“I’m done here,” Raynor declared, dropping her gloves on the nurse’s tray with the medical trash. “I presume you will want to shower before the meeting?”
I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about, but inclined my head simply because it sounded like the smart thing to do. Turning on her heel, Raynor snapped at Red, “Richards, I expect you to have them both cleaned up and dressed in meeting room one in half an hour. And there better not be any additional bruises on her body.”
Was that actual annoyance—and neither at her nor at me—that passed Red’s face? At least now I had confirmation about who she’d been talking about in her rant about Bucky’s incompetence. Red didn’t acknowledge her snide remark, his attention remaining on me—us, really—as he kept glancing at Nate casually enough for it to be obvious that he was watching him like a hawk.
The soldiers parted to let Raynor and the nurse out, some of them trailing after the women. Bucky did a great show of smirking my way, but I ignored him. I could barely get up on my own, so it wasn’t worth starting that shitting contest. First, I had to heal—and find out what the fuck was going on.
Nate was hovering next to me as I pulled myself onto shaky feet, my balance less of a problem than my left leg almost giving out on me the second I had to put weight on it, but I somehow managed. Remaining upright and shuffling around—I wouldn’t have called what I managed walking yet—wasn’t any more or less painful than sitting. The agony in the lower half of my body was worse, sure, but there was less stress on my upper body, even with needing to engage the muscles in my torso to keep my balance. And my, I’d never known that I had so many muscles and tendons that could protest being used.
We only had to travel down the corridor, back to the intersection, and to the first door at the hallway that branched off there, but it still took me an exorbitant amount of time to cover that distance. I managed without help, although I almost fell rather than walked through the door into the showers. There, I was surprised when Red, rather than send his whole pile of idiots in with us, just held the door for me before nodding at the two piles neatly folded on chairs next to the towel racks. “Knock on the door when you’re done, and we’ll escort you to the meeting room.” With that, he closed the door, the lock engaging a moment later.
I stared at the indicated pile somewhat stupidly. That were my clothes all right, from the pack we’d brought—the white T-shirt with the rainbow and “This is my killing shirt” in bright script across the front, next to the less garish underwear and freshly washed thermal and fleece—with my Beretta sitting on top. I was sure that it was unloaded—they couldn’t be that stupid around here—but that wasn’t important right now. That right there was a sign—and a peace offering. I hadn’t expected to see that gun ever again, or anything else that we’d brought, yet here it was. Next to that was a pack of red hair color—a muted, dark auburn like leaves in late fall, not the bright, riot red I’d dyed my hair last summer, but it was still red. No time to use it right now, but the gesture counted for something.
Glancing from the pile up to Nate, I found him scrutinizing the offering, his face unreadable. I could only guess what he made of that. I wasn’t stupid. I knew that they were playing us, and I wasn’t going to fall for it, but it was better than nothing.
Sighing, he nodded at the row of showers at the opposite side of the room. “We’d better get going.” He turned his back on me to start shedding his clothes, the ones he’d worn when we’d gotten here—however many days ago. There wasn’t a single bruise on his body that I could see, highlighting the difference to my swollen, discolored flesh even more.
“You have to help me,” I said, hating that it came out small and defeated, but shuffling over here had pretty much sapped all the strength my body had managed to build up so far.
Nate glanced at me over his shoulder, hesitating. “Sure.”
Biting my lip—very, very carefully—I swallowed the angry retort that wanted to fly from my lips in favor of offering the truth. “I don’t have a problem with you touching me. But I have a very big problem with needing help to do something as small as undress myself, let alone scrub all that crusted blood and pus and shit off myself. Right now I simply don’t have the mental capacity to deal with your bullshit on top of my own.”
I knew that he got the reference to our not-quite nice conversation after Taggard and his people had managed to reduce our group to four fully functioning people when his lip quirked up before his expression went blank again.
“You never do,” he remarked wryly, stepping up to me so he could grab the scrubs shirt and pull it over my head. I tried to keep my wincing to a minimum to make it easier on him. Knowing Nate, it killed him that he couldn’t do anything to take my pain away—and I had a feeling that he knew exactly how I was feeling right now.
“Are you complaining?” I teased as I gingerly stepped out of the dropped pants and booties. “Should have thought of that before you married me.”
Nate was quick to soap himself up and let the water wash it all away before he helped me, trying his best to work a soft sponge around the bandages that still covered enough of me that I didn’t really feel naked. There was no teasing quality to his touch, but I didn’t think either of us could have dealt with that right now.
Once we were done—and air-dried, in my case—Nate helped me into my clothes, finally giving up trying not to make me wince in favor of being quick about it so it was over faster. I was doing moderately well until he pulled a bag of gauze and cotton balls out of my boots, their intended purpose obvious. I stared down at my ill-fitting socks before I held out a hand to accept the first boot from him. That I dropped a moment later because I couldn’t manage the strength in my grasp to hold on to it. Defeat more than pain almost drove tears to my eyes, but I shoved it all away into the recesses of my mind where all the other grievances were mounting up. “You do it,” I declared. It took us a few tries to find a way to pad the boots so the pain wouldn’t drive me insane and I could actually walk with them laced up. The weight of my clothes alone bothered me enough that curling up on the tile floor was really inviting, but I forced myself to slog on.
Red was waiting outside of the showers just as he’d said he would be, ignoring the low sounds coming from deep inside my chest with every step I took. The meeting room was a floor up, the elevator less crowded now that it was just the two of us, Red, and three of his soldiers.
We were the last to enter the meeting room, a drab, gray space that could have been anywhere, really. There were only two seats left at the table, and seeing them made me want to insist that I stand, but I wasn’t stupid enough to wait until I fell over. Raynor was there, plus her two colleagues from the other day. Bucky, of course, sitting next to an older, somewhat portly man in a uniform that was so highly decorated that he just had to be important. A few more soldiers, no surprise there—and, toward the back right corner of the U-shaped conference table getup, Petty Officer Stanton, the space cleared for her wheelchair. Unlike the others, she wasn’t in uniform, and I didn’t think for a moment that she was wearing that headscarf because of religious beliefs. Because of the way she was sitting there, I couldn’t gauge how much of her was still there, but her body had definitely taken a worse hit than mine. I hadn’t really had the mental capacity left to wonder what had become of her once we got here, but considering my much more delayed progression had made me hope that she’d simply died. As we entered, she glanced toward the door, our gazes crossing for a moment. I expected scorn and hate in hers, but only found a hint of regret, and a lot of understanding. I looked away before my eyes could latch onto the disfigured patch of skin on her cheek that the scarf didn’t properly cover.
I more fell into my chair than sat down, happy that I had Raynor and the general, or whatever that guy was, to look at rather than Stanton, but that meant I had Bucky gloating my way, too. I did my very best to don an impassive expression; the pain radiating from my feet in particular was bad enough to give m
e plenty to concentrate on instead of trying to vault over the table and give that asshole even more ammunition to smirk about. I could wait, I told myself. Wait, and heal, and plan.
“Finally,” the guy with the medal obsession grumbled, leaning back in his chair. “Thought you’d make us wait all day.”
I didn’t reply, not feeling like that warranted any acknowledgment. Instead, I stared at Raynor, who was looking extra prim in the blouse, skirt, and lab coat she’d donned once more. “Care to tell us why we’re here?”
Raynor made a show of glancing at the man next to her first before she responded. “You’re here because General Morris would like to extend a proposition to you.”
“Pass,” I said before she could get out another word.
The general sneered silently, without a doubt ready to start hurling insults my way—or go right to plan B and sic Bucky and his soldiers at me; none of this had Raynor’s name written across it. Raynor cut him off before he did more than open his mouth. “You will want to listen to this first.”
“Why should I?” I asked, trying to talk slowly not to garble the words too much. Between my aching throat and my swollen jaws, that wasn’t exactly easy. “We had a deal. From what I can tell, we both came through. You have Raleigh Miller’s research and my notes. I’m still alive. Done.”
Raynor leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs, her body language screaming annoyance but she kept her expression and voice clear of that. “A new proposition, then. How is that paralyzed friend of yours doing, what was his name? Martinez?”
I wasn’t sure if I liked where this was going. “None of your business.”
“But I could make it my business,” she suggested. “You’ve seen the facilities we have here. We’re better equipped than most hospitals were before such institutions became incredibly scarce. Some random low-level field hack can only do so much with an emergency pack. We have specialists here and the analytic tools to find the very root of any given problem. I can’t say without having examined him myself, but there is a good chance that with several operations and physical therapy, he will be able to walk again. And there’s still the serum. It cannot resurrect the dead or regrow body parts, but it does wonders for nerve and tissue damage.”
Damnit. She knew that she had me there, but I couldn’t fold that easily.
“What if he doesn’t want to take the risk? Your facility here isn’t exactly known for people just swinging by and being on their merry way the next day.”
Raynor shrugged as if that wasn’t her fault—or anything she cared about. “Anyone else then, if you want a blank option. With my personal reassurance to grant free, unconditional passage in and out of our facility.”
“There are several feet of snow out there,” I pointed out. “It’s easy to promise something that won’t be effective until late spring.”
Raynor clucked her tongue. “We have several troop transports heading to the Pacific coast and back over the next couple of weeks. You’re already using the shipping vessels as traffic; get one of those to go up the coast to a convenient rendezvous point. We could have him here in under two weeks.”
I shook my head. “I can’t make that decision for him.”
“As I said, you don’t have to. You can trade in your favor any time later as well,” she pointed out. “Or, of course, you can be recalcitrant and force us to go for option B.”
Ah. “Which would be?”
Raynor’s voice remained dispassionate as she replied. “Your friends, who came up across the border with you, have been camping right outside our doorstep for the past day. They seem to be debating whether to walk up to the gate soon but haven’t reached that decision yet. If you don’t agree to our proposition, we will send out a killing squad and make short work of them.” She paused for a second. “Not all of them, of course. Burns is still useful to us, so we would leave him alive and able to recover. Do you really want the blood of those other misfits on your hands? I hear friends are a commodity you’re slowly running out of.”
So much for options. Everyone in the room knew what my answer would be. I didn’t need to glance at Nate for confirmation, but still did it. He wasn’t even looking remotely my way, his gaze fixed on Bucky. Right. We were back to that.
“What is that proposition you are so diplomatically persuading us to consider?” I asked, not trying to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.
Turning to the general, Raynor smiled. “See, I told you that she would be reasonable.” To me, she offered, “That’s classified. You will receive information on a need-to-know basis, and right now you don’t.”
Just great. So the kid gloves had come off, and they weren’t afraid to show me that I needed to be put in my place. I could deal with that, even if it rankled.
“Can you at least give us a clue? Something I might tell my friends when I go out there and tell them they can go back home?”
“Feel free to invite them to join, if they want,” Raynor threw out casually. “We are sending you on a mission overseas to Europe to retrieve something very important to us. There’s easily room for one or five more.”
“Excuse me? Have you gone completely insane?” I couldn’t keep the incredulity out of my voice. “How would we even get there?”
Raynor gave me a look as if I’d debated the fact that the sun would rise again to the east tomorrow morning. “By ship, of course. We only have refueling options for the planes on this continent.”
That made absolutely no sense—until I remembered that perfectly maintained runway that covered half of the base topside. Could they really still have functioning airplanes? They did have an MRI and X-ray machine down here, so it was technically possible. It still sounded like the plot to a fantastical story to me.
“You’re serious?” I asked, just because I had to.
“I am always serious,” Raynor pointed out. “So you agree to accompany Capt. Hamilton and Lt. Richards and their men on their mission?”
My first reaction was to throw my head back and roar with laughter, but that would have been too much effort, and would have hurt too fucking much, so I refrained. I still took a good twenty seconds to carefully formulate my response.
“I presume the deal with the get out of medical jail free card is off the table if Hamilton doesn’t make it back, for whatever unfathomable reason whatsoever?” I didn’t need to check to know that the asshole was smirking again, as if that was an empty threat.
Raynor’s features remained perfectly composed, but I could see her eyes take on a certain gleam. “The deal is off the table if you actively sabotage the mission, and the objective isn’t obtained. It’s a dangerous mission. I cannot hold you accountable for accidents that happen to other members of your team, now, can I?”
Bucky’s smirk dimmed, if only for a moment. Not the answer he’d been sure to hear, but nothing disconcerting, either. Just as well.
“You have my word that I”—I paused, glancing at Nate to include him—“we won’t sabotage the mission. And, unlike some other people present, I take my oaths seriously.”
“Very well,” Raynor quipped, quick to get up. “I knew we would reach a mutually beneficial agreement. You said you wanted to talk to your friends? Your plane is leaving at 1700; that leaves you about three hours to decide. Lt. Richards will provide you with transport for your sortie. If you have any further questions, you can address them to him directly. Before you leave, you will be provided with any gear you will need for your mission.” She flashed me a brief grin, albeit not a friendly one. “Good luck.”
That apparently concluded negotiations, Raynor and the general filing out before I could come up with anything else to say, Bucky and most of the other soldiers flocking out after them. I thought about approaching Stanton, but a primly dressed aide came in to wheel her out before I could stop dragging my feet and walk over to her. Why they’d paraded her before me was obvious—one more reminder of all the things I might want to forget. Red was the only one who remained b
esides us, and I chose to ignore him for now. I got the sense that I would do a lot of that over the next few weeks. Or months. I didn’t even know the time frame of this fucking mission, whatever it was.
When I turned to him, Nate gave me a look that was both bleak, but also held a lick of anger that resonated so perfectly with the flames creeping up my spine. “Well, you complained I never take you anywhere romantic,” he offered. “Looks like someone else volunteered to fill in.”
It was a loaded remark, but I chose to ignore that as well.
“Europe, huh? What could possibly go wrong?”
The corner of Nate’s mouth jerked up, but there was no humor in his eyes. “I have a certain suspicion that you will be the one to cause it.”
“Gee, you say the sweetest things,” I muttered, but couldn’t help but offer him a real smile back. Oh, I would—and none of them would see me coming. Let Hamilton think that the powers that held his leash had forced us into this, rather than serve him up on a silver platter. Accidents did happen, after all.
Acknowledgments
A huge thank you goes out to my beta readers. You are amazing, and my books have improved so much since I found you! Also, my sanity.
I’d be lost without my editor and cover designer, because they make this madness look downright professional. Chuck, my muse and writing buddy—check out his series, Day Zero by Charles Ingersoll. A must read, really!
I have the best readers in the world—so thank you as well! I’m reminded of that every time I check my books on Amazon, open my inbox, or log into facebook. You keep me going, even if writing turns hard—and, let me tell you, this book sent my mind on a bender, particularly the last third of it. If you ever ask yourself why you love reading shit like that, well, I often ask myself why I write it—but I have an easy answer for that: you. At the end of the last book, I promised I would write until book #10. Last week I came up with a possible plot for two more books. Let’s make a deal, shall we? You keep reading my books, and I’ll make sure there will always be a next one coming! Very likely before the end of the year.
Green Fields (Book 7): Affliction Page 35