Green Fields (Book 4): Extinction

by Adrienne Lecter

  “Kind of rings a bell,” I murmured, then closed my eyes again because this being awake shit? Not gonna happen right now, at all.

  A gentle nudge on my shoulder jarred my body, prompting my stomach to do some more revolting. I swallowed convulsively and waited for the world to stop spinning again.

  “Anything else you remember?” Nate asked.

  I considered shaking my head, but that seemed like too violent a gesture. My right arm, splayed somewhere beside and behind me, gave a jerk, and it took me a moment to realize that I was trying to reach for my lower back. Just then Burns walked by the car, ignoring me in favor of peeling away the bandage high on his right arm, to check on something.

  “Shit.”

  Nate’s smile grew at my emphatic swearing.

  “So you do remember.”

  Nodding was still out of the question, so whispering it was.

  “We all got tattoos. Matching ones.”

  His smile widened. “And do you still remember—“

  “The ‘Rape Stamp,’” I interrupted him, wincing when I’d spoken up too loudly. “That’s what I said mine was.”

  I didn’t need to see Burns to know that he was grinning from where he’d stopped next to Nate. “Do you still know why?” Burns wanted to know.

  Exhaling slowly, I forced myself into a moderately upright position, squinting when that put my head back into the sunshine.

  “Because some asshole“—meaning Nate—“said I shouldn’t put it anywhere on my body where it’s easily visible. And to that I said I don’t want something as tacky as a tramp stamp because I can be classless all on my own, thank you very much.” Turning my face to Nate, I stared at him. “To which he said it would work best on my lower back because if someone were stupid enough to think I’m defenseless and got me in a compromising position, they wouldn’t see it, even when I reared up and ripped out their throat with my teeth. That’s why ‘Rape Stamp.’”

  Someone further down our little camp chuckled, but I really didn’t have the strength to react to that. Damn, but when had red sunrises started to be so bright?

  Martinez looked satisfied at my recount, but Nate? Not so much.

  “You didn’t say throat—“ he started, but shut off when I stabbed him in the chest with a finger—or tried to, but his shoulder worked well enough, too.

  “Yeah, yeah. I said dick, to which you argued that they’d likely knock my teeth out first if they intended to stick anything in my mouth, to which the Ice Queen replied that any guy stupid enough not to deserves to meet that fate. Happy now? I remember. I was drunk, yes, but not black-out shitfaced.”

  Burns shrugged, but Nate still wasn’t satisfied. “You were drunk enough that you thought singing karaoke was a good idea.”

  “That’s less because of an impairment of judgment and more lack of general common sense,” I admitted, rubbing my eyes. “Besides, Jaymie and I were killing it. You’re just jealous because you can’t sing worth shit, choir boy.”

  That detail came out of nowhere, but the second it made it over my lips, I couldn’t help but grin. It hurt, but it was so worth it.

  Nate gave a grunt, but finally stopped with his interrogation. “That you could have easily forgotten.”

  “Fat chance,” I jeered. What else I might have said got drowned out by the most god-awful fanfare blaring across the base, echoing from walls and tarmac alike. If my headache had been bad before, that almost killed me. It was only a small reprieve to see that none of my companions seemed to suffer it gracefully, even Burns and Nate hunching their shoulders. They still didn’t look half as hungover as they should have been, considering what we’d polished off after the not-beer was gone.

  I should probably have been grateful that I was still alive and hadn’t died of alcohol poisoning during the night. Would have served me right, too, trying to drink Andrej under the table. I likely couldn’t have succeeded even before he got his metabolism supercharged. But shit, this wasn’t funny anymore.

  “Looks like it’s time for our morning exercise,” Nate said, giving me a supportive nudge. “Get dressed. We’re going running.”

  He got the baleful glare that deserved. “I can hardly sit up. How do you think I can run?”

  His grin widened. “Very carefully, I’d expect. Now up with you, unless you want me to pick you up and throw you into the lake over there. Falling flat on your face still beats drowning any day.”

  I felt like wholeheartedly debating that, but just then the blare changed to a swanky ‘80s pop tune, getting me wincing even harder. Making sure not to move a muscle too much, I slowly let myself glide off the hood, avoiding the side where my barf had ended up on. I had no intention whatsoever of cleaning that up, and fleeing the scene of the digestional atrocity seemed like a great idea. That my mind was capable of forming such thoughts told me that I hadn’t killed nearly as many brain cells as it felt like. Or maybe not nearly enough.

  Nate, Burns, and a few of the other guys took off as soon as I had made it onto my feet, if shakily. Martinez watched me suffer for a while before he got out some painkillers and a bottle of water.

  “Not sure I can keep this down yet,” I said as he pressed both into my hands.

  “Water first. No harm done if you puke that up again.”

  All I had for him was a baleful stare, but at least the two careful sips I dared take stayed down. Victory, at last!

  “You’re not honestly expecting me to do this,” I said as I watched a group of surprisingly awake-looking mercs sprint by. I thought I remembered one of them from my karaoke stint last night. He had a mean baritone.

  Martinez shrugged when I glanced back to him. “The first round will feel like hell, but you’ll be better off once you’re done. Trust me.”

  I continued to stare at him. “You let me get up onto the karaoke stage last night. There is no trust left between you and me, chico.”

  His smile was dazzlingly bright. “I also talked you down from adding winged curly-cues to your tat. How about that?”

  Besides us, Cho was the last to pull himself out of our little camp and hit the tarmac, where more and more runners were tormenting themselves. Martinez gave me an emphatic, “Do it! Just do it!” before he took off after the others, leaving me leaning against the car. I spent another minute wallowing in my misery before I pushed myself off the hood and took a few slow, deliberate steps forward, direly needing the front passenger side of the Rover to keep me upright once I got there. Wrenching the door open, I dropped the pills on the dashboard, but kept the water. It was only then that I noticed that I also wasn’t wearing any socks or pants, but someone had done a great job painting my toenails bright red. That I didn’t remember.

  Ah, screw it.

  It took a little rummaging around to find the shorts I had packed away, seldom used as they were. I didn’t bother with the running shoes but wrenched my boots on. I did enough running with them that they’d long since stopped giving me blisters. I considered changing into another shirt—there were spatters of puke and drippings from last night’s dinner on it—but decided that it was a waste of a perfectly clean tee. I then discovered that someone—Jaymie, I thought—had braided my hair last night. Not those silly little girl braids, but proper, almost impossible to come loose braids that left the entire mass of my hair securely bound away. Convenient. At least I wouldn’t have to wash barf out of that, too.

  Taking another drink, I finally forced myself to stop stalling and started dragging myself toward the running track. Just as I left the relative security of the Rover, I saw the Ice Queen stroll out of the camp right opposite ours. She calmly surveilled the runners, and after a last grin back at Jason, who’d followed her, she effortlessly joined the throng streaming by. I must clearly have been more drunk still than I’d thought if I was having hallucinations. But no, Jason was still standing there, looking after her with one of those clearly male smiles, before his eyes fell on me. Even squinting against the sun I could see him trying hard t
o suppress a smile.

  “Rough night?” he called across the tarmac.

  “Great night,” I answered, if somewhat less loudly. “Shitty morning.”

  “As it’s supposed to be,” he replied, and because every single person around me had gone insane, took off running as well.

  I didn’t. I didn’t even try. Just walking alongside the runners was bad enough. Every step seemed to sear my eyeballs. And made my teeth hurt. And my spleen. Could you even feel your own spleen? Something back there was messing with me. I had to stop a few times to wait until the pounding in my head slowed enough that I could see straight again. But damn, it had been a long, long time since I’d gotten this wasted. Killing that bottle of Jack with Burns a couple of weeks ago hadn’t been half as bad, although I’d been puking back then, too. It happened. At least I was capable of movement, even if every miserable second of it sucked.

  Beyond the tarmac, the running track went on for about half a mile as it curved around the lake, then on between the rows of houses and the market stalls, veering toward the command center, and back onto the former runway. And just where they’d been sitting the day before, the Girls were happily chattering away in their lounge chairs, looking chipper as fuck. Jaymie grinned at me brightly as I dragged myself toward them, halting once more to cough up water and replace it with a fresh dose before I went on.

  “Morning ladies,” I greeted them, trying but failing terribly at being cheerful.

  Nikki and Lola shouted right back—way too loud—while Jaymie saluted me with a bottle of beer.

  “A good morning to you, too, Miss Bree,” she chirped, giving me a conspiratorial look above her lowered sunglasses. “Rough night?”

  “You tell me,” I replied, stopping for a moment to take another drink. The bottle was almost empty, and I decided that now was the best time to down my happy pills.

  “Can I see it?” she asked, jerking her chin in what I presumed was the general direction of my back.

  “I don’t know, can you see straight?” I joked, before I turned around and pulled my tee up. Some guy running past gave me a whistle, but one glare and he quickly sped up, pretending like the sight of my lily-white stomach wasn’t the epitome of sexy. Jaymie’s fingers were warm on my sweaty—and no longer cold, I realized—skin as she peeled away the makeshift bandage. “How does it look?” I asked, needlessly trying to crane my neck to catch a glimpse. Typical. One tattoo I got, and at a place where I couldn’t even see it myself.

  “Fierce,” she assured me, smiling. “I still think you should have gotten it right below the mark on your neck. Remind me again, what was the reasoning—“

  “Just don’t,” I ground out, pushing my tee back where it belonged. “I don’t know why all of you think I drank myself straight into a blackout. Just because I’m dying now doesn’t mean I don’t remember every glorious second.” That made her smile, and me shake my head—gently. “Do you even have a liver? I’m positive that you didn’t drink much less than I did, and you look perfectly okay.”

  “Good genes. Also, lots of practice,” she professed, that smile waning just a little. “It happens when you have a lot to forget, and no excuse not to drown your sorrows.” Before I could ask, she clucked her tongue, and just like that, her smile was back. “But don’t we all? Watching you drag your sorry carcass around certainly makes the slight headache I’m having this fine morning worth it.”

  “I hate you,” I told her, just as someone—lightly—slapped my arm in passing. I was just fast enough to catch Nate’s grin before he turned back around.

  “Less chatting, more running!” he called out.

  I didn’t even bother verbally acknowledging that, but forced my steps to drag myself on further. “Well, have fun watching me die out there,” I wished the ladies, and on I went.

  The second round was almost as painful as the first, but at least the nausea subsided to a mere roiling stomach. People were still streaming by me, but maybe a little slower than before. Except for Rita, of course. I bet she sped up as soon as she recognized the sorry excuse that I was so she could whip by me almost too fast for me to recognize her. But it was seeing her perky ass wriggling in front of me that spurned me on to increase my speed from sloth to turtle. My calves and thighs protested vehemently but I forced myself to start running in earnest. Cho caught up to me, and unlike the other assholes didn’t just leave me standing there but slowed down to my somewhat more moderate speed. He didn’t look much better than I felt and gave me a pained grin when he caught me scrutinizing him.

  “I’ll never drink another drop of alcohol in my entire life,” he swore, offering me his hand to shake. I wholeheartedly agreed with him, sealing the deal with a grin.

  “At least until we’re back here again,” I said.

  “Deal.”

  We passed the Girls again, getting our very own loud round of cheers and applause. Then our camp, and the lake. Cho left me to my own devices there as he braved the short obstacle course, while I just went straight by it. Running was one thing. Throwing myself to the ground and climbing ropes? Not gonna happen, no, sir. Just as I passed the end of the parcours, Nate jumped off the deer stand said impossible rope was attached to and effortlessly fell into step beside me. Without needing any jeering prompts from him I increased my speed, pushing myself until I was running at what came close to my usual leisurely pace. It wasn’t enough to be a match for some of the super-fit sprinters, but rather than being overtaken by everyone and their dog, I started passing some of the more sedate runners. Andrej, Pia, half of the Chargers, then Bailey and Clark overtook us, but Nate remained with me, seeming content to finish his rounds without pushing himself too much. I might have done the same, but then Rita overtook me again, having the audacity to smirk at me just as I passed up the obstacle course once more, and that was where I drew the line. No one had ever accused me of not being petty, spiteful, and rather easily motivated.

  Dipping deep into my reserves, I forced my legs to pump harder, for my lungs to expand further and take in more air. It hurt—so fucking much—but my will won over my body, letting me leap into one last bout of speed. All around the market I had her right in front of me, and as soon as the course leveled out on the runway, I flew right past her, yards away from where Jaymie had gotten out her pom-poms. Going slow for five rounds had one advantage—I could still push myself where Rita was suddenly struggling. She kept up with me until the end of the runway but had to slow down halfway across to the lake. And for my last, glorious round I threw myself through the obstacles, happily letting Burns boost me up onto the deer stand rather than having to brave the rope. Up there I whooped—not a good idea, but my head was a mess from my racing pulse, anyway. Nate was grinning up at me from the ground below the stand, and without putting much thought into the insanity of the concept, I let myself drop off the edge, trusting that he would catch me. Which he did, only to walk me over to the plank reaching out into the lake—and because I refused to let go of him, clinging to him like a deranged monkey, he jumped right in with me, laughing loudly at my increasingly frantic protest.

  The cold water hit me like a freight train, but it also felt good after all the sweating and over-exerting myself. I let go of Nate, pushing away from him, the pounding in my temples already decreasing. The water was clear enough that I could easily make out Nate as he pushed himself toward the surface, but I remained submerged for a few moments longer, just drifting. Then the burning in my lungs made me kick off the bottom and break the surface, the air much warmer than the water. Nate grinned at me before he pulled me close, then started propelling us both toward the edge of the lake. He turned around when he felt me start to swim on my own, which I immediately abused to wrap myself around his neck and hips and let him do the work. Rather than shake me off, he took hold of my thighs as he got out of the water, carrying me on his back. I happily sank against him, content not to move another muscle.

  Because we’d exited the lake close to the tower, our way bac
k to our camp led us right by the Girls again. Jaymie heaved a theatrical sigh and called a sweet, “Can’t compete with that, sorry,” after us. I felt Nate’s chest shake with suppressed laughter.

  He let me slide down once we’d made it back to our car, his hand lingering a moment longer on my lower back.

  “I could get used to this, you know?” I commented, smiling softly.

  “Yeah, don’t,” he advised, drawing an exasperated sigh from me.

  “Well, then you won’t object to me taking a long, hot shower alone?”

  That made him pause, and I had to smile at his considering look. “Grab your spare clothes and hop back on,” he said. That was exactly what I did. Very convenient, that man.

  I would have loved to spend the next few hours catching up on the sleep I hadn’t gotten last night, but the sun wasn’t even halfway to its zenith when Nate shooed me out of the relative shade of the tarp that Martinez and I had suspended between the cars, telling me to get ready. For what? The shooting range, of course. Because a bad headache was no excuse not to go check out some new guns. With “check out” he of course meant “shoot enough ammo until you’re stupid from pain.” How I managed to even hit a single target was beyond me, but in the end my aim wasn’t that bad, all things considered. Ruth—the woman Jason had told me about the day before—seemed used to her clients showing up more dead than alive, booze obviously taking priority over weapon mods. Andrej, Pia, and Nate gave her a run for her money—or near-endless scavenging points, rather—but she still took her time explaining the advantages of the different sniper rifles to me that she had me try. Two of them I might have selected, but mostly to spite Nate and his constant complaints I refused, instead getting new sights for my Beretta, two heavily modified shotguns, and the M4 carbine Pia refused to take back once she’d pressed it into my hands. I had to admit, I wasn’t doing too shabbily with it.

  As it was, Rita had to drop by just as I started getting comfortable with my new weapon, the hits not living up to my previous ones with more familiar weapons. Of course she couldn’t walk in on me practically pulverizing the target with the shotguns. Her smirk mostly made me mad at myself, though. I had nothing whatsoever to prove to that woman. Nothing.