Bolstered by his success, the soldier strutted on, but neither Harris nor his guys took the offer. The search party dismissed Tanner, marks and all, but pulled Nate and Burns aside, both rather stony-faced. I felt my stomach drop, but there wasn’t much I could do about anything from where I stood.
“What about you?” the soldier asked, making sure to stand clear of them both—either to wisely stay out of reach, or so neither of them got the chance to tower over him. “As former military men we could use you even more than anybody else. Marines?” he guessed.
“Army,” Burns said coolly, with that perfect hint of pride and disdain that seemed to both annoy the soldier but not set him off. “And thanks for the offer, but been there, done that. Got a lot of reasons to be out on the road rather than hide in the barracks.”
I could practically hear the soldier gnashing his teeth. Guess he wasn’t getting that signing bonus now. Turning to Nate, he huffed at him, “Your buddy here speaking for you?”
Nate gave a—carefully non-threatening—shrug but remained mute, the polar opposite of the assertive leader he so loved to be, except when he could push me ahead of him instead. I amused myself with picturing how he’d snap Blondie’s arm for still grabbing my ass, but unless we started to move, I couldn’t even jostle free of his hold without attracting attention. Although, come to think of it, it kind of turned me invisible to the gazes of the other soldiers, who seemed to be looking at everything else except my butt. Not sure how I felt about that, but I wasn’t going to protest.
The soldier opened his mouth, likely to try to sell his proposition again, but then snapped it shut with a grunt. “Well, guess to each their own. Hope you good fellas are ashamed of yourself and how you’re shirking your duty.” They both held his gaze evenly, and when he realized that he wasn’t going to get a rise out of them, the soldier turned away.
“Let them all go,” he called out to his men. “Give them back their weapons, but unloaded. Keep your loot, but we better not see you around here again. This territory is under our protection.”
I took a step forward as soon as his words rang out over the parking lot, but before I could even turn anywhere else, Blondie grabbed my elbow and started pulling me toward one of the closest cars—theirs, as I belatedly realized. It only made sense that I went with them, whether I wanted to or not, so I did—with gritted teeth, and a death grip on my shotgun, telling myself that I could always shoot all three of them, and would likely survive the resulting car crash. That was going to be one fun car ride.
One crisis averted—possibly another one to go.
Chapter 10
It was only when I got into the seat in the back row—remembering all too vividly that I still needed to act the dead weight and bed warmer, who consequently had no room as navigator or alert sniper in the front—that my paranoia jumped up a few notches. It had been all too easy to focus on the immediate danger—trigger-happy soldiers—in favor of forgetting that I wasn’t exactly safe in the car with the idiot brigade. I debated whether I should put on the seat belt—if I had to shoot the driver, being secured would give me a better chance to survive relatively unharmed if he crashed the car. Much harder to deliberately hurl myself out of the vehicle with the belt on, though.
I ended up buckling myself in, if only because since totaling the Rover on that slope down into the Colorado base, I had a new appreciation for safety measures.
We’d picked up the loot the traitorous scavengers had left behind, so we weren’t the first car to peel out of the parking lot, but still part of the first group. With half of our people needing to round the mall first to get to their vehicles, it would be a while until they would catch up. Harris set a good pace, intent on getting as far away from the mall as possible, but slow enough to let the others catch up.
Against what my darker thoughts concocted up, Blondie—who was driving, and who I was sitting behind—didn’t veer off first chance he got so they could disappear into the wilderness and do whatever the fuck their stupid brains could cook up to me—like, presenting themselves for getting shot in the face; getting shot in the dicks; or plain old punched to bloody bits and pieces, my favorite option. His fingers were drumming a staccato beat on the steering wheel whenever he didn’t need to grip it hard, and that nervous energy was infectious. The navigator in the passenger seat was busy checking all the guns they’d stored in the car, and the remaining guy was looking at everything that wasn’t me. Either they were planning something incredibly stupid, or they had another very good reason to be on edge. I wondered if I should try to crack a joke or force things to come to a head, but somehow I got the sense that they were stewing much harder than I was.
Blondie cracked first, a good two miles down the road from the mall. “Shit. Just don’t shoot me in the back of the head until I’m done talking, okay?”
Sounded a lot like option two. “Why, do I make you nervous?” I drawled, not having to dig deep to let self-assurance creep into my voice.
In his defense, Blondie chuckled, and it held nothing of the sleaze he’d so far been oozing whenever we’d had to interact. “I’d be one stupid fucker if you didn’t.”
My turn to laugh, and it came out darker than I’d expected. “Pretty much my assessment of you so far. Please, keep proving me right by all means. I haven’t shot anything yet today.”
The guy in the back row started inching away from me—or was that my shotgun?—but stopped when I turned my head and stared point-blank at him. Oh, yes, they knew.
Blondie cleared his throat, confirming as much. “We didn’t know who you were. Back in the settlement.”
“Obviously,” I interjected.
“Hey, now. Can’t fault us for being human.”
“Guess again,” I let him know.
That he actually laughed at that—if shakily—made me almost like him. Almost. “Look, Red, we might be stupid idiots, but we’re not suicidal. There might have been a tiny misunderstanding involved—“
“Trust me, I understood very well what you wanted of me,” I clarified. “And aren’t you glad I kept you from forcing me to kill you. Painfully. And ever so slowly.” Maybe I was laying it on a little heavily, but after the amount of time I’d spent feeling like I needed to watch my back over the last few days, they deserved to squirm a little.
“In our defense—“ the one next to me started—he’d been the one keeping watch—but shut his trap when I raised my Mossberg just a tiny bit.
I gave him my best blank stare. “Don’t start that shit with me. You won’t like how I end it.” Turning back to Blondie, I nodded toward the center console and the radio sitting there. “Check if that’s working again. If you’re uncomfortable with having my shotgun pointed right at your back, how does knowing that we have more than ten RPGs in the Jeep that I’m sure my husband is fondling right now make you feel?”
The guy in the passenger seat gave me a wild look over his shoulder, but Blondie had the audacity to chuckle softly. “Incredibly comforted.” He tried the radio, but it was still dead. “Look, I’m sorry. We are sorry,” he stressed. “Can we have a do-over? Just start fresh, like we only just met?” He chanced a glance in the rearview mirror, catching my gaze for a second. “I could have ratted you out back there, but I didn’t. I’m sure we could have gotten a lot of shit from them, handing the three of you over. Did you check the black boards in any of the settlements of late? The warrants on your and your guy’s heads have exploded since you forced that truce down their throats—dead or alive. You owe us.” Whatever he saw in my eyes made him correct himself quickly. “Just give us another chance. I’m sure you’re getting that a lot, but sometimes it’s difficult to judge someone right on a first impression.”
As much as I hated to admit it, he was right—on more than one count. And it wasn’t like I was speaking for the others when I gave a curt nod and relaxed into my seat, slinging my shotgun almost casually over my right arm. The tension in the car dropped by several notches, although the gu
y next to me kept eyeing me cautiously. Good.
“Well, then let me make the introductions,” Blondie offered brightly. “I’m Francis, and this is Jeff and Carl. And you’re—“
“Not shooting you in the back. At least not until I get out of the car.”
He laughed at my response. “I was going to say as close to a living legend as we’re likely going to meet, but hey, I’ll take that.” The drumming on the wheel stopped, but soon resumed, if at a slower pace. “May I ask you a question?”
“Would you shut up if I told you no?” I beamed a fake smile at him in the mirror.
Jeff, from the passenger seat, gave a small scoff. “Hardly. He’s always running his big mouth. And usually gets us into trouble.” From his sidelong glance I figured that it had been Blondie’s—Francis’s—bright plan to come after me. I’d kind of assumed that Blondie was their leader, but from the agreement Carl gave in the form of a loud grunt I got more of a jovial, equal feel between them. And that Carl wasn’t really much of a talker.
Conceding with a nod, I offered, “Then get it over with.”
Francis was only too eager to oblige me. “What the fuck are you really doing out here? I didn’t really buy it when Harris explained that he and his guys are escorting those settlement fuckers up north, but they’ve done shit like that in the past. Then I saw him getting those traitorous fucks to tag along as well, and he already had the cargo haulers plus their guards along. He doesn’t need you.” Cocking his head to the side, his expression turned pensive. “And why are you letting him run the show? Doesn’t that, I don’t know, stomp all over your ego?”
That last part made me chuckle in earnest. “Have you met my husband? My ego is virtually impossible to chip, let alone tarnish. Why should either of us bother with micromanaging the everyday shit? Much easier to just tag along between the recreational activities.”
“Like clubbing undead fuckers, you mean?” Francis asked. “You realize that’s what made you, right? No one’s insane enough to do that for fun.”
“Oh, I know a few,” I murmured, but had to concede that point to him. “It was necessary. And it beat smashing your heads like pumpkins, doesn’t it?”
“Always,” Francis replied, but he was still grinning. Sheesh, but I was starting to get a similar sense from him than from Gita. Fangirls, ugh. “So, why slum it with the plebs?” I couldn’t quite place his accent—something East Coast or other—but he tried himself at some British for that part, failing horribly.
I opened my mouth to answer, but rather than words, a dry, rasping cough came out, getting harder by the second. It took me a good twenty seconds to clear my airways, and by then my vision was swimming slightly. When I leaned back into my seat, I found three sets of concerned eyes trained on me. Jeff was the one who voiced what I figured was on all their minds. “I thought you juiced-up bastards didn’t get sick.”
“Well, I’m special,” I harped, then coughed once more, quickly swallowing the phlegm that came up with that one. We might not be becoming fast friends, but no need to increase infection risk for them deliberately. “And to get back to your initial question, we’re making one last run to meet with some friends before the winter.” That wasn’t exactly a lie, considering that we got along splendidly with Jason’s gang, and I had parted on moderately good terms with Dom at least, if not all of the other scientists of the Silo.
Carl was still leaning away from me, but a little less obviously now as he asked, “Why go with a caravan and not on your own? You’d likely already be there if you’d just taken that car of yours and driven straight there.” So he did talk.
I shrugged. “A lot can go wrong if you’re on your own out there. Been there, done that, not a fan. We’re not really in a hurry. Might as well help along the way.” They accepted that more readily than I’d expected, making me wonder exactly what kind of impression we’d made on them before. And speaking of which… “Do you think the other guys made us, too? Who went with the soldiers, I mean.”
Jeff shrugged, but Francis shook his head. “We talked last night. They thought you’d wildly exaggerated the story about the zombies you killed. One of the reasons we came to look for ourselves. And they’re not from around here. Came up from Texas, I think?” Jeff nodded. “It’s not like anyone expects to run into you just because rumors are that you’ve bugged down for the winter in California, but we like to keep an open mind.”
“I bet,” I muttered. A crackle in my earpiece made me sit up straighter and briefly check my com equipment.
Nate’s voice sounding patchy but understandable enough made me ease up even more. “Please tell me I won’t spend the evening digging graves. Kind of over that.”
I felt the beginnings of a smile spread across my face, and it must have been quite the smile, judging from how Francis’s brows shot up in the mirror. “Only if you don’t pack up that RPG again.”
The annoyed grunt I got in response was only furthering my amusement. “Why would I shoot at a moving vehicle you’re still riding in?” A pause followed. “Let me guess. You scared the living shit out of them already and are having the time of your life continuing to let them only be privy to your side of our conversation?”
I didn’t even try to hide the mirth in my drawl. “You know me so well, husband.” I cast a glance Carl’s way, who was still hugging the opposite door, giving me as much space as the crammed interior of the vehicle let him. I could live with that. Speaking of which… “Did the fuckwits give you any more grief before they let you go?”
“You mean besides trying to appeal to my non-existent sense of honor? Only the usual verbal abuse. I get worse from Martinez and you when you’re on a bitching bender.”
Some good news, at least. I signed off then but left my com on, if switched to receiving only. I didn’t quite trust Blondie and his apology yet. Turning to my three unwitting companions, I asked, “Say, are they doing that a lot? The soldiers. Trying that whole appealing to your good side and recruiting shtick.”
Francis gave a noncommittal grunt but Carl found his voice once more. “Emphasis on try, yes. But none of us buy it. At least not those that have a working brain.”
“Which would categorically exclude you,” I surmised.
Jeff laughed, while Francis briefly hung his head in mock shame before responding. “We might not have been along last summer for your little crusade, but that doesn’t mean we don’t appreciate what you tried to do for us, as an entire bunch. If we’d wanted to sign on with them and let someone order us around, we could have done that last year already, or earlier this year when they started posting their recruitment call in every fucking trading post and settlement. Didn’t really do that much from what we heard along the road. People aren’t stupid.” He offered a snort. “At least not when it comes to signing away their lives. We sure got the short end of the stick with the agreement with the settlements before, but it was still better than the alternative. Dispatch and the Silo never enforced the five-day rule, and a lot of the smaller settlements were happy to find additional tasks to let us come and go for several weeks in a row. They know that if they become reliant on the military, they lose their independence, too, so they tried to play both hands simultaneously.”
That struck me as strange. “You sure about that? We had some issues with other scavengers who actively tried to assassinate us, because they felt like they had to ingratiate themselves with the soldiers.”
Blondie chuckled. “Can’t please everyone, I guess. People might not see you as the second coming of Christ,” he said, frowning briefly. “Or, more likely, Mary Magdalene. Don’t go back on that promise not to shoot me just yet, but they more often call you a whore than a saint. But all misgivings aside, the general word out on the roads is that you’re doing what needs to be done, for us. We haven’t forgotten that it was you who got out the message about the contaminated food, and you were the ones who organized us and hit back when things started looking bad for us all if we didn’t want to go all,
‘Yes, sir,’ collectively. Like those traitors, some will sign up to get someone to feed them through the winter, but there’ll likely be a lot of deserters come spring.”
Jeff agreed with him. “Word is, they’re already scrambling to keep their grunts from tucking in their tails and running. They might have done a good job for an entire year feeding their own people bullshit about being the only ones who can make a difference, that we’re just scum on the roads. But the fact that you easily got a good third of us to join you and annihilated that base in one crushing blow has woken up quite a lot of them. Everyone was scared last year so they ducked and ran for cover. You showed them that they can be walking tall and free again, if they just find their balls and stick up for themselves.”
Hearing their testament to my greatness made me want to tell them not to lay it on too heavily, but while it did a thing or two for my ego, it also kicked the paranoia churning in my stomach into overdrive. I wasn’t going to tell them that I was convinced that whoever was in control of the soldiers had sent Bucky Hamilton there to be either the fall guy himself, or find a good replacement. They must have known that it would lead to people losing at least some faith in them—but then, slaughtering scavengers and traders on the roads had been the worst PR disaster. None of it made sense, except that it did, kind of. It was so easy to now shove it all at Taggard’s feet—the ultimate scapegoat who had gotten sacrificed on the altar of my need for vengeance, and now there was nobody left who knew the truth—or was ready to tell it.
Damn, but maybe killing that blasted son of a bitch—and letting Torres and his men do the same to Alders and Dolores at Cheyenne Mountain—hadn’t been the smartest thing. But then I’d never claimed to be smart.
Green Fields (Book 7): Affliction Page 15
