A hint of doubt made him frown for a second, but really, it was a very small victory on my side—and one that did me no good whatsoever. Taggard shook it off quickly, and I really didn’t care for the pensive look that took over his features as he considered.
“So, essentially, what you’re saying is that I’m just wasting my time here,” he stated. “Takes a couple hours for my boys to be done with you, a day or two for you to recover. There’s a chance you won’t break, at least not the first time, and I am somewhat on a schedule here. So why do it at all, right?”
I didn’t answer, because what could I have said to that? Yes, pretty please? And as I watched him watch me I could tell that I wouldn’t like what he came up with instead.
“Right,” he answered his own rhetorical question. “But the problem is, I so do want to break your spirit. I want to see that dead look in your eyes when you realize that there is nothing left for you to live for. That it was all in vain and it would really be the ultimate absolution if finally someone blew your fucking brains out.”
I couldn’t help but scoff. “What the fuck is it with you people and the gigantic chips on your shoulders? I guess that if you’re completely delusional you can blame me for the FUBAR at the factory that cost you, what, a huge part of your men? But it was your damn trap and you were too stupid to set it up in a way that left us no way out, and made sure you wouldn’t risk your people. What the fuck is wrong with you?”
He didn’t like me saying that, but I just couldn’t help myself. There was only so much reasoning I could do before fear made me do something stupid. If I got out of this alive—which was still debatable—I should probably work on that.
“It doesn’t really matter, now, does it?” he proposed, not giving me the satisfaction of a real answer. Looking over his shoulder to his men, he clapped his hands, demanding everyone’s attention. “We’re just wasting daylight here. Let’s do something about that.”
I tensed, incapable of keeping up that veneer of calm. Taggard engaged the door control, making the glass pane rise, and I took an involuntary step back. Yet rather than grab me and pull me out, he took a step to the side, probably to make room.
“Get the girl.”
Panic paralyzed me for a second, but then my mind caught on to the fact that no one was moving in my direction. On the contrary. One of the soldiers opened up the cell on the other side of the room and stepped inside, only to return pulling the occupant along. It was the first good look I got at her, and it only took me a few seconds to make the connection. That strawberry-blonde hair, now stringy from weeks without washing but still long and wavy. Those brown, intelligent eyes, now impossibly wide with fear, and a hefty dose of maturity. She’d grown up and filled out somewhat in the year since I’d last seen her, a little more woman now but still so obviously a scared, fifteen-year-old child.
Erica—Madeline’s daughter. Of all the people I’d expected to never see again, she was right on top of that list.
“You recognize her, I see,” Taggard observed, sounding almost pleasant once more. “We only picked her up when we learned that she’d been tagging along with your group. Chances were slim that any of your fine, valiant heroes had fucked her, but it was better than nothing. And let’s not forget that she’s come around quite some since then. I would give you time to catch up, but as I said, I’m on a schedule.” His eyes fastened on mine again. “You think getting raped won’t break you? I think you are right. But being responsible for her taking your place? Let’s see if that does the trick.”
And just like that he’d found the one thing that could make this day suck even worse.
“Don’t!” I cried out, not hesitating for a second. Yup, I was about to doom myself—and if I’d gotten a good read on Taggard, Erica as well—but there were some things I just couldn’t live with. I’d already spent months of my life regretting that I hadn’t spoken up when her mother had left our group in favor of those preppers. If I’d just been a little less judgmental, a little less insecure, or not so plain fucking stupid things might have been different. I couldn’t turn back time. But maybe I could do something now to prevent more unmentionable shit from happening to that girl. Even if that meant I gave Taggard all the power that otherwise he could likely never have wrenched from me. So much for eating my own words.
I could see in his eyes that he knew that he’d won, but he took an agonizing five seconds until he told his men to stand down. I couldn’t keep the venom out of my gaze and didn’t even try to, but that only amused him further.
“What do you want?” I bit out, my throat closing up with hate as much as trepidation.
He kept studying me like you’d look at something unpleasant yet fascinating, like some kind of overgrown insect.
“First, your unconditional full cooperation,” he said, the words dripping like honey over his lips. Oh, he was enjoying this so, so much. “You’ll squat down and piss into that cup and take a dump into that other container, and when I get the syringe out, no one will have to hold you down while I draw blood from your arm.”
I gave a jerky nod, not daring to balk yet. It was, in many ways, an unbelievably small concession. “And then what?”
“Then I’ll think of something else once we’re done,” he promised. At his nod, one of his men brought over a tray, sans the food I would have choked on and the water that was by far not enough to wash away the taste of bile rising in my throat. He held the tray out to Taggard who, in turn, plucked the cup from it and held it out to me. I made sure that my fingers weren’t touching his as I gingerly took it, and with a last, steadying exhale went down to business.
I’d never expected anyone to be that happy to be handed a literal steaming pile of shit, but if that was the worst that would happen today…
But of course it wasn’t. I knew that. Taggard knew that. And everyone else in the room knew that as well. Right now nobody was touching Erica but they were still surrounding her like a tan-and-green colored cloud, refusing to let her back into the relative safety of her cell.
At Taggard’s nod, I held out my right arm to him, only wincing slightly as the needle punctured my vein. The fact that he was touching me was way worse, but I did my best to remain as still as a rock. I would get through this. I didn’t have a clue how, but I would.
I was a little surprised that Taggard was satisfied with just one vial of blood, but then they had tapped my veins enough these past days to leave hematoma all over my body. He handed the syringe back to the guy with the tray who promptly stepped away. My eyes focused back on Taggard, waiting for him to spew the next vile thing into my face that only a sick mind could come up with.
That’s how I almost missed that the tray guy stopped right next to Erica, handed his burden to one of the other soldiers, and plunged the bloody syringe right into the girl’s arm.
“No!” I screamed, momentarily too stunned to formulate a more intricate kind of protest. Not that it mattered, as that plunger was already depressed, the entire contents of the syringe emptied into her bloodstream. She didn’t even look scared—or more scared than before—likely not understanding the ramifications of what they’d just done to her.
When my eyes snagged back to Taggard, he was wearing a self-satisfied smile on his face.
“How could we ever find out exactly how infectious your blood really is if we don’t test it?” he asked, sounding so very reasonable. “You yourself gave us that idea when you thought it was a neat concept to get someone to punch you in the face so you could fling it at us. The nerds tell me that the viral titer is higher in your saliva but somehow forcing you to take a bite out of her didn’t have that same connotation. I’m sure my guys would have preferred to watch you two make out instead, but there’s never a guarantee with that kind of transference of bodily fluids. But a direct blood transfusion? Should do the trick nicely. Now all we have to do is watch and see.” His smile took on a taunting note. “You see, I don’t need anything else to hold you at gun point than
your own fucking morals. Enjoy watching her die, because it was your consent that made it happen, nothing else."
With that, he engaged the door controls once more, leaving me locked in my cell. Erica must have heard the words but she didn’t react, also not when one of the soldiers grabbed her arm and pushed her back into her cell to seal her in there. She remained standing for a moment, watching the soldiers file out before she turned and disappeared into the corner that I couldn’t see, not even glancing in my direction.
Fuck.
What had I done?
Chapter 24
I could have done with some alone time, but Taggard seemed to sense that, so of course he sent his flunkies to wash up the floor. The two soldiers assigned the task didn’t exactly look motivated, and within five minutes they had delegated it to someone else—the guy who I thought had knocked up Gussy. He set to the task without fervor but also without protest, first mopping up the worst of the spills before he got down on his knees and started scrubbing. The bloody suds soaking into his pants didn’t deter him. In fact, he didn’t even seem to notice that happening. Two cycles of patrols came by, ignoring him but taunting the zombies in their cells. I’d had issues before with seeing zombies for what they were, but now it was impossible to forget that they’d been battered, beaten women who’d all clung to what remained of their life for the children they’d never get a chance to bring into this world. I stopped trying the second time my mind flipped right back to seeing Gussy drag herself around her suddenly all too confining cell rather than a random shambler. That she still looked almost human didn’t help. That she didn’t act like a complete lunatic, neither.
Erica started coughing within the first hour after they’d infected her. I still remembered the progression of my own infection all too vividly. I might have been high and somewhat carefree because that booster had really done a number on me, but I’d already been thoroughly sick by the time we picked up Burns and shook what remained of the soldiers that had come after us. That couldn’t have been more than three hours after that fucking idiot had gunned me down. And I'd had so much to occupy myself with to distract from tracking the first symptoms. She had nothing but tiled walls and watching the soldier scrub the floor. As far as I knew, Taggard hadn’t even give her some extra water to ease her suffering.
I was starting to think that way back when they’d recruited for their super soldier program, the starting requirement must have been shy of full blown psychopath.
That of course made me think of Nate, which didn’t help my miserable mood at all. Judging from his somewhat biased self-assessment he might have fit right in there, but he’d proven time and time again that he was cut from a different cloth. The sheer fact that he’d instilled such loyalty in so many people that some of them had come to switch sides even when they knew that they were likely giving up extra security and comfort wasn’t just coincidence. But despite all that it made me question the things he must have done to make him feel like he had to lay his life down for those who couldn’t fight for themselves. There was a lot that he had never mentioned, and if I ever made it out of here, there was a lot more that he would have to answer for, at least to me. Not that my hands weren’t dripping with blood, considering all the people I’d killed—including Erica, as another coughing fit reminded me.
I hadn’t expected Ethan to show his pasty face, but he was a very welcome target for the rage boiling deep inside of me. I wouldn’t have quite dared go after Taggard, too afraid of the possible ramifications, but his pet scientist? Thinking like that likely made me a real bitch, but I was all out of fucks to give. The way his eyes avoided looking at so many parts of the room screamed “opportunity.” I would have been stupid not to try to exploit that.
“You disgust me,” I hissed at him as soon as he’d come to a halt close to the glass pane. His shoulders gave a nervous twitch, letting me know that, oh yes, today he was very receptive for the scorn I was about to heap on him. Maybe there was still hope…
His eyes zoomed up my body, briefly snagging on the substantial blood stains all across that hospital gown I was still forced to wear, before he met my eyes. His spine straightened and I could practically see how he tried to mentally talk himself into not letting anything get through to him, but it was obvious that it wasn’t working.
“You were a scientist once,” he replied, stressing the past tense, as if that was an insult. “You know that in the name of science, sacrifices have to be made.”
“Bullshit,” I shot back, not even taking a moment to reflect on my answer, underlining just how much of a no-brainer it was. “You’re not conducting scientific experiments here. What you’re doing is genocide.”
His mouth opened and closed before he managed a retort. “You have no idea what you’re talking about—“
“Bull. Shit,” I repeated. “Ethan, wake up! Stop drinking their Kool-Aid! We, as the human race, are on the brink of extinction! And rather than try to get us into the next generation you’re actively working on wiping us off the earth!” Yeah, so maybe I was laying it on a bit heavy, but everything that had happened over the past days had pushed me past the point of moderation.
His face closed off and he visibly got a grip on himself, all the good that it did him. The fact that he was still here, defending himself, let me know that he was more receptive to my words than he probably liked to admit. “We’re working on a cure—“ he started, but I didn’t let him finish.
“You’re not!” I accused. “And we both know it! There is no cure, not that we’d need it in the first place. The damage is already done, and it’s enough to just do a good old restart from here on out. But you’re lying, to me, and to yourself. You’re not developing a cure. You’re fine-tuning the next version of their fucked-up super-soldier serum. Take that fine specimen over there, what good that did him.”
The way Ethan avoided looking at the still-scrubbing soldier let me know that my suspicion—based on what Gussy had told me—was spot-on.
“He would be dead if not for the serum,” Ethan ground out but sounded reasonably cowed. “He was gravely injured in the attack at the factory.”
“Attack?” I huffed, smirking at him. “More like the botched operation. I’m not so sure you can call what he is still 'alive,' if you ask me. I’ve seen zombies do that exact same mental stumbling that he just did, as if the brain’s skipping into stand-by until there’s a new impulse shaking it up again. See how the one in her cell does the exact same thing? There’s only a very small degree separating those two. Would you want to continue existing like that?”
The alarm I’d been looking for didn’t show on Ethan’s face, but he didn’t seem particularly thrilled about my observation. “He’s deteriorating faster than we expected,” he admitted, giving me an entirely different reason to feel chill creep up my spine.
“You shot the women up with that exact same shit, right?” I asked, more guessing now, but it made sense. Gussy had known that she would turn as she died. With no actual zombie bite or contaminated food, that shit didn’t just happen.
Ethan looked away, hedging around for a few seconds. When he finally answered, it came out as one gigantic rush of words. “The latest round of experiments was conducted without a control, yes. We needed results, and the round before this one was inconclusive, so Taggard decided that we’d go all in.”
I had to take a deep breath to keep myself from screaming at him. I knew that losing what remained of my calm wouldn’t do me any good, but it was so fucking hard to hang on to what remained of my composure.
“So you call this round a success? All of them turned. I can hear them. Scratching. Clawing. Snapping their teeth at thin air because you already starved them before and now their brains are down to impulse-controlled killing machines.” He didn’t reply, but I could see the answer on his face and how he again avoided looking at me. “How can you justify doing this?” I asked. “How can you condone what is happening here? You’re killing us off, until there’s noth
ing left to save, cure or no cure!”
A muscle jumped in his jaw but he rallied himself once more. “The serum is the cure. It’s our only hope—“
“Bullshit! Women are our only hope! Young, fertile, child-bearing women!” I shouted. “Like the four that you just senselessly murdered, including the only hope for us all that they were carrying in their wombs!” He stared at me, mute, so I went right on. “How fucking stupid do you have to be not to see this? Women are our only hope at surviving! Everyone knows this, except for you bunch of murdering lunatics! Everyone is out there, rebuilding, establishing settlements so women can be kept safe, so they have a place to raise the next generation of humans. Why do you think there are so many scavengers out there, a good third of them former career soldiers? Because they have realized that it is their duty, their only reason for existing, to be the first line of defense! Have you learned nothing from history? Why do you think we’ve sent eighteen-year-old boys to Normandy to storm the beaches? Why do you think we’ve lost millions of soldiers over the last century, laying down their lives in theaters of war all over the globe? To ensure that here, on our home turf, their sisters, their wives, their daughters are safe to keep the ball rolling! Shit, even the damn Nazis had that one thing straight! They told their beautiful blonde, blue-eyed daughters to have as many children as possible because the Third Reich needed more future soldiers to burn up in their fucked-up ideology. And you honestly stand before me and can look me into the eye and tell me that you condone something that those fucked-up monsters wouldn’t even dare disregard? If you had even an inch of backbone left you would man up and realize that it is your personal duty to, if nothing else, use your own body to physically build a wall between everything out there that’s coming to kill us, and the women who will ensure that there are still humans around twenty, fifty, or a hundred years from now.” I let that sink in for a moment before I repeated, “You disgust me. With your lies, and your sniveling and groveling for attention. But most of all because you’ve completely lost sight of the only thing that still counts, and that is survival.”
Resurgence: Green Fields book 5 Page 27
