I couldn’t help but glance at the two soldiers closest to me, both standing in the exact same position since we’d entered without even twitching once. “You mean, they gave you your drones?”
Her tight smile was answer enough, but she was happy to elaborate on that. “I’m not a weeping heart pacifist, if you’re stupid enough to think that.” I was not. That woman was responsible for what pretty much amounted to World War 3 in my books, but I was careful not to say that. “I know how vital protection is. And that if you want to accomplish anything, a show of force is necessary. As your husband put it, yes, I had to eliminate those imbeciles that worshipped him and those like him. But they weren’t lost causes. I could still put them to good use, if I could break some of the protection the serum conferred. It was a truly lucky coincidence that it turned out said protection came with a back door that we could exploit, and now turn into the perfect vehicle to undo the damage.”
“How did Emily Raynor get her hands on it?” I asked. “I presume you know that whole spiel of your brother shooting my husband up with that shit and then telling him to strangle me.”
Annoyance briefly clouded her relaxed show of satisfaction but was gone after a few moments. “The problems you run into when your resources are limited and your potential allies are spread all over a nation that is suddenly moving at walking speed.” The smile returned. “Yes, of course I know about this delightful little anecdote, and it has annoyed me for the longest time that he didn’t finish the job. Then again, I wouldn’t have been there to watch him go insane with grief over what he had done—or not.” She allowed herself a little smirk. “I saw the best-of reel of the surveillance footage. He put on a great show, pretending to be the anxious husband. But there’s a segment, around five minutes long, where you can see that he has already shaken off the effects of the drugs, yet that whole display of emotion isn’t there yet. He must have been pretending to still be under while plotting the course of his next actions. I can show it to you, if you don’t believe me.”
Since I had all the excuse in the world to look from her to Nate now, I did, desperately hoping he’d give me a hint of how to proceed. Her words and accusations bounced right off me—I knew they weren’t true. I was sure that footage existed, portraying exactly what she described, but knowing Nate as I did, those must have been five minutes he allowed himself to wallow in self-pity and run through worst-case scenarios before pulling himself together and locking all that away so he was ready for anything else they’d fling at him, and to find a way out for us both. She thought she had him all figured out. And that persona was exactly who he was pretending to be now, I realized.
It wasn’t really a hard guess where she got all that from—and why it seemed easy bordering on natural to behave like that. My guess was, this was how Nate must have been before shit went sideways that fateful night—and, maybe to a point, it hadn’t even been an act. He loved to call himself a bastard. It stood to reason that “cocky, uncaring asshole” wasn’t a long shot from that. And no, I didn’t find that even the least bit appealing. The realization that, had I met him years before Raleigh hired me, I would have absolutely detested Nate was rather hilarious—but then, I’d always suspected that, to a point. It wasn’t like he was any less of an asshole now—he’d just honed his edge to a very fine point, and kicked out most of the machismo.
Looking at him now, I could see the real him simmering underneath the mask he’d donned, without a doubt disgusted by the whole situation, but also by the reminder of who he’d been. His gaze was challenging bordering on belligerent—and yup, that was my hint right there. I knew that look all too well. It usually surfaced early in any escalating discussion we had—and we had had a lot of them over the years. It was his annoyance with me hanging on to a talking point with the tenacity of a small, yippy dog, biting into it to then never letting go, even long after the point had become moot. I could have been wrong, but I thought he was trying to tell me to keep yapping. And yes, once this was over we’d definitely have a firm talk about that.
The light flickered again, and beyond Nate’s shoulder, I saw Gita stiffen—and then she signed something that looked awfully like a countdown, eight going on seven. Was that minutes? It was possible. In retrospect, we should have made sure to ask Cole what message he’d received, but that was a missed chance now. It made sense with Gita here—and both of them knowing a thing about computer systems—that it must be something to do with that. We hadn’t seen a glimpse of the control room of this bunker but I was sure that it was stuffed to the ceiling with what used to be state-of-the-art computers. Maybe she’d managed to find a back door—or built one—to the system, and had given him the password? Well-timed fluctuations in the lights could be an easily disguised signal, triggering a perfectly-timed countdown. But countdown to what? I had a feeling we’d find out in a little less than eight minutes. Now we just had to keep everyone distracted until then, at least from shooting us on the spot.
Right. Yippy dogs can be very distracting.
Turning back to Bucky’s sister, I did my best to appear confident but let a hint of doubt and anger leak into it—not hard since that was, to a point, exactly how I was feeling, if one discounted the raging anger deep in my gut, and the lid panic kept on it. I allowed myself a long sigh—as if I had spent the last seconds debating with myself how to react to her offer to prove to me what an asshole I had married—and shook my head.
“I should probably not be saying this, but I am aware what an egotistical asshole my husband is. I mean, just last night he pretty much made me give him my permission to kill me—sacrifice me, really—to get close enough to Decker to get a chance at killing him for good. Finding out now that reality is a long shot from that doesn’t exactly endear me to him or that plan in general very much.”
Nate growled—which again gave me an excuse to check in with him—and while his expression screamed that he was disgusted with my betrayal, his eyes sent me a clear “go on!”
The queen bitch gave a surprised if satisfied huff. “Interesting.”
I looked from Nate to her. “You have no idea.”
“I don’t?” she asked, doubtful.
The sarcastic laugh I offered was real, for sure, if coming from a different place than she hopefully thought. “Do you have any idea how much shit I’ve had to put up with since throwing my lot in with him? If I could go back, I’d do a hell of a lot different the second time around.” Pursing my lips, I glanced in Richards and Gita’s direction. “Let me guess. You’ve started collecting allies among those you know also have a reason to hate his guts, just like you do? I’m a little insulted I never got an invitation for that.”
Now her laugh held a note of delight, but before she could answer, Marleen interrupted me. “You know that she’s lying,” she told Bucky’s sister while still looking at me. “Right from the very beginning, she’s never shown any indication that she doesn’t want to stick with him. And why would she have rallied whoever she could reach to get him out of Cortez’s camp?”
I got a shrewd look from the queen bitch. “Why indeed.”
That was a good question. As much as I tried to remain calm and sound confident, I couldn’t help it—my attention briefly flitted to Gita, trying to see if I had been right about the countdown, and for how much longer I had to stall—and of course both Marleen and Bucky’s sister noticed, staring at me. I knew I had to come up with something good now— and went with the first thing that came to mind. “To retrieve his corpse, really. I didn’t expect to find him still alive. That has actually complicated things a little.” Their blank stares gave me nothing, so I laid it on a little more heavily, offering up a nervous if hard laugh. “Oh, fuck, Richards didn’t tell you? My, isn’t this awkward.” That gave me a reason to glance at the man in question—and yes, Gita was signaling me that I had another five minutes to fill. Looking back to the other side of the dais, I singled Marleen out. “I didn’t expect I’d get to repay your stupid, ‘oh, sorry, ho
w do you like that I fucked your guy?’ thing, but, well, here we go. I know this doesn’t put me in the best of lights, but while we were gallivanting through the French countryside, Richards and I, well, kind of got to know each other better, but I never thought I’d get an opportunity to further explore that. But then I found myself in the middle of nowhere, needing help after escaping that damn camp, and he was the first on my list to call. Which was easy, since we’d had set that up as a kind of security net before we disappeared.” Not even a lie; just my involvement was exaggerated. “What can I say. Things… changed. When it was time to infiltrate the camp, it only made sense that we’d team up, since we could hardly explore anything with my husband’s people breathing down my neck constantly. Consider me surprised to find out I wasn’t a widow yet.”
Bucky’s sister seemed to consider that but Marleen cut right through my reasoning. “Remember that I was there to help you break him out of his cell?”
I couldn’t help but laugh. Yeah, what a coincidence that must have been—although I still didn’t quite understand why. “What exactly did you expect me to do? I tried telling Cortez that he could keep him, but that didn’t work out.”
“You were all over each other as soon as we got back to your people,” Marleen went on pointing out.
I offered up a derogatory huff. “And exactly how would it have looked if I’d refused, huh?” Fuck, but I hated saying that. Then again, considering who I was putting this show on for, it seemed like less of a stretch of the imagination—and it was a great lead to the next point. “Never wondered why, on the way to Dallas, I stuck with Richards? Yeah, I wasn’t lying when I said I didn’t trust Hamilton not to stab me in the back—which you took way too seriously, I might add—but that wasn’t the real reason. Which reminds me…” I trailed off there, going for a slightly musing pose as I addressed the queen bitch. “I presume you want those two assholes gone? I’d consider you letting me kill your brother as a kind of signing bonus. And before anyone accuses me of lying about that, I am on public record, repeatedly, saying that I want to be the one to end his miserable existence. The only reason I changed my mind was because the very idea he’d have to live on with the memory of what Cortez did to him for ages sounded very satisfying to me, but that was before that asshole tried to redeem himself by saving me. Just consider how pleasant that was to be lying there, paralyzed and in incredible pain, unable to shake his hands off. Am I glad I survived? Yes, and I’ve done a lot to ensure that in the past. But I’m more than ready for some payback.”
Marleen was frowning at me now as if she had a hard time reading me. Bucky’s sister seemed intrigued—and much more inclined to believe me. “You’d really do that? Turn against your people?”
“It’s debatable who my people really are,” I ground out. “Much good it has done me, sticking with them. And yes, the offer to join you would have been much more interesting before your pet assassin there knifed me in the back.”
Marleen’s frown deepened. “It interests me how you survived that. I’m excellent at my job.”
I couldn’t help but snort. “Yes—when you have good intel. I hate to tell you this, but whoever gave you the file detailing my injuries gave you the wrong one. Emily Raynor’s notes were fake. Richards can confirm this.”
Eyes all over the room turning to him, Richards gave a curt nod. “What she says is true.” He paused, and when he looked at Nate, a hint of a smirk appeared on his face that was so very unlike what I was used to from him—but what I had long since suspected he was capable of. “All of it. I couldn’t in good conscience continue to stand idly by, watching you undermine such a brilliant woman. If Cortez hadn’t stripped us of our weapons, I would have killed you in that cell and told your people that it was one of the guards during our escape.” His attention then went to Marleen. “If you’d told me earlier who you really were working for, we could have ended this shit right at the camp, or at the very least in Dallas.”
Marleen’s shrug in return was unperturbed. “I have trust issues,” was all she said.
In all that back and forth, I went to check back with Gita—three minutes. My stomach seized up with a bout of anxiety, which made me slow to pick up the slack—which gave Nate the perfect reason to reinsert himself into the conversation. Rounding on me, he gave a good impression of a seething grizzly about to maul me.
“You fucking traitorous cunt!” he pressed out between gritted teeth—and honestly, I had a hard time telling whether he meant it or not. “Everything I did for you! Several of my men died because you were such a bumbling idiot in the beginning. Because of you I went to war against my best friend! And this is how you repay me?”
The nasty voice at the back of my mind was quick to inform me that, while not completely true, what he said must have crossed his mind at least once in the past for him to sound so fucking honest and personally insulted now. Like nothing else, that kicked the hinges off the gate behind which my rage hid, coming roaring to the forefront within seconds now.
“Yes! And I should have done so years ago! Don’t you dare talk to me about sacrifices! What did you lose, huh? Men die. That’s the reality of war. And you can ask any one of them—I never got anyone personally killed. But me? I lost my fucking child! My entire identity got annihilated when that bitch up in her ice fortress cut off half of my fingers! I almost died twice—three times if I count you strangling me!—and you had nothing whatsoever to do with my survival. Did you ever ask me if I wanted to betray the company I’d worked for, or my principles? If you’d told me what fucked-up shit your brother had been working on, I would never have tried to help you, not breathed a single word of anything. And whose idea was it to drag me off into the wilderness instead of letting me go with the other scientists? I should have been leading that lab in Aurora, and if I’d gotten a chance to work with Walter Greene, I would have perfected that serum within months, rather than them bumbling around in the dark for years. And I would have loved to personally inject you with the first dose of it and watch the light go out in your eyes, to be sure that you’d never drag me to hell again. You know the best part? Richards didn’t need to do anything remarkable to seduce me. All he needed was to act like a normal human being, who doesn’t slam my face into marble floors to break my nose and then threaten me with more violence if I didn’t help him. All it took was for him to be nice. Now choke on that, you rat bastard!”
Yeah, maybe we’d need the couples therapy that Richards had joked about what seemed like a million years ago now—but it felt kind of good to fling all those half-truths and misinterpretations into Nate’s face—and see him get angry for real in return.
It was impossible to gauge how much time we still had left, and if I was honest, I didn’t dare look away from Nate right now. I wasn’t afraid he’d lose control, but I would have been lying if I’d said I wasn’t intimidated by him.
“We’re fucking done,” he ground out, eyes narrowed. “You’re a useless piece of trash that I should have discarded years ago. You’ll fit right in with the other garbage here. Washed-up wannabes, has-beens, and never-will-bes—that’s your crowd all right.”
“You’d know,” I hissed back. “Because that’s exactly what you are. I fucking hate you!”
Behind Nate’s shoulder, I saw Hamilton smirk at me—until I realized, it wasn’t one of his usual grimaces. He was silently voicing something to me—“Shout.” I couldn’t be sure, but that was the closest I got in the moment I had time to focus on him. He then stuck out his tongue and rolled his eyes upward, completely confusing me. What the—never mind.
Nate blew me a kiss, and for a fraction of a second, a real smile was peeking through the smirk soon taking over his expression—and then the lights went out, casting us into complete darkness.
Chapter 23
Silence fell, and I suddenly had an idea what Hamilton’s clue could have been about—and really, if I was wrong, I likely had less than five seconds to regret it. Inhaling deeply, I did my very be
st to put every ounce of authority into my voice as I shouted, “Soldiers! Stand down and drop your weapons!” I had no fucking clue if this might work, but their leader and chief of security were women, and back at the Canada base, when Hamilton had shot Nate up with the mind-control shit, he hadn’t responded to my pleas—but he’d done exactly what years of training had ingrained as his default program: to follow orders by his superior officers.
But, just to be sure, I threw myself on the ground, hoping that I’d be fast enough not to remain standing there by the time the first shot was fired.
Light blinded me—followed by the boom of a weapon discharging, hellishly loud inside the relatively small room—coming from in front, then somewhere above me where Marleen must have instinctively fired at where she’d last seen me. Before I could think about how to react, I was pelted with assault rifles dropping from drone hands, my plan working better than I could have hoped for. At least I had choices. Before I could grab a single one and fiddle with it to point it in the right direction, shots went off all around me when the soldiers not affected by the faulty serum opened fire, making me hunch in on myself instinctively. Through my arms that were still coming up, illuminated by the muzzle flashes, I saw a dark silhouette vault forward, toward the dais—Nate. The impulse was there to remain still and watch, but I knew that if I wanted to survive, I needed to do something—and if I wanted to keep him alive, that meant to go into offense. Getting a good grip on the rifle close to me while letting my body roll fully onto my back, I opened up fire, blindly, at the soldiers on my side of the room, trusting that Hamilton would do the same on the other. Considering their overwhelming numbers, it would have been harder to miss than hit anyone.
That went well for about three seconds. Then they started shooting back.
Green Fields Series Box Set | Vol. 4 | Books 10-12 Page 107
