in unison, and Chockly left. Valentino waited in Nico and Marc’s room, not quite looking like his nerves were on-edge but clearly lost in thought. For which Nico couldn’t blame him. The Jugs had no time or opportunity to do recon or form a strategy. They needed to strike quickly, decisively, before anyone had a chance to suspect them, and definitely before they were forced into a confrontation that could endanger the civilian population.

Finally, after some minutes, the captain gave Marc a jerky nod. “Okay, you next. Go look like you’re trolling for company and get the word out. I’m gonna keep up appearances here with Nico for a while.”

Once Marc was gone, Nico leaned against the wall on the opposite side of the room from Valentino, who had his arms crossed over his chest and a frown pulling down the corners of his mouth.

“Captain, do you, um— Did they mention the names of any of the people we’re going up against?”

Valentino shook his head. “We were told insurgents. Nothing more. They say these people have been getting the drop on patrols, stealing weapons and supplies, terrorizing their neighbors to keep quiet about their activities.” The CO sighed. “I’d be a lot happier if we had a better picture of what’s actually been going on down here.”

Nico nodded in sympathy. He’d been racking his brain since they arrived, hoping to think of a way to get a message across to Zach, if he was even still— No, Zach was fine. Hopefully fine in a way that meant he was keeping his head down and he wouldn’t be one of the people they were being sent up against tomorrow.

Valentino opened his mouth and drew a breath to add something else when a solid knock on the door made them both jump.

“Expecting someone?” the captain asked tersely, his hand dropping to his hip as if he was reaching for his sidearm, though no one had given them access to weapons yet. Nico shook his head, shrugging into a shirt he hadn’t bothered with earlier, while Valentino slipped back into a shadowy corner behind the door.

Two people wearing hermetic suits stood in the corridor, and Nico swore he heard one of them gasp when he opened the door. Neither of them bore markings from the CDC, which meant they were from Cheyenne Mountain.

“Can I help you?” Nico asked.

Only one of the guards spoke, reaching back with a restraining hand as if to prevent the other from saying anything. “Nico? Maybe you recognize my voice? I’m Private Gillett Morris. I was one of the guards who checked you and Zach Houtman in when you arrived?”

Nico nodded cautiously. “I remember.”

The guard looked both ways down the corridor, where at the ends, members of the Jugs’ escort detachment were watching curiously. “We need to come in. I have orders from General McClosky to be here.” Nico’s back stiffened, but Morris dropped his voice as low as he could and still be heard through the mask. “Or so your guards think. Please.”

Nico swallowed and stepped back to allow them through the door. Morris closed it carefully behind him, and the moment it was shut, the other quarantine guard with him began tearing at the latches securing the hood of his suit.

The tousled, dark-auburn hair that emerged, fringing stunning, anxious aqua eyes, drove the breath from Nico’s lungs like a fist to his chest.

“Zach?”

The hood dropped to the floor with a thunk, and Nico’s hands were grasping the sides of Zach’s flushed face, fingers weaving into his sweat-damp hair. His body moved to Zach’s like a magnet pulled to true north, heedless of the suit, only needing to touch and kiss and see for himself that Zach was truly there.

Hours could have passed before they broke apart if Morris hadn’t interrupted them. “Zach. We need your suit. Sierra Company’s CO and I are gonna brief on the situation in the Clean Zone in his room. You’ve got an hour.”

Nico had been too focused on Zach to notice Valentino had already emerged from the corner to confront Morris, or to hear Morris’s replies. But apparently Morris had told the captain something worth hearing. Valentino took Zach’s suit so two suited figures entered the room and two suited figures exited. Then Zach and Nico were alone, each staring into the other’s eyes in stunned disbelief that it had turned out to be so effortless for them to find each other. He wanted Zach so badly that he was almost hesitant to touch him again, too overwhelmed by the need to have all of him to even know where to begin.

“Nico—” Zach’s voice fractured, and that was enough to break through the emotional and psychological deadlock that kept Nico standing back. “I didn’t even know if you were still alive,” he gasped between kisses. “But when Gillett came and told us the committee had called in something called Juggernaut, I’d hoped—”

Nico muttered something so unintelligible that not even he knew what he was saying, or meant to say. All he knew was that there were too damn many layers between his skin and Zach’s, and they only had an hour. He worked to fix that problem with shaking fingers. They could talk or they could touch, and right now the answer to that particular dilemma was so self-fucking-evident it didn’t bear considering.

Clothes gone with a minimum loss of contact between his mouth and Zach’s, Nico got Zach on the bed beneath him and tried to glue every inch of his skin to every inch of Zach’s. It was too damn much trouble to locate Marc’s lube to get Zach inside him, and he didn’t have to worry about Zach merely being in the presence of his semen anymore, so he urged Zach to grip his hips with his thighs and thrust against him in time to their urgent kisses. Sweat slicked their way, and grunts and moans provided a soundtrack to the frantic rutting. Zach’s fingers dug into Nico’s shoulders, careful to avoid even an edge of nail, until Nico wrenched his mouth from Zach’s and buried his face against Zach’s damp throat, shuddering and spilling, slick and hot, between their abdomens. A moment later, Zach followed suit, his cry sharp and choked off and his arms threatening to fracture Nico’s ribs as they clamped around him.

“I love you. I love you. Oh God, love you so much,” Zach whispered, the words a prayerful chant carried on panting breaths between kisses. Then his voice cracked, and he hid his face against Nico’s shoulder. “I was so lonely without you.”

Nico’s eyes burned, and he rolled off Zach so that they could entwine facing each other on their sides. His blood still pulsed deafeningly in his ears, but he wiped away a tear that had rolled down Zach’s temple. “I know, cariño. I know.”

Nico could practically feel their precious, limited minutes ticking away, each one speeding by and bringing them closer to having to part. He still needed answers, as loath as he was to break the mood between them.

“Tell me what’s been happening here.”

Zach’s arms tightened around Nico, and he shook his head as if he didn’t want to speak. But eventually he raised his head and answered. Nico listened to his recitation with mounting rage. So few survivors of the pandemic, each one a precious, irreplaceable resource, and the military government was willing to risk them all by throwing the Jugs at them because they dared struggle against grift and corruption?

“More people are resisting paying the protection rackets,” Zach said, winding down. “It’s summer, so food isn’t going to be quite as scarce. We’ve tripled the size of the community and yard gardens, and half the people in the Clean Zone are doing a crash course in food preservation. But we lost a lot of people to malnutrition over the winter, especially those who were already weakened by other illnesses.”

Nico swallowed against the clench of fear in his chest. “How active are you with the, um, resistance?”

Zach’s silence was its own terrifying answer. “I had to do something. I’ve stopped working in the clinic with Chantal because I don’t want to compromise her neutrality, but after I saw Traverse try to murder Gillett . . .” He shrugged helplessly.

“I understand.” Nico forced a smile, though he desperately wanted to tell Zach to get his head down and keep it down. “How did you end up here? I mean, why did you and Morris come?”

“We took a gamble.” Zach laced his fingers with Nico’s, leaning his forehead on Nico’s shoulder. “Gillett’s position is still secure. He’s been trying to feed us as much information as he can on the activities of the corrupt guards and what, if anything, the military government is doing about it. The answer is not a damn thing. Honestly, they seem to think their responsibilities begin and end with making sure no one who’s infected gets through the perimeter, and overseeing the ration deliveries. And even that . . .” He heaved a troubled sigh. “I don’t know if they’re so much corrupt as they are clueless, or maybe guilty of a criminal level of self-interest. They’re prioritizing the remaining government and military personnel for rations and medical supplies under the theory that they can’t protect us if they’re too sick or starved to function. It doesn’t seem to register with them that we’re not going to be able to build the population back up and carry on with reconstruction if people can’t carry pregnancies to term or aren’t healthy enough to work in the gardens. I don’t think they realize the corruption of the gangs and the guards that protect them has become so widespread.”

Nico nodded. “Okay. But that still doesn’t explain why you came to see us.”

“Gillett was promoted this year. He oversees a security patrol squadron now, so he’s included in briefings. After the recent riots, they were told that the military government was bringing in reinforcements from Atlanta, a special ops battalion called Juggernaut. Gillett didn’t know what it meant, but I did. I knew we were in trouble if people ended up fighting the Juggernaut soldiers, especially if they managed to wound one. So Gillett and I came here hoping to talk to the commanding officers and explain what really has been going on inside the Clean Zone.” He gave a troubled grimace. “I don’t know if it will make a difference, but if we could just keep them from hurting anyone or being put in a situation where one of them might be wounded around the civilian population—”

“Don’t worry. The Jugs never had any intention of fighting the civilian population.” Nico smiled tightly as Zach’s head came up, his eyes widening. “I can’t speak for what Valentino’s going to tell Morris, but I suspect what he’ll encourage is for you to spread the word for the civilians to keep their heads down and stay out of the way while we take care of the security forces and then move on the military government.”

“The government?”

Nico nodded. “This doesn’t go beyond you and me, but there’s going to be an overthrow here. The martial law decree was never legal. The committee has no legitimate authority. There’s no way the Jugs are letting the people who did this to them—to everyone—stay in power. Billions of people have died. Someone is going to answer for it, and a new constitution and civilian government needs to be formed. No military dictatorships, especially not by this military.” He sat up and gave Zach a fierce look. “I mean it when I say to stay out of the way, Zach. You know what can happen if any of us is wounded. If there’s another outbreak of the Beta strain—”

Zach’s face was pinched, and his eyes shone wetly, but he nodded. “I know. I don’t know how I’m supposed to just hole up somewhere while you’re out there fighting or dying, but I’ll do what I can to keep everyone else safe.”