Retribution: Green Fields #11
Page 9
Neither Blake nor Buehler seemed very disconcerted at Nate’s request, making me guess that Wilkes had sent them with instructions about how much of the Silo’s secrets they were allowed to divulge. Scott gave us nothing, but then I hadn’t gotten the sense that he and his marines were involved in any part of this in the first place, and had just shown up to help since they found us incapable of resolving the issue alone. Richards was the only one who looked slightly taken aback, but when Nate’s attention turned to him, he stood a little straighter. “I’m happy to provide an updated list of our bases from what Hamilton can provide,” he offered. “We have had a lot of trading opportunities with the scavengers that haven’t tried to blow us to smithereens, so most of that won’t be news to most people present. We are here for a reason, and that is still the same as for our joint mission to France. We want to ensure the survival of as many people as possible. Nothing else has ever been our intention.”
Before our conversation in the warehouse I would have found that speech a little unnecessary and rather boastful, but the way most of the scavengers kept squinting at him and the soldiers spoke a different language. Nate himself didn’t seem reluctant to believe him, but he also didn’t say so out loud, making me wonder exactly what kind of game he was playing. Going on the fact that he’d trusted Richards with our location during our hiatus, I’d have figured that same trust went a lot further, but maybe recent developments had changed his mind. That he trusted Hamilton made that even more peculiar—until I realized that, with Hamilton gone for a year, Richards was a prime candidate for having filled his slot. The ramifications for this were giving me hives.
And all that mixing with dread from the realization that we were all going to die soon as a constant droning in the background? Not exactly what I’d figured my life would look like when I’d gotten my hands on my husband again.
“I think that about concludes this meeting for now,” Nate declared, cutting through my internal musings. “We will work out an action plan today, and tomorrow morning, we decide how exactly we will proceed and who will be heading where. My second-in-command will take applications for the hunt for the Chemist. Please be advised that this will likely turn into a suicide mission, so don’t approach her without being absolutely certain that you’re up for it.” He went as far as to briefly nod in Pia’s direction, as if anyone would be stupid enough to confuse us.
With that said, murmurs rose once more, heavy debate starting among the scavengers, but also the so-far stoic factions. I watched them for a moment, but was quite happy to drop that when Marleen stepped closer, giving Pia a token, curt bow. “I’m coming with you. Don’t even think about trying to send me home with the supply train.”
The Ice Queen accepted that with a wry smile. “Wouldn’t dare presume otherwise.” When she caught my frown, she gave me a tight-lipped grimace. “Most of us will be going back to California to raise as much support as possible for what’s to come, and get our civilians to safety. And I’m not looking forward to informing another fifteen people that they’d better say goodbye to their loved ones sooner rather than later.”
There was no need to explain that remark, although she still didn’t seem fazed by Hamilton’s revelation that all of us were running on borrowed time. It was very like her to accept what couldn’t be changed, and instead work hard on finding solutions instead. Me? Not so much, I realized, when the first thing I blurted out as Nate stepped up to me was a somewhat panicked, “You knew?”
His grin bordered on a grimace and was gone a moment later, but the general ambivalence of his body language spoke volumes. “I may have suspected something like that,” he admitted, low enough that his voice didn’t carry much beyond where Pia and Marleen were standing close to us. Hamilton was already leaving, following Andrej, likely to hunt down maps for that list he would compile.
“How? And why?” Had I really been the only one to be so oblivious? And it went without saying that I still didn’t buy Hamilton’s claim of the signs I was supposedly showing.
Nate shrugged, ending the motion with crossing his arms over his chest—a tad defiantly. “Small things, mostly. Things that keep adding up. There are other explanations, of course, but when there’s a much simpler reason, it would be foolish to ignore that.” When I just looked at him, silently imploring him to elaborate, he chuffed. “Hamilton’s not the only one who had his issues with keeping the raging storm inside at bay over the past months. And, don’t forget, we’ve all dealt with people before who converted, long before the virus turned people into undead nightmares. I’ve had to shoot more than one of the men under my command because shit went sideways on a mission. You’ve seen it happen with Bailey at that factory. You never forget the signs, particularly when you’re looking for them. With some, like Bates, you don’t miss the actual moment of death, but one instant conversion happening right in your face, and you just know.”
His claim made me wonder if, just maybe, Hamilton was wrong as I was still one oblivious, happy bunny, but the nasty voice at the back of my mind just laughed at me. So much for that—but then I’d known for a while that my denial game was strong. I really could have done without that unease, twined with my paranoia, riding shotgun.
Then again, knowing I was going to die wasn’t exactly something unfamiliar for me—and yet, I was still around and kicking. And going on Nate’s assessment of our next mission, I’d have to survive first to be able to turn into a shambler on the spot—and, as usual, the chances of that happening were likely worse than my happy, carefree mind liked to contemplate.
See? There’s a silver lining in everything.
Chapter 5
As soon as I was back in the tunnels, I felt dread start to claw at the back of my throat. Since falling apart right then and there wasn’t an option—or not one I considered valid, at all, for the time being, or ever, if I had a say in it—I did my best to keep busy. It took Pia all of one look in my—probably pale as death—face to send me toward our makeshift armory to help with selecting gear and stowing away everything else that she wasn’t ready to cede to the scavengers. My less-than-stellar grip might not have made me the perfect person to pack crates and drag them outside to where cars had been readied in two disjointed trains—the larger one bound for California, the much shorter one for our mission. I would have preferred a sparring lesson—or maybe even doing sprints—but I had to stop every so often to steady myself and try not to puke up my guts again, so it was likely for the best. Nate disappeared within the first five minutes—and thankfully, so did Hamilton—leaving me to my menial if not meaningless task. It was easy to shake off Martinez, who tried not once but three times to pull me aside for what I knew was a well-meant but not-appreciated chance to talk.
Or so I thought, until the hulking form of Burns stepped in my way to pluck a crate from my arms and add it to the stack some unfortunate schlock was dragging along who’d been walking behind me. I longingly stared after my burden before I forced my attention back to my friend, surprised not to see his plus one in tow. “Are you even allowed to be here on your own?” I snarked, hoping that would get me enough scorn that he’d decide to let me stew in silence instead.
No such luck, as it turned out. Burns deflected the blow with a bright—and rather knowing—grin, still physically blocking my path. “The missus graciously granted me an exception,” he let me know.
I shook my head, hard-pressed not to add my opinion on that—but then figured, why the hell not? “I never thought you’d be that pussy-whipped guy who needs permission for anything,” I tartly told him.
Again, my blow didn’t hit home, although his grin turned a little sardonic. “What can I say—meeting the right woman changed me.”
It was only then that I realized just how much he was screwing with me. The moment he saw my frown, his smile turned into a shit-eating grin, followed by a loud peal of laughter that made a few heads turn.
“You’re such an asshole,” I muttered, but couldn’t hold back a g
rin of my own. “But you have to admit, you’ve been rather distant since our reunion.”
Burns shrugged, unperturbed. “Takes two to tango, you know?” he reminded me.
I let a shrug be all the agreement he would get for that. It seemed to be enough. Silence fell, but, as usual, not for long. He was still grinning, but it now took on a hard edge as he continued. “So from one dead man walking to another—”
“Yes, please, ignore the fact that I have boobs and ovaries,” I snarked, then corrected myself. “At least one ovary.”
He went as far as rolling his eyes but dutifully didn’t ogle my stashed-away goods. “You know what I mean.”
“And there’s nothing about this topic I want to talk about,” I pointed out. “Did Martinez send you after me? I know it wasn’t Zilinsky. She was only too happy to give me some menial task to distract me. And Romanoff would have come himself, likely packing a bottle of vodka. And I trust my husband to do the dirty work himself if he thought it was necessary.”
Burns didn’t try to deny our medic’s involvement, although the last part of my assessment seemed to amuse him the most. “You know that he’s talking shop with Hamilton? Or, more likely, shooting the shit as they must have run out of things to catch up on by now.” I tried to keep my expression calm but was sure that mention drew a scowl from me. Since it was a near-permanent fixture on my face of late, I couldn’t quite tell anymore. The snort I got for my trouble was affirmation enough. “And just how much does that bother you?”
“Bother? Not at all. It just annoys the fuck out of me, not that he cares.” Meaning Nate. “But what else is new?”
Rather than rib me for my reaction—or point out that I had no business giving him shit for his relationship seeing how mine was devolving into baleful staring matches more often than not—Burns offered a good-natured chuckle as he slapped my back and physically pushed me toward our quarters. “Let’s get some coffee into you, and then we’ll do some good old denial therapy.”
With nothing better to do, I preceded him, doing my best to suppress two series of shudders. Burns noted, his amusement turning grim. “That shit really did a number on you,” he observed.
“No shit,” I agreed, letting him push me toward an empty bench. He joined me a few moments later with two steaming mugs of coffee, not wasting any powdered creamer—a treasure we’d found in the badly stocked pantry—on mine. I watched him savor his drink for a while. “So how is Sonia taking the news that she’ll be a widow soon?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I’m not sure the message has actually sunk in. Then again, I’ve been living for a while with the knowledge that I’m not going to gently fall asleep, surrounded by generations of my offspring, at the ripe old age of ninety-eight.” He flashed me a sad smile that was more of a grimace. “But something tells me that between recovering from what should have been your deathbed twice over, and focusing solely on Hamilton’s demise, you never got that memo yourself.”
“I know you all think I’m the queen of denial—”
The grimace resurfaced, and he said a single word—“Nothing.” I narrowed my eyes at him, which made him bark a harsh laugh. “Bree, no offense, but if you still think that any of us—and that includes your husbeast—believed that you just walked out of that bunker, unscathed, I can’t help you. We chose to go with the narrative you carved out for yourself because it was the way of least resistance, but that’s it.”
My usual insistence that he was wrong—twined with frustrated need to explain that, of course, my escape from Taggard and his boys had been more complicated than that—died on my tongue when I realized that, in many ways, they were going by the same playbook regarding Nate now, and I was marching to the beat of the very same drum. Burns must have read that realization on my face but refrained from rubbing my nose in it—which, in a sense, annoyed the fuck out of me as I wasn’t used to that kind of leniency and understanding. Then again, I had to admit that the months spent apart had let me forget a lot about the negative sides of being forced to get along with more than one person, who, more often than not, chose to do his own thing and was happy to let me do mine.
“It doesn’t matter,” I insisted. “In all instances. Yeah, so maybe coming to grips with a new shade of my own mortality may not have been my priority. But it doesn’t change anything now.”
He grunted. “Yeah, the way you look like you’ve just walked over your own grave makes that plain as day.”
“Like knowing I’m dying is new to me,” I grumbled. “And you forget, I stand maybe a one-in-ten chance of surviving what we’re up to now. Honestly? I’ll worry about what may come later if I luck out and actually am still alive next week so I can still worry. No sense in burning energy on something that likely won’t happen.”
I could tell that my nihilistic outlook on my future annoyed him. “You’ve survived so much shit that should have killed you, starting with the zombie apocalypse. You have no reason to be so pessimistic. Hell, the reason I keep hanging around you is because you’re a veritable lucky charm!” he claimed.
“Don’t you mean shit magnet?”
He laughed. “That, too, but somehow you still manage to come up ahead. I’m much more concerned about the people you bungle into than those that run with you.”
“Together till the end it is?” I jeered.
His usual smile resurfaced, making me feel strangely warm inside. I had missed him more than I liked to admit—and probably should around Sonia. And, in a sense, his vote of confidence was exactly what I’d needed to hear—or something like that.
“Well, good talk,” I said, already getting up, my coffee still untouched. “But I should get back to packing.”
Burns didn’t move a muscle—and neither did I when he said, in no uncertain terms, “Sit your scrawny ass back down, Lewis.”
A million excuses ran through my head, but I ended up uttering none. Instead, I plunked back down on the bench. “What?”
Burns studied me for a few long moments, making me feel like an ant oblivious to the kid about to squash it. “Talk to me,” he finally said. “I know you’re great about ruminating about shit until it has blown completely out of proportion. Sure, sulking alone in the wilderness for ages may have changed you a little, but not that much. And if it doesn’t help you, at least it will amuse me.”
I felt like harping “har har,” at that but left it at a—somewhat defeated—shrug. “Exactly why should I be optimistic? Ever since we met, it has always been one step forward, ten steps back and right into the worst of it. We survived the apocalypse, but a good chunk of our group either died or ended up worse off. We survived the winter only so Emma could kick us out and slam the door behind us forever. We tried to help others and ended up shot at and savaged by zombies. We get back at Hamilton and his asshole brigade only to find out I’m rotting from the inside out. I survive that, only to have to come to terms with the fact that I was the one to hand Hamilton the damn samples that are likely the basis for what will turn thousands of good people into mindless worker drones—or worse. How should going after the Chemist and Decker end any better? Sure, I can see why it’s the right thing—and I absolutely hope to hell it makes a difference in the grand scheme of things—but on a personal level? Whether we die fighting, or die after it’s done doesn’t matter. Either way, we die. And some of us deserve it a lot more than others.”
As expected, my gripes left him unperturbed. “My, aren’t you a little ray of sunshine today?” When I didn’t respond, he finished his coffee and swapped our mugs. “Look, I get it,” he started after demolishing the better part of mine as well. “Things have been a little rocky for you of late. And I know how much harder it is to deal with someone else’s shit than your own. You got pretty good with fielding the former. Now it’s time to learn to deal with the latter. It sucks, but it’s just another step in the road. And you know that even if we have to drag you on, kicking and screaming, we will do so. No whining or protesting will change that.”
“You know, sometimes I wonder if any of us deserves to make it,” I muttered. “I was always so proud knowing I’d end up on the right side of history. Hamilton’s not wrong when he says that I’ve strayed a long way from that.”
I got a sardonic grin for my efforts. “But he’s also not right,” Burns insisted. “Which you should be the first to point out. You can’t take out the trash without getting your hands dirty. So what—and who cares? Just consider what being right—and wrong—has gotten us into. Yet here we are, all on the same side, fighting the same fight. The world doesn’t give a shit what drives you. Sometimes not even how many bodies you leave behind. But what makes a difference is whether you flagellate yourself over every single wrong step taken along the way, or keep waltzing toward the big goal without ever looking left or right. So what if you end up being a little more tarnished than when you started out? I’ve never gotten the sense that Miller cared. If anything, he can deal with his own shit better knowing you’re not brand-spanking new yourself.”