Tanner turned around, regarding us levelly. “Weapons go on the racks. The bench is for your other gear. Do us all a favor and drop it all right there without holding anything back. We will find it, and then we have to do that whole mistrust thing, and who really wants that?” I had the strangest feeling that he was singling me out, but ignored it.
“Define ‘other gear,’” the Ice Queen rasped. Under her stare, even Tanner withered.
“Down to your underwear should do,” he explained, flashing a surprisingly cheerful grin. “You can get dressed again once we’ve made sure you don’t have half an arsenal hidden away. Standard precautions. No one sees the boss without getting checked first.”
“Paranoid much?” I muttered, but wasn’t really surprised. So far, Dispatch had been the only place that hadn’t had any stricter rules about that. It was a little strange that they only seemed to care about weapons, not the odd bite any one of us could be sporting. Then again, if they really knew who we were, they also had to know that getting chomped on wouldn’t exactly make us more dangerous.
“Not without reason,” Punk Girl explained. “We already thwarted three assassination attempts this year.”
“Your boss that special?” I hazarded a guess, wondering for a moment if it was wise to put so much sarcasm into my tone.
Contrary to my expectations, both women smirked, the older one going as far as offering a chuckle. “You have no idea.”
I could have put up a fuss, but really, so far things had remained mostly civil, and I intended to keep it this way if possible. So rather than try to hold on to any of my guns, I ditched them along with their holsters as I peeled myself out of my many layers of gear. The stacks on the bench kept mounting, and more than one pair of watchful eyes got a little wider at the sheer amount of weapons dropping there. Tanner and the older woman were quite busy as they patted down all pieces of clothing—a wonderful job, I was sure, considering that none of us had cared to do much cleanup since we’d left our guys in Isabella. I really didn’t envy them. Then again, I also didn’t care much for having to ditch all my clothes down to my—literally, once more—tighty whities, earning myself a snicker from Burns when he saw that I was only wearing a thong, leaving my ass—and the tattoo blazoned across it—in plain view.
“What? Do you think I want to have swamp ass from sitting all day long? Besides, I’m down to my last two pairs. It was either this, or the mint ones with the pink hearts.”
“I’m not complaining,” Burns replied as he dropped his tactical pants—revealing that his last pair of underwear had been used up a good time ago. I made a face and fake-groaned as I turned away, a little too slowly for my own good.
“Sheesh, you could have warned me!” I shot back.
Punk Girl’s eyes practically came out of her head, until the other woman gave her a soft whack to shove her out of her trance once more. “You learn something new every day,” she told the girl while catching a good eyeful herself. Pia just rolled her eyes, ignoring our antics. Taking pity on the collective female presence, Burns crossed his hands over his crotch, but his beaming grin easily rivaled the lights overhead. That, of course, only drew more attention to the exposed parts of his body, but also his muscled chest and ass. At least that might serve for a good distraction, or so I hoped. Nate watched the entire spectacle happen without saying a word, but there was a faintly amused twinkle in his eyes.
“Happy now?” I asked in the general direction of our guards, who were still too distracted to actually do any guarding.
The older woman gave the girl a nudge in my direction. “Pat her down, then she’s good to go.”
I pointedly stared down at my mostly nude body. “Exactly where do you expect to find anything hidden?”
Ignoring my snark, the woman fully turned to me, the air of levity markedly dissipating. Drats.
“You tell me?” she suggested, stepping up behind me to start working her fingers through my hair. I’d braided it tightly the last time I’d washed it—which, I thought, had been somewhere in Idaho. It felt something between peculiar and gross as she patted her way through every single braided part.
“What exactly are you looking for?”
“Garrote, or something else woven in there.”
I couldn’t help but snort. “Well, be my guest.” Crossing my arms over my chest, I did my best not to tense. Really, I hadn’t even thought about smuggling anything in tied into my ‘do. Certainly an oversight that might have made a difference with Taggard—
I forced my mind to go blank before I could start gnashing my teeth loud enough to draw extra attention to me.
Once satisfied with my hair, the woman stepped away, but rather than return to our gear, she ran her fingers across the material of my sports bra in the back, making me tense for a different reason.
“If you want to grope me, just let me know,” I tried to joke. “I’m sure we can work something out.”
She didn’t react, and I got the sense that she was on to my bullshit. When she stepped to my front, I dropped my arms with some reluctance, and it took her exactly two seconds for her fingers to stop as she prodded the uniboob-part in front of my chest. Her eyes flickered up to mine but I forced myself to remain completely non-responsive.
“Off,” she told me in no uncertain terms. Behind her I saw Nate give me an alarmed look, but there really was no sense to playing coy. With a sigh, I pulled off the bra, doing my very best not to look like I felt embarrassed as I handed her the grimy piece of lycra. Flipping open her pocket knife with her free hand, she sliced through the lining in the very middle, revealing the razor blade, wrapped in paper, that I’d carefully sewn into the fabric
“I have no idea how that got there,” I told her in the blandest voice I could manage.
“Of course you don’t,” she replied, considering, then snapped the bra back at me after extracting my last-resort knife. “Get dressed.”
I was a little disappointed that she didn’t make more of a fuss about this—but as they hadn’t realized I’d hidden two more underneath the soles in my boots I didn’t protest. Not that I could get to them in time, compared to, say, punching someone’s throat in, but it was the thought that counted. Nate seemed to be of a similar persuasion as he started dressing next to me, giving me a weird look.
“Is there something you’d like to tell me? Like why you’re hiding razor blades in your underwear?”
My shrug could have meant anything. “I would have warned you if you’d tried to grope me. Probably.” As I bent over to pull my pants up, I noticed the girl staring at my ass—or, more likely, the tattoo there. Nodding at Nate, I explained. “He started it. Just sayin’.”
Five minutes later, we were all dressed again, and while I couldn’t help but feel naked without my guns and knives, it could have been worse. Our guards were still a little tense, but our cooperation seemed to have calmed them down somewhat. The entire spiel still seemed like massive overkill to me. That conviction only strengthened as it took not just Tanner’s, but also Punk Girl’s handprint on the scanner by the door to disengage the locks—plural, from what it sounded like. Tanner was the only one to precede us, the rest waiting until we had entered.
The room beyond wasn’t much larger than the previous one, but looked it with a huge desk taking up a third of the space. Behind it, the entire wall was covered with monitors that showed a multitude of cycling video feeds—most of them from the ruins, but none that I could catch at a glance was of the other room, or the dance floor outside. A lot of the pictures were grainy and black-and-white, but considering that it had been weeks since I’d seen the last working monitor, it all seemed like a technological marvel. Between the desk and the monitors sat a rather impressive leather swivel chair, its occupant turned away from us.
“Boss, our visitors are here,” Tanner explained quite needlessly, but then they seemed to have a certain flair for the dramatic here.
“Perfect,” a male voice answered, coming from the chai
r. It tickled my memory, and not in a good way. Yet before I could put a finger on it, the chair turned—revealing none other than Gabriel Greene.
Chapter 11
From the corner of my eye I could see Nate tense beside me, and Pia right behind him. The odd thought floated through my head that they were likely doing that for my benefit, as in keeping me from vaulting over that desk and finishing what I’d started a small eternity ago. Tanner, on my other side, was completely at ease, oblivious of any issues that might come knocking at his door. I knew that I had at least another couple of seconds to act, had I really wanted to. And seeing that cretin of a man smirking up at me where he had now steepled his fingers in front of him in true movie villain fashion certainly made me itch.
Yet instead of doing the obvious and getting myself shot in the back of the head as soon as Tanner realized what was going on, I threw my head back and laughed. And laughed. And laughed some more until I had to double over with hiccups as the braying that came out of my chest left my lungs with not enough oxygen to function. That went on for a good minute, and as I saw the look on Greene’s face morph from satisfaction to annoyance, it got even harder to sober up. Not that I tried.
Shit, but we were all so fucking screwed.
I was still laughing, half clinging to Nate, but forced myself to sober up. Between two fits of giggles I leaned into his neck, whispering, “Let’s just go. Either we fucking drop this and watch the world burn, or we go to Dispatch. Rita will drum up an army for us. She must be as livid as I am, and she’s in a position to get us what we need.”
A muscle jumped in Nate’s jaw as he kept gritting his teeth, but his answer was an unexpected one. “Get a damn grip on yourself. We’re here now, and for a reason.”
He was right, of course, but the very idea of following through with our plan made me taste bile. Figuratively, of course, but it burned just the same. Exhaling forcefully, I made myself go still, my mirth subsiding. Defeat and apprehension came crashing in, but I forced myself to keep my resentment down—as much as that was possible, which, in all fairness, wasn’t working well. Turning around to face Greene, my back ramrod straight, I stared at what used to be my worst nightmare… for all of a few hours, I realized. Nothing like the zombie apocalypse happening to set your priorities straight.
“Are you done yet?” Greene rasped out, exasperation lacing his tone.
Not by a long shot, but seeing him so annoyed made it easier to go on. Now it was my time to smirk across the table.
“Why, am I ruining your great, dramatic reveal?”
His brows drew together, but the intensity in his eyes remained about the same.
“Quite so,” he admitted, his lips compressing into a thin line, but there was a hint of humor in his voice, as if he was laughing quietly at himself. And me, too, I was sure, but that hint of self-awareness was something I’d never expected to come from the likes of him.
Burns cleared his throat where he was standing at ease behind me. “I’m missing something here,” he said, looking around at our guards, who all seemed as confused as he sounded. “Someone wanna fill me in?”
Staring at Greene, I waited for him to do so, but when he remained sitting there, leaning back into his fancy leather chair, watching us, I turned around, speaking mostly to Burns but letting my eyes skip over the others as well.
“Remember that day we met?” What felt like a small eternity ago, I had to admit. “Back at the Green Fields Biotech building?” It occurred to me that I’d never even asked Burns if he’d been inside.
He nodded, a slight frown crossing his forehead. “Yeah, I remember all right. I was standing there, right next to fucking Bucky Hamilton, wondering how in the world I’d ended up on different sides from her...” he inclined his head toward the Ice Queen “...when you two came hightailing it down that elevator shaft with Martinez, Smith, and Cho with a shitload of undead fuckers on your heels.”
I hadn’t exactly forgotten about that, but it seemed like forever ago. The scar from the bullet that had grazed my upper arm gave a light twinge, making me shake my head with sarcastic denial. Shit, that I’d actually forgotten.
“Yeah, that morning,” I replied, crossing my arms over my chest. “And remember the strangulation marks around my throat? And that half of my face was all red and bruised? I didn’t get that from the damn building coming down on us. That was all him,” I explained, jerking my chin in Greene’s direction.
The sound Burns made was somewhere between a laugh and a scoff, but humor never left the slight smile on his face. I was sure that he remembered that just days later it had been him who’d given me my first knife, expressing his confidence in me having the guts to wield it, no doubt. That had been after I’d had to cut up Nate where the wound where the rebar had speared him had gotten infected under the seal of the glue, but the bruises I’d sustained days before hadn’t faded yet back then—bruises from where no other than Gabriel Greene had tried to incapacitate me by smashing my head repeatedly into the marble floor.
The guards had a much harder time processing the news. I got the sense that none of them was surprised that we knew their esteemed leader—or whatever Greene was to them—but the fact that we weren’t friends exactly was a surprise. It certainly didn’t make Tanner relax, but Punk Girl practically jumped up and down. “Did you beat the shit out of him?” she asked, her excitement making me snort as much as the question itself.
“You bet,” I told her, turning back to face Greene. It felt very satisfying to see him shrink back ever so slightly as I put my hands on his desk and leaned toward him. “And that was before I learned to fight. Wanna try that again?”
Greene’s reservation only went so far, his jackass side making an appearance as he turned that motion into sitting up a little straighter, as if that had been intentional. “We all know that you’d only need to french me to kill me,” he offered, that sleazy smile back in full force. My fingers itched to contract into fists but I forced myself to keep them splayed across the wood, doing my very best to hulk over him—and from the nervous tick in his cheek it seemed to be working. I opened my mouth to retort, a lot less at a loss now with reacting to that kind of shit talk than the last time we’d met, but Greene cut me off with a soft laugh, shaking his head. “Shit, has anyone ever told you that you got really scary? I mean, sure, it was to be expected that his kind of crazy would rub off on you,” he said, glancing at Nate, “but if I didn’t remember that you used to cower in that corner, unsure who you should be more afraid of—me or them—I wouldn’t believe it myself.”
It was so tempting to traipse right into that trap, but instead I straightened, assuming a more neutral pose. “Why, thank you,” was what I left it at.
Disappointment crossed Greene’s face, deepening when Nate assumed a similarly relaxed stance next to me. “She’s got her own special brand of crazy,” my dear husband divulged, not without a note of pride in his tone. “She never needed me to develop that. Just a little direction to let it all out.” Oh, the compliments I was showered with this day.
Greene’s eyes skipped from Nate to me and back a few times, his slight smile from before resurfacing. “Oh, I bet. I mean, you two have been through a shit of a year so far. Losing several of your people; getting kicked out of your winter hidey hole; walking straight-on into that trap at the factory; her almost getting torn to shreds by zombies; let’s not forget the miscarriage…” He trailed off there, his gaze skipping to my clenched fist, but his tone lost the snarky lilt when he went on. “I’m sure I don’t have to explain to anyone that there’s no love lost between you and me, but there are some things no one should have to go through. My sincere condolences for that. We are not in a place in the history of humankind where we can cheer over losing even a single life.” That surprised me, but as soon as I gave the hint of a nod, he had to turn around and ruin it, of course. “I mean, come on, anything you’d have popped out of your cooch would have been a civilized, contributing member of society, I’m
sure. Just look at how loving and nurturing the parents are!”
I felt like punching Burns for his slight snicker, but I was certain that if I just raised my brow, he would hold down Greene so I could show him just how loving I could be.
“Are you done yet?” I asked, not hiding my exasperation. “You kept tabs on us. Should I feel honored? You’ve always had that creepy stalker vibe going on, no surprise there.”
Greene shrugged. “Not by a long shot, but I see you’re less than impressed by my assembled knowledge. Or is it just because you’re uneasy about what else I could know about you? Like, where exactly you spent five days and roughly seven hours before you proved to yourself and the world that you don’t even need weapons—or clothes, for that matter—to get out of even the tightest spot? How was it, seeing your dear girlfriend again? I hear she’s been rather distraught since she had to come to grips with the fact that you’re no longer her little snuggle bunny anymore?”
I was ready to throw caution to the wind and go for him after all, but before I could make up my mind exactly how much damage I could inflict before anyone would drag me off Greene, he reached for a folder on his desk and shoved it in our direction. “Before you do anything drastic from your stance of utter misinformation, this is what you came here for,” he explained, nodding at the folder. “We don’t know for sure where this unfortunate group of miscreants has holed up, but in here are the locations and blueprints of three hideouts that we’ve narrowed our search down to. You are right when you say that Dispatch could give you an army, but you will need this to know where to lead it to.”
To say I was baffled was an understatement. When I didn’t touch the folder, Nate picked it up, briefly rifling through it. Greene watched him for a second before his eyes returned to me, triumph burning in them. Yet while he smirked, he for once didn’t look like he was laughing at me.
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