Catharsis

by Adrienne Lecter

  Parker inclined his head, whether to avoid having to continue to look in my face or to focus on his task, I couldn’t say. He tore open a sterile pack of gauze and spread it out on the tarp. “Put your hand there. Splay your fingers. I’ll try to make it quick.”

  I watched as he fashioned a tourniquet, but then looked away as Nate reached around me and grabbed my hand just below my wrist, making it impossible for me to jerk back. He held my gaze evenly, a sure, “You can do this,” if I’d ever seen one. But at the last moment, I cast my eyes down, forcing myself to watch. Maybe that was the fever talking, but if they had to continue to cut me limb from limb, the least I would do was watch. It hurt like hell, but what else was new? Certainly not that sensation. Or what followed afterward, and Parker didn’t have Raynor’s iron-steady hand, nor her skill. I told myself it would be all right, but didn’t find the conviction inside of me to believe my own lies. How much worse could it get?

  But then I realized, if the shit with Taggard’s trap hadn’t happened, it likely would have been Martinez’s job to do this, and suddenly, I was glad to be stuck with people I couldn’t stand in a country that, so far, had only been desolate and hostile. I knew that it must have been bad enough for the guys to hold me down while Parker did his job. Actively inflict pain and damage that could never be undone? That was a different circle of hell entirely. I knew that, but still it didn’t change a thing. Because it was my damage, my hand.

  As soon as Parker was done, I dragged my sorry self over to my sleeping bag, having to wait for Nate to get it ready and help me bundle myself up so I wouldn’t freeze to death during the night. My body temperature regulation was shot, making me shiver with exhaustion and cold while I was still burning up. Spending so long with a substantial part of my core exposed didn’t help. Neither did the heat quickly building up do a thing to lessen the pain in my abdomen; on the contrary. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. So I curled in around myself, my aching hand inches from my cut-up stomach, and, quite honestly, prayed that I’d die.

  Chapter 17

  Nate and Red shared a few words before he and Parker left. I didn’t follow their exchange, but it didn’t sound very amicable. Neither the part where Red accused, “How could you let it get this far?” to what Nate bit back, “This is all your fault! She should still be in a hospital, not hauling her way too scrawny ass across Europe!”

  Oh, the confidence they had in me.

  Sometimes it was better for people not to tell me to my face what they thought of me.

  Burns made sure to clean up everything that my blood might have come in contact with, while Tanner went out to relieve Gita of her watch duty. It was well past midnight now and everyone should have been asleep, but I heard their murmurs over at the other side of the barn continue for a while yet, likely the guys updating Gita on what she’d missed.

  Nate joined me a little while later, ignoring my hostile grunt as he molded his body against my back, but he was careful not to connect with me other than my shoulders and below my hips, or reach around me and touch the war zone that my torso had morphed into once more. I couldn’t even say why I wanted to be left alone. Probably because that way, no one could have intruded in my wallowing. A few painful breaths later I gave in and let him offer his arm as a cushion for my head, pulling me closer where I could stand it. And when he reached up and gently touched my cheek, I started to cry, for once not feeling like keeping all that pain and frustration penned up inside of me. It wasn’t even the physical aspect that brought me to my knees, although that certainly didn’t help.

  “We’ll get through this,” Nate repeated that mantra that had lost any spark of hope it had ever been able to ignite inside of me. “You will get through this.”

  I shook my head. Even that small motion made my torn abdominal muscles flare up. As did taking the next breath. If I could just stop doing that…

  “You will,” he insisted, as if that would do anything for me.

  “Maybe I don’t want to,” I mumbled, not caring whether he understood or not. “There’s always something worse coming up. Like, I’ll never be able to catch a break. It’s just not worth it anymore.”

  There was only one way Nate ever reacted to me going on like this—and I probably uttered those words because I needed him to bark at me and tell me to stop being such a baby—but instead, he hugged me closer, his free hand lightly digging into my shoulder as he buried his face in my hair. Rather than comfort me, his show of silent support and affection made me cry all the harder, turning me into a sobbing, useless mess.

  Weeks ago, the wave of mental exhaustion that swept through me should have been enough to physically pull me under, but that fucking serum was doing its job for once, keeping me awake and laser focused with every pinch and ache rolling through my body. I realized that sleep wasn’t just a long way from coming but likely impossible, maybe even for the next few nights. Perfect. That was exactly what I needed.

  “Maybe I’ll just burn out,” I continued to sob into my sleeping bag. “Or there’ll always be a next infection, and eventually, there won’t be enough of me left. Once my GI tract is gone, it’s over. Unless you keep me hooked up to infusion bags that keep me alive, with nutrients going straight into my bloodstream. You’d do that to me, wouldn’t you? Make me suffer till my absolute last, agonizing breath.”

  Nate remained quiet for a while, but eventually answered with a sigh that held a welcome exasperated note. “It’s more fun when you’re physically venting. That usually ends with both of us getting off, not just sounding like petulant children.”

  My answering burst of laughter hurt like hell, but it actually felt good. “Why won’t you let me give up? At some point this year I must have surpassed the point where I’m still worth the trouble.”

  Ever the bastard I so loved to accuse him of being, Nate took his sweet time to reply, but did it with a soft laugh himself. “I guess that says more about me than you.”

  “Yup.” No sense in not agreeing.

  “Guess I’m a lost cause, too. Like a honey badger. I’ll never let go once I’ve sunk my teeth into something.”

  That made me snort. “You really are a catch. Insulting me, dehumanizing me—“

  “Oh, shut up,” he grumbled. “Go ahead. Go look for someone else who’s willing to put up with you. And who manages to keep you the right amount of crazy so you’re motivated but don’t get any weird ideas.”

  “You really think you’re doing that?”

  “I know so,” he insisted. For whatever reason, that gave me a mental pause. People, motivating me… not quite something I wanted to think about right now. Yet now that my subconscious was starting to drag up things, it was hard to put the lid back on.

  My silence must have gone on for too long as Nate prodded gently, “Why, would you want me to stop?”

  “I don’t think you could,” I pointed out. “Because then you would get bored and stir shit up, and you much prefer to lean back and watch me do it instead.” I paused. “That’s what you have been doing the entire time.”

  He didn’t answer right away. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

  I gave that some thought, although my initial reaction was to snap that yes, it sure as hell was. I settled on saying, “It tends to add to my list of grievances,” instead.

  I felt him tense behind me, sure that he would have rolled me onto my back so he could stare into my face if that wouldn’t cause me immeasurable pain.

  “Would you really prefer to return to how things were when you spent your entire time throwing hissy fits behind my back because you felt ignored?”

  It was a valid question, and one that was surprisingly easy to answer. “No.”

  “Then what are you complaining about?”

  “It’s just that I thought we were in this together,” I complained—more softly than I wanted, realizing that it was real disappointment that made my heart clench as I uttered the words. “As equals. Both signing at the same dotted l
ine. Yes, I want to be part of the decision-making process, I want to shoulder part of the blame when it all goes to shit. But I don’t appreciate you setting me up as a scapegoat.”

  And there I’d gone and done it again. That was real anger and heat in his voice as he responded. “You know me better than that.”

  “Do I?” Now I was the one who needed to see the look on his face, and while it cost me a lot to turn over, I managed, somehow. His features were closed off, a stony mask not even I could read, but Nate was incapable of keeping emotions out of his eyes—yet rather than anger, it was pain that I saw there. Not what I’d expected, and that left me at a loss of what to say.

  He gave a loud chuff as if to shake himself out of his funk, cocking his head to the side as he, in turn, took in every line of my face. Considering how dark it was inside the barn, he couldn’t really be able to see much. “Bree, what’s going on? You know that I don’t mind being your punching bag, emotional or physical, and I make you repay the favor more often than you likely signed up for, but this isn’t you. You have to give me something to work with. Not shut up, almost mid-sentence, and close me out.”

  Easier said than done. “I don’t know,” I confessed. “Some of it is just pure and simple frustration. And I’m scared shitless, that’s not helping. But there are some things that people said—“

  “What people?”

  Assholes, the lot of them, but that wasn’t specific enough. “Mostly Richards and Hill.”

  “Fraternizing with the enemy, huh?” he teased.

  “That’s Burns. I just seem to have a sign over my head that says, ‘randomly accost me to screw with my head.’ At least with Hill I’m sure he’s not doing it deliberately. Red? Very much so. Makes it less effective, but might still be working.”

  “Why, what has your granny panties in a twist?”

  I couldn’t help but smile. “Ah, you noticed.”

  “Like anyone could miss that,” he chortled.

  “Room enough inside for both of us, if you ever get tempted,” I snarked, but forced myself to stop getting sidetracked. “It was something that Hill said… I don’t know, yesterday? The day before? Shit, it’s all blurring together. Fucking fever.” At least I hoped it was that, because if the next festering abscess turned out to be in my brain, that was it for me. I was a little surprised that this aspect made me mad rather than that it presented a welcome alternative.

  “Bree?”

  “Thinking.” My hand shot up as if to raise an admonishing finger, but the motion was enough to send pain racing down to my elbow, making me remember. Right. “I’m not even sure what it was, but something he said tipped me off. And it wasn’t that part about not believing how Alders and his flunkies kicked off the apocalypse.”

  Nate’s mouth twisted up, as usual when his closer-than-comfortable involvement with that turned into a conversation point. “He’s not the only one. I’ve talked with a few of the guys, also the sailors and marines on the destroyer. It’s too farfetched for most to believe, and absolute nonsense for the rest.”

  “But we all know that the sugar is contaminated, and nobody’s stupid enough to deny that the serum and virus originated from the same source.”

  “Still doesn’t explain how one insane scientist and a bunch of vegan hippies managed to pull off what every terrorist organization out there couldn’t.”

  “You don’t believe it?” I didn’t have to feign surprise there. We’d never actually discussed the point, mostly because I didn’t want to prod that figurative sore wound in his side, but I’d assumed we agreed on this.

  Nate shrugged, softly enough not to disturb me. “Not saying that. But I can see where someone with Hill’s intellectual horizon would dispute it.”

  “Oh, such a fancy way of calling him stupid. I’ve missed that, you know?”

  He flashed me his teeth in an approximation of a smile. “Do you believe it?”

  I closed my mouth when the answer didn’t come right away. Had I mulled the possibility over? Of course; many, many times. “It doesn’t matter. We have no way of verifying any of it, and the last two people that we knew were connected to that are dead now.” There still was my old co-worker, but her mind had been too far gone to make sense of much anymore. I doubted that she could have provided any answers, even if she’d known anything, and I sincerely doubted that to begin with.

  “That’s not what I asked,” Nate remarked. “Do you believe that they did it? How they supposedly did it?”

  I debated with myself what to say, but didn’t come to a conclusion. “I want to deny the possibility more than anything, but that’s the only part we can’t deny. It all happened, and it keeps happening. It would help if we knew how they contaminated the syrup. And how they managed the distribution logistics. The only actual detail that we have is that your brother, for whatever reason, was working with a weaponized version of the serum, the activated version. I’m sure that, by now, I’ve read a huge chunk of his research, and I still have no clue about the why. They spent decades putting shackles on the virus to ensure that the serum was stable until after the demise of the subject. I have no freaking clue why he undid that, and what he was up to with the new ideas that he was waiting to implement until he could work on them with me. I’m likely missing something there. Or maybe it was all sanctioned from higher up. Who knows?”

  “Emily Raynor likely does,” Nate offered.

  “Probably.” It would explain her lack of excitement about Raleigh’s new data that we’d brought her. Not because it wasn’t news, but because she was sitting on a time bomb that had already exploded, and adding anything extra to that like new, explosive revelations wasn’t in her best interest.

  “I’ve missed that look.”

  “What look?” I asked, perplexed.

  “That look you get when you really need to know something that’s far out of your reach, and you know you have to sacrifice something dear to get it. You had that same look on your face at Stone’s lab in Aurora, when they offered you to run it. I’m still surprised you chose me over that.”

  “I chose you all over that,” I clarified. “You alone wouldn’t have been enough to sway me.”

  I loved the lopsided smile that gained me. “Well, you gave it up, either way. The important question is, will you do it again?”

  That confused me. “No offers on the table, far as I know.”

  Nate snorted. “Come on, you know that Raynor will ask you to join her when we get back. And you’re not stupid enough not to expect her to have the stick waiting as soon as she whips out the carrot.”

  That was true, even if I hadn’t had the mental capacity to consider that yet. Constant agony will do that to you.

  “I could ask you the very same question. Whether Hamilton survives or not, if you don’t mess up to the point of deliberately sabotaging the mission—which you swore you wouldn’t, and aren’t you Mr. Honorable of late?—they will want you to work with them again.” Nate’s silence told me that I wasn’t going to get an answer, but that in and of itself provided one. And it was that silence that made me realize something else. “That’s the reason why you’ve been pretending to let me steal the show, isn’t it? So nobody gets any stupid ideas and tries to reinstate your former rank, to make the grunts actually want to follow you! You’re such a damn coward!”

  I crowed that last bit loud enough that someone at the other end of the barn stirred, which Nate used as an excuse not to reply for a moment. When he did, he looked surprisingly defeated. “Maybe?”

  “Do you really have to turn that into a question if you already know that I know the answer?”

  He laughed softly. “I see you’re feeling better already.”

  I shook my head. “Nope. But my head’s clearing up, and I can’t help being a smart-ass.”

  “Truer words have seldom been spoken.”

  I didn’t know what to make of that admission. Did it surprise me? Yes, a lot, but at the same time, not so much. If I considered
our friends back in California, Nate wanting to rejoin the Army screamed of betrayal. I was sure that some of them would understand—likely those in the same boat with him, and it wouldn’t have surprised me that if he ever chose to go for that option, he would negotiate a general amnesty for them if they wanted to follow—but others, not so much. Sadie would hate him for that decision, and I myself wasn’t exactly delighted by that idea, either. But I could see where it was a tempting scenario for him, to return to what was familiar. Just the mention of a lab had the same siren call for me. And would it be so bad? Considering Raynor’s dislike for Bucky, I could see her lobbying to have Nate as the chief of security of her base instead. It wouldn’t be much different for either of us whether we’d stay there or return to California, only that if we stayed, we’d both be back to working in our respective chosen fields where we were the cream of the crop rather than two random troublemakers with a penchant for maneuvering ourselves into the focal point of conflict. And I sure as hell could have found a way to get out of anything physically taxing like late night watch shifts and hauling my weight in ammo around. It was tempting, no shit—but we could have had that easier if we’d wanted it in the past, and we had burned a lot of bridges along the way. Raynor’s influence might be enough to protect us from possible ramifications, but the very idea that I was living in comfort thanks only to someone else’s grace was making me want to hurl. I hadn’t started that crusade just to end a conflict prematurely that might have cost more lives than we could lose—no, I’d meant it when I’d said that I wanted to be free. And while Nate might be missing the camaraderie of the old days, I knew that he felt the same.