Free Infected: Lesser Evils by Andrea Speed Page B

Dominik) in a Southwestern desert landscape, usually on or near a road. Every now and then there was a plaque or a sign, declaring “Isolation is a place” or some pretentious shit like that, but then they came to the photos where he was lying on black strips of asphalt with his pants pulled down to expose his ass. “Is he gay?” Roan wondered, trying to make sense of the photo in front of him.
    “No. He’s very vain, though.”
    “So I’m gathering. The composition’s nice, but why’s he humping a road?”
    “He’s not humping a road.” Dylan paused, and leaned in to study the photo more closely. “Is he? Oh dear god, tell me he’s not humping a pothole.”
    “I can’t tell from this angle. Is this a stage of madness? Is he so crazy from isolation he’s now fucking a freeway system?”
    “I—” Dylan shook his head helplessly. “I am now scared. Is it wrong of me to hope he’s on drugs?”
    “If he’s not on drugs, he should be put on them immediately.”
    When Dominik showed up around seven, he was wearing black sunglasses and an apricot orange ascot, and Dylan had to hold Roan back from going over and strangling him with his own scarf. Not because he hated him—he didn’t know him well enough to hate him—but because he looked like such a pretentious prick Roan almost couldn’t stand it. He was having a full-body allergic reaction to this guy, but rather than seize, his hands were making involuntary fists, and he had to resist the urge to shout, “Roadhumper, nice of you to show up.”
    Dylan had decided they’d had enough, and he went to greet Dominik before they left. Dominik treated him with an almost fey curtness, and he seemed to have a slight hint of an obviously fake Eurotrash accent. Rather than introduce himself, Roan gave him a toothy smile, and asked, “So, you bleached your butthole, huh? Just for the photos, or is it a hobby?”
    Dylan quickly grabbed him and hustled him out the door as Roan shouted, “Ta ta, toots. Great ass!”
    Once outside, he exclaimed, “I can’t believe you’d say that to a friend of mine! Do you want to—” It was here that Dylan had to stop talking because he was laughing so hard. He leaned against the stucco outer wall of the gallery, and Roan joined him, mainly chuckling at Dylan’s response.
    After a moment, when he caught his breath and wiped away tears from his eyes, he asked, “Did he really bleach? I didn’t notice.”
    “I think he shaved too.”
    “Oh god,” Dylan replied, laughing again. Once he’d gotten a hold of himself, he said, “I love you, hon, but I can’t take you anywhere.”
    “No, you can’t,” Roan agreed. “I’m too much of a smartass.”
    They shared a smile at what was now a private reference. After all, hadn’t Dylan told him he was too much of a smartass to become a lion permanently? Maybe he had a point after all.
    They went home, mainly so Dylan could change and get to work. Roan found out Rosenberg had called him back, but her message was unexpected. “I’m testing a theory, but I need fresh infected blood, so get over to Saint Joe’s.” What theory? And why the hell was she at Saint Joe’s? He tried calling her back, but he went straight to machine again. Damn it.
    So while Dylan left for Silver, he took the bike to Saint Joseph’s Hospital, figuring if he got in a wreck on the way, she could have all the blood she wanted.
    It took him a bit to track her down, but he found her in the hematology lab. As soon as she saw him, she ordered him to take off his coat and roll up his sleeve, but he told her she wasn’t getting one drop until she told him what this was about. It seemed to put her out, but she told him she suspected that there were chemicals in the toxin isolated from Ava’s bloodstream that reacted a certain way to the virus, but she wanted to test it in real time, hence his blood. That seemed reasonable, so while she took some, he told her about “burn,” and his theory that maybe it