Green Fields Series Box Set | Vol. 2 | Books 4-6

by Lecter, Adrienne

  Chapter 19

  The next day dawned bright and early, at least for me, seeing as I couldn’t fall asleep after my watch was over and I told Martinez and Clark to get the rest that my mind wouldn’t let me have. Nate wasn’t particularly thrilled when he found out that I’d pulled an all-nighter, but he spared me the embarrassment of treating me like a child in front of everyone else. It made more sense for me to nap during the day when it was too bright for me to safely drive, anyway. Not that he was ecstatic about that, either, but again, not even a grumbled remark made it my way. Under different circumstances I might have been tempted to see just how far I could push him before he snapped, but antagonizing him was about as inviting as the food he forced me to eat for lunch. And dinner. And breakfast again the next day.

  I was well aware that my abysmal mood was dragging the others down, but it was hard to pretend like I didn’t feel like a zombie for real. Why I’d expected things to change now that we were a group again I couldn’t say, but whatever I did, whatever happened, it was painstakingly obvious that we’d lost two people. It was that second morning after swinging by what used to be our people that the realization sank in that this must have been how Nate had been feeling those early days of the apocalypse. He’d lost a lot of his people, a few good friends among them. He'd been injured, high on drugs that he knew couldn’t last another day, and on top of everything else, he had me to drag along. Despite all that, he hadn’t faltered, hadn’t allowed himself to cave and let his weakness show. It rankled so much that I couldn’t do the same now, but that thought helped. Once again it was stubbornness that forced me to keep fighting my inner demons, and although I didn’t feel like I was winning, at least I was still kicking. And every time I caught Nate’s concerned look and all I was capable of giving him was a blank stare back, I knew that he was aware of what was going on. Somehow that helped steel my spine, but it also did its own to broaden the gap between us. Not that there was anything he could have said or done to stop that from happening, but doing nothing didn’t help, either.

  Wyoming gave way to Nebraska, not that the surroundings changed much. It was still hot and dry, grass long gone brown and wind sweeping dust through the air. We were traveling along the same road that had brought us here last summer, only that back then the sheer fact that we had a goal—and cars to get us there fast and safe—had been enough to keep my spirits up. Now it was just one bland, hot day after the next. Then eastern Colorado followed, with more of the same. We encountered the odd group of shamblers, but more often than not chose to backtrack and avoid them rather than go into full-on confrontation. I would have loved to smash in some zombie heads, but Nate had a point—why risk our lives if we didn’t even know if this region would appreciate it?

  As we rolled toward Yuma, I asked myself for the umpteenth time if it was that Yuma from the movie, or any of many more. Only that this time around my utter lack of geographical and historical knowledge gnawed less on me than before. What concerned me more was what we would find there. Would they even let us in? I didn’t dare hope that they’d welcome us. But why were we even doing this? What good would getting confirmation from Gussy do me in the end? I already didn’t care for the underlying resentment that welled up inside of me whenever I thought of Sadie, and that was something I absolutely hated myself for. She was still a girl, for fuck’s sake, and one I’d come to really like over the past year. Now she was all alone, the guy she’d had a relationship with was dead, with no one she could share her grief with, and on top of all that she was with child. There was absolutely nothing about her situation that should have stoked my resentment toward her, but as human emotions go, I was rocking that one even if I was fighting it tooth and nail. I had none of that compassion going for Gussy, so at the very best, hearing her explain could only throw me for another loop.

  Shit, but I really needed to knock myself out of this funk, because this? This was going nowhere.

  I spent the second half of our last night on the road on watch detail, alternating between gnashing my teeth and cradling my Mossberg as if it were the child I would never have. Just as dawn started to paint the eastern sky blue, Andrej stepped up to me, taking over from Clark. I gave him a level look that I expected his night vision goggles picked up all right, but still he didn’t step away to start his perimeter round.

  “If you have something to say, why don’t you just spit it out? It’s helping no one if we just stand around like this,” I whispered, careful to pitch my voice too low for it to carry.

  Andrej gave a shrug, the hint of a smile creeping onto his face. “Anyone ever told you that you resemble a small, yappy dog when you get like this?”

  In spite of myself I couldn’t help but grin for a second. “I am well aware of that. Pointing it out now doesn’t change a thing, except make me even more angry.”

  “Still angry at him for lying to you?” Andrej guessed.

  I shook my head. “I’m angry at the world. And at myself. As I can’t exactly punch either in the face, I don’t see that changing any time soon.”

  “It’s not healthy to keep in that resentment,” he advised, snorting at how that statement made him sound. “You need to blow off steam. That usually helps.”

  “Why, you volunteering for that?” I jeered, hoping that my teeth were glinting in the last of the moonlight.

  His ambivalent shrug was making me more uncomfortable than I liked to admit, but his jovial reply eased me once more. “You need to relax. You need to let go. Like you did in Dispatch. Not give a shit about anything, for one day, or just one hour. You’re too focused on your task. You know that it leads to nowhere, right?”

  I hated admitting that he was right, but considering that I’d spent hours berating myself for exactly that very thing…

  “It’s not that easy,” I whispered, the following sigh heavy enough to surprise me. “I’m trying to let go. I’m trying so very hard to just put it all behind me and move on. But I can’t. It’s like this festering ulcer deep inside my chest—“

  Burns would have made a stupid joke there but Andrej just nodded, compassion on his face as he reached up and removed the goggles. I must have looked more surprised than I’d thought because he gave me a shrug. “Remember, I’ve been doing this for a long time. I was there when Pia lost herself. I was there when Nate learned that his brother’s attempt to save him ended with him dead. Loss affects us all differently, but it is the same to everyone in the end.”

  “Have you ever lost someone?” I asked, not sure if I even wanted that answer.

  Andrej remained silent for long enough to make me wish I hadn’t brought up the point. “Friends. Comrades,” he said. “My family died early, and I never bothered to strengthen ties after that. Until this, of course.” He looked around, nodding at the sleeping huddles on the floor all around us. “I maybe don’t show it, but you all are my family. You’re closer to me than any relatives I maybe still have, out there, somewhere. But there is always loss where there is life. Old age, sickness, some fucker with a gun—it’s all the same. Either you take it in stride, or you allow it to kill you, too. Your choice.”

  I reflected on that for a few minutes. It sounded awfully close to the “just suck it up” that I felt like I deserved, but he’d said it with such an even voice that the words held no hidden meaning. I hadn’t expected Andrej of all people to be that zen about anything.

  “You think it’s that easy?” I asked a while later.

  He shook his head. “It’s that hard.” He then started walking around the group, resuming the perimeter that I should have been guarding the entire time. I listened to his boots crunch on the dry grass, my mind heavy but at the same time blank. Maybe he had a point there. Maybe he was right. Maybe it was that exact same mindset that had helped the others move on from where I felt I’d churned myself so deep into the mud that there was no moving forward anymore.

  I didn’t find an answer until it was time to rouse the others, and I spent the morning still cau
ght in that same somber mood. If Nate noticed a difference, he didn’t comment on it, but he seemed just a little more relaxed this morning. I’d expected him to get jumpy the closer we were to Yuma, but the contrary seemed to be the case. Maybe it was his way of dealing with rejection. Our recent experiences hadn’t exactly set us up to be angry about not being let into a settlement, considering Harristown or the gigantic fail that the factory had been.

  We were about ten miles out when Nate called for a halt. He, Pia, and Andrej met up to talk under the shadow of a lone tree next to the road. I hesitated but then joined them. The Ice Queen gave me a sidelong glance that was pure “finally!” if there’d ever been such a thing, and Nate paused for a moment to wait until I’d rocked to a halt next to him.

  “We’re trying to decide how to do this,” he explained, switching back from Serbian to English for my benefit. One of these days I really had to ask why they always did that, except for the eavesdropping factor.

  Pia grunted. “We’re too obvious if we go in like that, even now that we’ve scraped off the decals from the cars. There is no other group that has two females and six of us at ten people strong,” she noted.

  “So not all of us go in,” I said. “And we have the patches that Sadie gave us.”

  “Exactly what I was thinking,” Nate stated. Was that a hint of a smile on his face? Couldn’t be.

  “Who comes? Besides Pia and me, because we’re the inconspicuous white flags of the group,” I noted. The Ice Queen snorted at that, but she didn’t contradict me. Dispatch had proven one thing—none of the people out on the roads, not even the traders, were what anyone would consider soft. She might have a more commanding presence than I did, but people still shied away less from her than most of the guys, Martinez and his easy smile maybe excluded. So it made sense to include us—and him probably, too. When I said so, Nate inclined his head.

  “I’m coming as well, and we’ll take Taylor and Martinez. Andrej is in charge of those that remain outside.” He waited for Andrej to nod his acknowledgement before he went on. “The three of us will test-drive the patches. And you need to let your hair down. Literally,” he added when my brows shot up.

  “What’s wrong with my ‘do?” I asked, reaching up to pat the tightly braided strands.

  “Nothing for when you need to make sure that no zombie can grab on to it and pull you down,” Nate said. “But I think we can all agree that people will find you more approachable if you rock a more… feminine appeal.”

  I was ready to let my fist tell his nose what I thought of that idea but then forced my anger to simmer down again. He was right, of course.

  “Next thing you’ll stick me in a dress,” I grumbled as I reached up and started undoing what had taken me the better part of an evening to accomplish.

  “Too impractical for survival out there,” Nate said dismissively, ignoring my sneer. “We need to get our story straight first. Why are we here? What are we looking for? With the five of us in two cars we can pose as traders, but question is, will they buy that?”

  We continued to discuss our options until we had hashed out all the details. As much as it rankled, posing as traders was the safer bet. There was the chance of any of the Raiders recognizing us, but it was likely slim. They’d only seen us in full gear, swagger and bravado included. If we toned it down and tried to mimic normal people behavior, there was a good chance they’d just tag us as competent survivalists. I had to admit, I would have ignored anyone not in full gear and bristling with weapons in their place, too.

  Because the Rover was way too obvious, we left Clark in charge of it, opting to take our two largest vehicles instead. That meant redistributing cargo in the noon heat, but it made no sense to risk losing most of our medical supplies and a lot of ammo and explosives. We then split up, only to stop about a mile later when Nate spied a farm off the road that he insisted we shouldn’t pass up. After making sure that it was actually abandoned, I was set to washing my hair while the others gathered all sorts of useless shit from the house. Pots, containers, but also a few sacks of rice, beans, flour, and a box of seeds. I had to admit, it made sense for traders to pick up things like that as it was easy loot. I still hated that Nate practically told me to “pretty up,” but now unrestrained my hair made me resemble a scarecrow.

  It was the middle of the afternoon when we finally veered onto the road that led toward the settlement, my drying hair loose around my shoulders. We were still wearing our usual jackets but had changed our more utilitarian pants for jeans, combat boots for hiking boots or running shoes. I felt exposed and naked, itchy to keep checking on the concealed holsters on my calf and lower back. We’d also slapped the patches on at the farm, and whenever I felt a trickle of sweat make it down the back of my neck I couldn’t help but reach up and check that the thin membrane was still in place. It felt impossible to ignore to my touch, but whenever I eyed Nate’s neck my gaze kept latching onto the strangely bare sides of it, with only the middle X remaining. As much as I often resented what the marks meant, suddenly having them concealed didn’t just feel like we were cheating anyone, no. It felt as if we were betraying what we stood for.

  It stood to reason that if it worked subconsciously on us, it would do the same on the good folks of Yuma, Colorado.

  About a mile out we stopped once more so Pia and I could trade places. We didn’t expect anyone to recognize Nate or me, but just to be sure it was likely a good idea not to make anyone connect us to each other more than they had to. Taylor seemed highly amused by how I kept staring balefully at the wheel from the passenger side of the car as he angled it forward, taking the lead.

  “You know, if you keep scowling like that playing dress-up won’t make a difference,” he observed wisely.

  “It’s not that easy,” I grumbled, but did my best to smooth out my features. “Got any other great ideas while you’re at it?”

  “A lot,” he replied, smirking at me sideways. “But you’re not enough of an actress to pull off half of them.”

  That sounded like a challenge, but I didn’t feel like right now was the time nor the place for that. “Again. Not that easy.”

  He gave something that I thought was a shrug. “How about you pretend to be someone else for the day? Like the bubbly, carefree girl you were before you had the choice to either throw your lot in with us, or die.”

  So much for not frowning. “I wasn’t bubbly,” I complained.

  His snort was shy of derisive. “I was there, at the checkpoint, right when Miller did his best to charm your panties off—again—with that coffee. Maybe you’ve always been hard on the inside, but on the outside you were all fluff and giggles.”

  I knew that he said that to get a rise out of me, but somehow that statement made me feel melancholic rather than angry. “Yeah, maybe there’s some truth to that,” I admitted. “Fluff, sure. But not bubbly. Sam always said I was too stuck-up for that.” Why of all times did I have to think about her now?

  Taylor seemed to get that the conversation was taking a nosedive, and the small laugh he offered sounded forced. “Maybe you should just try it now? Not saying that you should pretend to be an airhead. But they are painting you as a hard, unforgiving criminal. No one will mistake you for a monster if you are just plain old nice. Maybe if you pretend hard enough some of it will stick? Would be nice to see you smile again.”

  I knew that he was still goading me on, but this time the humor sparking from his eyes was real. That more than his words made me realize that he really did care. It should probably not have been that much of a surprise. He'd taught me quite a bit about cars and how to keep my sniper rifle working at top performance. Even if I’d logged way more hours on watch with Andrej or Burns, Taylor was still family.

  “Thanks,” I offered when silence stretched too long not to become heavy. “I appreciate it.”

  “What, me making fun of you?” he teased.

  “You giving a shit,” I clarified. “Even if it’s a totally misguided at
tempt at humor.”

  We were close enough to the gate now that Taylor only took his eyes off the road for a second. “You’re welcome.”

  Getting into Yuma turned out to be easier than I’d expected. Sure, they filched us, and I would have had to be blind to miss that during their “control” a few items disappeared from the cars, but they let us in without protest. At first I expected a trap, but our fake transponder signal matched up with one of their trader code lists, and as we didn’t try to haggle much over the parts of our cargo that they officially wanted to acquire, things smoothed out within the first twenty minutes. People were curious but didn’t regard us as a threat, it seemed. We were offered food and a place to stay for the night immediately, although one of the guards warned us that he would keep an eye on us. That seemed to count for the most part where my tits and ass were concerned, but I did my best to follow Taylor’s advice and smile at him rather than offer up a knee to his junk. Nate neither scowled nor pulled any grandstanding moves, acting a hundred percent the part of just one of the guys and not my misguided husband. It was still extremely weird to think of him as such. It made me wonder exactly what had to happen before that sank in.

  About an hour after we brought the cars through the gate we were mostly left to our own devices. Nate and Martinez headed toward the local tavern, Taylor was debating with some guys over car parts that he might trade for something else, and Pia had disappeared off the face of the earth. I debated sticking with Taylor but their conversation was boring me to tears, so I decided to set out on my own. Yuma wasn’t large—at least the part that had survived and was now inside the dug trenches and fences—but must have easily a thousand inhabitants from the looks of it. It was likely a more thriving community than before the zombies had razed us to the ground, the town inheriting a feeling not unlike the bazaar in Dispatch. One thing I noticed was that trade was still going strong, even among the people. Currency might be a thing of the past, but from the many items being offered from small stalls everywhere it looked as if everyone was trading for goods and services among themselves, with outsiders welcome. Nate had decided that it was safest to let Martinez do the asking around where Gussy was concerned, pretending that he was more of a doctor than the medic he really was. Even before he stepped away from the cars, a crowd of people had started to gather around, and I was sure that he’d get quite the amount of pus to drain and small wounds to inspect. With antibiotics mostly a thing of the past, doctors and nurses were even more in demand than ever.