Nate put on a musing expression and actually went as far as flashing me a quick smile. “Actually, it was rather rewarding. And it sure makes me sleep better at night.”
I offered up a shrug for my agreement. He did have a point there.
“Be that as it may—we don’t need any more information. We know where we are headed. We know who we are coming for. If it was as easy as following a trail of breadcrumbs, we would have killed Decker years ago. Yes, not being able to beat the crap out of anyone is frustrating, but that’s about it. They are dead. We saved as many of ours as we could. We’re making sure that Sadie and the kid are squirreled away where nobody can get to them. And then we ring in judgment day, and that’s it. Maybe we’ll get treated to one last villain speech of epic proportions that puts every little piece of the puzzle into place. Maybe we just waltz in there, kill that old fart, and call it a day. It doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.”
I thought that had been a mighty fine declaration, but Nate didn’t quite go with my enthusiasm. “You say that as if you expect us to survive that encounter,” he pointed out, part teasingly, part belligerent.
I couldn’t help but flash him a bright smile—and was surprised that I meant it, even if it came with plenty of grim underpinnings. “Failure is not an option, so why calculate for it?” That was definitely something he could have said—and should have, come to think of it. “Besides, I have a feeling that should things go sideways, we won’t have time for regrets.”
Nate gave me an almost quizzical look. “Bree, I just spent nine weeks locked away in hell. For Hamilton, it was closer to a year. I’m not afraid that if we confront Decker and don’t manage to kill him immediately that we end up dead ourselves. I’m afraid of what will happen if they don’t kill us on the spot.”
I absolutely hated him saying that—and not just because he spelled out the possibility. I knew that, realistically, fear was absolutely a part of his usual emotional spectrum—and I wasn’t quite sure whether he’d yelled it at me or not, but there was that saying that he certainly subscribed to about bravery and how it wasn’t the absence of fear but acceptance of it that made a difference. But the Nate I’d known for so long had never spoken so openly about it, not to me or anyone else. Then again, we had spent over two years with only each other for company, and that had led to a few late-night dark moments of the soul. Or maybe being locked away, stripped bare in so many more ways than one, had made him realize that he needed to open up to me more to stay sane. Or maybe it was a sign of just how much his control was slipping that things he didn’t even acknowledge to himself before now ebbed out to me. It didn’t really matter.
“I’m not afraid,” I more lied than confessed, but realized it was true as I listened to my own words. “Sure, I’d like to avoid the pain of prolonged torture, but if that’s how shit goes down? Fine with me. But we will end this, one way or another. I’m sure of that. I fucking hate what happened to Andrej, but he had a choice, and I don’t think he regretted it for a single moment. Considering the life we chose, we don’t often get a chance to go out in a blaze of glory, putting our very lives in front of others to save them. I never thought I’d say that, but that’s a good way to die. And since we’re going to die, sooner rather than later, that’s not the worst way to go. I know that you have this romanticized notion in your head of you and me sitting on a mountain, waiting to see who is the first one to go so the other gets to do the murder / suicide thing, and because you’re a self-important asshole, you think you will be the one to pull the trigger on me to spare me the mental anguish of the reverse, but I don’t mind it ending in another way if it means we ultimately win.”
Nate didn’t say anything but he gradually relaxed, as if my words had at least some impact on his emotional turmoil. Just when had things changed so that I’d become the one to spell out the uncomfortable truths in our lives? I kind of wanted the times back when he’d had to drill that into my brain, to keep my rampant optimism in check—if that ever had been a problem, really. Looking back, it felt more like a few instances of a much-needed and quite obvious reality check. I couldn’t help but smile a little when I remembered the talk we’d had in the middle of nowhere in the Midwest, a month into the apocalypse, the night before we’d gotten our cars.
“It might just turn out better than we think, you know?” I mused, almost immediately drawing the vexed look from him I’d known would come, which just made my smile deepen. “Remember that profound talk you gave me about no place on earth ever being safe again? I call bullshit. The bunker was pretty safe. And going forward, we always managed to get out of even the worst situations—like the factory; like Taggard’s white-tiled cell; like France or Dallas. Even that damn prison and arena couldn’t absolutely break you. Why should this be any different? Sure, life can be brutal and shit, but we’ve made it our business to make it a better place. The very fact that we’ve lived through far worse than either of us could have imagined that night, and we’re still standing, and fighting, just underlines how good we are at this.”
Nate thought about that for a moment. “That’s something Romanoff would have said.”
“And toasted the bitch called fate with some booze,” I added.
“Absolutely.”
This time as silence fell between us, it was no longer filled with guilt, but the all-too familiar low, ebbing pain and sadness of another dear friend lost but never forgotten.
I was a little surprised when Nate didn’t use that for an excuse to doze off, but instead spoke up once more. “In a sense, I’m glad that he found his end in a different way than at our hands. No question, I would have done him that last honor of shooting him as soon as he was about to turn, but let’s be real here. It wouldn’t have been me. It would have been Zilinsky, and I’m not sure she would have walked away from that. She could have walked away from killing me, or you, or anyone else, but not him. I know she likes to blame me for bringing her back to sanity and giving her a life worth living, but really, that was all him. I just happened to be around when they both needed to pivot and change directions. He was the one who found her, picked up the pieces, and made her whole again. I know it sounds like poetic shit, but her being the one who undoes him? That would have undone her, too.”
All I could do was nod. That sounded about right. It also made me even more sad for her because I knew she wasn’t the kind of woman who would open up to anyone, not even Nate or me. That made me think of his last request to me—the parting remark about the pancakes she’d made for her kids—and I realized there must have been way more to the story than she’d told me. Some shit like her almost starving to death from grief and anguish, and him badgering her into eating some damn pancakes because the memory of her kids was that kind of lasting connection nobody could take from her, even after they’d taken everything else. It made them both so fucking human that it hurt down to my very soul to, yet again, realize that the people I’d in the past elevated to near godhood because my life had depended on my unshakable faith in them were, in fact, mortal. I knew it was unfair that, for whatever reason, Andrej had always been more like the drunk, goofy uncle or older brother to me while Pia had become my unshakable paragon of wrath and destruction when in reality, he was no less deadly and had actually taught her all the tricks, but that very difference in approachability might just have saved my life over and over again—and hers, too.
It also made me realize that, just maybe, the reason Nate was so open and chatty tonight might stem from the simple fear that having each other to be open and honest with was a very limited resource.
“I know you’re normally not one for cuddling, and we are both a far shot from wanting to bump uglies instead, but hold me while I fall asleep?” I suggested, leaving out the part where I was sure that he needed it more than me.
Nate gave me a look that let me know he’d heard that loud and clear nevertheless, but after a moment’s hesitation—couldn’t pass up any chance of being an asshole—he shif
ted and stretched out his arm for me to shimmy over to him and abuse it for a pillow. Between all the gear in the car, it was more of a climbing expedition that was required, but I ended up cozy and too hot but very content, curled up on my side, with his body fused to my back and half draped over me.
And, wouldn’t you know it? In a sense, that helped a lot more than beating the living shit out of any asshole out there ever could.
Chapter 9
A little after dawn hit, I was wide awake, and since there were enough people up and about to relieve the guards, we decided we would set out at eight, which gave everyone a chance to get at least some rest. It became obvious just how well the Ice Queen had spent the last two and a half years, stealthily sending out scouting and scavenging parties that had nothing to do with building up what had started out as our camp and had ended as two settlements. She had more than twenty safe houses mapped out, ranging halfway up to the Utah settlement, some close enough to the trade routes that we wouldn’t need to do much detouring, others tucked away that even knowing where they were, we’d likely spend an hour locating them. On some level it was a relief to me that, for the first time in what felt like forever, I could rely on someone else actually knowing where we were going. But there was the latent paranoia that none of the houses would be safe, and we’d only find out after it was too late.
Yet all that was a discussion for a later date. Now, with barely enough sleep to let my body recharge, standing watch was hard, but it was mostly the mental impact that grated on me. There wasn’t much to do or pay attention to, so my mind was at perfect leisure to present me with a best-of reel of what had gone down in that damn cantina again, and again, and again, until I was ready to throw my head back and scream, hoping that would make it stop. In the midst of the camp, I saw Sadie get up and retreat from the car she had slept in to the fire, a sleepy Chris on her shoulder. She still seemed reluctant to let go of her daughter, even when Moore joined her a while later and started goofing off with the kid, who seemed blissfully unaware of her mother’s constant anguish. Returning to California after losing Nate, I’d been afraid that jealousy and resentment would rear its ugly head inside of me, seeing as Chris embodied everything that Sadie had and I had lost. None of that had come to pass, but seeing Sadie now, bruised and with wide, haunted eyes, made a kind of rage churn in my belly that I wasn’t familiar with. It was one thing for those assholes to come after us, or infect the scavengers—but threatening what was as close to a beacon of hope as we had? I could see now why Nate had been all too happy that in the beginning, the guys had adopted me as something akin to a mascot—something to put all their hopes in, something to keep alive. Realizing how close we’d come to losing Sadie and the kid now made me all the more glad I’d learned how to fend for myself.
Our watch schedule was sketchy at best, and I was more than happy when one of the scavengers offered to take over for me. I hesitated, but then went straight over to Sadie, figuring she wouldn’t be appalled by me parking my ass next to her in full gear and weapons. She wasn’t, although as soon as I stepped up to the fire, she finally stopped fussing over Chris and let Moore walk off with her to look for some lizards ready to warm themselves on the first warm stones of the morning. I’d barely managed to grab a mug and fill it, my ass not yet molded against a crate someone had set up for a makeshift seat, when Sadie leaned closer, her eyes narrowed at me.
“If you breathe even a word of the rape talk I know you are burning to start, I will grab one of these logs and beat you to a bloody pulp with it,” she hissed.
Closing my partly open mouth, I instead busied myself blowing on the coffee, forcing my sluggish, erratic thoughts into tracks. “Who beat me to it? Pia?”
“By ten years,” Sadie grumbled, then rolled her eyes at me when I raised my brows at her. “Oh, don’t be stupid. What you got that first year before our winter together was the sped-up, boot-camp version. I got the lifer version when I was thirteen. And again at sixteen, when I finally had the guts to have a boyfriend. I know what you all think happened. I don’t give a flying fuck, thank you very much. I have something more important on my mind than either alleviating your collective fears or confirming them. Keep me and my daughter in one piece until we get to Utah, and consider your job done. I do not need a horde of shell-shocked, jaded nannies trying to analyze my every flinch and frown.”
If I’d been Nate—and, realistically, if Sadie had been me, since I figured, despite what she claimed, he was used to pussyfooting around difficult topics with her more than me—I would have pointed out now that all that rambling still wasn’t a clear and resounding “no,” but dropped the point.
“You okay with staying in Utah?” I asked instead.
Sadie seemed both pleased and miffed at my change of topic but took it for what it was—a peace offering. “It’s not like I have much of a choice,” she huffed, but then let the aggression leak out of her voice. “I won’t lie. I’m scared out of my wits. If you think that’s the best place for me to go, that’s where I go. I think I would have preferred New Angeles, but I understand why that’s a shit choice. I guess Dispatch would have been a good place, too, but considering it’s on the other side of the country, I’d rather just spend a single week in terror for my life than two or three.” At my questioning look, she shrugged. “I know Rita from when she used to come to Dad’s barbecues, too. I’m sure she’d take care of me. But same as with New Angeles, while there is strength in numbers, it also complicates disappearing from the world. I’ve been to Utah. I’m not sure what to make of Minerva”—the Utah settlement’s feisty leader—“but they’re good folks. They also have lots of children running around.” She paused, as if her next words pained her. “If I can’t stay, at least I can make Chris disappear there. Nobody will have a chance of picking one small girl out of a whole crowd of kids.” I hadn’t even considered the possibility of splitting them up; suddenly, Sadie clinging to her child took on a very different connotation.
“I doubt it will come to that,” I tried to reassure her. “Whatever else they may have planned, we won’t give them much more time to enact it.”
She nodded, but looked less convinced than I would have preferred. “They still hit our town hard.”
“They also knew we were trekking across the country, and then back again. We won’t give them that kind of a warning this time.”
“Let’s hope you’re right.”
I wished there was something else I could offer, but we both knew I was out of platitudes. It felt almost like a relief when Sonia joined us, rubbing gritty eyes after too little sleep. The two women started chatting quite amicably between themselves, silently pointing out that I was dismissed. I took the pointer for what it was, and after filling another mug, went to find Pia.
I didn’t get far, as she was just now returning with Burns from somewhere, carrying a bottle filled with clear liquid that she was dusting off. Burns made a shooing motion, making me turn back to the fire. I chanced a cautious glance at Pia but she ignored me. She looked like death warmed over, haggard yet quiet, which was disconcerting on so many levels. Whatever had happened in the past, she’d always been the first up, surrounded by an aura of energy and strength that always forced me to try to match it; now, all that seemed to have been leeched from her very bones, leaving a shadow of her usual self. I was sure that she could still wipe the floor with me, but for the first time ever she didn’t seem ready to on a moment’s notice.
In short order, the lot of us—pretty much the old gang, with Sonia the only new addition—had gathered around the fire pit, the others keeping respectfully silent. Nobody debated the idea of starting the day somewhat inebriated, but considering that half of us wouldn’t feel it, I figured it was just as well. Everyone seemed to wait for either Nate or the Ice Queen to speak up, but all Pia did was take a silent swig from the bottle before she passed it on to Burns. He, at least, found his voice, raising the bottle toward the fire with a low laugh. “To you, old bastard,” he t
oasted, taking a long drag before handing the bottle to Martinez.
“You still owe me two bottles of Scotch,” Martinez toasted, coughing when the contents of the bottle turned out to be more potent than he must have expected. “Could be entirely possible they ended up as this,” he remarked as he handed me the bottle next.
I considered what to say, but my mind was utterly blank. So I went with, “Keep stoking the flames for us. I’m about done freezing my ass off half of the year,” before letting the booze burn me awake. It was damn sharp moonshine—probably meant for engine cleaning, but if Andrej had taught me one thing, it was to never be too picky with these things.
Sonia went next, and Santos and Collins after her, then Moore and Clark, until there was maybe two fingers of liquid left in the bottle as it reached Nate, standing silently next to Pia. I half expected him to go for silence as well, but instead he uttered in low Serbian, “To fighting the good fight,” before drinking and passing the bottle back to Pia. She’d given him a sidelong glance but repeated the phrase in English before raising the bottle, and poured the last few drops into the pit. The fire roared up, blue flames licking over the yellows and oranges, as we all echoed her. I knew Andrej would have appreciated the lot of us getting stone drunk until someone almost died of alcohol poisoning, but since this was all we could do, I was sure he’d be satisfied either way.
Just as quickly as our not-so-merry round had assembled, it fell apart once more, people grabbing coffee and fetching some breakfast from our provisions. I shouldn’t have been surprised to find Blake appearing at my side, Buehler in his wake. “I didn’t get much chance to know him, but Romanoff certainly was one of the good ones,” Blake offered.
Green Fields Series Box Set | Vol. 4 | Books 10-12 Page 89
