As soon as Sonia stepped into the room, a flurry of activity broke out around me. Hamilton must have filled her in already but repeated his recount of how he’d found me while Sonia barely seemed to listen, first cutting away the soaked fabric so she could better get to the wound, and then setting to work. I had no fucking clue what she did but it hurt like hell. Not being able to do anything, not even wince, made it a million times worse for me, but I knew it let her get the job done quicker, and likely better as well. Moving patients were a bitch for doctors and nurses everywhere. Lucky me, indeed.
“That’s all I can do for her right now,” I heard Sonia’s tired voice proclaim eons later. “The glue will help heal up the tissue around the stitches. She’s damn lucky that the knife didn’t rupture her intestine. If she’d still have had all her internal organs, she would be dead. I’ll have to open her up again tomorrow to remove the glue and check on the stitches, but she should be out of the woods now.” I heard her pause. “It’ll be better if we let the paralytic wear off on its own. The less she moves now, the better for the wound healing.”
It was impossible to miss the glare Nate sent her. “Do you have something to counteract it?”
“Yes, but—”
“Then give it to her right fucking now!” he shouted, loud enough that Sonia physically drew back. When she didn’t comply immediately, Nate looked ready to come after her, but managed to explain instead. “I can guarantee you that she’s living her worst nightmare right now because there’s no way that the trauma from back when she lost said organs you were commenting about isn’t catching up, full force, to her now. She also can’t tense, or move herself into a slightly more comfortable position, or even fucking grit her teeth or scream in pain to try to take some of the pressure off. I can see how analytic medical thinking may lead you to believe that you’re doing the right thing for her, but you are not.”
Sonia glared at him but went rooting through her kit. “Suit yourself, asshole.” Damn, but I really wanted to grin so badly right then. And scream. Yeah, scream first, and maybe grin a thousand years from now.
I expected her to do the dramatic needle-in-heart thing now but realized she wouldn’t when all that followed was a quick, barely noticeable prick in my left thigh. The effect wasn’t immediate. Sonia was pretty much done gathering up her things by the time I managed the first voluntary muscle spasm—and no, that didn’t feel good. Done, she lingered, but gave Nate as much space as she could.
Slowly but surely, my body returned to my control. Moving anything hurt like hell, and after spending almost an hour with my eyes and mouth open, it took some extra time to get those working as they should once more. I didn’t try to sit up, Sonia’s protest enough of a warning for me. Besides, they had moved me away from my own pool of blood and Sonia had cleaned me up as best as she could around the tatters of my clothes. She’d left those on after verifying that I had no other wounds that needed treatment. Nate was quick to slosh a sip or two of water into my mouth as soon as I could swallow on my own again, and left a wet rag over my eyes until I grunted for him to remove it. Speech seemed a million miles away, and by the time my feeble croaks got closer to intelligible words, whoever wasn’t involved in treating me had already gotten busy scouring the entire installation for intruders.
My, was I happy to rain on their parade now.
But screaming first.
It was more like a series of whimpers as I finally managed to curl up on my—left—side, grunting through the red fog of pain until I could breathe again. It wasn’t exactly fear of appearing weak that made me lock my jaws, but I’d be damned if I gave that fucking bitch the satisfaction of bawling like a little girl, now that she hadn’t managed to kill me. It was irrational, and maybe even stupid, but my stubbornness had gotten me through hell and back what felt like a million times, and today wouldn’t be the exception. As soon as I managed to relax as the pain ebbed a little, Nate leaned in, trying to catch the words my sluggish tongue still had issues with forming. Behind him, I saw Sonia still glaring at him, not hiding her misgivings one bit.
It took me six tries, but I finally managed to grunt out, “Marleen.”
Nate leaned back enough so I could see the frown of confusion on his face, but already something dark came lurking back into his eyes. Oh, he was giving her the benefit of the doubt all right, but he also wasn’t dismissing the fact that it was likely whatever I uttered first that would be the name of my attacker. He knew me well enough that my first utterance wouldn’t be concern about anyone else—but might be about someone kidnapped, or some shit.
“Did… it.”
Someone in the back cursed, and Nate looked as if someone had shot his favorite dog, if only for a second. Then his expression hardened. I never wanted to see him look at me like that. Hamilton, who’d chosen to linger as well, back in his jacket sans shirt now, snorted, but it was a grim sound. “Sounds like your assassin turned out to be someone else’s assassin. Or would-be, at least.”
Nate made a move as if to get up—likely to give the order to scour the complex with a more specific target in mind—but my hand shot out before he got far. I had to squeeze my eyes shut and breathe through the pain—sinking my fingers into his arm helped a little—before I managed to get the next words out, but he needed to hear this.
“Said… Decker sends his… regards.”
Nate and Hamilton both froze. Under different circumstances, it would have been funny to observe, but the humor was lost on me right now. Bucky was first to regain his composure, and when he saw that Nate was still staring down at me with horror, he turned to the others. “Check every fucking nook and cranny of this blasted lab and find that cunt. Go in teams, and check in regularly. Get the damn coms first. Report anything you find. Anything. Bring her back alive if you can, but take her down if that’s not an option.” Nobody protested his orders, and Sonia looked a lot less interested in leaving all of a sudden. Burns remained to guard her—and us—and after someone returned with a portable radio, Hamilton joined the search party as well.
There were a million things I needed to tell Nate, but my body had about enough—and all of it could wait until tomorrow. I had no doubts that Marleen was long gone, scurrying back to wherever she had come from. I could tell that Nate was blaming himself, but I had no energy to attempt to alleviate his guilt. Part of me wanted to be resentful, at least for now. Low-grade anger burning in my stomach was a much better companion than the wave of desolation threatening to crash into me.
Chapter 18
Marleen was nowhere to be found. Also gone were her pack and weapons, a substantial amount of provisions, one of the electric cars in the car park behind the airlock—and Richards. Almost immediately, discussions broke out about whether he was her accomplice or not, but the fact that we hadn’t found his body hinted that he was still alive. I didn’t want to believe that he had betrayed me—well, us, but it was personal, too—and I abused my injuries to push that decision off to another day.
Eden’s body turned up exactly where Marleen had told me she’d stashed it, but there were no further casualties. Cole had, accidentally and narrowly, avoided getting stabbed to death—like Eden—or shot—like Scott—by choosing the right time to return from the garage, and taking the corridor that didn’t run right by the lab that might have easily turned into my grave. We even knew that as he’d run into Hamilton at the intersection at the end of the tract, and had told him he hadn’t seen anyone around.
How Hamilton had turned into my most unlikely savior was slightly more deliberate. Apparently, I’d lost track of time in my perusal of the lab journals, and had missed reporting in for deciding whether I wanted first or second watch. Since Hamilton wanted to catch some sleep badly enough, he’d ventured into the labs to hunt me down and tell me to get my lazy ass back to the cafeteria. To think that if he’d been more annoyed and walked faster, he might have prevented all this—or I’d have sent him away while Marleen had bided her time, and her plan would h
ave unfolded flawlessly.
Nate ended up carrying me from the lab to our makeshift camp in the cafeteria after Sonia gave him the go-ahead two hours after patching me up. I got two saline infusions and what felt like a pound of meds, but considering what we knew about the effects of the serum now, I was happy not to need a blood transfusion. I had lost a lot of blood but less than I’d thought, leaving me feeling frail and in a lot of pain but on the fast track to recovery. Nate stayed next to my makeshift hospital bed for twenty minutes but then left, using the ongoing search effort for an excuse. In the past, I would have been hurt, but I could tell that he needed to move and do something to avoid going insane. He’d spent nine weeks physically locked in a cell, and I could tell that now his mind was caught in a mental prison; if pacing more than five steps in one direction at a time might help, I was happy to see him go.
He was back the next morning to help me take a shower, made possible by the still-running generators that powered the lab. My skin was still deathly pale but my energy was slowly returning. Another day, and I’d be ready to leave, if that meant sitting in a car and not having to run for my life. Nate was reluctant to make the decision whether we should stay longer, and I was glad when Hamilton—staring me in the face and willing me to protest—declared that we would leave as soon as possible. He was right that the fact that I was stubborn enough to chance it likely meant I was ready for it as well. I hated that Nate seemed so passive, but since he had no problem coordinating everything else, I let it slide without a comment.
After that first night of being mostly awake because even the idea of tossing and turning hurt like hell, I followed Sonia into the infirmary that had been part of the complex. It had already been raided down to the bare necessities—and sadly, not only by us, but we had still acquired a gold mine of supplies—except for Sonia’s kit. I refused Burns and Nate’s offer to hold me down while she cut me up again, instead opting to tough it out myself. As every single thing anyone had done to me in the past five years, it was way worse than I’d expected, but I forced myself to push through the pain and not kick Sonia into a bloody pulp. She was surprised how well the wound had healed already, which meant she actually had more cutting to do to get the glue out. The staples and stitches would remain in, hopefully to dissolve all on their own. If not, it didn’t really make much of a difference, considering the general state my body had been in before this shit had gone down.
While I lay there, trying to relax but of course tense as fuck, fighting tears and screams and curses, I couldn’t help the dark twist of emotions that kept swirling through my mind, making me physically sick—although that could have been from the pain just as well. The only upside to Marleen’s actions was that I’d quickly gotten over the morose frustration left by losing so many people all over again. I still remembered all too well how much losing Bates had cut me up, but it had gotten easier to move on. Whether that was a side effect of trauma, or coming from the fact that those close to me were still up and running, or because the serum had eroded what was left of my empathy and compassion, I couldn’t say. It bothered me, but not as much as all the questions kicked up by the assassination attempt.
I had no way of knowing whether Marleen had been lying when she’d held her endless monologue while waiting for me to bleed out. She had no reason not to tell the truth to her would-be victim, but that didn’t mean anything. I had to admit, I’d almost preferred the lies.
Knowing that she’d spent almost a decade working under cover—and leaving him absolutely none the wiser—hit Nate hard. He didn’t admit it, but I could tell from his latent anger, barely contained by the constant need to move. The fact that Hamilton didn’t even once taunt him with his oversight somehow made it worse. It was the confirmation that nobody had seen it coming. That it likely meant that we were on the right path only helped so much. Me, at least, it left feeling frustrated and paranoid as fuck. If we couldn’t trust people who we’d been working with for years, who was left?
But it wasn’t those thoughts that left me anxious and wound up—nor was it the fact that I’d almost died, and was likely another step closer to my early grave thanks to the recovery my body was going through. It was connected to that, sure—and I knew that, soon enough, both would haunt me, but not right now. We were, once again and now more than ever, standing with our backs against the wall, and the only thing that kept clamoring through my mind was the thought that if I’d died, I’d never have had a chance to find out if I could have gotten pregnant again and could have added a life to this world before ours would inevitably leave it.
It made me feel incredibly selfish and like I had no business leading anything or anyone if I couldn’t even have my own priorities straight. I also had no fucking idea where that obsession came from, particularly as, all the things I’d lost considered, my ability to procreate had been the least of my issues. Maybe it was a byproduct of my mind finally catching up to the fact that the serum was killing us, slowly but surely. Or maybe it was Hamilton’s remark about the falsified report, which pretty much proved that Raynor had temporarily rendered me sterile. Maybe it was the aftershocks of seeing Baby Chris, Sadie’s little girl, and inevitably remembering that, a million years ago, I had the chance to end up with one just like her. Maybe it was the not-so-latent fear that our people—including Sadie and Christine—weren’t safe, and now, more than ever, possible targets. It was easy to say that Marleen must have been the mole, or her and Richards, and chalk all of our near-misses and losses up to that. But what if there was someone else secretly reporting and not-so-secretly acting against those who depended on us?
What if, what if, what if…
“What exactly is your qualification?” I heard myself ask Sonia more than decide to question her, particularly when I realized how easy it was to misunderstand the question. Nate’s behavior hadn’t endeared me any more to her than I’d managed all on my own.
Sonia laughed, and it wasn’t a happy sound. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” I was sure it was just my perception, but the next time the needle went into me, it hurt a little more.
I closed my eyes and waited for the pain to lessen, counting down from ten. “I didn’t mean it like that,” I offered through gritted teeth. “You’re doing an amazing job. I was just wondering what else you can do besides battlefield surgery?”
The next suture was just as bad, but Sonia’s tone was gentler, almost mollified. “Most routine things,” she offered. “We do learn that shit in nursing school.” Yup, turned out she had been an EMT in a former life, working on becoming a nurse. Also, a bartender, a call center operator, insurance inspector, and a million other shit things she didn’t feel like sharing with me now. Burns had told me some of it last night, after she’d gone to sleep and I’d needed ten minutes to get to the toilet and back again—housed in the adjacent room.
“Like checkups?” I wasn’t even sure why I was beating around the bush. Whatever else she was—to Burns or anyone else—she was a professional.
She chuckled, as if she had a good idea what I was working my way up to—which was, of course, wrong. “I didn’t find any antibiotics specifically for the many things that might make your lady bits itch, but if you’re worried about genital warts, they have the equipment here to freeze them off.”
Laughing out loud while you are getting stitched up is never a good idea, but I couldn’t hold back a chuckle. “Did you just seriously refer to my vagina as ‘lady bits’? Fuck off.”
“If you want to split hairs, vulva is more like it,” she tartly informed me. “I take it this is not about your coochie-coo being all itchy-itch?”
“Fucking stop it!” I half pleaded, half snickered, not helping my general predicament. Grabbing the padded bench I was bent over harder and waiting until the worst of the pain had subsided made it bearable again.
“Almost done,” Sonia said, her tone neutral for a moment and not without compassion. “I should probably not tell you this as it might dangerously inflate your
ego, but you’re quite the trooper when it comes to this. Half of the guys I had to sew up before you made three times the fuss, and usually on lighter injuries.”
“You say that like I have a choice,” I offered, letting out a sigh of relief when she started to apply the bandage. “But, yeah. I’ve had worse.”
After she finished, I pushed myself into an upward position and gingerly rotated my torso, trying not to howl with pain. Sonia went to the freezer on the other side of the infirmary to hand me an ice pack. As it turned out, it really took the practicality of a nurse to find a way to soothe pain for those who were immune to painkillers. I was sure that Martinez would have thought of that, too, but since he wasn’t here but Sonia was…
“So what is it that you need checked?” she wanted to know after she’d helped me fix the ice pack in place.
I considered how to broach the subject but then just went with it. “I presume that, by now, someone has told you all the things they removed when I almost bit it?”
She nodded. “And from what I can tell seeing your insides firsthand, everything looks like it healed up well.”
The joke was almost bad enough to have come from Burns. Maybe there was a reason they got along so well, after all.
Exhaling my exasperation, I went on. “They also removed my right ovary. With the miscarriage, the infection, and what everyone kept saying about the serum, I figured that was the official end to my reproductive capabilities. Never had my period since then, or any PMS-related shit.”
Sonia’s expression turned pensive. “They don’t have an ultrasound here so I can’t really check up on what happened to what’s still there.”
I shook my head. “Of course not. But you can check for strings.” She looked confused, making me explain quickly. “After we liberated the camp, Richards pulled me aside.”
Retribution: Green Fields #11 Page 30
