Beyond Green Fields | Book 5 | Survive [A Post-Apocalyptic Anthology]
Page 14
I’m not surprised that she follows me. As expected, everyone is in high spirits, even Zilinsky having gotten over her ire. Bree is trying to keep it together when she sees Rita following me, but she does a shit job. She has proven in the past that she’s a menace when she’s drunk, but I file away a mental note to let Zilinsky know that, going forward, Bree is cut off from all booze unless we know exactly what we’re walking into. Also, she looks too drunk to have sex later on, which shouldn’t be that annoying considering our previous activities, but it is.
“I really don’t get what you see in her,” Rita downright sneers, although she’s aiming for haughtiness.
My answer is an obvious one. “Then let’s all be glad that you don’t have to, right?”
Bree perfectly preens at my remark—and destroys it all by shouting, at the top of her lungs, “Sweetie, I’m too awesome to put into mere words.” Guess I should consider myself lucky that grace isn’t one of the virtues I particularly look for in women. Neither is humility.
Yet it’s the perfect response for our rowdy bunch. Burns is quick to raise his glass and agree with her. “I’ll drink to that!” As if any of them needs an excuse. Everyone salutes to that and downs whatever liquid is closest to them, down to Zilinsky with her water bottle. Rita observes it all with a vague sense of disgust but doesn’t react—yet I can tell, any and all plans she’s been hatching for me have been abandoned and buried for good. Can’t say I regret it.
And in the end, neither does she, I realize, when she gifts me a personal, slightly rueful smile as she turns to take her leave. “Then you better not fuck this up as well,” she tells me—and then she’s gone.
While Bree makes a toast—“To the bastards!”—I allow myself to relax again. The thing is, I think I know why Zilinsky hates Connel’s guts, but she doesn’t deserve it. I’m sure she said or did something to deserve Zilinsky detesting her, but all things considered, the cards fate dealt her are worse than mine—and maybe Hamilton’s. I don’t know all the details, but those that I do know have always made me feel a little for her, even when she’s been a royal bitch.
Unlike most of us, she was hell-bent on doing the whole military career track, aiming right for the very top. Coming from a family of officers—and being an only child that absolutely was expected to be a prodigy—she did JROTC in high school and fast-tracked her college degree from as early as they let her. A brilliant, determined student, she enlisted in the army just shy of her twentieth birthday when she could have gone to Ivy League-level grad schools—and then some asshole decided to put her in her place and beat her up in the showers, ending with her fracturing her skull on the tiles and leaving her with severe brain swelling and six months in a coma. She recovered, tenacious bitch that she was, but a lot of that brilliance was lost, as was a good chunk of her empathy. She still became an officer, and she still started climbing the ranks, but in no time amassed a record that looked like it had been dipped in tar before she made captain because of all the shit she got into. That—and her reputation as a ruthless leader—got the powers that be to notice her. I was the one who sealed her fate by suggesting her inclusion in the serum program since I didn’t want to lead an assault strike team and she seemed like the perfect replacement for me.
And then I did what I did to get away from all this shit, and because she realized things were going to hell, she sacrificed herself for the lives of my men. Partially blind and again bound to a hospital bed for an unfathomable amount of time, they had no other option than to let her go, with the highest military honors they could justify. The last I heard of her, she’d been working as a truck driver, a washed-up, dirty, drunk junkie jonesing for the next fix which was impossible to get because her metabolism was running too high for any of the shit she put into her body to have much effect.
I don’t think it’s wrong to say that the apocalypse turned her life around and very much saved her. But her and me? We never should have been a team, much less had a thing going. Even without Bree, I wouldn’t have made that same mistake again. But when I told Rita that I have no intention of ascending the throne of her little kingdom, I absolutely meant it—and that is one hundred percent Bree’s fault. I’ve never doubted that I can be a good leader—although I’ve fucked up so many times in my life that I can’t even count the instances—but in a sense, she has made me realize that I don’t need to be in charge because otherwise, something is missing from my life. Maybe it’s the booze that is making me sentimental—or I’m simply tired and sated with my stomach full for what feels like the first time in fucking forever, my body and mind satisfied from spending some selfish quality time with the woman I love—but it’s true.
I’m happy and content with what I have, without the drive to thrive for more. What else could any man ask for?
Patreon
Love the books and short stories? Can’t get enough of them? Need something to fill the void until the next one is out? Maybe fancy a few outtakes and behind-the-scenes information? I have just the thing for you! I’m now on Patreon where I post exclusive content on a monthly basis—starting with the Prequel, of how everything began between Bree and Nate, before that fateful Friday that they met again at the coffee vending machine in the Green Fields Biotech atrium. Here’s a quick teaser for you!
I absolutely don’t get what my brother saw in her. Dr. Brianna Lewis, Bree to her friends, cutie pie to her girlfriend. She’s so not his type.
I allow myself a momentary smirk at reducing a woman whose academic credentials are longer than her name to her appearance. I’m sure she must love that whenever it happens.
Of course, my brother’s interest in her started—and presumably ended, as well—with her intellect. I’ve read her dissertation and all of the scientific publications that she has to her name, but understanding is a different thing. That’s why she has a PhD, and I’m the product of the research she was hired to work on—presumably. That I can’t say this with certainty has been irking me for months.
What I can say for sure is that Dr. Lewis is one thing above all else: boring as fuck.
Find out more on Patreon!
About the Author
Adrienne Lecter has a background in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, loves ranting at inaccuracies in movies, and spends increasingly more time at the shooting range. She lives with the man and two cats of her life in Vienna, Austria and is working on the books of a new series.
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Books published
Green Fields series - novels
#1: Incubation
#2: Outbreak
#3: Escalation
#4: Extinction
#5: Resurgence
#6: Unity
#7: Affliction
#8: Catharsis
#9: Exodus
#10: Uprising
#11: Retribution
#12: Annihilation
Also available as boxed sets (1-3, 4-6, 7-9, 10-12)
Green Fields series - short story anthologies:
Beyond Green Fields
#1 - Beginnings
#2: Regrets
#3: Lost & Found
#4: The Ballad of Sadie & Bates
#5: Survival
— all five parts available in one omnibus paperback edition as well!
Find more outtakes and short stories on Patreon!
e, Beyond Green Fields | Book 5 | Survive [A Post-Apocalyptic Anthology]