Green Fields Series Box Set | Vol. 2 | Books 4-6

by Lecter, Adrienne

  While the lengthening silence didn’t exactly leave me warm and cozy, it did start grating on my nerves eventually, making my eyes wander as much as they would without strictly looking away. With a better vantage point now that I was standing I could tell that the room beyond the glass was indeed large, with a vaulted ceiling overhead. It was far longer than wide, and I still couldn’t see the other walls besides the one opposite from me. What I could make out were a few more white-tiled cubby holes let into the walls, some empty with the glass panes retracted. I couldn’t see directly into the two cells that were occupied, but in one I spied a pair of legs, dirty and bruised, and in the other someone huddled at the very back, the body too small to belong to anything but a very slight woman—or a child.

  This was so not going to end well.

  Deciding that cold rage was better than giving in to my very active imagination, I focused on Taggard, ignoring Ethan for now. Whatever the junior scientist was here to do, he was obviously not in charge.

  “Open the door and let me leave, or I swear to God, I will paint the walls with your blood.” My voice was steady and suitably scratchy from lack of hydration, but that only lent my threat some much-needed conviction.

  Ethan gave another nervous twitch, while the soldier next to him just grinned at me, showing too many teeth.

  “You and what army?”

  I imitated his stance, at least as far as cocking my head to the side. “I don’t need an army for that. Want me to prove it? Open the door.”

  Taggard’s smile widened. “The only time that door gets opened is either when he needs something, or it ends with you choking on your own vomit, with my cum dripping out of your useless cunt. Are you that eager to get your ass handed to you? I’m always happy to oblige.”

  There was a good chance that he was just trying to provoke me, but I was realistic enough to know that he could very well follow through with that threat. I wondered if he’d realized that he’d basically given me my game plan on a platter, only that after how I’d started this senseless stance with bravado I couldn’t very well back down now and switch to appealing to Ethan’s sense of what was right and wrong—or failing that, his scientific curiosity. So more posturing and shooting shit it was. What a coincidence that I’d gotten a lot of opportunity honing that craft since last year.

  “You don’t have the balls it takes to follow through with that,” I jeered.

  Taggard raised his brows in mock surprise. “Oh, you mean because of that tramp stamp you got? I’m not afraid of a bunch of washed-up traitors.” Yet try as he might to sound like he meant it, I could see a ghost of unease tense his muscles.

  “You were at the factory?” I guessed, letting my fake smile widen when he tensed even more in response. “How many of you were there? Two hundred? Three? Against only twelve of us. And we got away, unlike you not getting chewed up by zombies. Exactly how great does it feel when your own trap backfires like that, leaving you with massive losses and without the target you set out to get? Just imagine what damage we can inflict when we set out knowing what we’re going to face down?”

  I deliberately kept it to the plural. I myself might be neither in the position to be a real threat, nor have the physical capabilities to pose one on my own, but I had no doubt that by now Nate had started tearing the world apart trying to find me.

  Too bad that Taggard seemed to think along the same lines, and while I could tell that my statement had flung some salt into open wounds, he knew that he was the one in charge here.

  “If only anyone out there knew this bunker even existed,” he mused, his previous humor returning. “You see, command isn’t stupid. Unlike your proposed network of scavengers, we know that restricting the flow of information is key. Only those who absolutely need to know are aware that we have this facility set up, let alone what we’re doing here. Even if anyone out there looking for you knew where to start hunting down anyone who’s associated with us, it would take them months to track down someone who had any useful information. And let’s be real here—you won’t hold out that long, even if you think you’re such a tough bitch. You’re only alive because there are a few people around who are morbidly curious about why you’re still alive, if you can call it that. The moment they get bored of you, my boys and I get to have some fun with you one last time, and then you’re done. There won’t be a body to find, a corpse to bury or burn. You’ll simply disappear, and before long no one will remember that you existed.”

  I hated how much I believed his claims, but it wasn’t hard to guess that he was telling the truth. He was gloating too much for it to be all lies. It took me a lot not to let it show just how much the thought of that happening scared me. Less so the—without a doubt unpleasant—physical parts of it, but the sheer insanity that there was a good chance that Nate would never know what had happened to me. As much as losing so many of our people still left my soul bleeding, at least we’d had some bodies to burn, or with Cho and Bailey we’d had closure of a different kind. But the alternative was even more grim than just plain ol’ dying.

  Just as I’d known that my goading had hit, Taggard could tell that the blow he’d delivered had struck home. With a last glance at Ethan he stepped away and walked off to the left, his steps soon gone even on the echoing concrete. More rooms that way, I figured, somehow separated from this part of the installation. Ethan hesitated, but then followed, leaving me standing there feeling more than just vaguely uncomfortable.

  With the pent-up unease gripping me it was hard not to find a physical outlet for that, but rather than attack the sturdy glass pane, I studied the seams where it met the wall. I wouldn’t know for sure until I saw it in action, but it looked like the glass would retract into the ceiling. I couldn’t see any cameras in the main room but I was sure that someone was surveilling my every move. Turning around, I looked at the drain in the corner next, but it was just a hole in the middle of a slightly downward sloping dip in the floor, not even a metal grate over it that I could have tried prying loose. I was tempted to call out to try to talk to any of the other prisoners, or find out if there were more out of my very limited field of vision, but I figured that they would have tried to contact me if they’d thought it made any sense. So all I could do was either stand around, pace, or sit down on the floor. Considering that I was well aware that I’d need every ounce of energy my body had stocked up, I dropped down, forcing myself to relax. No food, no water, and the lights would do their own to keep me awake—they didn’t even need to torture me if they wanted to wear me down. Suddenly, Nate’s warning that I only had a limited amount of reserves and that I would likely drop dead once they were spent wasn’t all that scary anymore. Chances were good that I could probably punch myself into a coma if I just kept hitting the walls of my prison long enough.

  I somehow doubted that Taggard and his “boys” would make it that easy for me.

  Chapter 21

  For endless hours, nothing happened. That, more than anything else, made me guess that I’d woken up in the evening, just hours after they’d nabbed me in Yuma. It was also consistent with the bruising that started to bloom across my stomach as time passed. Just staring at the white, tiled walls, trying not to go insane from boredom, took more strength than I’d anticipated. There was the added matter of my gastrointestinal tract and kidneys still working, but I tried to hold out until what I hoped must be morning. The only distraction were the sounds of occasional whimpers or someone clearing their throat. Twice, armed guards passed through the room, but they only had cursory glances for their prisoners. Their gear was as nondescript as it came, giving me nothing new. Soldiers, yes, but what faction was pulling the strings here had been obvious before.

  The clattering of items on a cart tore me out of that mind-numbing stupor, but I refused to get up. Unless someone gave me an incentive, energy conservation was my main interest. I watched as a group of six soldiers passed through, four guarding while two distributed trays that they shoved through the slits a
t the bottom of the glass panes. I tried to count how many times I heard that sliding sound of the plastic tray on tiles. Six or seven times, I wasn’t quite sure. On the tray there was an empty plastic cup and small tub, a reused bottle of water, and something that was probably porridge—soggy oats with what might have started out as a shredded apple. It absolutely looked like what I knew it would taste like. Even if I could have tasted something I wouldn’t have wanted that gruel anywhere near my body. I debated grabbing the bottle of water, but I’d decided that until I felt the first severe signs of dehydration—dizziness, parched mouth, headaches—I would hold out. I wasn’t exactly concerned that the water and food might be poisoned as I was sure that Taggard had other methods to shoot me up with whatever chemical mix had knocked me out in the first place. I was making a statement here, and unless I got an incentive to break that stance, I saw no reason to switch up my methods.

  The guards remained in the room, giving me something to concentrate on while the low sounds of the other prisoners not making a stand filtered through the glass. I tried to memorize their gear—the type of armor they wore, the weapons I could see—and judge exactly how well-trained they were. None of them made any rookie mistakes, making my heart sink. Not that I’d doubted Taggard’s claim but the personnel here seemed to know what they were doing. That left Ethan as the obvious weak link, and possible exception. I had to admit, the fact that someone from the Aurora lab was here wasn’t that much of a surprise, but I had expected someone with a little more experience. But maybe that was the entire point—they needed highly specialized worker bees here, someone who would follow orders, not a visionary that could be influenced.

  The other two soldiers returned and started gathering up the trays. The one passing by my door just glanced at it and left it where it was, untouched. I’d expected them to remove it to give me hours of ruing the fact that I’d refused the water, but then I realized that not doing that sent an entirely different message. Not only had they locked us in like animals, no. They also treated us like animals, who were sometimes too stupid to accept food when it was offered. Just peachy.

  I knew something was about to happen when the soldiers were joined by two figures wearing scrubs, complete with latex gloves, face masks, and protective goggles. They collected the plastic cups and tubs from each cell, and under the watchful eyes of the soldiers went into the cells, one by one. A growing collection of blood vials on their cart made it obvious what they were doing. Nobody spoke a word, so if they were checking on the prisoners, it wasn’t an examination that included any feedback.

  And then it was just me who was left where I was still sitting with my back against the wall opposite the glass pane, my legs slightly bent to get the maximum amount of privacy from that damn hospital gown. The two nurses—or whatever they were—looked at each other, but no one was stupid enough to raise that glass pane and duck inside.

  “I’m not going to cooperate,” I told them in as even a voice as I could manage. My throat was starting to get really scratchy, but I could take a little more of that if it meant that I didn’t have anything left to fill that plastic cup with.

  I fully expected Taggard to show up again, ready with more details about how he would rape me, but it was Ethan who stepped up to the glass, trying to look very put-together but about a step away from shitting his pants.

  “We need a urine and stool sample from you. And some blood. The sedative contaminated the samples we took yesterday to the point that they don’t qualify for a good baseline.”

  Very reasonable. Very scientific.

  “Not gonna happen,” I told him, holding his imploring gaze evenly.

  His forehead furrowed, his surprise laughably genuine.

  “Why would you refuse? You’re a scientist—“

  “Was,” I interrupted him. “And as long as you treat me like an animal, I don’t see any reason not to behave like one.”

  His frown deepened. “You’ll start throwing feces next?” he guessed. “I didn’t expect you to be so unreasonable.”

  “Well, maybe you should check your experimental setup, or adjust your expectations accordingly,” I advised. With Taggard I was happy to reduce my vocabulary to a hundred words, and very colorful ones at that. But if I continued to sound educated with Ethan, I hoped that it would get harder and harder for him to forget that I wasn’t just one more test subject in what I was afraid was a very long line.

  Ethan hesitated, and I almost started to hope that I had him there, but rather than continue to plead with me—or even offer me a deal—he turned to one of the guards. “Get the samples from her. The blood will do for now.”

  The nurses withdrew as the guards took up position, but rather than storm the cell now, their leader sent two of them running from the room. They returned about five minutes later, wearing full portable hazmat gear. Conserving energy was one thing, but I wasn’t going to make it that easy for them. The glass pane receded into the ceiling slowly enough to give me time to come to my feet and ready myself. The second the two in the suits stepped into the room, I was on them, doing my very best to inflict the most amount of damage, ignoring the guns the rest had trained on us. I knew that they wouldn’t shoot with their own pretty much shielding my body, but that wasn’t necessary. I put up as much of a fight as I could—and the spacial constraints helped me somewhat—but after five minutes of struggle they had me pinned down on the floor, my body screaming with the painful flares of several well-placed kicks and punches. I still managed to somehow lock my arms underneath myself, not giving them access to the veins at my elbows, but before long they gave up. Two of the other guards helped fixate my outstretched left leg, keeping me immobilized so one of the others could punch a syringe into a vein at the back of my knee. It hurt like a bitch, but I did my best not to cry out in pain. While they kept me there to fill a second and third vial I couldn’t help but notice just how vulnerable and exposed that position left me, with the stupid gown bunched up around my throat and shoulders. At least some other samples they could have obtained with relative ease, but there was no way around that.

  I was actually surprised that no one rammed a gloved and likely unlubricated finger up my ass, but as soon as they were done drawing blood, they let me go. I was on my feet in seconds, coming right for the last guy who’d been a little slower than the others. And just as I’d hoped, me trying to grab him and pull his gas mask off made him whip around and punch me right in the face. My lip split on my teeth and blood started gushing from my nose. Staggering back, I reached up to drag my fingers through the warm liquid, then flung it right at the soldiers that were still standing around uselessly with their weapons drawn. Because they were that close and my cell was that small I hit three of the four, and only one of them was suited up. Shouts rang out and someone slammed a hand on whatever engaged the glass pane control, making the barrier come down between us before I had a chance to fling more of my contaminated blood at anyone. Their previously so well-concerted effort turned into a chaotic tumble, but I knew that it was more a gesture on my part than had a chance to unleash anything on them. I’d inhaled enough vaporized zombie goo in my time to know that a few drops of blood wouldn’t do any damage, unless maybe I got a chance to rub it all over an open wound. Maybe next time I would try biting one of them, even though with full hazmat gear that was about as promising an effort as this one.

  But what my actions did was to leave me standing there, tall as my chest and shoulders were heaving with exertion, blood smeared over half of my face as I kept jeering out at them. From what I could tell about the other prisoners, all of them had given up the fight if they’d even known how to put one up in the first place. I wasn’t going to go down like that, and they’d better not forget that.

  Ethan had watched the entire spectacle take place, and the horrified look he was giving me let me know that at least one part of my plan had worked. Now it was their turn to set the next action. Whether dehumanizing myself in their eyes had been a good ide
a or not, it certainly had worked.

  Once everyone had left the room I hunkered back down in my spot, using some of the water from the bottle to slosh away the blood from my face. There still was enough of it to soak into the hospital gown, and I didn’t move a muscle to wipe up what had spilled onto the tiles. Staring at what remained in the bottle for almost a minute, I raised it to my lips and chugged it down. I could very well go without food for some time, but if they actually intended to bleed me like that each day I needed to replenish my liquids, unless I wanted to knock myself out within a day or two and make life easier for them.

  It had taken them all of thirty minutes to force me to start compromising. I was sure that before long this wasn’t going to be the only conviction of mine that would go up in flames.

  Chapter 22

  More nothing followed. Minutes. Hours. Eternities. As adrenaline leaked from my limbs, I felt exhaustion rear its ugly head. Even without Nate’s constant annoying urging I could tell that my body was starting to run on empty. My eyes continued to leak, even when I closed them, and I refused to lie down and try to shield my face with my arms to give them some much needed reprieve. That I was hurting myself with that just to make what felt more and more like an inconsequential stand didn’t matter. Guards patrolled through the room a few more times but at what seemed like uneven intervals. No one stopped, not even to taunt us. No one spoke, including the other prisoners. The highlight of what I considered was my “day” was that eventually, I had to relieve myself, and I made damn sure that no more than the inevitable splatters went anywhere but the drain—not just because I really could think of a better way to spend my time than sit in my own piss, but to ensure that they had nothing for their sample collection. That was, if they didn’t have a lower level and every single drain led into a separate container, thus making my endeavor not just pointless but utterly ridiculous. I didn’t care. It was about the act, and less about the outcome.