Nate stepped up behind me, and for a moment, our gazes crossed in the mirror. It likely didn’t take a mind reader to recognize what was going on inside of me, and seeing that look of pain on his features made my throat tighten up even more. This was something he hadn’t managed to protect me from, and even though he was very much the reason why I was still alive, I knew that, on some level, he blamed himself for not having been able to do more. And that wasn’t the only part where he’d failed me.
I more felt than saw him reach for me, yet before his fingers could lightly touch my shoulder, I stepped away, less from his grip and more from the insanity churning in my own mind. Grabbing for a towel, I did my best to pat myself dry, then had to remain standing still so he could reapply the bandages. I made sure to stay out of sight of the mirrors, preferring the stainless-steel appliances instead. Not folding in on myself and wailing like a banshee cost more energy than was still left in my body, but I forced my muscles to lock and keep me upright until Nate was done. I could tell from the tension in his shoulders that he read my reaction wrong, but I didn’t have it in me to set him straight. Admitting how screwed up my head was right now would have made it all real, and then I’d have one more thing to deny—and that would be the straw that broke the camel’s back.
As soon as I was dressed—if only in loose sweatpants and a tank top—I hauled myself over to the door, leaving Nate to deal with our soiled clothes and the questioning look on Burns’s face. I more fell than climbed into my bunk, reaching for the powdered slush from Raynor’s pack and mixed myself a new batch. Fuck her damn schedule, and fuck her exact amounts! With no way of knowing how much of the last shake my body had managed to absorb and how much had gone to waste, this was as far from science as it got. Besides, what could possibly go wrong? The only way this could get worse was me chewing off someone’s face, so I might as well start building up strength to do that properly.
I was about to toss the contents of the shaker down as Nate and Burns returned, without their burden. Nate opened his mouth as if in protest, making me down the sludge with defiance burning in my eyes. He swallowed his words when he saw that I had Raynor’s directions—which included a summary of what exactly was in each container she’d packed—open on the bed beside me. The remark to maybe let the one who could understand all that be the judge of how to use it lay heavy on my tongue, but I didn’t say it, accepting his silent peace offering. This time, downing the sludge came with a hefty dose of trepidation. I could only guess at how much worse it must have been for everyone else subjected to this who could also taste the horrible concoction, not just smell it. Done, I dropped back into my pillow, for once welcoming the agony that ate up my lower back. As long as I was still feeling pain, I was still alive, and that was all that mattered. It might suck, and I had a very real idea that it would still get worse before it got better, but I’d be damned if I was going to give up.
Chapter 4
The next two days were full of the same, if with increasing mobility on my side that let me conduct the mad dashes down the corridor on my own. I found a new metric of overexerting myself: whenever I moved too much, or too fast, I usually hurled up more than could make it through my intestines, at express speed. It stood to reason that it might have been wiser to just rest and drink less, but with every moment of inactivity, that idea became less and less appealing. I could deal with the odd splatter of puke and going through my underwear a little too fast if that meant that a week from now, my metabolism might once more resemble that of a healthy, normal human. That, realistically, this would never again be the case I ignored.
Then day five rolled in, and finally a real challenge: semi-solid food. Raynor had advised a list of great things like mashed banana, mashed potatoes, or even, gasp, mashed apples. Rather than follow that, I dragged myself over to the line by the galley and accosted the first cook who was dense enough to stare at my hands as I put them down on the food line table.
“I need a blender.”
He looked up at me as if he was actually surprised I could speak. He couldn’t have been much past eighteen, his face still round and covered with pimples, and as he gaped, quite resembling a fish. One of his colleagues took pity on him, pushing him toward the back to fetch more food while he dealt with me.
“Miss, we’re not a juice bar. If you want some smoothies, go two years back in time.”
I stared at him, torn between correcting him of my marital status, and just plain tearing into him because he was annoying the fuck out of me. What I actually did was offer a small smile—or at least bared my teeth at him—as I responded in a calm, measured way.
“I need a blender. To blend actual food, not because I’ve decided to overdose on fructose. For reasons too complicated to explain now that are, without a doubt, well beyond your intellectual capacities in the first place, the only thing I can ingest right now are semi-solids. So either you give me a fucking blender right now so I can shred those fucking eggs and bacon into a mash I can ingest, or I’m going to come vaulting over there and beat you with one of those trays until I can use your empty skull cap to do the same.”
Well, that was quite embarrassing—but it got me my blender, plus a connective cord, in under twenty seconds flat. Half of the marines and sailors were still staring at me as I took the soup bowl full of yellowish mush with brown flecks in it over to our table, sitting down hard in my chair. Burns was grinning from ear to ear but wisely kept his tongue, while Gita was in visibly high spirits. Only Tanner and Nate looked pensive, Tanner probably because he hadn’t really gotten to see me in a temper yet, and Nate… well, the reason for him being Capt. Sourpuss this morning was anyone’s guess. Maybe my incessant farting had kept him up all night. Who knew?
Part of me expected Red to come by to tear me a new one for that spectacle, but, if anything, the soldiers seemed mostly amused by my outburst. Maybe they’d had a betting pool going how long it would take for something like this to happen. Again, who knew?
After close to two weeks since I’d last eaten anything that had the consistency of food, the blended breakfast mush was surprisingly alien on my tongue, but I inhaled it all without much hesitation. I also stole a few sips of coffee from Nate’s mug, but mostly kept it prisoner to inhale the heavenly scent.
I barely made it back to our quarters before Nate grabbed my shoulder—none too gently this time—and hauled me around to face him, his expression stony. “Care to explain what the fuck that was about?”
It didn’t come as much of a surprise, but I was still miffed. “He didn’t want to give me a blender. I made him. End of story.”
Rather than reply, he made a grab for my arm—and pressed two of his fingers over the pulse point of my wrist, silently counting. I tried to pull myself free but to no avail; then frowned at him, his behavior not making any sense.
“Same question, different intonation,” I prompted when he finally let go.
“Your pulse is steady and slow,” he offered, in a surprised tone no less, as if that was an explanation.
“Duh. I didn’t walk more than maybe eighty feet and I’m almost at the level of general discomfort where I’d stop classifying it as ‘fucking painful’ and just go with ‘meh.’ So, spill it. Why does me throwing a fit get your panties in a twist?”
Nate gave me the kind of look that made me guess he was seriously debating whether he should bother with answering at all, but Tanner stepped in, much to both our surprise.
“Let’s just put it this way. A certain subgroup of the soldiers who got the serum had some anger management issues.”
“And what’s that got to do with me?” Maybe a dumb question, but considering how they were behaving, I couldn’t hold back.
Nate’s brows drew together in anger. “That you can fucking insta-convert if you flog yourself into a real rage fit! I am well aware of the fact that I didn’t marry a very mild-mannered woman, but that was bad even for your temper.” When I just kept staring back at him, Nate let out a wea
ry sigh, scratching at his still-growing beard. “I guarantee you, those fuckers have a standing order to put you down if they have probable cause that it’s happening, and we’ve always had a ‘shoot first, check later’ policy. Just… don’t give them a reason.”
I could see where he was coming from, but one little tidbit got me too hung up on it to concede that point to him. “‘We?’” I echoed, not having to feign anger now. “What, it takes you all of a week to roll over and fall back in line?”
I knew I shouldn’t have said that—salt and open wounds and all that jazz—but I never dealt well with my asshole moments being singled out. And, just maybe, there was more to his theory about anger management than I wanted to admit. The fact alone that this shit that was now coursing through my veins—and very likely still was the only thing that kept me alive—could alter my perception of the world and consequent reactions like this freaked me the fuck out.
The past few days, Nate had been behaving as even-tempered toward me as never before, to the point where I’d almost given up on expecting any different, but it was the glint of true rage that sparked in his eyes now. Oh, indeed, I hadn’t just toed a line there, I’d waltzed right over it. But backing down had never been my strong suit, so all I did was turn my chin up and continue to glare at him, not doing a thing to tone down the challenge in my gaze.
“Yes, we,” he bit out, enunciating each syllable precisely. “And that now also includes you, whether you like hearing it or not. All political and social differences aside, we are united in the fate we share, and the responsibility we have to keep the rest of the population safe from us. Don’t worry—in the event of you completely losing it, it will be me who fires the bullet that puts an end to your illustrious existence, but it’s reason that has them keep an eye on you, not just spite or whatever other ulterior motives you like to accuse everyone you meet of having. Get real, Bree. You’re a potential weapon of mass destruction now, and you better learn to live with the consequences. You think you don’t need my help and support? Then you better take my advice, or someone else will make you choke on it instead. Get a grip on your emotions and learn to focus them on what is important. You’ve had a year and a half of living your wild-child glory days that you never knew you wanted but were getting the most out of now that you did. That’s over. So why don’t you stop sulking right away and concentrate on getting better, without wasting needless attention on details that are neither important nor subject to your control?”
Guess I deserved that. Not that I was ready to admit it—which pretty much underlined that Nate was right—but in a sense, him chewing me out was a massive relief. Sure, I could have done without it, but besides delivering a lot of underhanded praise—like he expected better of me because he knew I was capable of it, and it was time I stopped selling myself below my worth—it also proved what I had been guessing for the past few hours: the worst was behind me, and my life was no longer hanging in the balance where he might feel he should treat me with kid gloves because any scathing remark he offered might very well become his greatest regret, as it was the last thing he’d ever say to me.
And something else I noticed—while my jaw was still clenched and my back ramrod straight, my body had overall started to relax, coming down from the brief high after the blender affair. While I’d never been prone to cry—and what little leanings there had been I’d quickly unlearned dealing with Nate on a daily basis—there wasn’t that huge amount of frustration bottled up inside of me that our fights usually caused, enough to make me shake with tension. I wondered if that was an effect of the serum as well—or just the testosterone pills that Raynor had added to the heap of shit I was supposed to take to reverse my body’s gradual degradation.
I was just about to voice those suspicions—with the odd barb thrown in there, because I’d rather die than give up on being petty—but a loud sob coming from Gita’s perch on top of her bunk made us all turn her way. I hadn’t even realized that she’d squeezed past us—and hadn’t given a shit who else was listening in on our exchange—but there she was, white in the face, tears streaming down her face. “You can’t just talk to her like that!” she wailed at Nate, anguish ringing from her every word.
I’d never seen my husband—and Burns, lurking behind him—look so flabbergasted and distraught before, making me burst out laughing. Yeah, I was an asshole, all right. Gita’s—now decidedly hurt—gaze skipped to me, which made me laugh all the harder. Hard enough to pull the stitches at my back, but I didn’t give a shit about that right now. Just plain out laughing like that felt too good—and had been so fucking overdue.
When I finally straightened, doing my best to wipe the stupid grin off my face—which was damn hard considering the confused expression on Nate’s—before I turned to her. “Estrogen?” I guessed.
She nodded, trying hard to stop the tears running down her face. “It’s turning me into an emotional mess! All that stuff your doc gave me is way stronger than anything I’ve been on before.”
“Well, she doesn’t half-ass anything,” I offered, then turned to Nate, crossing my arms over my chest. “See what you did now? All your fault. You should be ashamed of yourself. Now apologize and go back to lurking around like a beaten puppy, waiting for the next time the newspaper comes for him.”
Burns snorted as he made room for Tanner to step into the space between the bunks. As he pushed past me, he grunted, “You two really deserve each other,” plainly aimed at Nate and me. At the last bunk, he climbed up next to Gita, slapping her back rather than offering the hug she might have needed right then, but I got the sense that, like me, she didn’t exactly appreciate anyone underlining her vulnerable moments.
I turned my back on them, not just to lend them some privacy—or as much as our cramped space would allow—but so I could gloat into Nate’s face. He’d done a great job calming down himself, once more offering that infuriating closed-off, neutral expression that would forever drive me insane. “A puppy?” he asked, faintly amused.
I gave an approximation of a shrug, damn glad that my body could move like that once more without agony exploding all through it. “Well, I’d make a stupid joke about doggy style now but my back and thigh are really not supporting such shenanigans yet, so want me to scratch you behind the ear instead? I could rub your belly, too, but that might escalate quickly, and not sure how much those curtains at the bunks really block out—“
Burns—gently—slapped my shoulder as he squeezed between us to get to his bunk. “Yeah, you do deserve each other. And take that outside. Ship’s large enough that you’ll find some other nook or cranny outside of this one.”
Bless him, but Nate knew better than to cast a suggestive look my way. Instead, he nodded at where my bag of many poisons sat on the floor. “Continue to drink that shit. We’ll get you some real food for lunch and dinner. Rest up during the day. And tonight, we’ll see if you’re up to more than just running your mouth at us.”
I was still exhausted enough that the prospect of doing nothing all day long sounded enticing, but at the same time giddiness welled up from deep inside of me. Finally, I got to start on some exercise—even if it was just walking circles and some light stretching, realistically—so I could claw myself back out of the hole my body had sunk into. Something to look forward to.
Chapter 5
Dinner was a strangely somber affair. Nate sent me right over to the table, promising to take care of my food. For the first time, I sat down normally, without having to ease my body into the chair, but my triumph was short-lived. I didn’t just imagine the borderline hostile stares I got from the crew taking their meal. Apparently, coming after their cooks was a no-go. All of a sudden, Nate’s hint of chivalry took on an altogether different air, with me being told to go sit and wait, and then having my dinner sludge unceremoniously dumped in front of me. It was a good move, I had to hand it to him. To the crew, it probably looked like I’d gotten my proper chastisement off-screen and was now sulking in my embarra
ssment. The embarrassment part was true, if still less poignant than it likely should have been.
There was no jeering from the direction of the soldiers, which only made me all the more paranoid. The others hadn’t mentioned any altercations from training, or otherwise running into them. Maybe I was just seeing things, but to me that felt like the other shoe was about to drop. That not even a single one of them was holding a grudge sounded damn near impossible. I was halfway through my sludge when I realized the likely reason for the seemingly existing truce—so far, they hadn’t gotten much chance to come after the most likely target of their ire, who also happened to, right now, stand the least chance of defending herself. My, didn’t that make me feel precious.
But it made sense—they would have done Nate a favor coming after him where he could drop that placid facade and deal out a lot of damage, venting all the frustration and rage bubbling a little too close to the surface for his own good. Like them, he could dish out as much as he could take, and they must have had orders not to incapacitate any of us. So why be that accommodating? But I was a different thing entirely. My, wouldn’t hopping to the head, alone, in the middle of the night be fun. Then again, what could they actually gain from beating me to a bloody pulp? As it was, it stood to reason that I still wouldn’t have fully recovered by the time we hit the road, so anyone adding extra days to that was a complete moron. Sadly, I had it on good authority that they weren’t short on those. Only one way to find out.
Nate made me get some rest after dinner, which made a lot of sense, even if I insisted that it had been days since I hadn’t managed to keep everything down. Bored out of my mind, I spent a good ten minutes staring at the wall before I leaned out of my bunk to get the thick folders Raynor had given me to look over.
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