“Move forward!” Nate hissed, the command reaching me over the coms rather than directly although he was only a few feet ahead of me. I followed suit, almost running after the guys with the movable barrier who were quick to secure the intersection once more and clear the tunnel. Nate and his strike team were already moving in on the arena exit, only stopping where the gate became too narrow to use the barriers effectively still—
We spilled out into the arena like a hedgehog made of angry humans with weapon spikes protruding outward, ready to meet our opposition—or what was left of it. With the firefight raging on, Cortez’s people were down to fifteen men, who were now, for the most part, gawking at the arena ranks still filling with scavengers. Amos and several of his people were standing on the very edge of the front rank, weapons pointed into the arena ground. They were quick to change their aim away from us as we entered, making me breathe a little easier.
So far, so good. This could be over in five seconds flat. Pew, pew, pew—easy peasy.
One look at Nate was enough to realize that no, that wouldn’t do.
A closer look at Cortez—and who he had kneeling, naked, with a tight noose around his neck, the other end of the rope casually wrapped around Cortez’s hand and forearm—told me why.
Could things never be easy?
If I’d thought Nate was in bad shape, Bucky was way worse off. True, I’d never seen him completely naked but getting into the hot lab in France had required a quick change of clothes, and I’d been close enough to him to know that, two years ago, he’d been quite the fit specimen. Now he was all wiry tendons and mottled skin stretched over bones that showed too prominently to be healthy. His abundance of beard and hair didn’t make up for that. I wasn’t exactly feeling sorry for him—I’d need drugs way more potent than what I was rocking for that, if it was even still possible, which I kind of doubted—but that was one miserable shadow of a human being. A year spent mostly in darkness had turned his skin deathly pale, and if I hadn’t known he was still alive, I would have guessed that he was a months-old shambler. But there was intelligence lurking in his dull eyes as they stared in our direction, and hope so clearly human that it was easy to make out the difference. The irony that Bucky was happy to see me, of all people, wasn’t lost on me. Well, maybe not me personally, but for once in his life he didn’t sneer at or taunt me—which I found oddly disappointing. Really, this whole reneging on my revenge thing wasn’t shaping up as I’d been hoping.
“Ah, the prodigal son returns,” Cortez called out, the phrasing making the hair at the nape of my neck stand on end. Was it just a weird thing people said? Greene had called out something similar to me. Was that just my natural paranoia talking? Or my bias? Or the drugs? Or had we all been one bunch of naive lunatics to trust the self-declared leader of New Angeles for so long?
Nate didn’t react at first besides continuing to stalk forward to where we had enough space to spread out, both to make harder targets and to not shoot each other should this actually end with a quick round of “pew, pew, pew” which I still hadn’t given up on. I’d killed Taggard in a split-second decision—why couldn’t Nate do the same? Not that I didn’t understand his need for vengeance—it was just inconvenient.
Not for the first time this week I wondered just how full-circle we had come that I had to sympathize with Nate’s past annoyance at actions I’d set and considered fully acceptable.
At least today there would be no foul truces and hidden agendas.
Finally satisfied with our formation, Nate gave the signal to halt but took another step forward, as if all the attention wasn’t on him yet. “Any last words?” he called out to Cortez, ignoring his men completely. They seemed to have realized that they were going nowhere, and were hoping that if their leader got sacrificed for the common good, maybe they could slink away somehow.
Cortez was smiling, but it was a tight smile. He didn’t seem to have any illusions about what was about to come next, but I had to admit, it took some backbone to stare down Nate in full-on bloodlust and not cringe away.
Rather than respond, he asked a question of his own. “You truly are the creature I have forged you into. Marvelous. Deadly. Magnificent. If it’s my time to leave this mortal coil today, I’m ready.” He added a dramatic pause. A muscle ticked in Nate’s jaw, making me guess that was his usual MO. “But know this—the moment you attack, your friend here dies. Oh, indeed. I know who he is, and now I know who you are, as well. You are aware that if he dies because of your actions, a part of you will die as well. Is your soul worth your vengeance?”
I was starting to wonder if maybe I should shoot Cortez—before he could strangle Bucky—and call this a day. The rain and wind were only partly kept at bay by the layout of the arena, once more drenching me through and through. I was also hard-pressed not to call out whether he always talked such bullshit, but didn’t want to rain on Nate’s parade.
Nate’s mouth twisted into a smirk, his attention straying to Hamilton. “What do you say, Buck? You ready to die so I lose my soul?”
It took Hamilton a cough or two to clear his throat, and his voice sounded like gravel, but was still surprisingly strong as he replied. “Fuck, no. You don’t have a soul. Else you couldn’t stomach continuing to stick your dick into that mutilated hag of yours.”
I couldn’t help it. I had to utter a low yet emphatic, “Yes!” at Hamilton’s taunt, earning me a sidelong glance from a few of our people, mostly the Ice Queen. Her expression clearly told me that she was disappointed in me not being able to exist above such pettiness.
I couldn’t tell whether it was Hamilton’s jibe or my reaction, but Nate allowed himself a small smile—that froze as he glanced back at Cortez. Rage took over his eyes, that same deep-seated, visceral, burn-me-up-in-flames-of-hatred rage that I also felt boiling in the depth of my stomach. It was only then that I realized I’d never seen Nate lose control before. Not really, not completely. Not deliberately. It scared me to the bone but also held my attention like few other things I’d ever witnessed. It made me want to let lose as well. Abandon all things human and just become the purest, distilled essence of vengeance. As I was standing there, watching him, I could even feel my mind slowly flipping the switch, my body ready to gear up—
Only that I didn’t. Because that was his fight, his victory—and there was a chance that he’d need me to find his way back, and for that I had to be lucid, and calm, and ready to pull him away from the chasm, not launch myself into it right after him. That was a sobering thought, and not one I particularly cherished.
Proving that he still had more control over himself than I would ever master, Nate continued to talk rather than let his rage take over.
“Oh, come on, be nice. Or is your ego really that fragile that you can’t even say thank you this once when you’d still be rotting in your cell if not for her?”
Hamilton still refused to look at me, his attention quickly flipping to the gathering crowd. “Lots of violent maniacs? Yeah, sounds like her doing.” His attention turned back to Nate, and from one moment to the next he was serious—and surprisingly enough the most worthy of the rank he held that I’d ever seen him, malnutrition and his state of undress easily ignored. I realized Bucky Hamilton was ready to die—after doing the right thing for once.
“You can go ahead and kill that asshole. He doesn’t have a fucking clue about anything. His chemist is the one you want. He’s the one I delivered the samples to, as instructed. If you can’t, I left a backup sample with Raynor. Cortez is nothing but a sadistic fuck, a puppet and a figurehead. He’s—”
Nate sprang, moving almost too fast for me to see. One moment he was standing next to me. The next, he was halfway to Cortez—who was ready. He suddenly had two knives drawn, one in each hand, and as Nate came sprinting toward him, he yanked the rope hard, pulling the noose tight around Hamilton’s throat. Bucky’s hands were tied behind his back so there was no way he could fight the mounting pressure, his face already turning red
. Nate was still carrying his assault rifle, and I fully expected him to use it to at the very least bash the knives out of Cortez’s hands—but instead he threw it away.
Right. Create a monster, get killed by that monster. But really, I wished right there that I’d married someone with more common sense and less need for drama.
Nate was fast, and he was deadly, but Cortez still had those knives and knew how to use them. Because of the rain, I couldn’t see where exactly he slashed at Nate, but even across the distance I saw the weapon in his left hand come away bloody from the engagement. Yet it cost him the one in his right that Nate kicked away, likely breaking a few fingers in the move as well. Cortez, knowing that his chances at survival were slim and advantages slimmer, followed right up with a stab at Nate’s back, ignoring the pain that must have been paralyzing his other hand. He hit, the knife going in to the hilt, making Nate roar with agony. I felt myself go still, real fear licking up my spine. This couldn’t be it—this couldn’t be how Nate would die. Not hours after I’d gotten him back, a little chipped around the edges but overall okay.
Cortez pulled the knife back out, ready for a quick repeat—but never got to it. Not because Nate was stepping out of his reach, because he wasn’t. No, because Hamilton threw himself forward, using his weight to pull Cortez off balance, buying Nate the second he needed to pivot and sidestep—at the cost of the last remaining slack in the rope. Nate noticed but Cortez was already coming for him again, forcing him to block instead, which brought him further away from Hamilton where he lay on the floor, gasping for breath that wouldn’t make it into his lungs. Cortez was quick and merciless, stabbing and slashing, moving almost as fast as Nate could have had he been in better shape, but wasn’t. A kick that landed in his abdomen and Cortez staggered backward, but was at it again a moment later. By the way Nate’s movements became fluent once more, I could tell that he was doing a great job pushing the pain from his injuries away—yet he was several feet away from the dropped knife now, even farther from Bucky, and there was no way he could get to him in time.
“Who exactly declared that we were letting this be a fair fight?” I asked no one in particular, but got a few flat stares back from my compatriots. A muscle moved in Pia’s cheek and I realized she was about to smile. Yeah, right—not me.
I knew there was a chance this wouldn’t end well, neither for me nor Hamilton. One of Cortez’s lieutenants could see this as provocation to act, but I wasn’t going to let Hamilton die. The irony of that conviction wasn’t lost on me—or him when his eyes, about to bulge out of his head, fell on me, coming for him. I didn’t bother hunting for the dropped knife but instead pulled my own from its holster, dropping into a crouch over Hamilton.
For just a moment, I was tempted as I saw him there, helpless, partly twisted on his back, baring his throat to me. One quick stab underneath his chin, and Bucky would be no more. He knew it. I knew it.
This was even better than Christmas and Easter combined!
With no time for being dainty, I sawed at the rope with abandon, ignoring the blood that welled from the inevitable shallow cuts I was causing. I knew the rope was about to give when Hamilton let out a pressed grunt but I kept going until the pressure underneath the blade suddenly ceased. And because I wasn’t a complete bitch, I only halted to make sure that nobody was about to clock me over the back of a head with a rifle butt before I stepped over Hamilton’s prone body as he lay gasping before me, and cut through the rope that held his wrists behind his back. I considered trying to pull him away but there was that utter revulsion thing going on about touching him in the back of my mind, and besides, he would be fine right where he was now. He already had enough air in his lungs to be able to glare up at me, not a smidgen of gratitude in his gaze. I allowed myself a satisfied smile—this would henceforth be known as the day I condemned Bucky Hamilton to a lifetime of knowledge that it had been me, and me alone, who had saved him. Nothing beat that knowledge, least of all lies coming from the asshole’s mouth.
Nate had noticed my actions, driving his attacks, and now also did Cortez—and that one moment of split attention was enough. A hard punch against his sternum, followed by another straight to his jaw, and Nate managed to grab the hand that still held the knife and twisted it. Cortez screamed as Nate kept twisting, and pulling, forcing the other man to his knees. Just as I thought he would pull his arm out of the socket, Nate let out a roar and let go, only to grab Cortez’s head—and with a powerful twist and lunge that looked like something out of a cartoon he wrenched it off the neck, blood spurting and tendons, nerves, and a bit of spine hanging from the gruesome trophy. The rest of Cortez’s body sagged into a kneeling position, then fell over, the rain quickly mixing with the blood still spurting from the neck.
It took me a few moments to realize that the sound in my ears wasn’t coming from my racing pulse but from the stands, the crowd going wild one last time for their champion. Nate held up the severed head, then dropped it and kicked it up, out of the arena and into the crowd, much to their continued delight. And then he fell to his knees, hunched over, one hand pressed to his side, the other to his lower back where Cortez had skewered him something good. I was running over to him before I realized it, ignoring the Ice Queen giving the order to fire, and fourteen more bodies hitting the ground.
There was blood on Nate’s hands, and more running down his back as I pulled up his jacket, but less than I’d been afraid to see. That still didn’t mean anything—stab wounds were great for causing internal bleeding as well—but since all I could do was pull off his jacket and then his shirt to wad that up and hand it to him to staunch the bleeding in his stomach, and then do the same with my clothes to have something for his back, that’s what I did. Pia dropped into a crouch next to me, already pulling Nate’s hand away to check on the abdominal wound, not looking happy but less concerned by the minute. It took me a moment to realize that Nate wasn’t shaking from the cold or pain, but he was laughing silently, his head thrown back, the rain pelting his face.
“He’ll live,” the Ice Queen declared after checking on the other wound as well. Without the jacket, a few more shallow cuts had become visible, blood slowly seeping from the wounds but quickly getting washed away by the rain. “That needs stitches, but it’s already slowing. Unless he starts pissing and shitting blood, he’ll be okay.”
“And how am I supposed to know about that?” I asked her, a little perplexed.
She gave me another disapproving look. “You’re his wife. You make him tell you.” She paused for a moment, her hand squeezing his shoulder, but then turned and left without saying another word.
I suddenly didn’t know what to do. My eyes fell on Hamilton, still lying on the floor, getting cozy with the puddles. When I looked back at Nate, I saw him glance at his friend as well. “Go to him,” I whispered, not quite sure where the words were coming from because I, of all people, couldn’t be uttering them. “He needs it. You both do. I’ll wait inside. Come to me when you’re ready.”
I lingered a little longer before I turned to go. Nate’s hand, warm and strong and sure, catching my arm pulled me back around to face him. I’d been afraid to find his gaze empty—or borderline insane—but while there was sadness, there was also hope, and gratitude, and above all else the drive to live. “Bree—thanks. I know that couldn’t have been easy. Saving him. And I know you didn’t do it for him.”
The smile came easier than I’d expected. “Of course I did it for you,” I huffed, playfully frowning at him. “But I can’t very well watch him suffer for a long, long time if he’s dead, right? I was already planning on hunting down his undead corpse to be able to kill him after all. This is a million times better! Don’t thank me yet—you’ll have to live with the both of us hating each other’s guts, now probably more than ever.”
Nate snorted, shaking his head slightly. “And there I thought you were ready for the high road.”
“Oh, please. Me? Never. Now go do your bro bonding thing.
I need to check in with the others and find out if someone knows anything about that chemist.” Glancing at the bodies on the floor, I heaved a sigh. “Maybe we should have kept a few of them alive.”
Just as I’d said I would, I left, pausing just outside the relative safety from the elements that the gate provided, looking back over my shoulder. Nate had made his way over to Hamilton, right now pulling him to his feet, neither of them looking too stable upright. They stared at each other, unblinking. Nate said something but the storm was howling too loud for me to catch it. Hamilton responded, looking just as exhausted as Nate. Then they hugged—and it wasn’t just a passing slap on the back or playful goofing around, but a full torso-on-torso action, each clinging to the other for strength and support.
Whatever Nate might have told me—and I was sure that he’d already spoken his piece—there was nobody who could understand what he’d been through… except for someone who’d been in the same boat. Who’d suffered through the same agony, who’d had to watch himself degrade and turn into something he loathed from the bottom of his heart and soul. Spiteful me might be doing a happy dance that Hamilton must have had it so much worse, his ordeal going on for such a long time, but I was surprised to realize that I didn’t wish any of it on him.
Sympathy for the devil—where would that lead?
Nowhere today, and since that was about as far as my mind was willing to plan ahead, I dropped the point and slunk inside, happy to be out of the rain.
There was much to do—weapons, ammo, and gear to secure, an entire town to be boarded up for the storm that was upon us—but I found myself dragging my heels, lurking outside of where Pia could get a hold on me and put me to good use. I wasn’t the only one, clearly, as I stumbled onto Richards just inside the gate, smoking a joint of all things.
Green Fields Series Box Set | Vol. 4 | Books 10-12 Page 42