He was standing far enough away that even at the weird angle that my cheek was pressed into the now-bloody floor, I could see up to his face. Recognition lit up his expression as he quickly took in the scene. I could only imagine what was unfolding in front of him—my limp body, twisted on the ground, lying in a spreading pool of my own blood, with a knife sticking out of the lower right half of my back. Two agonizingly slow heartbeats he simply stood there, considering. If I could have screamed, I would have done so, more out of frustration and helplessness than anything else.
“Ah, screw it,” he muttered, and a moment later, he was kneeling by my side. He was smart, hesitating a second to see if I moved. Only then did he check my pulse, and when that must have been inconclusive, he held a hand in front of my mouth and nose to check whether I was still breathing. I did my very best to push air out of my lungs to make it easily detectable, but my body was hell-bent on shutting down. Hamilton’s eyes narrowed as he stared into my face, likely disappointed that I didn’t sneer back at him—either alive so he knew I was still in there, or dead so he could finish me off. He prodded my shoulder but I couldn’t react. His expression twisted into a deeper frown, concentration pushing away his usual look of misgiving as he must have been running through a few mental checklists.
“Something’s not quite right about this,” he said to himself. Sadly, I couldn’t give my opinion—also not when he reached out and grabbed my breast, and he really did get a good feel. None of the mental protest made it into a physical signal, not even my indignation managing to rekindle my anger, also because the move made no sense. That was, until he got his flashlight out and directed it right into my eyes, making a different agony explode in my head. “Thought so,” he muttered as he clicked it off almost immediately, dropping it mindlessly on the floor. “You’re chock-full of paralytic. Your pupils don’t even contract. No way you wouldn’t have come for my throat for doing that.” And we both knew he didn’t mean searing my retinas to the point where I was still seeing weirdly colored patches.
“Let’s see about that,” he went on talking to himself, doing a quick check on me but coming to the conclusion that the knife wound was causing the leak all over the floor. I felt him gingerly push away fabric and prod the area around where the blade had sunk in—and my, that was not pleasant—but left it where it was. I heard him curse then—he must have realized that it was his knife. “Asshole trying to frame me with that, too, huh? If I didn’t know it’s impossible, I’d guess you did this to yourself, just to get back at me.” He wasn’t uselessly sitting there while he talked but pulled his jacket off, followed by his shirt, which he grabbed in one hand. With the other, he went for the knife and pulled it out, immediately pushing the wadded-up fabric against the wound.
And then, he froze.
A sound very much like the growl I’d uttered came from the direction of the other doorway. It was only when Nate came stalking—and I really meant moving like a tiger on the prowl—around the workbench to where he was in full view of the scene that I recognized him. I felt Hamilton tense, but, if anything, he pushed the shirt tamponing the wound even harder against me to staunch the blood flow. “Tell me that this is not what it looks like,” Nate uttered, his tone as hard and menacing as I’d never heard it before.
“It’s not,” Hamilton said, his voice pressed but calm—a first for him. He definitely realized what conclusions Nate must be jumping to, and did his best to deescalate the situation. “Just think—if I ever went for her, it would be in her face, because I’d humiliate her before I chose to finish her off. Or not, to rub it in yet again that she’s no match for me.”
Nate’s eyes narrowed, his hand dropping to the side of his thigh and the knife there, strong fingers wrapping around the hilt. Hamilton swore under his breath and tried again.
“If I really wanted to kill her, why stab her in the kidney that’s not there anymore? You know her diseased, scarred carcass better than anyone else. You know that the worst of her scars are on the opposite sides of her body—her left leg, the back of her torso at the right. Where they removed her kidney, part of her liver, and her useless-as-fuck ovary. Whoever did this got his hands on the falsified report that switched the torso scars to the other side. Trust me, she can verify this for you, because I have it on good authority that Richards read the real one, too, and blabbed about a different detail to her that’s been omitted from the false report. But for that, you need to back the fuck off now so we can save her life. She likely knows who did this, too. She’s weak, but her vitals are still going strong. She’s pumped full of paralytic and some shit that slows her heart down so it takes longer for her to bleed out fully—don’t ask me why. Maybe so if we hadn’t found her, she’d turn while she was still paralyzed, and could have torn your throat out while you held her in your arms like a baby and bawled your eyes out. Fucking think, man!”
Nate was still standing there, staring down at us, his face frozen in a rictus of hate. I could see how much it cost him not to give in to the rage boiling inside of him; not to launch himself at Hamilton and slice him up or kill him with his bare hands—and I’d die in the time it took him to do so. I realized then that this was what Marleen must have meant with the outcome she couldn’t stick around to watch—Nate losing his shit, killing Hamilton, and either being pushed too far to rein himself back in or wounded too heavily not to die himself. Either outcome would end with three super-juiced, freshly converted zombies—or at the least two, if Hamilton’s skull got smashed too badly for him to turn. Nate alone would likely be enough to kill the remaining members of our group, and the paralysis delay might lead to me finishing off whoever wasn’t completely dead after he was done. It was a brilliant plan, based on Nate’s biggest weakness—his love for me.
Quite frankly, I was impressed with the range of that, but not so the situation it had thrust me into. Hamilton kept crouching over me, the wadded-up shirt never moving, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I’d get bruises from that alone.
Five seconds passed. Ten. Nate took a step forward, and I knew Hamilton was getting ready to let go of me so he could defend himself—but the moment passed, and rather than try to punch Hamilton’s lights out, Nate dropped to his knees next to him, taking over. Hamilton scrambled to his feet, his boots squeaking on the floor, and he was off toward the cafeteria, hollering “Medic!” at the top of his lungs.
It took maybe five minutes for Sonia to limp into the room, with everyone else who could move in tow, Burns lugging her kit for her. Nate spent the entire time almost motionless, putting even more pressure on the wound than Hamilton had before if that was possible. He didn’t say a single word out loud, but I heard him whisper a barely audible litany of, “Don’t die. Please, don’t die.” He didn’t touch me anywhere else, but considering that any jostling of my body felt as if someone was trying to squeeze what remained of my blood right out of me like juice from a ripe orange, that was probably for the best.
As soon as Sonia stepped into the room, a flurry of activity broke out around me. Hamilton must have filled her in already but repeated his recount of how he’d found me while Sonia barely seemed to listen, first cutting away the soaked fabric so she could better get to the wound, and then setting to work. I had no fucking clue what she did but it hurt like hell. Not being able to do anything, not even wince, made it a million times worse for me, but I knew it let her get the job done quicker, and likely better as well. Moving patients were a bitch for doctors and nurses everywhere. Lucky me, indeed.
“That’s all I can do for her right now,” I heard Sonia’s tired voice proclaim eons later. “The glue will help heal up the tissue around the stitches. She’s damn lucky that the knife didn’t rupture her intestine. If she’d still have had all her internal organs, she would be dead. I’ll have to open her up again tomorrow to remove the glue and check on the stitches, but she should be out of the woods now.” I heard her pause. “It’ll be better if we let the paralytic wear off on its own. The less she mov
es now, the better for the wound healing.”
It was impossible to miss the glare Nate sent her. “Do you have something to counteract it?”
“Yes, but—”
“Then give it to her right fucking now!” he shouted, loud enough that Sonia physically drew back. When she didn’t comply immediately, Nate looked ready to come after her, but managed to explain instead. “I can guarantee you that she’s living her worst nightmare right now because there’s no way that the trauma from back when she lost said organs you were commenting about isn’t catching up, full force, to her now. She also can’t tense, or move herself into a slightly more comfortable position, or even fucking grit her teeth or scream in pain to try to take some of the pressure off. I can see how analytic medical thinking may lead you to believe that you’re doing the right thing for her, but you are not.”
Sonia glared at him but went rooting through her kit. “Suit yourself, asshole.” Damn, but I really wanted to grin so badly right then. And scream. Yeah, scream first, and maybe grin a thousand years from now.
I expected her to do the dramatic needle-in-heart thing now but realized she wouldn’t when all that followed was a quick, barely noticeable prick in my left thigh. The effect wasn’t immediate. Sonia was pretty much done gathering up her things by the time I managed the first voluntary muscle spasm—and no, that didn’t feel good. Done, she lingered, but gave Nate as much space as she could.
Slowly but surely, my body returned to my control. Moving anything hurt like hell, and after spending almost an hour with my eyes and mouth open, it took some extra time to get those working as they should once more. I didn’t try to sit up, Sonia’s protest enough of a warning for me. Besides, they had moved me away from my own pool of blood and Sonia had cleaned me up as best as she could around the tatters of my clothes. She’d left those on after verifying that I had no other wounds that needed treatment. Nate was quick to slosh a sip or two of water into my mouth as soon as I could swallow on my own again, and left a wet rag over my eyes until I grunted for him to remove it. Speech seemed a million miles away, and by the time my feeble croaks got closer to intelligible words, whoever wasn’t involved in treating me had already gotten busy scouring the entire installation for intruders.
My, was I happy to rain on their parade now.
But screaming first.
It was more like a series of whimpers as I finally managed to curl up on my—left—side, grunting through the red fog of pain until I could breathe again. It wasn’t exactly fear of appearing weak that made me lock my jaws, but I’d be damned if I gave that fucking bitch the satisfaction of bawling like a little girl, now that she hadn’t managed to kill me. It was irrational, and maybe even stupid, but my stubbornness had gotten me through hell and back what felt like a million times, and today wouldn’t be the exception. As soon as I managed to relax as the pain ebbed a little, Nate leaned in, trying to catch the words my sluggish tongue still had issues with forming. Behind him, I saw Sonia still glaring at him, not hiding her misgivings one bit.
It took me six tries, but I finally managed to grunt out, “Marleen.”
Nate leaned back enough so I could see the frown of confusion on his face, but already something dark came lurking back into his eyes. Oh, he was giving her the benefit of the doubt all right, but he also wasn’t dismissing the fact that it was likely whatever I uttered first that would be the name of my attacker. He knew me well enough that my first utterance wouldn’t be concern about anyone else—but might be about someone kidnapped, or some shit.
“Did… it.”
Someone in the back cursed, and Nate looked as if someone had shot his favorite dog, if only for a second. Then his expression hardened. I never wanted to see him look at me like that. Hamilton, who’d chosen to linger as well, back in his jacket sans shirt now, snorted, but it was a grim sound. “Sounds like your assassin turned out to be someone else’s assassin. Or would-be, at least.”
Nate made a move as if to get up—likely to give the order to scour the complex with a more specific target in mind—but my hand shot out before he got far. I had to squeeze my eyes shut and breathe through the pain—sinking my fingers into his arm helped a little—before I managed to get the next words out, but he needed to hear this.
“Said… Decker sends his… regards.”
Nate and Hamilton both froze. Under different circumstances, it would have been funny to observe, but the humor was lost on me right now. Bucky was first to regain his composure, and when he saw that Nate was still staring down at me with horror, he turned to the others. “Check every fucking nook and cranny of this blasted lab and find that cunt. Go in teams, and check in regularly. Get the damn coms first. Report anything you find. Anything. Bring her back alive if you can, but take her down if that’s not an option.” Nobody protested his orders, and Sonia looked a lot less interested in leaving all of a sudden. Burns remained to guard her—and us—and after someone returned with a portable radio, Hamilton joined the search party as well.
There were a million things I needed to tell Nate, but my body had about enough—and all of it could wait until tomorrow. I had no doubts that Marleen was long gone, scurrying back to wherever she had come from. I could tell that Nate was blaming himself, but I had no energy to attempt to alleviate his guilt. Part of me wanted to be resentful, at least for now. Low-grade anger burning in my stomach was a much better companion than the wave of desolation threatening to crash into me.
Chapter 18
Marleen was nowhere to be found. Also gone were her pack and weapons, a substantial amount of provisions, one of the electric cars in the car park behind the airlock—and Richards. Almost immediately, discussions broke out about whether he was her accomplice or not, but the fact that we hadn’t found his body hinted that he was still alive. I didn’t want to believe that he had betrayed me—well, us, but it was personal, too—and I abused my injuries to push that decision off to another day.
Eden’s body turned up exactly where Marleen had told me she’d stashed it, but there were no further casualties. Cole had, accidentally and narrowly, avoided getting stabbed to death—like Eden—or shot—like Scott—by choosing the right time to return from the garage, and taking the corridor that didn’t run right by the lab that might have easily turned into my grave. We even knew that as he’d run into Hamilton at the intersection at the end of the tract, and had told him he hadn’t seen anyone around.
How Hamilton had turned into my most unlikely savior was slightly more deliberate. Apparently, I’d lost track of time in my perusal of the lab journals, and had missed reporting in for deciding whether I wanted first or second watch. Since Hamilton wanted to catch some sleep badly enough, he’d ventured into the labs to hunt me down and tell me to get my lazy ass back to the cafeteria. To think that if he’d been more annoyed and walked faster, he might have prevented all this—or I’d have sent him away while Marleen had bided her time, and her plan would have unfolded flawlessly.
Nate ended up carrying me from the lab to our makeshift camp in the cafeteria after Sonia gave him the go-ahead two hours after patching me up. I got two saline infusions and what felt like a pound of meds, but considering what we knew about the effects of the serum now, I was happy not to need a blood transfusion. I had lost a lot of blood but less than I’d thought, leaving me feeling frail and in a lot of pain but on the fast track to recovery. Nate stayed next to my makeshift hospital bed for twenty minutes but then left, using the ongoing search effort for an excuse. In the past, I would have been hurt, but I could tell that he needed to move and do something to avoid going insane. He’d spent nine weeks physically locked in a cell, and I could tell that now his mind was caught in a mental prison; if pacing more than five steps in one direction at a time might help, I was happy to see him go.
He was back the next morning to help me take a shower, made possible by the still-running generators that powered the lab. My skin was still deathly pale but my energy was slowly returning. Another da
y, and I’d be ready to leave, if that meant sitting in a car and not having to run for my life. Nate was reluctant to make the decision whether we should stay longer, and I was glad when Hamilton—staring me in the face and willing me to protest—declared that we would leave as soon as possible. He was right that the fact that I was stubborn enough to chance it likely meant I was ready for it as well. I hated that Nate seemed so passive, but since he had no problem coordinating everything else, I let it slide without a comment.
After that first night of being mostly awake because even the idea of tossing and turning hurt like hell, I followed Sonia into the infirmary that had been part of the complex. It had already been raided down to the bare necessities—and sadly, not only by us, but we had still acquired a gold mine of supplies—except for Sonia’s kit. I refused Burns and Nate’s offer to hold me down while she cut me up again, instead opting to tough it out myself. As every single thing anyone had done to me in the past five years, it was way worse than I’d expected, but I forced myself to push through the pain and not kick Sonia into a bloody pulp. She was surprised how well the wound had healed already, which meant she actually had more cutting to do to get the glue out. The staples and stitches would remain in, hopefully to dissolve all on their own. If not, it didn’t really make much of a difference, considering the general state my body had been in before this shit had gone down.
While I lay there, trying to relax but of course tense as fuck, fighting tears and screams and curses, I couldn’t help the dark twist of emotions that kept swirling through my mind, making me physically sick—although that could have been from the pain just as well. The only upside to Marleen’s actions was that I’d quickly gotten over the morose frustration left by losing so many people all over again. I still remembered all too well how much losing Bates had cut me up, but it had gotten easier to move on. Whether that was a side effect of trauma, or coming from the fact that those close to me were still up and running, or because the serum had eroded what was left of my empathy and compassion, I couldn’t say. It bothered me, but not as much as all the questions kicked up by the assassination attempt.
Green Fields Series Box Set | Vol. 4 | Books 10-12 Page 72
