Green Fields (Book 7): Affliction

by Lecter, Adrienne

  She wasn’t exactly wrong there, and that seemed to vex Nate more than he liked to admit.

  “What is it with you townspeople and wanting to keep us easily accessible right outside of your barricades?” he mused.

  “Strategic advantage,” Minerva replied, not bothering with sweet-talking things. “But I see that you don’t agree with my ideas.”

  “On the contrary,” Nate admitted. “But agreement doesn’t mean that it’s an offer I’m willing to take.”

  She gracefully inclined her head. “It’s an offer without a time limit and only few conditions. Whenever you change your mind, know that you’ll always have a place here.” A wry smile turned the corner of her mouth up. “And judging from what Jason told me about your wife, I think she’d much rather live here in the mountains than deal with the egotistic megalomaniac on the coast every day.”

  She wasn’t wrong there, but like Nate I didn’t feel like it was an option worth considering. Maybe once the snow was melting again, but winter in balmy California didn’t sound so bad. All that was pure fantasy right now, with the huge uncertainty of what was going on with me making future planning somewhat impossible.

  “Thank you,” Nate replied, for once sounding like he meant it, if grudgingly. “We appreciate the offer.”

  Minerva continued studying him, her head cocked to the side. “Not sure you actually do,” she mused, quickly raising a hand to forestall Nate’s objection. “Oh, in terms of being polite I’m sure you meant it. But you’re a nomad. You have no intention of putting down roots anywhere. For a little while, maybe, when circumstances force it. Look at how quickly you left your barely established camp to be out on the road again.”

  Nate’s forehead furrowed. “We told you before why we’re heading north.”

  Minerva’s smile was a knowing one. “But did you really need to set out immediately? Couldn’t you have waited out the winter? I understand why your wife is alarmed. The more you know, the easier it is for concerns to take hold and drive you crazy. But something tells me that it wasn’t her urging that got you to up and leave.” Her hawk-like gaze skipped on to me. “Now, she doesn’t mind being out there or in here. She has found her home, and that’s wherever you are. Maybe one day she will yearn to settle down, but right now she still has too much joy catching up on the many things she never got to do before her life got derailed.”

  I couldn’t hold back a snort. “You talked to Sam, didn’t you?”

  Minerva’s shrug wasn’t much of an answer. “Your name only came up once in passing conversation. You’re a scientist. Academia’s prized child. There couldn’t have been much room for being wild and untamed between working your ass off for your achievements. And now, look at you! Not a month passes without you changing tracks. Once the hunted, then the hunter. Makes one wonder what comes next.” Her attention returned to Nate. “It bothers you that you know that it is only the two of you when things boil down to the essentials. That the rest of your team prefers to settle down rather than remain a roaming group of nomads.”

  Nate responded with a smirk twisting the side of his mouth up. “And still, it isn’t just the two of us that arrived here.”

  “You know better than I do that loyalty easily supersedes need for comfort, but need there still is,” she pointed out. “Your people will always follow you if the need arises. But how much further do you want to lead them, knowing that your goals no longer go hand in hand with theirs?” For once, Nate didn’t have a snappy comeback to that, leading Minerva to chuckle softly. “What do I know, old woman that I am? I’m sure that, come tomorrow, you’ll have already forgotten about me. But maybe you should spend a little more time finding an answer for that question.” She got up, stretching vigorously. “I bid you all a good night. I will have the goods for Wilkes and his people ready when you depart in the morning. Don’t forget that, should worse come to worst, you are always welcome here.”

  I waited until she was well out of earshot before I turned to Jason. “Is she always like that?”

  “Usually worse,” he offered, laughing. “Don’t mind her. It’s part of her gig to psychoanalyze everyone. Also helps when all her advice eventually boils down to ‘listen to me, I know best,’ don’t you think?”

  The woman plastered to his side nodded. “She’s been bugging us for months to get hitched. Not because of religious reasons, but so she can rest assured that Jason always has a reason to come back. Not that he needs the extra incentive, but never hurts to strengthen the ties, or something like that.” The humor in her tone—and the partly wistful look on Jason’s face—made me guess that, just maybe, Minerva was trying to be a good sport as well.

  We remained sitting at the fire for another hour, snuggled in blankets and just enjoying such creature comforts as great company and not having to watch our backs. Eventually, even the most steadfast drinker was happy to turn in, and we ended up in the cramped room in one of the larger buildings closer to the gate that I presumed were for guest lodgings. Yet it had a bed—even if that took up ninety percent of the available space—and a door that shut tight, making it the most luxurious housing we’d enjoyed since leaving on our road trip. My coughing had receded, likely due to the gallons of hot tea I’d gulped down, but halfway through the evening I’d started to sneeze, making me feel like the sexiest woman alive with my clogged-up yet still somehow runny nose. Nate was still lost in thought, more broody than usual. We still did it, because, hello? Bed, door, privacy—all things that shouldn’t go to waste. And it was a nice change of pace compared to having to sneak away and watch our backs the whole time—heavy emphasis on “nice.” Far was it from me to complain, and Nate seemed content enough when I snuggled into his side, abusing his outstretched arm for a pillow. Yet the way he kept staring up into the dark rafters I couldn’t shake the feeling that he wasn’t quite here with me.

  “It bothers you what she said, doesn’t it?” I hazarded a guess. Which part I wasn’t sure about, but that it did was rather obvious.

  He briefly glanced at me, his expression turning a different kind of pensive. “Bother is too strong a word for it. But she wasn’t exactly wrong,” Nate admitted.

  “So what if you don’t want to settle down? You heard what she also said. I’ll stick to you like one of these small, annoying, yippy dogs.”

  “Now that’s a comforting thought.” His soft laughter made me smile.

  “It better be! Because, as I said, I’m not going anywhere.”

  Nate took his sweet time replying, but I didn’t mind. I was almost about to doze off when he opened his mouth again. “Guess I’m just not used to not knowing what comes next. Still not used to it,” he amended. “And it makes me feel terribly conceited that I’ve never been in that situation.”

  That made me laugh in earnest. “Yeah, like you don’t get off on your superiority complex. Tell me something new.”

  “Well, how do you do it?” he teased.

  “Remember, yippy dog.” I pointed at myself. “I don’t have to have a plan, because before I know it, fate will sucker-punch me into the next great adventure. Come to think of it, it’s a marvel that we even made it down to the coast so we could help start building the camp. Maybe we just missed the blinking neon sign along the way?”

  “I was being serious,” Nate insisted.

  “Me, too.” I flashed a brilliant grin at him before I turned over onto my stomach, propping myself up on my arms so I could still look at him. “Why are you bothered by that now? We have our mission—get me to the Silo, and, preferably, not shot on sight. Which seems awfully like a constant these days. We’ll take it from there. Whatever the outcome, we can always come back here and take Minerva up on her offer to help them carry off whatever they might need. Or we go back to our people. I’m sure that if we fill the Jeep up with baby stuff, Sadie will forgive you for running out on her like that.” If I sounded a tad bitter mentioning her, there was nothing I could do about it. “Or we go straight down to New Angeles and annoy
Greene on a daily basis with your sunny disposition. Not much else we can do with winter right around the corner, but correct me if I’m wrong. Those are a lot more options than we had this time of the year last fall.” I had to admit, I hadn’t wasted a thought on the lack of options back then, too busy with learning how to get by.

  “Is any of that really something you want to do?” Nate questioned, sounding a lot more like it wasn’t anything that held his interest. “We busted our asses to force that truce, and now we do what? Count beans and lug around furniture?”

  “It could be way worse. I could make you get shit from a Swedish furniture store and you’d have to assemble it, too.”

  His sigh of exasperation was rather satisfying—as was him suddenly pushing me over so he could perch right above me, not-quite incidentally ending up between my spread legs. Looked like someone really wasn’t ready to call it a night yet. He leaned down to kiss me but turned the move into pinning my arms to the bed, staring at me from up close, our breaths mingling. “I just can’t make up my mind what I want to do next.”

  Hooking one leg up over his ass, I forced him to lower his hips a few inches. “Oh, I can think of a ton of things right now,” I drawled, briefly flexing my arms to try to throw him off. He didn’t budge, superior strength and gravity keeping me right where I was. “Maybe that will make your mind shut up. Just a thought.”

  The hunger in his eyes told me that he was tempted, but apparently not tempted enough. “Do you ever wonder if what we did last summer was a mistake? That, not on the grand scale but on a selfish, just-concerning-us level, we should have done things differently?”

  That made me pause for a second, annoyance over him forcing me to think warring with mindless lust. It took me a few moments to decide that, yes, I should let my brain do some more thinking rather than spend what was left of its capacity on shutting Nate up.

  “Hello, have you met me? Everything I do makes me second-guess, and those few things that don’t end up biting me in the ass. Like that little tidbit that Minerva shared with us today, about me practically being responsible for wiping out a third of the Silo’s scientists. Not only was that a waste of intellectual capacity, but we don’t even know who of them is still alive. I’m banking on being able to persuade Dom and Sunny easily, but what if they’re among those that bit it? Then I’ve retroactively screwed myself. Story of my life.”

  Nate’s lips twisted into a grin. “Shit, I’ve missed your constant melodrama so fucking much.”

  “Easy for you to say,” I harped. “I know I didn’t hold a gun to their heads and pull the trigger. There’s an entire chain of fuck-ups connected to this. But that doesn’t really change anything. I was a spiteful bitch, and now they’re dead. Same as if we’d made sure that Alders had survived, we’d have someone to go to who actually knows everything about the fucking zombie virus. If I hadn’t killed Taggard, I could have beaten the answer out of him about what happened to Erica. And I could have angled for better terms with Bucky. But maybe not doing all that shit would have gotten us killed months ago, or ended with everyone we know slaughtered rather than sitting around cozy campfires and grumbling about the coming snow. Can’t change it now so all there’s left to do is deal with the fallout.” And why was I rambling about this now? Ah, right. “So what if we could have done things differently? We didn’t. It’s all water under the bridge. Just let it go.” I reared up and stole a breathless kiss from him before I settled more relaxed back into the mattress. “You’ve spent months telling me to own my shit and stop dwelling on what could have been. Maybe take a hint from your own playbook?”

  As expected, that was the kind of chiding that didn’t sit well with him, but seeing as the action it prompted involved some increased physical contact, I so didn’t mind. As soon as he shifted his weight, I used that opportunity to wrap myself around him and give him very good reason to stop thinking.

  It was only later—surprisingly much later—that I realized that we’d never finished our conversation, and I still didn’t know what had him second-guessing. Damn, but sometimes this man was too difficult for his own good.

  I woke up the next morning to Nate getting increasingly more handsy. Apparently, being at odds with yourself about your questionable choices turns you into a randy bastard. Not that I minded; on the contrary. What I minded even less was that, once we were both a sweaty mess, he got up to check on the others, leaving me to enjoy a few quiet moments alone, cozied up in the blankets. With everything warm except for my toes, this was as close to bliss as I’d expected to feel any time before next spring.

  Eventually, I decided that I couldn’t shirk my duty any longer when voices got loud outside the building, making me guess everyone but me was getting ready. I threw off the heap of blankets in a dramatic flurry—it wasn’t like I could easily kick them off the bed, as on three sides it bordered the walls—and halted when my gaze landed on my legs. Cue the horror after not shaving for more than a year and a half; but the abundance of fur wasn’t what made me pause. No, it was the fact that my shins and calves were mottled with bruises, and my toes had a distinctly whitish cast. When I reached down I expected them to feel cool to the touch—duh, with me barely being able to feel them from the cold—but they were distinctly warm. Huh.

  Turning over, I found a larger, purplish bruise on my left thigh. It hurt all right when I prodded at it, but that actually made me feel relieved. Bruises, hurting, nothing new there. I tried to remember when I must have gotten them, but came out blank. Then I remembered rolling around in the dirt with the zombie, relaxing instantly. Yeah, that would have done it. I hadn’t realized that I must have kicked so much, but Pia had spent ages teaching me that my hips and thighs were the strongest parts of my body, and I should use them whenever I had to grapple with anyone. And let’s just say that sparring with Nate was easier when I kicked him rather than gave him the chance to use his superior reach and punch me. Remembering that made my jaw ache where the tooth had been, but everything still felt normal when I tongued the area.

  Yeah, me being paranoid. What else was new?

  Freaked out as I was about my toes, I quickly dressed, feeling better immediately when the hopping around made them tingle, then quiet down as they warmed up. I debated telling Nate, but then decided against it. He’d likely just laugh at me, and that was the last thing I needed. Truth was, after losing my fair share of toenails last year on our endless trek across the country, I’d stopped worrying so much if I only got a blister or two. And being on the road where dressing and washing was usually a quick-as-possible act that left the minimum of skin exposed, it was easy to find bruises days after getting them, often when they were already partly faded.

  Just to make sure, I hopped in place a few times, but my balance was good—or at least not worse than usual—so I told myself to stop being such a pussy. Yet I couldn’t stop the nagging voice at the back of my head to add another few items to the list of ever-growing concerns that went duly ignored.

  Chapter 13

  Two trains of cars left the settlement in the early light of morning—one angling south, soon to go west; the other north, heading for the interstate where it emerged from the Salt Lake City area. As predicted, the townies remained behind, accepting whatever deal Minerva had offered them. The New Angeles people—except for Tanner and Gita—were heading back the way we’d come, with them three trucks from the settlement to carry extra goods and food. Our party was now down to ten cars, half of them belonging to the Chargers. Minerva had been true to her word, stuffing our cargo holds with everything from seeds and grains to wool and blankets.

  Right from the get-go, Jason took the lead, going at twice the speed we’d set before. It was gloomy enough that I was driving. Burns was in high spirits again—to absolutely nobody’s surprise—and had decided to ride with Tanner and Gita instead, presumably for the change of company, but I figured he was just itching to drive. Considering that I was a wheel hog and Nate a terrible backseat driver with ev
eryone but me, I could understand Burns taking the high road and commandeering a different vehicle for his adrenaline-junkie purposes. Tanner didn’t seem to mind and Gita was actually relieved, so it was for the best of everyone involved.

  It took us about three hours to clear the Wasatch Range and make it to the interstate, close to the Idaho border. It was obvious that Jason took a route they’d travelled before, and even had time and opportunity to clear a path between the rusting hulks of broken-down vehicles. We only had to stop a few times to get rid of the odd enterprising group of undead, but none of them were a problem. Once on the interstate, we switched up the driving order, going from single file to driving in two rows, if with enough room between the cars to make sure not to slam into each other every time someone needed to swerve around an obstacle. That, of course, meant that we no longer had to eat Jason’s exhaust but got to play his literal wingman. I couldn’t help but grin at the long stretch of road, feeling so far removed from the worries of the last days as if they hadn’t happened. Actually, as if half of the year hadn’t happened. It was just us and the Chargers, driving without much cause or reason through the countryside, with barely a care in the world. That it was just an illusion I didn’t need to remind myself—and considering that back in spring when we’d first met, they’d lost one of their own so they’d never been quite that carefree—but it was balm on my soul to feel like I was leaving a huge burden behind.

  “Guess we know what we won’t be spending next year doing,” I quipped to Nate when I realized that he was just as relaxed as I felt. “Guarding caravans.”

  “If there actually was anything to guard, I don’t think we’d have gotten that bored. But not protesting.” He let his gaze roam over the countryside that flew by, a few houses visible in the distance toward the mountains. “I think Minerva had a point with stripping the cities. When we hit Sioux Falls earlier this year, I didn’t really consider how many useful everyday items we could drag off. Sure, electronics are nice, but it’s only a matter of time until we can’t find anything useful in there anymore, at all.”