Things picked up when a minute later we found Charlie and two more of the Chargers crossing our way, although they looked as confused as I felt. “We were out on perimeter guard,” Jason’s second-in-command explained. “Just before the first shots were fired, one of the guards on the western side called in that he found one of his buddies slumped over behind a tree.”
Nate took the intel with a nod. “Makes sense that they’d move just after shift change.”
That made me frown. “That means they were watching us, and you missed them when you were out there?”
Nate gave me a cold look. “Watching, yes, but not from the outside.”
“Shit.” There was no sense in explaining what that meant.
With our numbers doubled now, we continued forward, Nate and Charlie taking point while I remained to Nate’s right side, guarding our flank. The commotion ahead got louder, the acrid smell of smoke tickling my nostrils. We passed a few small groups of people, some just looking scared, most taking care of a wounded comrade. Then we finally reached the center of camp where the cooking fires still burned, meeting resistance. When I saw the three guys hunkering to the side of another vehicle, I was about to disregard them, but from the edge of my vision I recognized the telltale motion of a muzzle being pointed my way, and I shot before he could pull the trigger. Nate turned immediately, sending two bouts of semi-auto fire at the men, killing the one my shotgun blast had hit in the legs, and wounding a second. Three slugs and the other two were gone as well. I followed Nate as he ran over, crouching beside them to check on them. I didn’t recognize them, but their gear looked just like ours, as did their weapons—well-maintained, but not matching, a long shot from anything resembling a uniform. All of them had a single mark across their necks.
“That one there asked me for a smoke last night,” one of the Chargers explained. “Wasn’t really chatty, but pulled the graveyard shift without a hitch.”
Fuck. Just as I’d been dreading that could only mean one thing—we’d picked up the assailants and had had them along for days already. An outside assault would have put my rampant paranoia at ease, not fanned the flames further.
A sequence of loud, piercing screams, interspersed with handgun fire, brought me back to the here and now. “We have to stop this!”
“Question is, how,” Charlie pointed out. “I know maybe twenty people here? The rest could just as well be those assholes attacking us than people on our side.”
That thought had occurred to me, but I couldn’t think of an easy solution. “Let’s take it one group at a time?” I suggested.
Nate didn’t look happy about that, and his expression got even stonier as he brought up an alternative. “How about we see who is ready to kill you? I’m sure that by now the bounty on your head must be substantial, and you’re one of the most recognizable people here.” He didn’t need to stare at my flaming red hair to underline that. Then again, with barely a handful of women with us, I was an easy target to find either way. Speaking of which…
“Anyone got any idea where Pia and Jason are?” It wasn’t like I couldn’t come up with a plausible answer myself, but someone might have kept tabs on them. Nate gave a grunt that made me roll my eyes at him. “Pot, kettle much?”
That made him snort. “Yeah, but we’re here, and I’m sure that if Zilinsky was, we could pinpoint her location on the nonstop fire of her carbine.” He had a point there, I had to admit.
Charlie grinned in spite of himself. “Not saying they aren’t rutting in the underbrush, but Jason told me he wanted to scout out the area toward the Colorado border. Said not to expect him back before nightfall, maybe not even midnight, depending on what they found.”
That sounded more plausible, particularly as I couldn’t fathom Pia sticking a fight out, laying low.
“So I’ll be bait, and you make sure no one actually manages to kill me?” I summed up what seemed to be our best option right now. A round of grim nods answered me. “Okay, let’s go.”
All bravado aside, I hated stepping out of cover, feeling twice as exposed as before. Nate stuck to my side, poised to let loose at a second’s notice. The screaming stopped after a last shot rang out, but it was easy to pinpoint the origin, a few boulders to the side. I aimed for that part of camp but did so in a roundabout way, making sure that no one was hiding behind the cars on the opposite side of the trampled grass where the main path through camp now ran. Making sure my grip on my Mossberg was firm, I stepped into view of the boulders, but the shots I had been bracing for didn’t come. Instead, I saw several bodies on the ground, unmoving, with a woman hunched over one of them, frantically trying to stop the bleeding from the neck. A cut on her forehead had left a trail of blood down her temple, and her left eye was already swelling shut. I whistled, trying to alert her without startling her into grabbing for the gun next to her in the gravel, but she ignored me, her trembling hands still pressed to the man’s wounds. Charlie dropped down next to her, taking the wounded man’s arm to check his pulse, but let go way too soon for a positive outcome.
“Are you okay?” he asked her, then, softer, “Are you wounded?”
She shook her head, her gaze plastered on her blood-smeared hands. “Just a few bruises… You have to help John!”
“He’s gone,” Charlie answered, trying to pull her hands away, but she wouldn’t let him. It was only when she noticed the rest of us, standing guard, that she slumped in on herself, but rather than wallow or start to cry, she wiped her hands clean on her pants and reached for the gun. “Anyone got a few spare magazines for me?”
I hesitated, sure that if I handed her some unquestioned Nate would chew me out, but it was actually he himself who did. She ejected the empty one from her gun and shoved it into her pants before she slammed a fresh one in, pocketing the other where she could easily reach it. “Stay toward the back. We need someone to guard our rear flank,” Nate told her. She shot him an irritated look that made me proud not to be the only one who loved to aim it at him, but didn’t protest. A quick sweep of the dead turned up no clue, but they were quickly divested of their weapons. I figured it had been shock that had made the woman stick to her own gun rather than grab one from the attackers.
Finally reaching the large open field with the cooking stations, I stuck to the side of it, trying not to make too good a target. A few shots rang out but didn’t hit anywhere close to where I dove for cover. Cursing followed, then a half-familiar voice called, “My bad! Didn’t hit any of you guys, right?”
I needed a moment to place a face—and name—to that voice. “That you, Dan Harris?” One asshole I certainly didn’t trust.
“In the flesh, ma’am!” he called back. “Me and my fellas, we’ve found us a good perch here. Glad to see you’re still around! Got us worried for a sec there.”
Turning to Nate, I shook my head, but Charlie gave a nod. “He’s an asshole, no question, but I’m happy to vouch for him. We ran into them a time or two this year. Wouldn’t trust him with a bottle of booze, but they’re solid.”
Deliberating for another moment, I finally inclined my head before calling out to Harris again. “Wanna join us? We’re doing a sweep of the camp. Or you could stay here, hold down the fort.”
Harris’s reply came half a minute later, making me guess that he’d debated the point with his men. “Got two wounded here. They’re still good in a fight, just not on the move. If you don’t mind very much, we’d rather stay here. Could keep you posted on movements if you can spare a mic.” None of us had our short-range communications gear on, it seemed. An oversight I would make sure not to make again.
“Stay there. We’ll check back with you if we find anyone else.”
“Much obliged. By the way, saw a few others disappear west. That tall fella of yours was part of the group.”
“Burns?”
“I’m not very good with names, but it wasn’t your glarin’ amazon.”
“Much obliged,” I hollered back as I turned to Nate. “So w
e continue to head west?”
Nate thought about it for a few second but shook his head. “If Burns is leading a group there already, they either cleared things up, or they’re all dead.”
“They could be pinned down,” I suggested.
“Do you hear enough cover fire for that?” When I shook my head, he nodded toward the southern part of the clearing. “Harris and his guys can easily cover us until we’re back in the trees. South it is.” No one else objected, so that’s where we went.
We traversed the southern edge of the clearing without problems, stepping over the dead bodies likely responsible for the wounded Harris had been talking about. Like the others, they looked like your average scavengers, including long-since healed tattoos. Part of me had been hoping to find that they were just painted on, or freshly done for this mission, but nothing pointed at that.
A branch breaking somewhere in front of me was the only warning I got before a volley of bullets came my way. I jumped for cover, feeling one of the bullets graze my left calf, but not deep enough to get through my pants and the holster underneath. It still served as a reminder to be more careful. Charlie opened fire as soon as he crouched down next to me, laying down enough cover so I could aim and shoot one of the assholes trying to kill us. There were only four of them, quickly dispatched between the lot of us.
We headed farther south, but before long we’d reached the last cars, finding more people crouched in cover there but none of them tried to kill us. Shots coming from farther west made us head there next, angry shouts spurning us on. The closer we got, the more obvious it became that we were zeroing in on the main confrontation. Up ahead, several cars had been pulled into clusters, yielding better cover, and there were plenty of people taking advantage of that. As soon as we stepped into their line of sight, a few shots came our direction—from both sides of what I could tell where the combatants were positioned. I quickly ducked back behind a boulder, cursing under my breath.
“Got any bright ideas?” I asked Nate as he dropped into a crouch by my side.
He shrugged. “Maybe.” Before I got a chance to reply, he whistled loudly through his teeth, rearing out of cover for a second. “Anyone in the mood to courteously let us know who we should shoot at?” More shots than before answered, but most came from the northern and western parts. “Splendid,” he grumbled, turning to Charlie and the others. “Bree and I will hold down the fort here, to keep them distracted. Circle north and flank them. Can’t be much more than ten or fifteen of them left.” I wouldn’t have minded more backup, but I could see where that was a waste of resources. The woman we’d picked up stayed behind while the others spread out, looking briefly down at her gun.
“I’ll be of more use right here,” she professed, her hands shaking slightly. Nerves, without a doubt. If I had to guess, she was likely one of those joining us at New Angeles, not quite used to being part of a firefight.
As if I was, but I didn’t tell her as much.
Nate’s light touch on my shoulder brought my attention back to him. He signaled me to follow him, skirting the clearing in the woods over to the three birches right next to one of the car clusters. I acknowledged with a nod, turning to the woman. “What’s your name?”
“Anna.”
I nodded. “Follow me, Anna.”
Bullets rained down on us as soon as Nate came out of cover, but I didn’t hesitate to follow him. Whoever we were aiming for returned fire, soon drawing the attention to them. Wherever possible, I tried to keep trees and underbrush between me and the shooters, but I couldn’t help but feel like I was cutting it close. Anna remained behind me nevertheless, pretty much running blind.
Something came sailing toward me from the side. Stopping, I grabbed Anna’s arm and flung myself to the ground, doing my best to shield as much of my body as possible. The grenade went off close enough to shake my entire body, dirt and pieces of bark raining down on me. I did a quick check, coming up with a complete list of my limbs still attached. Looking up, I saw the small crater the grenade had left—close, but not that close.
“Come on, we need to keep moving,” I hissed at Anna, hoping that her ears weren’t ringing too much to understand. She nodded, accepting my hand so I could pull her up, and off we went. There was no sign of Nate, but as soon as someone started shooting at us, the return fire started, making me guess that he’d already reached our destination and had taken over coordinating.
I tripped over a root that the explosion must have partially loosened, staggering to the side in my fight to regain my balance. Looking back over my shoulder to warn her about that, I caught sight of Anna, her gun raised—but not at the others, but at me. I had a split-second to decide what to do, which almost cost me my life as she took aim. When in doubt, drop, and that’s what I did, letting my body hit the ground, avoiding the bullet by a hair. Kicking out, my heel hit her knee, making her second shot go wide. I brought my shotgun up and pulled the trigger, sending a slug right into her torso. The impact made her recoil, blood spraying everywhere, and I didn’t give her the chance to recover as the next slug pretty much pulverized her face. So much for solidarity between females.
I allowed myself a moment to both catch my breath and compute what had just happened before I rolled onto my front and crawled over to the body, not wasting a moment to check whether she was still alive. There was brain matter splattered all over the tree trunk in front of which she’d been standing. The first slug had likely already killed her as it was. I’d taken out shamblers with less precise shots. She didn’t carry anything of note, including any radio gear or spare ammo beyond what Nate had given her. I tried to remember whether her display of grief over her partner had appeared fake but my racing thoughts skipped right over that point. It was a moot one, anyway—nothing indicated that her husband hadn’t been part of this as well. Or it had simply been a random body that she’d used for her cover story.
I shoved the gun and spare magazine into my pockets before I took inventory of my surroundings. Someone was still drawing fire to the cluster of cars, so I avoided it for now, sprinting into the woods farther west. I found another patch of churned earth, making me guess that grenade hadn’t been the first, and beyond it two bodies. I didn’t recognize the slighter, Asian guy, but the other was Tanner. He was still breathing as the reddish foam across his mouth proved, but I couldn’t tell at a glance how badly injured he was. There wasn’t much blood visible so I gathered he likely was out cold from blunt force trauma.
A chuffing sound made me look up, but I couldn’t see anything between the trees. It repeated itself, letting me pinpoint its origin. It sounded like someone hitting the ground, repeatedly. Reaching into my pocket, I belatedly reloaded the two slugs I’d fired, advancing on that position. Behind me I heard a veritable racket go off, making me guess that Charlie and the guys had successfully pulled off the flanking maneuver, but a cut-off shout from up ahead made me go faster. There was a dip in the terrain where a few trees must have been felled by either a lightning strike or ice last winter, tearing a veritable swath of destruction through the forest, ending up in a heap of mossy wood farther down the soft slope. My eyes skipped over the natural barrier but it looked undisturbed, not like anyone would be hiding over there. Movement drew my gaze to the two figures on the ground, struggling with each other, the slighter one clearly losing. “Yeah, you know what’s coming next,” the other jeered in a deep, gruff voice. That was enough to make up my mind—all recent, prejudiced-fueled decisions ignored—but as I crept closer, I recognized the one he was talking to—Gita.
Pressing the—without a doubt still warm—barrel of my shotgun against the scumbag’s neck, I let out a loud scoff. “Same goes for you.”
He froze in mid-motion where he was perched over Gita’s prone body, his head jerking forward to avoid the hot metal. He slowly raised his hands, trying to get a look at me over his shoulder. Gita used the moment to scramble backward, extracting herself, her wild shock of hair hanging into her blood-s
pattered face. She kicked the scumbag in the groin as soon as her legs were free, making him pitch forward. To disabuse him of the notion that he might try to put up a fight just because I was a woman, I sent the stock of my Mossberg down at the back of his head, making him groan loudly as he splayed his hands on the ground to break his fall.
“You okay?” I asked Gita, not taking my eyes off my target.
“Y-yes,” she stuttered, her voice shaky. “I’m good.” A lie, but not one I was going to bust her on. Her voice got a little stronger as she picked up her gun where it had presumably been kicked away. She joined me, still pale underneath the blood and blooming bruise on her cheek, but her grip on the weapon was steady. “Fucker found me when I was trying to do CPR on Tanner. We got hit by a grenade. Tanner pushed me out of the worst, but Tim was too slow. Tanner hit the back of his head on a tree. I got him breathing again, but not sure if he’ll pull through.”
“Go check on him,” I told her, still staring at the asshole crouching on the ground. “If you need help, shout.”
Speaking of shouts—I could hear people advancing, a low whistle letting me know that they were friendlies. Burns stepped out into the hollow, followed by Nate and several others I recognized from watch duty—not that this had to mean anything. Nate’s gaze dropped to my prisoner, and without needing to be told he grabbed some zip ties from his pack as he sauntered over to us. “Someone gag him,” he called out to Charlie and the others. “So he doesn’t chew through his tongue. Again.”
Charlie gave him a truly incredulous stare, but at my smirk didn’t ask. The asshole tried to protest, but between Nate, Burns, and two of the Chargers he was quickly subdued. I eased out of my stance but didn’t drop the shotgun. A few of the others took care of Tanner while Nate dragged our prisoner off, back toward the cars. Burns gave me a questioning look but I nodded at him to follow, silently telling him that I needed another moment here. I didn’t miss how Gita was still pale as hell, looking like she might snap any second now. I debated what to do, but somehow I got the feeling that—unlike me—she wouldn’t appreciate my offer to join us.
Green Fields (Book 6): Unity Page 24