Silence fell, both of us feigning trying to get some sleep. With him, it was likely sheer willpower that kept him awake. Until…
“You never told me what Hill said that got under your skin,” Nate prompted.
Damn. I considered pretending to have forgotten—or plain out lying—but I knew it was no good.
“He asked me why I thought they’d all be out for vengeance. For the base in Colorado, you know?”
He nodded. “What about that?”
“He made me sound like a fucking imposter,” I grumbled. “Like I just waltzed in there after the lot of you had cleared the corridors, and all I did was talk. And shoot Taggard. At least that’s something nobody disputes.”
It was only when I got a weird look from Nate that unease started creeping up my spine. “What?”
“Bree, they actually don’t have that much of a cause to come after you,“ he explained, his voice uncharacteristically soft.
“But I killed scores of soldiers! That whole base was full of them, and the incursion of shamblers—“
I cut off when Nate glanced away from me and over to the other side of the barn where I knew Burns was sleeping—who’d been with me as I’d made my way through the ducts first, then the detour to the labs, and after that the corridors to the cafeteria where we’d had our grand stand-off.
“Shit,” Nate muttered. “I thought you were exaggerating before, but I didn’t think you’d actually believe that.”
“Believe what?” If my voice got a little hysterical, that was only natural. “Nate, what the fuck are you talking about?”
He shook his head as if to disband his own thoughts, then actually reached for the side of my face to keep me from turning my head away. “Bree, you were tripping balls when we assaulted that base. The booster shot I gave you was way too strong for your mind to handle. It was set up for someone my weight, whose metabolism was running at the speed yours is at now, but certainly wasn’t back then.”
I really didn’t like the sound of that. “What are you saying? That it was all in my head?”
I could have done without him hesitating. “Not everything,” Nate said, way too cautiously. “It was quite the ride, and you did end up totaling the Rover. Shit,” he repeated, shaking his head. “I should have realized that when you told Sadie how we’d collapsed the slope to get into the base and beyond their primary defenses. I thought you were just making fun when you exaggerated that much.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” I muttered—but fact was, if what he said was true, a lot of inconsistencies suddenly did. “I know what I did—“
“What you think you did,” he corrected.
“I blew through all of the magazines I’d packed,” I protested, if feebly.
“Yeah, when we cleaned up the base of the well over thousand zombies that ended up being drawn there. And from what Collins told me, some before you got to the cafeteria as well.”
“But the soldiers—“
“You didn’t shoot,” Nate clarified. “Burns said you ran into a bunch, but after shouting some obscenities at each other, they went down another corridor while you continued forward. The only place where there was an actual firefight human against human was outside, by the armory, when a few of the soldiers chose to make a stand rather than surrender before it became obvious that we weren’t the incursion they needed to be afraid of. I think overall, less than fifty people died of gunshot wounds. On both sides,” he stressed.
This couldn’t be true. None of that.
“But I know what I saw. What I did. Same as with the factory. I…” I trailed off there, frowning at him. “Was that all in my head, too? I mowed down at least fifteen soldiers when I sprung you, Pia, and the others.”
“That’s all true.”
“Then why did the booster affect me differently the second time?”
I got a helpless gesture from Nate. “Maybe because the virus screwing with your system changed things? Maybe because it was a higher dosage? Or maybe it got worse as time passed? You were actively dying the first time hours after the injection, which coincides with when we hit the base the second time. And you were definitely hallucinating then, as well.”
“I can’t fucking believe this,” I muttered, finally jerking free of his soft hold. This time, I welcomed the resulting pain. I wasn’t exactly confused, although my mind was definitely riling. “This just—“
“Changes nothing,” Nate offered.
“Changes everything!” I insisted. “That’s why none of them take me seriously! They really do think that I’m just a delusional imposter!”
“Nobody thinks that. And you do have reason enough to be paranoid. You heard what Hill said when he came in, right? He thought he had a reason for that. But just, maybe, you’re not as much of a deranged serial murderer as you like to pretend.”
“I wasn’t pretending anything,” I protested, hating how petulant I sounded—until Nate’s words before that sunk in. Quite the thought to drag me back down to reality. “Shit.”
“That seems to, as usual, perfectly sum up our situation,” Nate observed, not without mirth. “Come on, shake yourself out of it. Yes, you were high, and maybe you didn’t quite pull the stunts you imagined you did—“
“It all looked very dramatic to me.”
Nate laughed. “That should have tipped you off in the first place. Doesn’t change a thing. You made a difference. You’re responsible for giving hundreds, if not thousands, of scavengers and traders a chance to make it through the winter, and ending that conflict before it could actually escalate also saved a lot of soldiers. So what, you didn’t Rambo your way through that base. You still kept your wits about you, and you accomplished what you came for. Maybe your ego takes a bit of a beating for that, but you must be used to that by now.”
“I married you. Forgot about that already?”
He grinned at my jibe before he turned serious again. “I have a feeling that, before this mission here is over, you will have more blood on your hands, and regrets that you cannot explain away this easily. Trust me, sooner or later, your biggest fears always catch up to you. Be glad that hasn’t happened yet.”
“You think that’s my biggest fear?” I asked. “That I kill someone who, if not innocent, didn’t have to die?”
“That you sent someone to die who didn’t have to,” he amended. “But I’m sure that’s a close second. And yes, I am speaking from experience.” There was nothing I could say to that so I held my tongue. Nate looked away, a wave of sadness crossing his features. “I don’t know what I’ll do once this is over,” he went on saying, unexpectedly giving me an answer to that question after all. “Part of me wants to take any offer I can get. To redeem myself. I can’t wash my hands clean, but I can change things.” He sighed. “Of course I’ll never know, but I could, maybe, have done things differently; influenced decisions, kept some of the worse shit from happening, if I’d swallowed my pride and come with Bucky and his people when I realized that we were on the cusp of fighting a battle we’d all, one by one, eventually lose. But I was still angry, I was too proud.” He grimaced. “And I was high on the booster Martinez jacked me up with once he’d staunched the bleeding because otherwise, I would have collapsed. That shit can really make you do a lot of stupid things.”
“Still no excuse for why we got hitched,” I provided dryly.
“It’s a chance for both of us to make up for the path not taken,” Nate insisted, but he didn’t sound as enthusiastic about it anymore. It didn’t take a genius to guess why.
“We don’t owe them shit,” I spoke his thoughts for him—and found myself agreeing, maybe now that I’d learned about the side-effects of the booster a little more than before. “Maybe we could have made a difference if we’d both come with them. Maybe we wouldn’t have made it through that day. We’ll never know.”
“Do you want to?” he asked. “Work with Raynor, I mean? Tear apart what my brother was working on, see what else you’ll get out of
her or whoever else is in charge of what used to be the serum project, and maybe be the one who makes a difference?”
I still didn’t have an answer for that, and I wasn’t sure that would change until the very last minute I’d have to prevent having to make up my mind. But that question reminded me of something else. “Not sure if Gita told you, but the files she helped decrypt at that conservatory? They were full of references to the serum project. Different virus strains, but some of that might have been artifacts from the encryption. Bucky and Richards only needed confirmation that they were on the right track. They didn’t really care about the contents.”
Nate took that with less surprise than I’d expected. “Well, they waited to launch this mission until they could drag you with them,” he pointed out. “Makes sense it’s about this.”
“So that means I’m already helping Raynor, right? And not exactly out of the goodness of my heart. I feel like if I agree, I’ll never be able to walk away from this shit.” Glancing toward where I couldn’t see my aching hand, I sighed. “Not sure I can, anyway. But hey, I get now why you were so damn apprehensive to get involved with this all over again. You can walk out but you can never leave, right?”
He snorted at my very bad quoting habits, but didn’t answer. That was okay. We’d both shared enough for more than one night, and probably had enough to consider for a decade. All bickering aside, I couldn’t help but relax as I cozied up to Nate, waiting for his breathing to even out as he fell asleep. It didn’t happen, of course, but that was kind of a relief as well. When the adrenaline shot eventually wore off—or rather, the shitload of adrenaline that my body had produced because of Parker cutting me up; I doubted that anything from the injection was still flowing through my veins—I felt myself slip again, but it happened gradually this time, closer to a light slumber than the waking coma of before. It didn’t scare me that much, and when I tried, I easily managed to rouse myself. So I let myself go, drifting off, wondering what new and enticing disaster the world had in store for me tomorrow. Maybe by the time I had to make up my mind, something might have happened that made it easier to accept—or impossible not to.
Chapter 18
I refused to get up when Nate did, figuring that, if yesterday’s shit show had any advantages, it was me getting out of some early morning chores. It wasn’t like I was any use. I had a hard time using a shovel to fill the latrine or bury the ashes of the fire pits. My grip still slipped sometimes so I couldn’t be trusted with the hot water or dishing out breakfast. My fingers were so stiff in the mornings that I couldn’t even open the packages of the MREs without using a knife, and often not even then. And today, quite frankly, I really didn’t feel like laughing my disabilities in the face and pretending like I was okay.
It took Bucky about five minutes to notice once I was overdue. That was as much of a respite as I got before he came waltzing into the barn, heading straight for where I was still bundled up in my sleeping bag but had wisely already unzipped it. I braced myself, counting down the seconds. At least him storming in here made me guess that Parker, Red, and Hill had all kept their traps shut.
“Wakey, wakey. Eggs and—“ Hamilton sing-songed, swinging his right foot forward for a well-aimed kick.
I moved at the very last moment, executing something between a roll and a scramble, miraculously ending up on my feet. I did my best to grin at Hamilton as I straightened, because really, it took all my strength not to scream my head off with how much moving hurt.
Bucky seemed disappointed that he hadn’t gotten to kick me out of my makeshift bed, but only so much. “Already slacking off, cunt?”
I let my breath escape between clenched teeth, blinking once to try to center my swimming vision. It really didn’t get any better when I saw two or three versions of that asshole at once. But at least my mind was working, which was a nice improvement over yesterday. I quickly weighed how to handle this, but decided that acting like the recalcitrant bitch that everyone apparently thought I was would work quite nicely.
“I was hoping you’d come and wake me up with your dulcet tones,” I retorted, maybe a little late, but thankfully not as out of breath as I should have been.
“We’re moving out in ten. So slap your makeup and smile on so we can get going.”
I was tempted to flip him the bird, but considering that only worked well with my right hand anymore, I refrained. Instead, I grabbed my sleeping bag and left. My pack was missing; I figured Nate had taken it outside with him after removing everything I didn’t absolutely have to carry to make the day a little easier on me. The ice cold air hit me square in the face, the first rays of sunshine blinding my eyes for a second. I slouched as I waited for my senses to reorient themselves, allowing myself the slightest of whimpers to try to deal with the agony radiating up from my abdomen.
My vision cleared, and that’s when my breath caught in my throat—and not just from the discomfort radiating through my body.
The air was clear; so clear that I could see each individual small snowflake dance in front of my face that the wind swept up from the ground and trees. The sky was mostly overcast but let a few beams of sunshine through like the fingers of God. I could easily see the low hill at the other end of the soft valley we were in, a good four or five miles away. But it wasn’t just the absence of fog that was to blame for this—up close, every pebble on the ground, every rime-covered blade of grass, every groove of a boot print in the mud that had frozen solid over night was in stark focus. Moss on stones, dirt smeared across the underside of a pack, fingerprints on a gun from last night’s cleaning. And it wasn’t limited to visuals. I could smell the hot beans that Cole was shoveling into his mouth as if I was holding the cup right under my nose. The scents of ash and smoke lay heavy over the camp—and yes, over there was the latrine pit. We’d been out in the field long enough to add a note of old sweat and unwashed bodies to that as well. I bent over, my left hand pressed into my right side—which did not help—waiting to hurl up the last thing I’d eaten, but the sense of nausea disappeared quickly—as did most of the sharp pain. Oh, I still felt sore as hell, but everything was just a little duller than a moment ago, when I had been concentrating on… everything. The brain fog was gone, leaving my thoughts sharp and clear, if a little overwhelmed at the moment.
Something behind and to my side drew my attention, as if instead of currents of air it was water rippling all around me, giving me a vague physical sense of… something. I stepped aside, my body moving before my brain could even give the command. Bucky plowed through where I had just been standing, my quick motions making him narrowly avoid hitting my shoulder and hip in passing. Rather than anger, confusion rose inside of me.
What the hell was going on with me?
Hamilton ignored me as he sauntered on. My senses continued to assault me with useless information as I followed his path with my eyes, simply letting it all wash over me. My gaze slipped to Parker when Hamilton passed by him, but the medic was doing everything in his power not to look in my direction. He was tense and twitchy, a sure sign that something was wrong—or he was avoiding something. Someone.
I turned my head to find my bunch all grouped together a few feet away from the barn. It was easy to catch the small tufts of hazy air steaming up from Gita’s tea cup. She saw me standing there just then, her eyes creasing with worry. She was about as bad as Parker containing her unease. Burns was better in pretending that it was just a casual glance he cast my way, but I still noticed how tense his shoulders were. When Nate did a similarly bad job keeping concern off his face, I knew that something really was going on—but I didn’t think with them.
Walking was weird. I hadn’t felt it as I’d staggered out of the barn, pain dominating over all other sensual input. My balance was off, my right foot having a slightly harder time than my left, which kind of balanced out the fact that my left thigh was stiff, the muscles needing a few cycles of tensing and relaxing to start working properly. The strain on my abdomen was scr
ewing with me as well, but as I squared my shoulders and forced my torso to stretch, it worked surprisingly well, if one was to ignore the pain. Dulled or not, that fucking hurt.
I paused next to Nate, my mouth already open to say something—what, I wasn’t quite sure, but that I should let him know that something was off was a given—when a loud crack at the other side of camp drew my attention. Munez, snapping the branch he’d been using to check for dying embers in the fire pit. To me, it had been almost as loud as a gunshot. When I turned back to Nate, I found him scrutinizing my face.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” he murmured.
“I’m not hallucinating,” I said, just a tad bit defensive. Our conversation about what that damn booster had done to me was still fresh on my mind. “But something’s going on.”
Any further discussion was cut short when Bucky barked at us to get going. I still had to take care of business—which I did, unabashedly, after scurrying behind a tree—and get my pack. That turned out to weigh next to nothing as Nate seemed to have retrieved everything from it except for our few spare clothes, his, and now also my sleeping bag. The pack itself likely made up for most of the weight. It felt weird and too light as I shrugged it on, but even so it put enough pressure on my fresh wound to increase the level of discomfort. Gritting my teeth, I closed the hip belt across my stomach, hoping that the constant pressure would eventually be a good, distracting thing rather than the reason I bit it today.
As we set out, I shamelessly let Nate hand me food that didn’t exactly count for a breakfast of champions, but as long as it provided fuel for my body, I didn’t care. They’d let me sleep in longer than I’d thought. “Sleep” was of course the wrong word, and I had been aware of them stepping outside one by one, yet without a clear sense of how time was passing. Now? Now my pulse pounding in my ears was like a constant, loud clock, ticking away precise increments of time without fail.
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