I really didn’t need that reminder. “They are not my friends,” I insisted—and realized only then how wrong that statement sat with myself. Zilinsky gave me a smirk that told me she’d noticed as well but didn’t comment. Andrej followed her after telling me that it was nice to have me back—and that left the rest of us standing there, quite uselessly. Sonia didn’t hesitate another second before she wrapped one hand around Burns’s arm, pulling him away. He went willingly enough, a huge smile plastered on his face.
Martinez stared after them, silently shaking his head before he turned to me. “Let’s get you settled then. Guess I’ll give you the grand tour, since everyone else is busy. As usual.” That last bit came out a little bitter but I didn’t ask; he’d let me know in time if it was something he felt like chatting about.
“Do you have some kind of barracks, or guest quarters?” I had to admit, the idea of a bunk bed sounded mighty fine after the last few weeks I’d had.
Martinez gave me a scandalized look. “You’re staying with me. Unless you start up that talk about that list of yours again, that is.”
Grinning, I bent down to grab my pack. “There’s no list. Just needed to make Sonia stop glaring daggers at me.”
He snorted, nodding deeper into the settlement so we could get going. “Yeah, she’s quite a handful. Reminds me of someone I know.” I gave him wide eyes and my best “who, moi?” gesture as I followed along. “But she’s good for him,” Martinez admitted, if grudgingly. “Just way too insecure sometimes. Also like someone I know.”
I flipped him off, glad that I’d donned the gloves already so it was a nice, two-handed thing. “Won’t Charlie mind if he comes back and finds me crashing on your couch?”
I didn’t know what to make of the considering look Martinez gave me but he sounded certain enough when he proclaimed, “No worries. He’s not the jealous type. Although, he still has a beef with you for abandoning him and Jason in Canada in the middle of the winter to fend for themselves.”
I felt a hint of unease creep up my spine until I realized that he was joking. “Speaking of which—did they give you or the guys any trouble leaving the base again? Because part of the reason why Nate and I skipped out early was because I had a certain feeling that Emily Raynor wouldn’t just let me walk away a second time if she got her claws into me again.”
It was obvious that, like me, Martinez wasn’t full of fond memories of the army surgeon, but he answered with a dismissive shrug. “I deeply disappointed her when I refused her repeat offer to shoot me up with the serum, but once she’d accepted that, she was pleasant enough—as much as that woman is capable of that. Particularly after the video call with you she was oozing what she thought was charm all over me. I don’t think she ever got the message that not everyone is as fond as she is of cutting-edge technology.”
It was such a bad joke that he got a loud groan from me. His answering smile was worth it, though.
Chapter 15
As we wove through the settlement, I got my first good look around. The docks were only a small part of it, with a few warehouses and other buildings easily isolated by portable barriers now shoved to the side. There was a huge gap between them and the settlement itself, and I saw machine guns on the first row of houses toward the docks, two of them manned by lookouts. The settlement itself consisted of roughly two hundred houses, two larger, barn-like structures, and several more warehouses. It was bustling with activity, making it obvious that only a fraction of the residents had been at the docks before, most others ignoring what was going on. At a first guess, I would have estimated that it held over a thousand residents—quite a lot more than the old camp I’d helped establish before my declining health had forced us back on the road.
Martinez kept pointing out things of medium interest to me, like the assembly hall—one of the barns—and the mess hall, right next to the armory—occupying two of the low, single-story warehouse buildings. They had a few stalls set up as a marketplace for nomadic traders, although that was abandoned at the moment. From what I could tell, the commune worked well with shared food and common goods for everyone, in exchange for which everyone did the tasks that needed to be done or they were best at. People around seemed to know each other, and I got my share of stares—and glares—but no one approached me directly.
We ended up at a small wooden building—very rustic, cabin-style—built close to the wooden palisades that ran in a semi-circle along the land-facing side of the settlement, turning it into a peninsula with the docks at the southwestern point. As we stepped onto the porch, Martinez picked up two cloth-wrapped bundles someone must have dropped off there earlier and carried them inside. The cabin was a one-room affair centered around a couple of sofas and chairs, with a bed in one corner, and a rudimentary triage station in another. From what I could tell, the settlement had electricity, but not for everyday use in the individual houses—and the same was true for indoor plumbing.
“We have a proper doctor as well,” Martinez explained when he saw me eye the cabinets and supplies in the corner. “But she has enough on her hands as it is. Rudimentary stuff like stitches and setting broken bones is what I do.”
“That happen often?”
He snorted at my question. “Probably more often now that you’re back with us.” He dropped the bundles on a chair in the triage station and shooed me over to the couches. “Are you hungry? We still have two hours until the cantina opens but I think I have some fruit and bread left over from earlier in the week.”
His question made me hesitate mid-motion of dropping my pack, a fist closing around my heart for a moment. He noticed, eyeing me curiously for a moment before a frown replaced it. “Right. Still no hunger, and no sense of taste?”
I shook my head, finally kicking my few possessions under a side table. “The serum did a lot of weird shit to my body, but it didn’t change that. Probably for the best—it also didn’t turn me into a great cook, and this way, only one person had to suffer through my culinary disasters.”
I got a weird look for that. “Don’t tell me you got all weirdly domestic on each other and shit. You know he’s a more than decent cook himself? If he pushed cooking at you, that was because he was too lazy, not because he doesn’t know how to.”
Snorting, I shook my head. “Oh, no. He did most of that. I’m a bit of a spectacle cutting onions, you see? And I’m gifted enough to burn water for tea, so once we settled in a place for more than a few days, Nate took over meal prep. Not that there was much to prep, really.”
Martinez chuckled. “Didn’t take him long to go all carnivore on you, eh?”
“It was easier in the winter,” I offered. “We ate preserves and dug up tubers when we found some, but not that much around anymore if you don’t tend to them. Damn herbivores, eating all our veggies! Served them right to become food themselves. I had some salad growing at our last base, but that will be all eaten or dried-up by now. Damn shame. I was really looking forward to eating it.”
“Salad trauma, huh?” Martinez joked. “Well, you’ll get plenty here if you want it. We have two greenhouses by the docks and they produce year-round in this climate, so no chance that there’s no greens on any plate handed out. Meat’s mostly chicken because they’re easy to keep, and you get the eggs as well.”
“You’d think a settlement this large would have cows and pigs, too,” I mused as I kept looking around. It took me a few moments to realize he hadn’t answered yet. When I finally looked back at him, Martinez had gone still.
“We had some,” he offered once he pulled himself back together. “But they all died in the fire. Ever heard pigs scream as they get cooked alive? Nobody felt much like starting up new stock after that.”
It was only then that I made the connection. “That’s why you’re here now? The old settlement burned down?”
He nodded. “We already had some structures built by the docks, so we didn’t have to start from scratch, but that was rough. Gave us some ideas for improvemen
ts the second time around, but not everyone did well with losing everything they owned a second—or tenth—time around.”
“Casualties?”
“A handful,” he explained. “Thankfully, we saw it coming ahead of time. Or rather, the few native Californians did, so rather than die in the fire trying to fight it, we withdrew early and tried to rescue what we could. We got the chickens out early because the pens were on the other side of town. The cattle and pigs, not so much.”
“Shit.” Fire was one of the few things Nate and I hadn’t been forced to deal with, but our nomadic first few months had brought us through a few swaths of land that had been completely devastated.
Having gotten a jug of water and some cups to deposit on the table, Martinez dropped onto the couch opposite the one I’d staked out for myself, getting comfortable.
“Had some issues with earthquakes, too, but the upside of not owning shit is that it can’t break,” he joked. “Things may look very domestic to someone who’s been roughing it on the road, but we’re a long shot from where we used to be. Not too many people felt like putting that much effort into it when we don’t know how things will be down the road.”
That confused me a little. “You don’t expect to stay here?”
He looked at me as if I’d said something crazy but then relaxed, chuckling. “Right, you probably don’t know. Half of the settlements on the coast got destroyed by the fire. And half of those that made it then got razed by the scavengers. There’s nothing between New Angeles and Salt Lake City left that’s not either a smoking ruin or openly declared support for them. The only reason we’re still standing is because Zilinsky killed not one, not two, but five of their leaders, finally making them give up and declaring us a dead zone. Since they took over New Vegas, things have quieted down in the region. People weren’t happy with Greene when he opened up the docks to them last year again, but it’s done a lot to stop the raids.”
“Shit.” There wasn’t much else I could say to that. “We had a bunch of them come to the city with us on the transfer ship. Took about five minutes for one of them to get in my face.”
Martinez offered a mirthless grin that was pretty close to a smirk. “Why am I not surprised?” He paused, chuckling. “Actually, I am. You’d think they’d recognize their prophet. So much for that.”
“Prophet?” I didn’t need to tell him that he wasn’t making any sense—and I was still missing so many parts of the picture. “Didn’t they start the new civil war because they felt I had betrayed them?”
He shrugged, leaning back into the couch. “Don’t ask me to explain their logic. The prophet thing might have started up later, once they were convinced you were dead. What do I know? They do worship you as the harbinger of doom. But don’t get your hopes up—you won’t get any support from them. You’re much more useful as a dead sinner-saint than anything else.”
That reminded me of something. “Zilinsky’s your head of security, I presume?” Who else, really? “I should probably tell her about those idiots. Greene pretty much forced me to reveal my identity, and they looked mighty pissed that they couldn’t get back onto the boat once they got dropped off on the docks. He said he expects that they will show up here tomorrow.”
“Don’t bother,” he grumbled. “She’s never not got the guards primed for defense. We’ll see if they wise up in the meantime. Else, someone’s gonna get some extra workout tomorrow. Sit back and relax. It’s likely the last respite you’ll get for a while.”
Our banter turned to other things, and got diverted again when an hour later, Sadie dropped by, happy to hand off the kid to Martinez. Chris obviously knew him well, happy to get a chance to play with her funny uncle—one of many, I imagined. Sadie watched them goof around for a bit from where she had taken a seat on a chair next to the couch—close, but not close enough to be intimate. Or maybe the difference was all in my head and I was simply imagining things. Conversation remained light, mostly centered around our shared memories of the winter in the bunker, and Sadie fast-tracked me on what I’d missed with Christine growing up.
Part of me could have spent endless hours like this, for what felt like the first time in forever relaxed and without having to watch my back. But underneath that, I was restless enough that it took a lot of effort to keep sitting on the couch instead of pacing up and down, or hunting down Zilinsky and having her order me to do something—anything, really—to get going.
When dinnertime rolled around, we took our little party to the cantina for some chow and yet more mingling. Sitting in a barn full of people, all talking over each other, set my teeth on edge. Having Sonia sitting opposite me, staring me down whenever she wasn’t engaged in conversation, didn’t help. There was no sign of Pia or Andrej, a very unwelcome lack of distraction. At least I got to catch up with a few of the others, although conversation was usually borderline painful, with stops whenever it turned to Nate, or us disappearing.
It was well past sundown by the time we made it back to the cabin, me feeling borderline overwhelmed from too much interaction going on at once. Martinez must have noticed but didn’t comment on it, naturally gravitating away from me once it was just the two of us to give me some much-needed space. I was still in my stinking clothes from the road, but upon our return, we found another bundle sitting on the porch. It had the Ice Queen’s hand written all over it. No surprise that she’d remembered my size, and calculated for how it had decreased over time in some areas. Martinez gave me instructions where to drop off what I would have otherwise thrown away, and where I could get cleaned up. As I entered the bath house, the line of tubs ready to be filled was tempting, but I got a washcloth and a bucket filled with steaming water instead, keeping it to the basics. At shy of midnight, the building was empty and abandoned, and since I didn’t need much light, I was happy to do my business in the calming dark.
Martinez was still up as I returned, if down to shorts and a T-shirt. “I hope you don’t mind?” he playfully teased me as I gave him the obligatory wolf whistle.
“Your home, your rules. Can’t stop you if you decide to sleep in the nude.”
He seemed split between cracking up and being scandalized but settled on the former.
“Perks of living in a community with gates and guards,” he remarked. “But I always keep my gear and weapons ready. You should, too.”
I hadn’t planned on undressing further than my sturdy pants, but it was hot in the cabin, even with the windows open, and seeing him in his skivvies made me feel terribly overdressed. Hesitating now seemed ludicrous since I’d already—and quite literally—dropped my pants at the docks before, but leave it to my weird mind to feel conflicted now. Martinez made a big show of turning his back on me where he sat on the bed, making me chuckle softly as I started to peel myself out of the layers I’d only just donned. “Your fault if you get nightmares if you peek,” I warned him as I got down to a similar state of undress, ditching everything except for my sports bra and underwear.
Martinez hesitated but then turned around, watching me quietly as I did my best to work stiff muscles and hardened scars. “Anything still giving you trouble?”
I was tempted to hold my hands out to him and laugh in his face, but decided to take him seriously for once. “Leg’s a bit annoying in winter, in the cold. Also because I never got the full range of motion back—too much scar tissue there, although it all healed well from what I can tell. My hip gets stiff if I sit around for too long. Most of the rest is just cosmetic. If I don’t get it into my head to participate in a bikini contest, I’m fine.”
I had been so occupied with working my leg—and no more than glancing at my fingers while they dug into the thick muscles underneath the pebbled skin—that I hadn’t realized Martinez was up until he materialized next to my elbow. His gaze was focused on my thigh as well, but unlike the look of horror that had taken over his expression at the docks, curiosity and professional calm was all I could see there now.
“May I?”
In typical Martinez fashion, he wasn’t all over my leg—or hands—but instead turned around, pulling up the hem of his shirt. In the flickering light of the candles, the white lines of the scars all over his back along the spinal column were easily visible, although I was a little envious of how smooth the surface of the skin was compared to the topographical map that was my hip and thigh. He explained what Raynor and her team had done—as far as he knew himself—and ended it with, “As you already got to see, I can walk without any problems, but running’s hard, and worse over longer distances. Zilinsky’s not entirely wrong when she says I should stay here.”
“But you won’t,” I assumed.
“Like hell.” He barked a brief laugh, mischief twinkling in his eyes. “Knowing you, you’ll need someone to put you back together after you’re done getting rent apart. Now turn over. It’s only fair that I get to gloat, too.”
“Knock yourself out.” I likely would have shied away if someone else had touched me, but with Martinez it was different. His fingers didn’t linger, mostly probing and stretching rather than anything else. He concentrated on my thigh for a while, and again my stomach with the multiple butcher lines there. He didn’t ask so I didn’t prattle off the list of internal parts I was lacking but it was hard not to remember. He rolled his eyes at me when I wriggled what remained of my toes—and stubs—at him, and ended up at my hands at last.
Green Fields Series Box Set | Vol. 4 | Books 10-12 Page 20
