Green Fields (Book 10): Uprising:

by Lecter, Adrienne

  “No surprise there,” Nate muttered, making me grin for a second.

  “She’s weird, but I can see why you’d want her on your side in a pinch,” I offered. “If you’re ever thinking about a threesome, I might be down with her. Maybe.”

  “No fucking way,” Nate enthused, making my grin resurface. “At best, you’d both spend an entire night making fun of me. Worst, you’d get into an actual fight. Either way, no actual action for me. Not interested.”

  “Aw, not fair! Some guys like to watch, you know?” His pointed look made me chuckle. “Okay, no threesome with Marleen. Probably better this way. She did kill a president, by the way. We have apparently had some but the marsupials keep losing them.”

  Nate frowned briefly, needing a few seconds to decipher my remark. “That Scott guy really will shoot you if you keep doing that,” he wisely pointed out.

  “Marine special ops, whatever,” I muttered. “I’d rather deal with the Silo marines, anyway. I may not be their personal best friend but they actually wanted to work with us. I’m not sure but I think Buehler has a crush on Zilinsky, in a completely non-sexual, awestruck because of campfire stories kind of way. I won’t hold it against Wilkes if he doesn’t let you or me personally into his fortress but they have skin in the game and aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty. Richards, too, if you still think we can trust him.”

  “He sent someone to pick you up?”

  I shook my head. “He did it personally, with Hill and Cole riding along. And some rookie whose name I keep forgetting. They were apparently searching for us since you missed a drop-off. I don’t quite buy it but they were there, and they helped me, and I feel like their support, while rubbing some people the wrong way, helped get this party started.”

  Nate mulled that over for a second. “They must have been scouting out the city,” he mused. “That we up and disappeared without a trace must have tipped them off.” He paused, a light frown coming to his forehead, as if he was trying to remember something. “So how did you convince them to help get me out? I may be a conceited asshole sometimes but I’m very much aware that I’m just one guy among many. Personal affiliations aside, what do they want from us in return?”

  I wondered how best to phrase it. “They think Decker is still alive. They think you might be our best bet of taking him out.”

  Nate nodded absently, showing neither surprise nor trepidation. “Any concrete info or just everyone running around like headless chickens, blaming the others for why everything has turned to shit?”

  “The latter.”

  “Thought so.” He absently rolled the shoulder I was partly lying on—making me wonder if maybe I should find a different perch—but as soon as he felt me try to move away, the hand that lay casually splayed across my lower back pushed me further into him. It felt like an instinctive gesture, and I relaxed against him once more.

  “That will make things easier,” he remarked, mostly to himself. I could practically see the wheels in his head turning.

  “Guess when you told Pia to get everyone ready you didn’t mean to break camp and run.”

  He gave a brief jerk of his head. “Nope.” He let out his breath slowly, then caught my gaze once more. “You want to know how I knew you were gone?”

  “Not particularly, but I feel like you need to tell me.”

  Nate thought about that some—or how to broach the topic—and decided to start from the top. “My first mistake was that I underestimated them. At the beginning, it was all pretty straightforward—throw a guy into a deep, dark hole, don’t feed him, give him barely enough water not to die of thirst, and you don’t even need torture to wear someone down. Although they beat me up pretty much from the get-go. I spent the first night after the damn drugs had worn off worried sick about what was happening to you, but then decided that I wasn’t going to be any use to you if I did all the work for them, so I decided I needed to take care of myself first. I know how that sounds—”

  “Smart,” I interjected. “Put on your oxygen mask before you help others. Only makes sense. And I did a pretty good job taking care of myself, if I may say so.”

  A hint of a smile tucked the corner of his mouth up. “I’ve missed how humble and selfless you are.”

  “My best traits, for sure.”

  Exhaling slowly, he went on, idly stroking my back as he was staring up at the crumbling ceiling above us, as if clues were printed up there. “There was only so much I could do at first, but prideful asshole that I am, of course I thought I could easily take whatever they’d throw my way. I’ve been both on the giving and receiving end of shit like that before—of course I know how to play the game. How to outsmart them. I was such a fucking idiot.”

  He paused, but I didn’t add a joke or objection—I could tell that he wasn’t completely here with me anymore, and even drugged up I wasn’t stupid enough to make an ass of myself if I could avoid it.

  His voice took on a deceptively calm tone as he went on, still staring at the ceiling. “Cortez is one sick motherfucker. I thought I’d figured him and his operation out when they dragged me out of my cell that day. I’d started making a few connections by then—they keep us in solitary confinement but the cells are right next to each other, and you can talk to each other sometimes—and gotten my fair share of warnings. I thought I knew the perfect strategy to lie to him, to play him—but really, he was playing me. I didn’t quite laugh him in the face when he told me in excruciating detail how he was going to rape me, but thought to myself, eh, amateur move, very expected. Confirmed all my guesses, down to the point where he explained that he was going to do it slowly and with plenty of lube so as to undermine my self-perception if, lo and behold, I did feel something besides utter revulsion. He’d even provide some extra help for that.”

  I had to lock down my muscles not to physically cringe as much as my mind was doing, but that confused me. “I don’t get it. How should not destroying your ass wear you down any quicker? Just saying, I still vividly remember how Andrej explained to me in way too many words how to smuggle a knife in when you expect to be captured somewhere. Or two knives, if you’re of the female persuasion. You just need a condom, some lube, and a little patience.”

  Nate grimaced, but mirth briefly lit up his face. Yeah, they’d all laughed their—probably not quite that tight—asses off at my reaction.

  “Ah, that was my thinking also. Although there is something to be said about being gentle and nice to someone you torture sometimes. It can screw with their minds, get some good foundation for Stockholm syndrome going. I figured he was going for that and dismissed his skills. That was, until they brought in the girl.”

  Now that sounded ominous. I didn’t miss how his hand had stilled on my back, and now dropped away to rest at his side instead. “At first, I thought it was you,” he explained, voice empty now. “She was filthy, in bad health, clearly malnourished and abused. She could barely drag herself back to her feet, but then I noticed she still had all her fingers and toes and I felt a mountain of weight lift off my chest. For just a moment, I’d realized that—just maybe—I’d misjudged Cortez. That he’d been playing me all along, not knowing who I was and not really giving a shit; that he’d been biding his time, and that now his goons would rape you to death right in front of me—and that would have broken me. Nobody in that room would have survived—but that wouldn’t have helped you. I felt like shit when I realized it wasn’t you and I didn’t give a shit about what happened to the girl. But they didn’t rape her—at least not right then—but he instead told her to suck me off while he was doing his thing. You know, to make me feel even more conflicted. I was pretty sure he’d have her bite my dick off when she was done, but that was probably the drugs speaking. I wasn’t quite lucid that day.”

  He paused, his jaw a hard line as he ground his teeth, and I didn’t protest when he skipped ahead some.

  “When I was back in my cell, I took a long, deep look at my plans and realized that I’d been mostly
bullshitting myself. Everything he’d done so far was to test me, to get a read on me, and I’d been stupid enough to prove to him at every turn that I was smarter than him, playing my own game. But the problem is, how do you pivot when you’re crouching in a deep, dark cell with some idiot’s cum dripping out of your ass? I ran through every possible scenario, trying to model my behavior on all possibilities, but that in itself was the problem. He wasn’t after some information. He wasn’t trying to convince me of anything. He was simply delighting in the fact that he’d found someone who was trying to match him, trying to hang on to my self and humanity—and those are pretty fragile concepts when you think about it.”

  His voice turned dispassionate then. “I didn’t know what to make of it when they dragged me into the arena for the first time. That was two or three days later. My shoulders were still in bad shape—that’s where I dislocated them for the first time, because I did end up struggling because I couldn’t hold still, and he had me locked in some kind of stockade that made it oh so simple for my arms to go in ways they weren’t intended to. I didn’t want to fight, and I sure as fuck didn’t intend to be a part of anyone’s twisted sense of entertainment. But, what can I say? After one of the assholes scored a bad scrape across my ribs, I had enough. The crowd was happy with the carnage but when they realized I hadn’t killed anyone, they were displeased. So back into my hole I went, without food or water for two days, and next time he didn’t use any lube or his kennel fluffer. Back to the arena it was, and they shot me up with some shit that fucked with me to the point where I couldn’t see, walk, or think straight. Nobody intended me to survive that second round. Guess what? Surprise!”

  I didn’t know what to say so I remained silent, swallowing convulsively. Eating that stew had been a bad idea for sure.

  “Like any beaten dog, I learned my lesson quickly after that. If I didn’t fight, I’d spend the next days in agony—so I fought. If I didn’t kill my opponents, I starved, so I killed them. Then there was a round that had me so fucking disgusted of the crowd and their champion who was catering to their needs, so I one-upped him and all but slaughtered him. That got me a lot of applause. It also got me fresh, warm food, and because Cortez was feeling generous—positive reinforcement 101 for you—they threw one of the kennel girls into my cell for the night. She was so drugged up that it took me a good hour to explain to her that I wasn’t going to touch her, or let out my anger and frustration on her. She did help me with my shoulders, though, and worked some of the kinks out of my back where one of the fighters had stabbed me and I’d gone stiff. She eventually told me she’d studied to become a physical therapist before the shit hit the fan. She should have been a doctor or medic in Dispatch. Instead, she’d ended up there.”

  “Is she still alive?” I didn’t know why I had to ask, but judging from his tone she’d been the one good thing that happened to him.

  Nate shook his head, no explanation following. “I learned to work with the crowd. That sometimes got me a few days of reprieve, if I turned more aggressive, more brutal, more vicious when taking down my opponents. They sometimes even let us work together, particularly against the animals. The need for food turned into a rather strong motivator. The drugs—they helped. Sometimes they made me feel great, at least for a few minutes. Sometimes they were something I could fight. More often than not, they turned me dead inside.” He paused, briefly licking his lips. I could tell that what was about to follow wouldn’t be something I’d like to hear—and considering what he’d already told me, that was saying something. “I remember when it all changed. I was so damn hungry. They hadn’t fed me for an entire week—my fault, of course. I’d tried being smart again. And the shit they’d shot me up with, it turned me very… susceptible to suggestions. I’d beaten that asshole into submission, and the crowd was going wild. As a last resort, he tried to take a bite out of me with his teeth. I got so damn angry—conversion-level fury, only that the drugs held me at bay—that I started cutting chunks out of his stomach and legs, and then forced him to watch as I bit down on one. It was warm, and I was so hungry, and I didn’t give a shit about anything anymore except getting something to eat…” He trailed off for a moment. “And, truth be told, it didn’t taste that bad, either. As I kept chewing, it actually tasted rather good—and as they say, the rest is history.” He paused, offering up a mirthless snort. “Or should I say, it tasted pretty familiar by then, just like the strips of grilled meat and stew they fed me later when I was back in my cell. And that’s when I realized what they’d been feeding me all along, since the very first meal they’d left by the door. Wouldn’t do to waste any good livestock on us, right?” Another pause, then, “And do you know how it can get worse—and worse it got—from there? I really started to like the taste of it. What a convenient excuse that the crowds always love some extra gore?”

  During the last part he’d turned his head to look into my face, his eyes never leaving mine. If he was waiting for me to bolt up in revulsion, he was going to spend a lot of time on his back. “Well, I think the average human body has something like eighty thousand calories. Not bad for a food source,” I offered.

  I almost cheered when Nate glared at me with real vexation. “I just told you I ate people and liked it, and all you have to say is a nutritional analysis?”

  I shrugged, feeling less concerned with every moment that the topic was further digressing. “Well, you have been favoring meat somewhat more raw than well-done ever since we got back to the States. We didn’t really talk about it but you and I both know that you didn’t leave that damn underground lab the same as you went in.” Then something occurred to me. “Wait, when we were getting it on and you told me I smelled good, did you just mean my natural musk and sweat that makes you feel at home and all cozy and warm, or dinner-is-ready kind of good?”

  I really couldn’t say whether he was fucking with me when he hesitated. “You do smell like home,” he offered.

  “You’re a fucking asshole, you know that?” I grumbled, but refrained from punching him. He already had enough bruises and not enough padding left as it was. “You better not start chomping on my fingers, because I don’t have any left to spare.”

  “Not even tempted, I swear,” he offered, a slightly amused lilt in his voice.

  “And no eating our friends. We have too few of those left to spare any, either,” I pointed out. “Come to think of it, maybe don’t tell that part to Martinez. I’m sure he has some great advice ready for hurt pride and annihilated self, but I think you’ll lose him at cannibalism. Better not tell Andrej, either, because he will make stupid jokes about it until everyone realizes what is going on. Burns, too, although I think he’d be more guarded about it. Pia you should tell. Expect to find a bunch of meat of undisclosed origin waiting for breakfast. Plus if this turns into an out-of-hand urge thing, it would be good to have her in the know so we can find a way to pull you back from the edge. Pork might work. How does hunting a few wild boar sound?”

  “What have I done to deserve you?” he griped—but did so with a smile.

  “Did you really think that was going to be a dealbreaker for me?” I asked, a little insulted. “News flash—I saw you tear that guy’s heart out and eat it, and I still kissed you half an hour later. And more just now. I may still not be quite coming down from that high, but I’m not that much of a lightweight. Give me some credit. If all else fails, there are always plenty of assholes around that we can prep for dinner. It’s not like I can taste the difference, anyway.”

  “You’re a horrible person,” he observed.

  “Hey, I’m not the one who’ll throw morals and ethics overboard just to survive.”

  “I’m ninety percent sure that you just did,” he pointed out.

  I answered that with a loud sigh—and forced my stupid mind to quiet down again. Surprisingly, it did, after skipping over a couple of cannibalism jokes. Oh, it would kill me that I couldn’t ever crack them where anyone but Nate would hear!

&n
bsp; “So my guess is that you don’t intend to walk out there and jump right onto whatever plan or leads they have been hatching out that they need your help for?”

  Nate shook his head, clearly quite happy to change the topic again. “No. Which brings me to the next point.”

  “There are still points left? Cannibalism not enough yet?”

  He snorted. I figured it was a good sign that at least a thread of gallows humor was left inside of him. “Let’s put it this way—if you haven’t demanded to divorce me yet, this may very well change your mind.”

  “Oh, please, do tell!” I crooned.

  He ignored me. “Not yet. You’ll hear soon enough when I tell the others. What I need from you is your absolute promise to fall in line with what I need you to do—no protest, no whining, no double-crossing me. I may look calm and collected right now but I’m a fucking mess, and I can’t have you work against me and usurp me now. I wouldn’t ask this of you if I wasn’t convinced it was necessary—”

  “Okay.”

  Nate blinked, confusing taken over from reluctance. “Okay? Just like that, you fold?”

  I shrugged. “Of course. You need this. That’s enough explanation for me. You have my unwavering, unquestioned support. I know I can be a pest, but that’s usually my way of showing you how much I love you. Things may be a little more dire right now so I can leave it at adoring looks and kissy-faces when no one else is looking. Pinky swear.” And, of course, I raised my right hand that conveniently ended with the stump of my ring finger.

  Nate grunted, but it was a good-natured sound. Or so I hoped. It kind of did resemble a growl, even more so when he pushed himself off the sleeping bag and we ended with him perched above me, looking down at me, pinned underneath him, staring up at him.

  “I know we’ve been talking a lot,” I remarked wryly. “But we might have a little more time for round two. Unless that was only to prove to yourself that you still got it and—” I stopped, scowling at his expression. “Tell me that’s not the truth, or I swear, I’ll bury you in all kinds of meat until you die of gout!”