Interesting that he brings up these points. Is it just posturing, or is he afraid I’m already planning how to stage a coup? He’s never been this insecure before, but then I never had a real reason to best him as I have always been the best, at everything. Now, I might—if I had even a hint of an intention to come after his position, which I don’t.
I’m tempted to just roll over and play dead—in this case, tell him I understood and leave—but he wouldn’t buy it. So I go against every impulse I have and provoke him. I cock my head to the side and smile. “My, so sure they’d discard you like an old dishrag if they knew they could have me back?” It’s not the smart thing to do—but I’ve never claimed to be smart. Highly intelligent, yes, but wisdom isn’t something that comes to me easily. I’m too stubborn for that—very much like the woman who chose to forever twine her fate with mine. I knew there was a reason why I proposed…
Hamilton’s eyes narrow further until he’s practically squinting at me. I don’t like the nasty twist that comes to his lips. I’ve always been ruthless—but he’s the one who’s capable of inborn cruelty.
“Think I won’t give the order just because I pulled that punch with you when I had the chance? Think again.”
“Will you mind-fuck them before or after?” I ask succinctly, refusing to back down.
I really don’t like the smile he offers me in return. “I won’t need to,” he points out. “Because unlike you, I have total control over the people under my command. Don’t believe me? Provoke me again and find out.”
I’m sorely tempted to salute him any moment now—knowing how much it would insult him would make the sarcastic gesture all the sweeter—but since I actually do believe him, I cut down on the impulse. I shouldn’t be playing petty games, even more so with Bree freezing outside right now, actually needing me.
But once she doesn’t anymore? Once she’s back to full health and, quite likely, more strength than she’s ever had? Then all bets are off. I decide this then and there. Yes, it would be the smart thing to back down and play along, but somehow I don’t see either her or me capable of that.
For now, I need to play along, though, so I make a grand show of gnashing my teeth and miming swallowing my pride—there’s nothing left to swallow so it’s all an act—before I’m the first to look away. “I have no fucking intention to screw with you, your men, or your command,” I offer, happy that it comes out reluctant but sincere, exactly as planned. “You want the truth?” I catch his gaze for that—always a good idea when you’re about to lie to someone. They seldom expect it. “Am I happy that your people were there to help her? To keep her from dying? Fuck, yes. But if you remember, we wanted to leave after that. It was your damn general who forced us into servitude in turn for not slaughtering our friends. So get off your high horse and face it—I’m not here to give you a run for your money. All I want is to be left alone so I can spend the remaining years of my life with my wife. You can curse me out all you want, and you can provoke me until you get bored, but that won’t change a thing. I will do nothing to jeopardize her safety, do you understand?” I add a dramatic pause. He doesn’t respond, but he looks mighty satisfied. Fool. “Are we done here? Or is there anything else you want to tell me?”
It’s the perfect opening, both for a taunt—but also to deliver the one message that would change everything for me and make my lies turn into truth in an instant. But it doesn’t come, and that’s the first relieved breath I take in fucking forever. Unlike me, Hamilton has no reason to lie, but every reason to scare me straight. He can’t have anything in his hands to do so, or he would.
“Dismissed,” is all he says, a light mocking lilt to his voice.
I take my leave before I can change my mind and do something incredibly stupid.
Bree needs me. That’s all I care about right now.
I quickly abandon letting her try to walk on her own between Burns and me, and instead carry her in my arms. She’s too heavy for that, even horrifyingly light as she has become, but I force myself to move past the point where my arms and back scream for relief. It’s the least I can do, and I’m sure it’s still nowhere near what she’s feeling at the moment.
Boarding the ship is a rather industrious affair. The XO welcomes us but ignores us beyond making sure everyone knows where to stash themselves, the gear and weapons we’ve brought, and what parts of the ship are off limits. After the biting cold outside, it’s balmy warm here, my skin prickling all over from the temperature change.
I try to be as gentle as possible as I put Bree down on the bottom bunk opposite of what I declare mine. She’s barely conscious, her eyes rolled back into her head and her lids fluttering. She’s running a light fever but right now she isn’t shaking, she isn’t foaming at the mouth, and there’s nothing I can do to help if any of that changes. The others start to put their shit away while I keep standing there, looking down at the woman I love, utterly helpless and frustrated—and hitting the locker as hard as I can doesn’t really change any of that.
“You done yet?” Burns offers, his tone letting me know that I better get a grip on myself, and quick.
“Not by a long shot,” I grunt, but force myself to back down.
“Well, feel free to resume once we’re settled in. Until then, move it,” Burns says, already pushing past me.
I have to fight hard not to throw a punch at him, but a few hard-pressed breaths later the temptation dissipates. These are not the people I should antagonize. Actually, my very life may very well depend on their goodwill.
Fuck, but this is all getting too much for me.
Burns, bless his heart, doesn’t ease off, but I manage to throw him off weaseling out the truth—when he realizes that it’s lack of sleep, not just worry and strain, that’s turning me ballistic. He asks me when I last slept—and it’s only as I mull this over that I realize it’s been quite a while. “A week ago? The night before that snafu at the lake. When we still had cars.”
“Healthy,” he snarks, but drops it, satisfied to have his answer.
I don’t know what about it triggers me—likely the fact that, for the first time in fucking forever, it’s just us and nobody is watching me, ready to put a bullet in my brain for the simple audacity of existing. I know I shouldn’t—but I let him have it.
“You think I could sleep knowing that they were cutting up my wife, not knowing if she was going to survive and if I should even pray for that to happen? Or after they brought her back as a bloody, swollen, whimpering heap of misery? You tell me you could have acted any differently!”
There’s more understanding in his eyes than I deserve, and I already feel my anger—and renewed dread at the memories—leak out of me. “You might as well have,” he points out, wise beyond his years. “Nothing as simple as that will get her down. You know her better than that. Tenacious bitch won’t bite it just to spite you.” He even adds a wink. The man’s a saint—and one of the truly good ones. Not as good as Bree believes, but good nevertheless.
Exhaling loudly, I nod to show him I’m calm now—or at least in control—and quickly run down our inventory with him, letting Gita and Tanner settle in meanwhile. I can tell that Burns keeps watching me closely but gradually relaxes himself.
Inventory is important. It’s easy. It’s also not cutting up my wife to drain all kinds of fluids from her swollen, bruised, scarred body. I push that task away until I absolutely can’t avoid it any longer—it has to be done.
Bree doesn’t look good as I check in with her. She hasn’t moved much since I put her into the cot, and her face is paler than the sheets and walls. I don’t get why they couldn’t give her a few more days of rest; traveling is putting a gigantic strain on her, and needlessly so. At least now she’ll get time to recover, or so I tell myself.
Right. I’m stalling. Let’s do this!
She doesn’t look thrilled when I tell her as much, but I’m not quite sure she completely understands what’s in store for her. Not because she’s stupid
, or naive, but she doesn’t appear entirely lucid. That quickly changes when the added pain from me having to move her this way and that to be able to peel her out of her gear cuts right through the haze. I give her a little respite once the outer layers are gone, which she rewards with an acerbic, “Can’t you just let me die instead?”
“Too late for that,” I mutter, waiting for her to roll onto her side so I can resume. She doesn’t, her face buried in the pillow—a sure sign of resistance. And that pretty much sets the tone for the next few minutes—until she goes utterly still as I pull off her boots and the others get a good look at what’s there—and what isn’t. I want to punch every single one of them but I’ve known this was coming—no way around it. I do my best to ignore Bree’s reaction for now because I simply don’t know how to react. Yes, I’m the worst kind of coward there is.
Gita’s puking doesn’t help, and neither does Tanner’s emphatic, “What the fuck did they do to you?” once Bree is down to her underwear.
“What does it look like?” she bites back, but most of the effect is lost in a sequence of pained sounds. At least prattling on seems to distract her a little, but I don’t like how she pointedly avoids looking at her hands as the gloves come off. The doc was right when she told her that she needs to confront her new reality in order to learn to deal with it. Bree is big on avoidance, I know that, and this can turn into a different circle of hell for her—from simply being disabled to much worse—if I’m not careful.
But right now, I simply can’t deal with it.
“Where do you want to start?” I ask as I get everything ready. This will be so much fun, I just know it.
“Bucky Hamilton’s balls, cutting him right up to his teeth,” Bree replies, her eyes taking on a feverish glint that has nothing to do with the raging infections her body is fighting all over.
And that, ladies and gents, is my wife in a nutshell.
Just for a moment, I allow myself to feel proud at how resilient she is. How defiant. How absolutely fucking insane.
“You and me both,” I mutter as I force myself to concentrate on the task at hand instead.
Neither of us feels like joking anymore when I cut into her leg and make her go even whiter in the face as I force the pus and lymph to drain from the newly-created wound. Then there’s the joy of having to explain to Gita why I can’t shoot Bree up with pain meds—and why it’s a bad idea to try with those that might still have an effect. Then Burns finally notices the—still not quite faded—strangulation marks on her neck, adding another layer of anguish for me. Oh, joy.
At least Gita takes over doing the sutures for me, which adds speed and subtracts random ugliness from what I’ve been producing. Raynor made it look so easy, but then she is a trained surgeon; we take fucking forever.
Then all that’s left is her hands and feet, and it slays me again when I notice the desperation on Bree’s face. We just put her through hell and she must be in enough agony to be beyond giving a shit about anything, and still she looks down at her hands as if that is the worst thing in the world. I try to console her as best I can, mostly by touch as I work on lessening the tension with gentle but deft motions, but to no avail. Talking distracts her a little—and it only takes a few minutes and we’re about to lay into each other once more, which makes me utterly frustrated but also weirdly happy. As long as she can curse me out, I know that she will be fine. Someone might as well take that down as a new law of physics.
Still, I need to offer a word of warning, although I want to egg her on instead. “You survived, and that’s what counts. Stop being such a drama queen. If you lose it like that in front of Bucky, he’ll wipe the floor with you without even needing to get anywhere close to you. You’re better than this.”
Her mouth twists with derision—but her voice is calm as she responds.
“I know.”
And that’s the last thing I hear from her tonight.
After I’ve made sure she’s as comfortable as possible, I fall into my own bed, ready to finally clock out—but my mind won’t let me. No, instead of counting sheep it presents me with a best-of reel of my proudest moments, heavily skewed toward the last couple of days. I know that some of it is bullshit, and I can’t change a fucking thing about any of it—but the fact remains that I did what I did, and would have done so much more if I had to.
I can never tell her that, because she wouldn’t understand. And how could she? It’s insane, and not something you want to hear anyone confess, least of all your husband. As much as my actual deeds torment me, it’s that knowledge that keeps me awake. If Bree’s very life didn’t depend on me right now, I might even consider suicide—because who wants to live on knowing what I’ve found out about myself this week? I’ve pushed through a few low points in my life where others have flung terms like “beyond redemption” in my face but none of that ever stuck—until it’s me doing the flinging now.
I don’t deserve her. And I don’t deserve a chance to redeem myself. But what’s worse is that I know that, sooner or later, she will force that redemption on me, and where does that leave us?
I have no fucking clue, and it’s not like I can ask her.
All I can do is stare at the bottom of the bunk above mine, and do nothing at all.
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.
The best place to connect is the Fan Group on facebook! Join and say hi!
You can sign up for Adrienne’s newsletter to never miss a release and be the first to know what other shenanigans she gets up to:
http://eepurl.com/bw3CBf
As of August 2018, Adrienne is on Patreon, a crowd-funding platform where you, the reader, can support us, the artists. Look forward to updates, exclusive short stories, and behind-the-scenes notes every month—why not check it out?
https://www.patreon.com/adriennelecter
adriennelecter.com
[email protected]
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
Green Fields series - short story anthologies:
Beyond Green Fields
#1 - Beginnings
#2 - Regrets
Find more outtakes and short stories on Patreon!
Beyond Green Fields #2 - Regrets: A post-apocalyptic anthology Page 14