Eventually, Hamilton eased up on her and let Cindy talk, and talk some more she did—if even more slurred than before, hampered by agony and swelling—but she might as well have kept her trap shut. The problem was, what she had told us was valuable information—and confirmed some of my guesses—but at the same time was utterly useless. Almost everyone she could implicate was dead, or wishing they were. Everything led back to the same: Cortez had been one manipulative fucker who had gotten off on reveling in the worst that humanity had to bring to the table—but there had been no other rhyme or reason to it, no method to the madness. And while horrifying in itself, “because he could” didn’t help us at all, neither to make sense of this nor to plan ahead.
Maybe Scott and his team had been more successful today with some of our other guests, but as it was, I couldn’t shake off the feeling that I’d just sold my soul for nothing.
Three of the marines came to drag Cindy back to her cell—or what was left of her. The serum would keep her wounds from becoming septic, but we’d banged her up enough that, just maybe, she’d die because of that. Or not. I couldn’t quite find it in me to care about her. With no reason to remain in this fucking room for another moment, I wordlessly turned on my heel and walked out into the dark tunnel beyond.
“Good job,” Hamilton called after me, the usual goading tone back. And all was right with the world again. “You’d make a half decent interrogator if you did a better job imitating me.”
I forced myself not to turn back and instead keep walking—for three more steps, before I hunched over and hurled up what remained of my breakfast, the heaving so strong that I needed to brace myself with both hands against the roughly hewn wall. Bile followed, and I still wasn’t done, the heaving painful as it ran dry. My entire body was shaking by the time I managed to straighten, only to find that I had garnered a small audience. Hamilton of course couldn’t leave me be, and Nate hovering behind him wasn’t much of a reprieve. But I could have done without Pia and Andrej joining them, with Andrej at least giving me a pained, sympathetic smile. The Ice Queen did her best to ignore my antics, instead conferring with Nate in hushed tones—and handing me a bottle of something green and vile looking as soon as I was done.
“Here, drink this,” she needlessly stated, her tone leaving no question to the order.
I closed my eyes for a moment, swallowing hard to check if my saliva would stay down, and then downed the whole thing in a few sips. The consistency was thick, not quite like a smoothie, and from what little I could smell I was quite happy not to be able to taste it. As I finished the bottle, I saw that both Nate and Bucky held similar vessels, both still half full, and Hamilton watched with horrified fascination as I licked up the last drops. “You really can’t taste that shit, eh? And here I thought Richards was jerking me around when he told me that.”
I refrained from pointing out how little I gave a shit about who had told him what about me, and instead turned to Pia. “Any news?”
She shook her head, not even hesitating for a second to consider if some tidbit or other might have been worth sharing. “We have rooted out another ten of Cortez’s guards and middle men who hadn’t tucked in their tails yet and left in the night. Two still refuse to talk, but the others seem to have given up hope so they decided it was easier for them to stay.”
“Hope for what?” Maybe it looked to them like our victory had been quick and easy, but the truth was far from it. And who would come to rescue them, anyway?
Pia shook her head, disbanding my unspoken theories. “Hope, in general. We have yet to round up anyone who puts up more than token resistance. Whoever has been running operations is either dead or left before we could accost them.”
“Sounds like Harris will have an easy time running this shit show,” I surmised.
Pia looked less than impressed with my assessment. Andrej grinned, but it wasn’t a nice expression. “He just might,” he pointed out. “If there’s anything left to run. Most of the scavengers don’t sound too keen on settling down and getting involved with the grueling day-to-day of running a settlement now that you’ve shut down their prime entertainment.”
Too bad. Even worse, I couldn’t find it in me to care.
“So, who needs dismemberment next?” And my, didn’t I sound chipper?
The Ice Queen’s pinched expression let me know that I was fooling no one, as much as I tried to pretend like this wasn’t killing me. “Scott and his men aren’t done yet,” she explained. “We will meet in the central room by the kitchen in thirty.”
“Outstanding!” Hamilton enthused, going as far as clapping his hands together once. Without waiting for our reactions, he turned around and strode down the corridor. Pia kept eyeing Nate and me critically, but at Andrej’s nod she joined him in following Hamilton. Nate meanwhile finished his bottle with barely held-in disdain, leaving the empty container by the door of the interrogation room. I did the same, attempting to follow him—and made it exactly eleven feet into the corridor, to where Nate grabbed my hand and pulled me into a different room, shutting the door with emphasis.
Yeah, not socializing for a while sounded like a great idea.
Chapter 2
My mind was sluggish switching from revulsion to anything else, and my stomach definitely wasn’t very agreeable with what it had been fed, but I did my best to push all that aside in favor of getting ready for some…
…of Nate leaning against the dusty table shoved into the glorified maintenance room, his head hung low but turned to the side so he could study me, arms crossed over his chest. It was awfully close to relief that I felt as I sagged against the closed door, meeting his gaze levelly. Dread clawed up my throat—and, right now, I preferred that to what else could be resurfacing—but did my best to shove that away to where I could continue to ignore it. I must have done a shit job considering how Nate’s jaw tightened, making me raise a hand.
“Give me five more minutes and I won’t barf in your face when you fuck me on that table.”
A wry grin appeared on his face for a moment. “Don’t you think I’d be more considerate? I would have turned you the other way round.”
That dragged a chuckle out of me, but it was hard to hold on to the light, warm glow appearing in my chest. “Very considerate, indeed.”
We kept staring at each other for several seconds straight, and I so could have done without the vibe of defiance that seemed to be coming off Nate in waves. Things had always been so easy between us—sure, emotionally mired in layers upon layers of complicated shit, but deep down, underneath all that where the base animal brain lurked, we’d always crashed together and fallen into step with each other seamlessly. That had been my mental fallback for way longer than I cared to remember, an unshakable union, more death-do-us-part than any spoken oaths could ever be. And now all that space was filling up with things unsaid—or said too much—and that rattled me more than the self-loathing still riding my conscience… although that didn’t help.
“Talk to me,” Nate more offered than snapped, making me even more annoyed. At my frown, he grimaced. “It won’t undo the damage, but it will help take the sting out of it.”
I was confused about what he was referring to for a moment, but annoyance turned to real vexation when I realized the truth.
“What, you think I’m all twitchy because I just absolutely needlessly soiled my soul for that piece of shit?” Silence met me so I went right on. “And can you tell me why exactly we needed to waste a day on that? She had absolutely nothing to tell. Nothing.”
Straightening, Nate cracked his spine before he answered. “That’s something. And it’s something that we needed to know.”
I didn’t agree—not one bit. “She gave us no names. No connections. She couldn’t even tell us who had established this camp here, and for what purpose.”
“We already know that,” Nate pointed out, interrupting me.
“We do?” I didn’t have to feign anger.
The stare he gave me wasn’t exac
tly condescending, but I could tell that he was getting annoyed with my tirade. Too bad! Yet he didn’t stoop so low as to answer my question, instead jumping to the next point—and I didn’t care for how his tone turned careful, as if he was talking to a shy, startled animal.
“Bree, relax.”
I was sorely tempted to stomp my foot on the ground and insist that I would do no such thing, but refrained from giving him that much ammunition against me. I was already feeling raw like seldom before—and there I’d thought the early morning hours of yesterday had been bad when it had just been the two of us, talking.
“I am relaxed,” I ground out between gritted teeth, not even trying to pretend like that wasn’t a lie. “And why wouldn’t I be relaxed? It’s not like I have any reason to be wound tight and worked up, with no way of relief in sight—”
Probably the worst moment to cut myself short, and I didn’t miss how a muscle jumped in his temple. We stared at each other for several seconds straight, both of us daring the other to say something—until I realized that we were having two very different conversations at the same time, both oblivious to what the other was actually saying.
Nonverbal shit will do that to you sometimes.
My confusion—and resulting realization—were likely plain on my face, but I still made a point of pulling my anger and frustration inward, hoping that my stare would turn level rather than challenging. Why, oh why, did this have to be so complicated? And why did we have to have that damn elephant in the room when, because of what I’d just done, I felt like I needed Nate to be my immovable rock, at exactly the one time in our shared lives when he needed me to be the very same for him? The incredible level of stupidity of that realization made me crack up, earning me a glare I absolutely deserved.
“Do you really wanna get it on?” I asked, shifting my position into something actually going on relaxed. “Because, truth be told, I feel like crap, and getting off is almost the last thing on my mind. I mean, if you feel the need to, I’m happy to just bend over that table and let you have a go, particularly if you do the main part of the job, but my heart may not be fully in it.” What I didn’t say—and what I had the sinking feeling he already knew in the first place—was that my hangover wasn’t that bad, but I was happy to give him that excuse if he wanted it.
Turned out, he did, his brief smile turning from self-deprecating to pained for a second before it evened out into the slightly vexed glare my jokes usually earned.
“If you are that enthusiastic about it, let me spare you the ordeal this once.”
Olive branch or not, that deserved a fitting retort. “You don’t exactly look ready to perform, either.” Part of me wanted to hit myself for the phrasing, but I’d never been good at pussy-footing around anything—and, deep down, I figured he’d appreciate that. I would have, had our roles been reversed.
Nate snorted, the look he gave me stating plainly that yes, it was a foot-in-mouth moment, but no, he didn’t mind that much. A moment later, he sagged a little more into himself, and it was only then that I realized just how pale he looked. Not just having-been-locked-up kind of pale compared to my slightly sunburned, tanned complexion, but the plethora of unhealthy coloring that usually came with sleep deprivation and the wrong side of a hangover.
“Just how bad do you really feel?” I asked, making sure to disband the last thread of humor from my voice.
He considered for a second, raising one shoulder in a shrug. “On a scale of one to ten? Like death warmed over. It was worse during the interrogation, but I’m afraid that if we’d actually got down and dirty, you might not be the first to hurl up whatever was in that bottle.”
So much for that. I winced, casting around for a witty response—but was absolved of one when a loud banging on the door cut the moment short. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the grate of Hamilton’s voice served as a good substitute for being doused with a bucket of ice water. “If you’re done rutting around like animals, we have a briefing in five. Scott’s getting impatient.”
I was already pushing myself off my perch against the door when I paused, realizing that Nate hadn’t moved a muscle. I couldn’t help but grin when I caught him glaring at the closed door, pure annoyance on his expression. If thoughts could have killed, my master plan to ensure that Hamilton got to live an agonizingly long life with the knowledge of what had happened to him tormenting him forever would have come to an end right there. Of course Nate didn’t miss my gloating, earning me a softer, more belligerent version of that glare, which I rewarded with a grin.
“Come on,” I said, holding out a hand to him that I knew he wouldn’t take. He didn’t, pushing off the table in one smooth motion on his own volition. “We shouldn’t keep the marsupials waiting.”
The joke was obviously losing its power—if it had ever held any for anyone but me, which was debatable to begin with—but the smile remained on my face at Nate’s vexed grunt. Not waiting for him to be done, I wrenched the door open, ending up right in Bucky’s face, his hand raised to deliver another knock, I was sure. Absolutely deliberately I invaded his personal space as he didn’t immediately step to the side, the two of us glaring into each other’s face from up close. Instinct told me to recoil—we did have history aplenty for that, and while he hadn’t gone as all out as Nate and embraced the easy road to survival, he had remained the reigning champion in Cortez’s arena for almost a year. If anything, that kept me from backing down, turning our staring match into a stalemate. Only when Nate was close enough behind me that I could feel the heat of his body did Hamilton step aside, but he still managed to make it appear like a gesture of pure necessity rather than chivalry. I was tempted to keep my body turned so that I was always keeping him in front of me, but then deliberately forced myself to turn my back on him as I strode down the corridor. Feeling his gaze like a dagger between my shoulder blades sure helped clear the last dregs of sluggishness from my mind.
“It’s such an absolute joy to be working with you both,” I heard Nate mutter behind me—mostly to himself, but the fact that he said it aloud meant it was a warning to me; Hamilton probably as well, but I doubted he cared much about playing nice. I hated having to be the adult in this constellation; it absolutely crimped my style.
I made it two doors down before the guys had caught up with me, and while I didn’t think it beyond Hamilton’s pettiness to try to increase his pace to where I had to jog to keep up, we managed to settle into a leisurely stroll that quickly brought us to the common area that used to be the prep rooms and kitchens. While we were gone, someone had cleared away most of the sleeping bags and dragged a long table in devoid of chairs so that people could gather around it for a proper briefing. Pia and Andrej were waiting for us next to Scott and Danvers, his second-in-command. Of the other marines faction, only Sgt. Buehler was in evidence, standing at least as straight as Scott while stealthily nursing her injuries. She looked relieved to see us enter. Richards, meanwhile, did a great job of keeping his expression neutral, but I didn’t miss the way his shoulders hunched slightly at our entrance. I still didn’t know whether Hamilton intended to relieve him of his command but so far, the army soldiers continued to report to Richards. Last in the illustrious group were Harris and the ever-scowling Eden, although she did flash me a quick grin as her eyes fell on me—or maybe Nate, I wasn’t quite sure. I was more than happy to let him handle that with his usual mix of arrogant ignorance and outright belligerent hostility. No, jealousy was the least of my concerns today.
I was about to demand a status update when Scott glanced up from a report that he had been perusing, the paper already crumpled and several times folded as it appeared. “So good of you to finally join us,” he drawled not quite jovially. I would have drawn up short if I hadn’t been certain Hamilton would have barreled right into me; this way, I had a second or two to think about my response until I came to a halt at the table opposite of Scott. I was certain that we hadn’t used up the time Pia had given us.
“
What can I say, I’m a busy woman,” I said instead of telling him where to shove his misgivings.
The marine commander pointedly glanced at Nate, who held his gaze evenly and with downright infuriating neutrality. I’d had years getting used to his behavior—and it wasn’t like I ever left out an opportunity to fend for my right to jump my husband’s bones—so it didn’t surprise or bother me, but anyone’s need to make this an issue annoyed me. I was tempted to ask Scott whether he wanted a status report of what had happened in the meantime since I presumed Hamilton must have filled him in on the measly findings of our interrogation.
Just my luck that my body decided this was the perfect moment to remember that it had gotten pumped full of chemicals it really didn’t appreciate, the need to hurl imminent once more—which I managed to suppress—and this time coming with some violent shakes—that I did not. Making a face, I clawed my fingers into the edge of the table until the worst had subsided, leaving me feeling lightheaded and weak. Nate ignored me but it was impossible to miss Hamilton’s smirk, even though he looked decidedly pale and sweaty himself. He caught my gaze, snorting briefly. “You’d think you’d be relaxed and mellow afterward. Not that anyone could remove the stick that you have up your ass.”
A plethora of retorts shot to the forefront of my mind, and for a moment, I was tempted to say screw it and dive right into the worst of them, never mind that a lot of the shit I’d fling at Hamilton would also land on Nate’s head. The disdainful twist that came to the Ice Queen’s lips wasn’t enough to make me hold back, either. Andrej’s chuckle egged me on more than anything. But I knew that Scott’s acceptance of my authority was rocky at best—and now that I had Nate lurking beside me, Scott likely expected me to relinquish it—and the last thing I needed was for me to be the one to further undermine myself. Besides, what really annoyed me was the—likely unintentional—insinuation that Nate hadn’t done a good enough job mellowing me out, and I wasn’t going to set anyone straight now.
Green Fields Series Box Set | Vol. 4 | Books 10-12 Page 45