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  THE SMUGGLER

  The Dregs Book 4

  Leslie Georgeson

  Copyright © 2018 Leslie Georgeson

  This is a work of fiction. The events and characters described herein are imaginary and are not intended to refer to specific places or living persons. The opinions expressed in this manuscript are solely the opinions of the author.

  * * *

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite e-book retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Other Titles by Leslie Georgeson

  About Leslie Georgeson

  Connect with Leslie Georgeson

  DEDICATION

  For Shalini G,

  Who is many things:

  Beta Reader,

  Blogger,

  Reviewer,

  Lover of books,

  Friend,

  But most importantly, she is honest,

  She is real.

  Shalini knows books.

  She knows what works and what doesn’t.

  She understands plot and characterization.

  And she’s not afraid to point out major issues.

  Without Shalini’s input,

  without her much-appreciated feedback,

  this series would not be nearly as successful as it is.

  So, thank you, Shalini, for your honesty,

  For your opinions and your feedback.

  This one’s for you, girl.

  Even the most damaged of souls can find happiness.

  Enjoy!

  THE SMUGGLER

  Discharged.

  As a soldier, that was the thing I dreaded most. Being discharged. War, fighting, and killing were my life. What I did best.

  But now I’d been discharged. My physical injuries were minuscule. But my mental injuries were severe. PTSD. That’s what they said. I was messed up inside. Loco. So now I am a dreg. With nothing to do. No purpose in life. I will waste away like this. I need action. I need violence. I need war.

  I find all of that when a gorgeous redhead tricks me. She’s a bounty hunter. How did I not see that one coming? Now I am a captive. Chained like a beast. I will escape. I will get revenge and make her pay. I will get the violence I crave.

  Then she frees me. And the tables turn. Now I’m in charge. She’s my prisoner. I can’t lose this battle. I won’t let her win. Because losing means she’s taken something from me, something I don’t want to admit I even had to begin with.

  A heart.

  PROLOGUE

  Tony

  I was fourteen years old the first time I saw someone die.

  Christopher. My roommate at the facility.

  A somewhat gawky kid, he’d just returned from the lab after another round of tests. We both had. I’d been feeling sick to my stomach from the drugs they’d pumped into me, so I’d gone to my bunk on top to lie down.

  Christopher had seemed fine at first.

  Then, the bunkbed started shaking from his movements below me. I leaned over the side to tell him to knock it off. But the words froze in my mouth.

  His body was convulsing, his limbs quaking. He was foaming at the mouth, white shit oozing past his lips. His eyes rolled back into his head while I stared. He kept flipping and flopping around on his bunk like a fish out of water. Desperate for oxygen. Drowning.

  He gasped. Then lay still.

  I cringed back. Horrified.

  But strangely, fascinated. Curious. What had happened? How had he died? As morbid as death was, I found a certain fascination in it. The way the chest stopped rising and falling as the breaths ceased to emerge from the lungs. The heartbeat stopped and the skin paled. The jaw fell slack, the mouth agape. The eyeballs stared creepily ahead, unblinking.

  And the spirit left the body behind.

  These were my own personal observations with Christopher, so I can only relate these incidences with his death. Later I learned that eyelids only stay open if they are open at the time of death, but if a person dies while asleep, then the eyelids stay closed. And hey, I was only fourteen at the time, so some of my observations may have been a bit exaggerated by the imagination of youth.

  I watched Christopher’s soul leave his body that day. He floated upward and away with a barely perceptible shift of air. Then was gone.

  But I saw it.

  Christopher came to me later that night while I was in bed. He hovered around me, a ghostly vision.

  “Death is way better than the things The General did to me.” His voice sounded the same, though a bit breathier than usual. “I’m glad I died. I couldn’t take it anymore.”

  A sadness filled my chest as I stared at his ghostly vision. He’d been a good friend. “I’m sorry,” I murmured. I personally didn’t want to die. I didn’t want to join Christopher in the spiritual realm. But I also didn’t want to undergo any more tests in the lab. I had to be stronger than him. Tougher, more resilient, if I was going to survive.

  He shrugged. “The afterlife is better. There’s no torture. No violence. And I have free will. I can do whatever I want. Good luck, Tony.”

  Then he was gone. Poof.

  This first experience with death taught me that the human body was weak. Easily wounded. Easily destroyed. It was a lesson that would serve me well in the future as a soldier for The Company.

  The General didn’t give me much time to contemplate Christopher’s death before he hooked me up with a new roommate. Ushering me down the corridor to a cell at the opposite end, he unlocked it and thrust me inside.
I tensed, preparing myself for battle.

  A boy about my age rose from the bottom bunk. His gaze was curious. Not unfriendly, which was a change. Most of the boys here didn’t like me. I was different from them. Darker. I’d learned to ignore the racial slurs over the time I’d been a prisoner here, but they still cut. Every single one. How could they not? Spick. Wetback. Beaner. Greaseball. Tacohead. I’d been called those, and more, many times over the past year. I didn’t want to be different, but there was no hiding the color of my skin. I’d been in more than a few scuffles with the other boys here. I wasn’t one to turn the other cheek. A scrapper by nature, I always fought back. Verbally and physically. I never backed down.

  My new roommate—Nate—was the same height and build as me. Our facial features were so similar, if I were lighter skinned or he were darker skinned, we could easily be brothers. Nate didn’t treat me like I was a spick or a beaner. A wetback. Not once did he ever call me a derogatory name. Not once did he ever treat me with disrespect.

  Nate was a lot different from anyone else I’d ever known. There was a maturity about him, an acceptance, that made him appear older than me, yet at the same time, he somehow seemed so innocent, unblemished, when compared to me. There was an openness about him, a sincerity I hadn’t seen in anyone else before. I, on the other hand, kept my secrets.

  Nate had never witnessed anyone die yet. He didn’t know what it was like to see someone’s life ebbing away. How gruesome. How fascinating. How…sad.

  How final.

  Maybe that was why he’d retained some innocence.

  Nate and I hit it off almost instantly. He was just an easy guy to get along with. He was calm to my hot-headedness. A thinker compared to my wild impulsiveness. I was blunt, blurting out my thoughts as they hit me. He spoke carefully, thinking about what he said before speaking. We were opposites in every way. Yet our friendship grew with each day, our bond close. Over the years, Nate helped keep me sane. He helped me control the urge to lash out and fight with everyone who snubbed me. He helped me to turn the other cheek.

  Though my past had been erased with memory-suppressing drugs, my subconscious knew I’d never been the recipient of any type of kindness in my life. Violence and brutality were all I knew. No one had ever loved me. No one had ever cared.

  And then my dreg talents revealed themselves.

  My talents were cooler than all those assholes who’d slung racial slurs at me over the years. Most of them didn’t receive a special talent like me. Most of them ended up being nothing more than foot soldiers, security for the facility and The General when he went places. Only a select few of us were special. Dregs.

  I was still different from all the other boys at the facility. But now, I was different in a good way. Once The General discovered what I could do, he praised me for the first time ever. I finally felt special. Useful. Important.

  All the experiments I’d undergone, all the painful injections of numerous drugs and animal DNA had turned me into something unique.

  I was now The Smuggler.

  I could disappear. Literally. I could become invisible for short periods of time. And I could escape from nearly any situation. My joints were more flexible than the other boys’. I was like a contortionist, though slightly different. And no locked door could keep me out. If I wanted on the other side, I simply imagined myself there, and used my energy to get me there. I was a true magician. Without the tricks.

  But through it all—the harassment by the other boys, the trials and the experiments and the injections—Nate accepted me just as I was. He became the brother I never had. The best friend who soon knew all my secrets.

  Well, except for one.

  I could see ghosts. I could talk to dead things. And they talked back.

  I never told anyone about that. Not even Nate. Fearing ridicule, fearing everyone would think I was crazy, I kept the ghostly sightings and communications to myself. I especially didn’t want it to get back to The General, who would discharge me, then shoot me in the head.

  That was what he did to discharges. Shot them in the head. That’s not how I wanted to go. A bullet to the brain.

  So I kept my secret even from Nate.

  Christopher was the first ghost I saw and talked to.

  But he wasn’t the last.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Thirteen years later…

  Tony

  A dreg shares a bond with his partner that is so deep it can never be broken.

  We felt each other’s emotions, each other’s pain, and when one of us needed to talk, the other always listened.

  Well, usually…

  I paused outside of Nate’s apartment door and contemplated the big “DO NOT DISTURB” sign he had stuck to the door. The sign let me know loud and clear that he didn’t want to be disturbed. I was his dreg partner, his brother, his best friend. Yet at this particular moment, he wanted nothing to do with me. Nate didn’t want to be bothered. He was spending time alone with Alissa. He was in love.

  I didn’t begrudge him his happiness. I was glad he was happy. I really was. He deserved to be happy. I’d grudgingly admitted that Alissa was worthy of him. Now I thought of her as the irritating little sister who was always underfoot. But I liked her. Truly, I did. As long as she made him happy, then I was more than okay with her hanging around.

  I sighed. Without Nate, who did I talk to? I had never felt more alone than I did right now. Nate had always been there for me. Always.

  But I wasn’t about to disturb him, not with that sign on the door.

  The only reason Nate was still here was because of me. He wanted to leave with Alissa, go somewhere far away. But he was worried I might snap and do something harmful to myself. So he’d stayed here in the underground maze. Out of loyalty. Out of duty. Out of obligation.

  Yet, he didn’t want to be disturbed.

  It had been a rocky past few weeks for me. I’d been at my lowest low. I had even wanted to die at one point.

  Not anymore. I was over my stupidity. I’d allowed myself a momentary weakness, but now it was past. Even so, sometimes I just needed to be around my dreg partner. Nate helped soothe the riot of emotions inside me. A few encouraging words from him was generally all I needed to get my spirits back up.

  I’d only been out of bed for a few days now, after recovering from being beaten nearly to death. Nate and Alissa had both given me CPR, then a blood transfusion, each of them donating enough blood to keep me alive. My other dreg brothers had also risked their lives to save me from being an idiot. Luke and Logan had been injured in my rescue, but thankfully, they both were fine now.

  I’d fucked up. Royally. I’d done an incredibly stupid thing. I’d gone rogue. I’d gone after one of The Company’s shareholders on my own. I’d had the man in my sights before a small boy had come into the room. I couldn’t kill the man in front of his kid. I’d balked. And the man’s guards had captured me. They’d beaten and tortured me nearly to death, before handing me over to the Spartans.

  I was only alive today because of Nate and Alissa.

  The voices of the lost souls were strong tonight, relentless in their harassment. Rarely did they leave me in peace, but tonight they were especially persistent.

  Everyone thought I was “loco” and I let them think that. I wanted people to think I was crazy. That way they kept their distance, which was the way I liked it. I couldn’t become attached to someone who stayed away from me. The reason I’d earned that title was because someone at some point had likely overheard me talking to a ghost and had decided I was a mental case. I’d been discharged because a psychologist had determined I was mentally unstable and unfit to continue as a soldier for The Company. Maybe I was a mental case, maybe I really was “loco”, but the ghosts were real. I didn’t imagine them. I swear.

  And right now I needed my best friend. I needed to talk to Nate.

  But right now, Nate wasn’t available. He didn’t want to be disturbed. Would he no longer be available? Would he alway
s be too busy with Alissa now to pay any attention to me?

  I eyed the “DO NOT DISTURB” sign for another moment, then turned away. I wasn’t about to intrude on his “happy time” with Alissa. I would find another way.

  I’d gone only four steps down the dark corridor before Ryan and Luke came out of Ryan’s apartment, stepping into my path. They were all spiffed up, their hair styled with gel and looking like preppy rich boys, dressed fashionably in Polo shirts and new jeans, with canvas loafers on their feet. They even smelled good, their cologne wafting over me, nearly choking me, it was so strong.

  I coughed. “Fuck. What’d you do, take a bath in that shit?”

  Luke snickered. “Maybe if you wore some smelly sauce once in a while, you’d get more action.”

  I glared. “Fuck off. I don’t need that kind of action.” I’d just taken a shower right after my bout with Noah in the ring. Why would I need any cologne?

  “Sure you do.” Luke grinned. “That’s why you’re so cranky all the time. Your poor dick is probably shriveled up from lack of use. You need to get laid, man.”

  I glowered. Pendejo. I took a threatening step toward him, my gaze hard on his.

  Ryan wedged himself in between us. “Hey, hey, he’s only joking, you know that. Seriously, Tony. When was the last time you got some?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t remember.”

  Luke guffawed, slapping his thigh. “I knew it! His dick is gone!”

  Ryan sniggered, but he shoved Luke back out of the way. “Why don’t you go with us? We’ll help you, man.”

  Luke smacked me on the arm. “Yeah. Come on. It’ll be fun. We’ll show you how to pick up chicks. Tonight, you need some action, buddy. It’ll be good for you after lying in bed for so long.”

  I balked. “Shouldn’t we be lying low for a while? There are gangs hunting us now.”

  “Not where we’re going,” Ryan said. “There’s a small bar in Eatonton where the hot babes hang out. It’s perfectly safe. We’ve been there many times. And we always score.”

  I purposefully kept my distance from women. Not because I didn’t like them. I had found sex to be addicting, and I tried to refrain from doing anything that could become habit-forming, anything that messed with my head. The truth was I loved women’s bodies. Their softness. Their curves. Their smell. Their taste. They were way too addicting. They messed with my head. They made me weak. So I stayed away. Far away. I hated weakness. I didn’t want to show any weakness in front of my dreg brothers. They all thought I hated women. And I let them think that. It was better than letting them know the truth.