Green Fields (Book 6): Unity

by Adrienne Lecter

  Nate looked more somber than annoyed, the furrow between his brows deepening as he kept contemplating what to reply.

  “I know I let you down.” I shook my head vehemently, but he talked right over my protest. “I really didn’t know what to do. I was so glad that I still had you that I didn’t get how much of a downward spiral you were on until way too late to find an easy fix for it. And while you’re not the easiest woman to talk to—“

  “Wait a minute—“

  More ignoring. “—I should have made more of an effort to tear you out of your circle jerk of self-loathing. Not that I have a clue how I could have accomplished that, but I should have tried.”

  Maybe, but I had a certain feeling that nothing he could have done would have yielded any results.

  “I’m an adult. You should be able to rely on me being able to take care of myself,” I insisted.

  “Should, maybe. But just because you can, technically, do everything on your own doesn’t mean you have to. As I said, I’m in this for life. I won’t suddenly lose interest in you just because you’re not completely invincible.”

  “You’re one to talk,” I huffed, but when I felt his hand touch down on my lower back, I snuggled closer to him. My jaw cracked from the strain of suppressing a yawn, but I wasn’t ready to tuck in just yet. “When did things get so complicated?”

  Nate studied me in silence before he replied. “Between you and me? It’s always been simple. And it always will be. With me, you don’t have to pretend. You don’t have to put up a brave front. You can let your guard down, if you want to. Need to.”

  “Same,” I mumbled, snorting when he made a face. “Sucks, doesn’t it?”

  “I’m starting to remember what was so harmonic about our first few weeks together. We didn’t talk.”

  “Yeah, if you ignore all that deceiving and lying to me—“

  “Oh, shut up.” He groaned. “You knew from the get-go that something was fishy about our arrangement. In hindsight I’m surprised you didn’t get in my face the second or third time we hooked up, needling me until I was ready to admit that I had ulterior motives.”

  “True.” I had to concede that. “You wouldn’t get away with that now.”

  “Why did I?”

  I was surprised that he had to ask, but stopped myself before I could blurt out the obvious answer—that, insecure little shit that I’d been, I’d always thought that someone like him was too good for someone like me. It was a lie, long since gone stale. Instead I took a few seconds to sift through my memories, trying to distill the truth from the muddle of half-forgotten feelings that lingered from before the shit had hit the fan, and priorities were turned upside down.

  “Guess I got off on doing something daring and wrong, and ultimately getting away with it,” I admitted.

  I waited for Nate to laugh in my face—or call me out on my bullshit—but he left it at a small nod of acceptance. When nothing further came, I pushed myself up so I could look down at him, studying his face. A few things we’d flung at each other in anger over the past weeks still nagged me too much to bury them, undiscussed.

  “Did you really think I’d stay with Sam? Or that, even for a second, I’d regret my decision to throw my lot in with you?”

  “You have to admit, it’s one of your favorite arguments to slam in my face. That I’m to blame for all the shit you’ve been through since we met.”

  “You are, for the most part.” He raised his brows, making me snicker. “You kept me alive, as you so very succinctly stressed, again. So, yeah, of course it’s your fault. All that wouldn’t have happened to me if I was dead.”

  He let out a long-suffering sigh, the way his arm tightened around me belying his antics. “Sometimes I’m having a hard time justifying to myself why I love you.” I couldn’t suppress a grin, but wisely kept my tongue. Nate waited, then scrunched up his nose. “Nothing you want to say to me?” I shook my head, still grinning. “You know, once I can explain away as spite or negligence, but twice is pushing it.”

  “Actually, casual reference does not warrant a response,” I observed. “And you cannot seriously expect me to swear my undying love to you after you called me a frigid, spiteful bitch.”

  The look he gave me stressed that, indeed, he could, but amusement won in the end, making a surprisingly silly smile cross his features. “You are spiteful, and you are a bitch. And if my mind hasn’t completely flaked out on me, it’s only been ten minutes since you yourself admitted that you haven’t been feeling the most amorous of late—“

  “I swear, if you finish that sentence, I will smother you with this pillow!” I threatened, already wondering if I could move fast enough to pin his arms under my knees if I jumped into action this very moment.

  Nate laughed, and before I could find the answer to my contemplation, he tensed, moving too quickly for me to react. I found myself flat on my back with him perched over me, his hands pressing my wrists firmly into the mattress. Snorting, I relaxed, cocking my head to the side. “Do you think it’s healthy to always use sex to avoid talking about our feelings?”

  He pretended to give that some thought, but the way he kept rubbing against me was hard to mistake. I couldn’t help but snort at my own pun. Good times when I could so easily amuse myself.

  “I think we did enough of that for a decade,” he griped. “Besides, we both showered for the first time in easily a month—“ He grimaced, making me laugh. “And I saw how you petted that mattress and pillow. Don’t tell me that you’d rather continue to have this travesty of a conversation?”

  I tried to make a pensive face, a rather impossible feat to pull off when he nudged my head to the side so he could reach my neck with his lips, licking and kissing my decidedly less grimy-than-before skin, making me both laugh and moan. As soon as his hold on my wrists loosened, I wrenched my arms free, using the same motion to grab the back of his shirt to pull it off.

  “I can easily continue talking while you set your mouth to a different task,” I offered.

  His answering grin had a devious twist. “Yeah? Let’s see about that. Incoherent moaning does not a conversation make.”

  “Bring it on,” I quipped back, raising my hips briefly so he could get my pants and shameful underwear off.

  “Always.” And no, I didn’t get more than a word or two in edgewise—and didn’t regret that for a second.

  Chapter 14

  The next morning dawned bright and early, the unfamiliar scent of the ocean and the screams of seagulls waking me long before my body had had enough rest. Staring at the lightening sky through one of the windows in the cabin, I thought about snuggling back under the covers, but I felt too restless, so I gave up before I could waste any more time. Nate roused briefly when I extricated myself from the tangle of limbs that we’d fallen asleep as, but went back to sleep when I shook my head. Grabbing my last fresh change of clothes from my pack, I hesitated for a moment, then took the plastic bag from the very bottom as well. I’d been lugging it around with me for ages—I couldn’t even remember when I’d picked it up; long before we’d made it to Wyoming last summer, when such things had still been on my agenda—before I left, retracing my steps to the washrooms that I’d more stumbled than walked into last night.

  The beach was empty, but beyond the city was already awake, a few people going about their early morning routines with industrious vigor. I only had to ask twice until I finally reached my destination, happy that the unfamiliarity of being back in a large city hadn’t completely turned me around. No one paid me any attention as I set up shop at one of the sinks, studying the instructions on the box for a while before getting to work. Then it was an endless half-hour of waiting, trying to ignore the harsh chemical scent that clogged my nose worse than a bunch of zombies would have. A young mother with a babe on her arm and two children trailing her came in, her little boy increasingly fascinated by the stark, black numbers splayed across my lower back.

  “What does that mean?” he fi
nally asked, evading the mother’s third attempt to discourage his not-quite-stealthy approach. Judging from the half-sleeve his mom was sporting, next to the thick X right across her neck, adorned with a bunch of butterfly wings that spread to below her ears, I figured I didn’t need to explain that it wasn’t just painted on.

  “That’s for my family,” I told him. If my smile was a little sad, he didn’t pick up on it.

  “Are they here, too?”

  “Some of them.”

  He nodded with more wisdom than a boy barely old enough to start school should have had—but that was life now. “You’ll see them again one day,” he promised me, a little conflicted between offering up a brave smile and fighting obvious sadness. “Like I’ll see my dad and Uncle Jonas. Mom says I shouldn’t be sad because they’d want me to smile.”

  “She’s right, you know?”

  “Of course she is!” he cried, his momentary sorrow gone. “Because she’s my mom! And she’s awesome!” Said mother rolled her eyes at her offspring, finally gathering him up to wash his face, much to his undignified squawks. Still grinning, I stepped up to my sink and started washing the half-dried gunk out, doing my best not to shiver too much at the ice-cold water. I should have just jumped into the ocean—that would have been warmer, and likely taken a lot less time. Coming up, I couldn’t help but crack a smile at seeing the no longer familiar hue of bright red in my still dripping hair.

  “You’re doing the right thing, you know?” the little boy’s mother said, letting him escape now that the damage had been done. “My sister and brother will come with you. They’re both out on patrol right now but told me to let you know if I happened to see you.”

  I nodded, not quite sure what to say, particularly with red rivulets streaming out of my freshly dyed hair. She glanced at her older children, satisfied that they were out of earshot where they were chasing each other under one of the showers at the other end of the room. Before I found my answer, she went on.

  “We were part of a smaller settlement in the Ozarks. The shit they don’t tell people is that when we refused to be part of their network, they razed us to the ground. Not officially, you know? But why should all of a sudden a horde of zombies find us when we hadn’t seen more than a few of them for almost an entire year? Someone later told me that it was the same streak that you decimated further north. Guess you beat them to the punch of making another example out of us.”

  That likely explained where her husband and other members of her family had died.

  “I know it doesn’t change anything about the people you lost, but I’m doubly glad we could kill at least some of the undead fuckers.”

  She gave me a lopsided smile that hammered down the family resemblance to her son.

  “It does. No one can do anything about the undead, but you’re the first to stand up to the assholes who are actually responsible. I’d come, too, but someone has to watch our kids.” She didn’t sound apologetic about that, something I was glad about.

  “They’re our future,” I agreed with her. “Whatever comes of our strike, someone will have to repopulate the better world we’re fighting for. It’s not going to be me, so I’d better fight for those who can.”

  There was more understanding in the woman’s eyes than I felt comfortable with, but she didn’t remark on that. It was a welcome respite when her rambunctious offspring came charging back to her, making conversation impossible. The moment passed and I could breathe freely again.

  “You’re doing the right thing,” the woman insisted once she’d sent the kids on another round of chasing each other.

  “Honestly, I’m not sure why anyone would trust me. I got the better part of my unit killed or severely injured.”

  She shrugged, seemingly unperturbed. “Can’t bake a cake without cracking some eggs. There’s a reason they say safety in numbers. If you’d already had a hundred people instead of ten, things would have been different, I’m sure.” She paused, gifting me a private smile. “But it’s good to see that even heroes can flounder a little. Makes you more human. More relatable.”

  “I’m the farthest thing from a hero,” I protested.

  “That’s what all the real ones say,” she insisted, her tone letting me know that she wouldn’t let me dissuade her of her view. “Of course there are some asshats out there who won’t follow you because of that. Or because you’re a woman. Or because of the people you run with. Or their previous involvement with the people who might just be more of a menace than the zombies. There’s always going to be someone who just can’t jump over their own shadow. But you don’t need everyone on your side.”

  “Just enough,” I finished her statement.

  “You’ll get them,” she assured me. “Just give it a few days.”

  She left me standing by the sink to get her kids, and I was still mulling over her words by the time I’d finished washing my hair and was back on the street, loving the sensation of the early rays of sunshine playing over my bare arms. Walking around aimlessly for a few minutes, I ended up close to the beach again but further north, by what I belatedly realized were the docks. I’d never been here before the shit hit the fan so I had no idea how much of the multitudes of wooden structures floating in the bay were new, but there were easily two hundreds boats tied up—and out in the ocean I could see many more dipping up and down between the waves, with a few clusters that I figured were yet more boats, often larger ones, tied together.

  “Morning!” a chipper voice called after me, making me glance back to find Gita—Punk Girl from last night—behind me, a styrofoam cup of coffee in each hand. When she saw me eye the cup that wasn’t smeared with purple lipstick, she held it out to me after a moment’s hesitation.

  I accepted it, but not without mirth. “Who’s coffee am I stealing?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” she assured me. “Your street cred’ll get you preferential treatment any day.”

  She followed me in my aimless wandering, but when I saw that she kept glancing toward the docks, I nodded for her to lead the way. “Digging the hair, by the way,” she enthused, grinning at my drying ruby tresses. “That’s a lot more you.” I refrained from pointing out that she knew me for less than twelve hours, but the energy radiating off her was hard to ignore. Not even seeing who she was aiming for at the end of the concrete stretch before the wooden docks started could kill my good mood this morning.

  “Fraternizing with the enemy, huh?” I barked at Burns, who kept sipping his own coffee around a dazzling, bright grin.

  His eyes skipped to my hair. “You know he’s just going to dump mud on you again, don’t you?”

  I shrugged. “If I’m painting a target on my head, I better make it easy for them to hit. Tip of the spear and all that. Besides, I’m done laying low. They wanted a war and now they’re getting it.” I finished my coffee, grinning at Greene, standing next to Burns and scrutinizing the empty cup. “Guess that was yours? Oops.”

  Greene ignored my jibe, soft one that it had been. Not that he would have shared the cup with me, so the loss couldn’t have been that great. “We’ve been sending the recording of your speech all night. Five of the channels are blocked now, but we got a few hours of uninterrupted airtime. There’s a good chance that we’ve reached up to eighty percent of the people not in a permanent settlement, and a good number of those inside, too.” He glanced at Burns, and I didn’t miss the somber look taking over both their faces. Burns made no move to explain, so Greene did. “We got a call earlier this morning. Taylor killed himself. He said he felt he’d held out long enough, now that you’re mounting the resistance and don’t need him anymore.”

  My heart gave a painful twinge at hearing that, and I accepted the news with a curt nod. At least he was in a better place now. Hearing last night that he was still alive had been unexpected, and I would have been lying had I said I wished him to hang on much longer, given that there hadn’t been any improvement to his condition. I still felt like someone had kicked me in
the gut. Part of me had hung onto the hope that he would recover—or that, somehow, we’d find a way to help him. After all, we were about to kick down the doors of the lab complex that had spawned a lot of the enhanced specimens that I spent my days with. Who knew what I might have found there that could have given him an edge, or prolonged his life a little longer…

  And perhaps that was exactly why he’d offed himself, deciding that it just wasn’t worth it anymore.

  More to distract myself than because I was actually curious, I nodded toward the many, many boats floating in the calm morning sea. “Building an armada?”

  Greene shook his head, chuckling under his breath. “Nope, the other way round. It was the armada that made the difference in taking back the city. Why disband it now when it’s our surefire way of survival, whatever may come down on us on land?”

  I hadn’t considered that option. “I thought you said you came here on foot?”

  “I did,” he corrected me. “The few people who’ve been with me from the start, and those we ran into. But twenty people would never have been enough to make a difference. Between the heat of the desert and the influx of undead once temperatures dropped, the area is as hostile to permanent habitation as they come. But it’s ideal for scavenging, and as you saw on your way in, once we had established a foothold, we managed to expand the safe zone outward week by week. And we’re not the only ones who’ve had that idea. What’s left of the US Navy is currently cruising in the shallow waters of the northeast, without a doubt waiting for the cold months to send more raiding parties into the large cities up and down the coast.”