Green Fields Series Box Set | Vol. 4 | Books 10-12

by Lecter, Adrienne

  It was impossible not to notice how a few of them kept staring at my fingers—probably because getting fidgety did a thing or two to draw further attention to them—so I decided I might as well take that out of the equation and started putting on the gloves again, which wasn’t much less of a spectacle but would put an end to the stares. When I looked up again, the crowd had started dissipating in earnest, the only people remaining were who I didn’t mind so much getting stared at by—plus Burns’s plus one, who still scrutinized me as if I’d tried to steal her lunch.

  My gaze was inadvertently drawn to Sadie and her kid. I still couldn’t tell whether it was a boy or girl, the large, blue eyes and wheat-yellow hair not helping at all. The kid was fascinated with my hands, covered as they were now, but in a curious rather than scared way. At a little under two and a half years, that was likely no surprise, but not scaring the shit out of the little bugger was a bonus. Sadie was momentarily distracted by talking to two women who kept hovering close, but must have caught me watching. I felt a twinge of disappointment when she grabbed the kid and hoisted it up to her shoulder, but rather than turn away, she stepped toward me, briefly checking that the kid wasn’t scared.

  “This is Chris,” she said, looking from the kid to me. “Well, Christine, but I doubt anyone’s ever going to use that except for me in full-on wrath-of-mom mode. Since she’ll never know her dad, I figured the least I could do was give her his name.”

  Deep in my chest, I felt the familiar, painful twinge, but it was hard not to smile when the kid gurgled a laugh at me. I stopped fighting it as soon as I realized I was doing so. “Hey, Chris.” I addressed the girl herself, speaking softly. Glancing from her to Sadie, I couldn’t help but snort. “I know telling you she looks just like him is what people do, but really, she’s an adorable little girl, she doesn’t look like anything else.”

  Sadie flashed me a bright smile that reminded me of the girl she used to be, before life had forced a little more responsibility on her than she must have been bargaining for. “I know, right? It’s so weird, and I doubt I’ll ever get used to it. I mean, sure, there’s a very good reason why her dad was her dad, but leave this little cutie pie out of it.” The smile dropped away and she inhaled noisily, as if she was steeling herself for something.

  I spoke up before she could. “I am really sorry we weren’t there for you. And I know I’m speaking for Nate, too, even if he may never say so in those exact words. As things turned out, I wouldn’t have been around either way. But for what it’s worth, it’s one of my biggest regrets.”

  It was obvious that she was still struggling with letting go of what must have been years of festering anger in minutes, but her shaky exhale as she nodded in agreement as much as acceptance made me relax just a little. “Yeah, looks like you’ve added a few of those to your list. Regrets, I mean.” Her gaze had dropped to my hands briefly, but she did her best to keep a straight face. “Would have been nice if you’d have left a message, but…” She trailed off, looking over at where the Ice Queen and Andrej were still busy talking animatedly with each other. “Guess I can see why you didn’t.”

  I shrugged, not sure what to say. “I figured someone would tell you. Then again, Nate would say your obvious disappointment with us was likely the best he could do to keep you safe.”

  She chuckled briefly. “Yeah, it’s something he’d reason.” Her unease visibly flared up, almost making me laugh. “I know you’ll get him back,” she offered, unintentionally pulling her daughter closer. “If anything, he’s too stubborn not to hold out. He wouldn’t just die on you like that.” She had the grace to wince. I couldn’t help but ask myself if she was actually talking about Nate or thinking of Bates. Neither of them could have expected that when they left the bunker with us, they wouldn’t return.

  “I know,” I offered, trying to chase away the ghosts of the past. “Hey, we’ve been together going on four years. If he survived that, he’s practically invincible.”

  “That’s the spirit!” I heard Burns say behind me. That was all the warning I got before I found myself caught up in a crushing hug—that I reciprocated in turn. Much softer, almost as a murmur, he went on. “Damn, it’s good to see you again, girl!”

  “You, too. You, too,” I replied, then pushed away before the burning in my eyes could turn into more. Chances were, they all still thought my eyes were super sensitive to light so I could have used that for an excuse, but I had the suspicion that once the waterworks started, there would be no holding back.

  As I’d expected, the woman whose name I still didn’t know was glued to his side, her disapproving glare almost making me laugh since it had gotten even worse. It was only then that I realized the likely cause of it. Grinning broadly, I offered her my right hand. “Bree, as you undoubtedly know. Nice to meet you…”

  Her glare was on my hand now, and she obviously had no intention of shaking it. Burns saved the situation—if not without a lot of mirth—by reaching across her shoulders and mashing her into his side, holding her arms captive so she would have had to fight him to be able to reach for me. “This is Sonia,” he introduced her. His grin turned feral as he looked her straight in the face. She returned it with an uppity stare that held quite a lot of challenge. Rather than say more—which she obviously demanded—he leaned in and kissed her, and that wasn’t a chaste peck on the nose.

  I had a hard time not laughing out loud, and mostly to distract myself I glanced at Sadie. She caught my gaze and smiled, but soon rolled her eyes when that kiss was still going on. She playfully held her free hand up to pretend to shield her daughter’s eyes. “Guys, either cut it off or take it elsewhere! Nobody wants to see that!”

  Burns finally pulled away a little, giving Sonia a private, intimate smile that made my heart seize up for reasons entirely independent of the display in front of me, before he looked back to me, still holding her close. “My wife.”

  “Good for you!” I punched his arm hard enough to force him to take a step back to steady himself. The action put a confused look on Sonia’s face, which was both priceless, and made me want to punch Burns in earnest. “And none of my business,” I told her in no uncertain terms. “Just like any other woman who he’s ever looked at, or whatnot, which interests me even less! Don’t let him get under your skin like that. We’re friends—good friends; maybe best friends, but since we’re not in kindergarten I hope I don’t have to bother with such qualifiers. Good friends who have seen each other naked way more often than they care for, thanks to us living in the glorious times of zombie bites. But he’s never been anything but a big brother to me. Seriously, if we were the last two people on earth—and that scenario is problematic on so many levels, including the human gene pool needing thousands of individuals to make it, but that’s beside the point—there would be no consideration about repopulating the planet going on. Also ignoring that I couldn’t be part in any repopulating, anyway, but that’s a different story.”

  I got a truly shit-eating grin from Burns for that. “You wound me,” he drawled, looking around. “Really, the absolute last? What about Martinez?”

  Our medic, who’d slowly drawn closer, gave Burns a semi-crazy look. “Leave me the fuck out of this.”

  Burns obviously had no intention of doing so, turning back to me. “Between him and me, who’s last on your list?”

  That didn’t need any consideration. “Still you. One-hundred percent.” Burns gave me a hurt look—which Sonia thankfully missed since she was smiling at the face Martinez was making.

  “Why?”

  The twinge of annoyance in his tone made me laugh. “Because he’s actually nice to me, while you’re mostly a jerk. I know that he has less than zero interest in banging me, but I’d do it, as a favor, you know? Would be damn traumatizing to be stuck with you and me as the last people around. He could, I don’t know, always close his eyes and pretend it’s someone else giving him a blowjob—”

  “Stop it!” Martinez shouted, clapping his hands o
ver his ears. “You’re traumatizing enough with other people still around as it is!”

  Sadie snickered, and it was only then that I realized that, just maybe, I should use different language around a kid in her formative years. She noticed my wince, which made her grin as she spoke to her daughter. “Yeah, you’re learning all the interesting words first, aren’t you?”

  Martinez finally joined us, rocking to a halt between me and Sonia, still plastered against Burns as she was—which couldn’t be coincidence. It also gave him the perfect excuse to hug me—no less bone-crushing as Burns—when I smirked at his move. And, fuck, I needed this! So, so much. And judging from how he refused to let go even after we’d gone past the polite five-second mark, I wasn’t the only one.

  “Yeah, I’m starting to see what you mean,” Burns remarked, laughter in his voice. “Should I tell Charlie he has a reason to get jealous? It sounded reasonable at the time that he went north to Utah earlier this week, but now I’m not so sure about your motives.”

  Martinez kept hugging me for what I was sure were an extra few spiteful seconds before he let go, trying hard to wipe the conflicted look off his face now that I could again see his expression. I stared right back, not quite sure what to say. It was obvious that I wasn’t alone with that. Cracking a sarcastic smile, Martinez briefly glanced at Burns. “Asshole didn’t tell us anything, you know? Just showed up one day, told us he’d dropped off Gita down in New Angeles, and that you two weren’t coming. And that was it. Nothing about what you had been up to in France, or why you’d decided not to tag along.”

  “It wasn’t my story to tell,” Burns interjected, sounding not the least bit apologetic. “Didn’t take a genius to figure out they had a reason, so not shitting all over that by running my mouth seemed like a plan.”

  It was obvious that this had in the past led to considerable tension between the two men—and from what I could tell, that wasn’t the only thing that had changed. Romanoff and Zilinsky finally joined us as well, and after both hugged me—Andrej a little longer than the Ice Queen, but hers felt warmer, for whatever reason—they stepped away a little, creating some physical space as well as emotional between the others, except for Sadie. That it was all easy for me to pick up on didn’t bode well. Collins, Moore, Clark, and Santos also joined us, leaving it at nods and good-natured slaps on the shoulder. I noted the odd guy who, in any other settlement than here, I’d have figured was a guard hang back a little but none came over, and they eventually wandered off.

  Sonia had stopped glaring at me, but with the Ice Queen joining us, she seemed to gain a new focus for her ire. Pia ignored her, of course, but she didn’t seem as relaxed as I would have thought. “You trust those four you came with?” Pia asked me, but also included Burns in her question.

  “I don’t know shit about the rookie,” I offered. “But the other three, mostly, yeah.” Burns seemed pretty amused by my statement.

  Pia, less so. “You mean the lieutenant?”

  I couldn’t help but snort. “Please ask him to his face next time we meet. I think his age is a sore spot for Red.” No need explaining that nickname to anyone, or that I of all people was prone to dish them out. “Richards may be young but he’s a smart cookie. And the only thing I can hold against him is that he followed his orders a little too closely for my liking.” Zilinsky’s eyebrows shot up, and I was quick to fill her in. “Hamilton pretty much decided to let the rest of us die down in that fucking maze of a lab if he just got the samples out that he was tasked to get. Richards helped him with that. If not for Nate and Tanner making a stand, we all would have died in there. He did come with us after the fact when we went back to get Nate out, but it was too late for Tanner by then. I know, I have issues with officers who let their people die and prioritize the mission objective, so I’m the wrong one to ask for a character assessment, but even if Hamilton is asshole enough to do so, there was no reason for Richards to follow along.”

  Burns, for once, objected. “Hate to be the one to rain on your righteous parade, but if we had died, Hamilton would have needed backup to get back to the coast.”

  It was obvious that the Ice Queen was still trying to get the whole picture from my remarks—Burns seemed to have included her in the no-talk policy, which would explain why she was distant toward him—but she seemed to agree with him. “Miller more than once complained that it was the norm that the mission parameters forced his hands where the objective was valued higher than any of his people’s lives. That was cause for a few altercations before he decided to take his leave. It’s also the reason why he still has people ready to do what he says even though they could be doing whatever the fuck they want to.”

  I’d known there was a reason why Nate, even as persona non grata of the nation, had had a pull when we’d established our little scavenger group officially, but everyone had forgotten to mention that to me.

  “Does this mean I’m really the only one who thinks Hamilton deserved to get his teeth kicked in for acting as he did?”

  “He generally does,” Andrej offered, sharing a grim smile with me. I knew why I’d missed him.

  “Yeah, that,” Burns said, but changed the topic. “What happened to your epic grudge of the ages? How come he’s not number one on your list? Any list, really.”

  I was irritated at first but this absolutely bore repeating. “Richards told me he was killed a while ago. I know, ruined the moment for me, too, when I learned of that. Wanna tag along to find and desecrate his corpse? I’d be up for it.”

  Zilinsky, as usual, ignored my joking, although this time I was half serious. “What did he do? The short list; I know you—and him—well enough to know that sticking you in the same group with him in command must have caused lots of strain.”

  Another thing Burns seemed to have neglected to mention—and I couldn’t remember how much he even knew. I vaguely remembered him noting the strangulation marks on my neck on the destroyer, but couldn’t remember much from the early days—except for the pain. It seemed unlikely that Nate had spilled the beans, though.

  “He’s dead—what does it matter?” I pointed out. The Ice Queen would have none of that, but before she could do more than breathe in to better chew me out, I gave her a blank stare that I hoped was a good imitation of Nate’s. From the way she visibly drew up short, I did okay. “And even if he was still alive, that’s between him, Nate, and me. Really, mostly between the two of them.” It was a little too close to home—and probably answered her question though I tried to avoid it—but there was another detail she needed to know. “Which reminds me—they’ve developed a new version of the serum; probably more than one, but when we got up to Canada, they shot me and Nate up with the new one. They’ve managed to get some mind control shit working that the version you all are inoculated with is useless against. We’re presumably immune to that.”

  Several of our group looked alarmed at the news—and I didn’t miss how Burns narrowed his eyes at me, but I chose to ignore him—yet Zilinsky thankfully refrained from badgering me for details. “I’m more surprised they didn’t use that back in my day,” she grumbled, although she kept watching my reactions closely. “But none of that has anything to do with our problem.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” I agreed with her. “And I sincerely hope I’m not getting you all killed with this. I don’t think Nate would appreciate that any more than I would.” Although rescue would sound wonderful to him—after weeks. Just thinking how long it would be until we could launch a rescue attempt made my stomach flip.

  Zilinsky’s hand on my shoulder made me jump. Her expression was surprisingly gentle. “He knows that you’re doing everything in your power to get him back—because that’s exactly what he would be doing for you.”

  “But that doesn’t change anything in the meantime, now, does it?” I harped. “We’re both equally to blame for it, but I’m the one gallivanting all over the country, doing what feels like nothing. He doesn’t have that same luxury.”

&n
bsp; Now her expression turned that very typical kind of pinched that I’d missed so much, although it still made me feel guilty. “Stop being so stupid. If he had the choice, he would always choose you to be free. Don’t make me regret saying that, but I think I prefer it, too, because he was one miserable fucker to be around back when you got captured by Taggard and his men. You got through that, too. He will, as well.”

  I knew she’d said that to make me stop in my whining, but in many ways, thinking back only increased my latent anxiety and frustration. Those days had taken a lot out of me and they’d left scars—and that had been days; I’d been separated from my people for less than two weeks, and a consequential part of that I’d spent running through the countryside or hiding in that damn settlement, afraid but mostly safe. Nate had been gone for almost a month now—and who knew how long it would take us to set our plan in motion and execute it?

  I knew that thinking about that didn’t do anyone any good, least of all Nate, so I forced myself to focus on the things that mattered. “How many people do you think you can reach? And how many do we need to stand a chance for it to work?”

  Pia glanced at Andrej for support, but ended up responding after Romanoff just shrugged. “Twenty at full fighting strength. And that won’t include a few who will volunteer.”

  She didn’t even need to look at Martinez—or Romanoff. Or Clark, for that matter—for our medic to speak up. “Like hell I’ll remain behind just because I can’t run a mile in under ten minutes! The bloodier you expect the fighting to be, the more you’ll depend on support that hasn’t just dragged themselves out of the hot zone in need of being sewn together themselves. I’m coming along. Don’t even try me to tell me not to.”

  Andrej agreed with him, but I noticed that Clark seemed less enthusiastic. From what I could tell, they all looked fully functional—and a lot better than the last time I’d seen them, although I was pretty sure that Romanoff had gone blind in his injured eye—but I’d only been here for half an hour and hadn’t seen them do more than a few steps of walking. Zilinsky looked ready to put up a fight but dropped the point after a few seconds of glaring at everyone. “I’ll get on the radio and see who I can reach. But don’t keep your hopes up for more. And that’s hoping that your new friends won’t kill us all when we meet them, and whoever they dragged along for support.”