So much for that. “Didn’t you listen to Jared? Desert? Zombies? I’m a little rusty on my geography of southern California, but last time I checked, there were several cities with multi-million populations. Even factoring in the streaks and the fact that the heat likely kills the fuckers off, too, getting to New Angeles will be all but impossible!”
He didn’t quite ignore my protest, but Nate wasn’t fazed by my arguments. “We can still try,” he pointed out. “We have a few advantages that other people are lacking. With just two cars we’re virtually impossible to track, and none of the four of us can get infected. Add the fact that thanks to your fucked-up eyesight we can drive through the night and hunker down somewhere during the heat of day. If anyone can make the run, it’s us.”
I hated that just listening to him made hope flare up inside of me. I was so sick of that flame getting stomped out again, and again, and again. And there was more than a single flaw to his plan, but something else caught my attention. “Four?” I asked.
“The three of us and Burns,” Pia agreed. “Clark won’t admit it but he’s useless, and have you seen the look in Santos’s eyes? The kid has had enough. He’ll protest, but we can’t take him with us.”
“What about Taylor, Martinez, and Romanoff?” I likely knew the answer, but I had to ask.
I got a hollow look from Nate back for my trouble. “Romanoff may never fight again, but he’ll pull through. With luck, Martinez, too. Taylor’s got the worst cards because even before the shit hit the fan, burn wounds weren’t something you just recover from. Only time will tell.”
“So the idea is to just leave them?”
Nate gave a curt, not quite reluctant nod. “You heard Jared. They’re happy to shelter them. As much as I hate leaving anyone behind, they will be safer here than anywhere else, even more so that they don’t need to survive the transport. Ask any of them. They will tell you the same.”
“Because they know that’s what you want them to say,” I accused.
“Still makes it the best plan of action,” Nate replied, already turning away. “We leave at first light. Get your gear ready.” He paused, briefly glancing to Pia, but her face was unreadable as usual. “Do we need to switch up the driving order, or can you swallow your ire for a few days?”
There was a lot burning on my tongue to be spewed out, but I left it as a curt, “As you very well know, swallowing has never been an issue with me.”
Pia let out an exasperated sigh as she left, stalking off in the direction of our two remaining cars. Nate looked away in what I belatedly realized was an attempt to hide the hint of a smile that had crept onto his face. When he caught my glare, he shrugged. “Anything else you’d like to say?”
That stumped me for a moment, my mind needing a few seconds to scroll through all the many fine points of our previous conversation. When I realized what he was referring to I couldn’t keep from bristling. “Do you actually expect me to say it back? After all the shit you’ve dumped on me?”
“Considering that getting a rise out of you is also the quickest way to make you see reason, it’s not that far-fetched that—“
“Fuck, no,” I shouted, hard-pressed not to scream—this time with a different kind of frustration. It only got worse when Nate allowed himself a small, satisfied grin. I shook my head in reply, momentarily too mad at him to say anything.
That, of course, only increased his mirth. “Oh, come on,” he said, almost chiding, as he stepped up to me and settled his hands on my hips, unperturbed by my attempt to evade him. “All that’s left for me in this world is to annoy the hell out of you.”
I was tempted to drop my arms from where they were still crossed over my chest—providing a convenient barrier between us—to his hands to wrench them away from my body, but the pleading look in his eyes stopped me. Yet that was as far as I was willing to go. The moment passed, turning from intimate to slightly awkward. Nate sighed and gave up, letting go as he stepped back from me. I turned away, but halted after a single step, looking back at him over my shoulder. “You really are doing a shit-job at this, you know that?”
“And still you haven’t left me,” he surmised, as usual turning the tables on me.
I didn’t reply, but had to admit that he was right—he had done a good job tearing me out of my funk, at least for now. Not that this made taking our good-byes any easier, but still.
Martinez was awake when I crouched down next to the heap of sleeping bags he was bundled up on, his eyes glazed over with fever. He grimaced, and belatedly I realized that it was meant to be a smile.
“You’re leaving,” he said before I could break the news.
“Don’t want to, but Pia’s right when she says it’s our best chance to get away clean.” I winced at my own words, but Martinez surprised me by giving the hint of a nod.
“Probably true. If they are still watching, they won’t expect you to go for hours, maybe days. They haven’t had time to get new explosives for another trap, and I doubt they held anything back.” He had to pause there to catch his breath, and I hated the pained gasp that followed as he tried to shift, his body too weak to respond. I checked his forehead—still too hot to look good.
“I hate leaving you here. All of you,” I amended, but I knew that Martinez got what I was trying to say. “The least we should do is make sure that you’re comfortable—“
“Bullshit!” he grunted, coughing dryly while his eyes shone bright. “What you should do—and will do—is hunt down that bastard one way or another. But you need more people. More firepower. Even at full strength they would have gunned us down.” He had to pause again, and his voice was much weaker as he continued. “There were more cars than we thought. Maybe they met reinforcements, or the info we got wasn’t solid. I saw them up on the ridge above the road just before the trees came down on us. At least fifteen, maybe twenty. The best that came out of this is that the four of you are still up and able to get out of here. Don’t worry about us.” He gave me a pained smile. “Taylor’s not gonna make it, you know that? And things aren’t looking much better for me. Shit, I hope they don’t because I’m not sure I really want to survive—“
I cut him off before I got too choked up to reply.
“Oh, don’t you dare die on me! I gave you all a good scare, now I deserve the same back from you. No weaseling out of this. We’ll get out there and get this done, and when we return, you’ll regret that you didn’t get more peace and quiet. Enjoy your stay. Get the most out of not sleeping through a single night because you have to guard the perimeter.” That last bit made me wince, but Martinez was, as usual, resistant to my foot-in-mouth moments.
“Take care of him, will you?” he made me promise, looking into the darkness where Nate had rounded up Jared once more. “I know you think that he’s invincible, but he doesn’t deal well with loss.”
“Really?” I said, pitching my voice high. “You don't say. Considering that his response to someone killing his brother was to bring down an entire building, I never would have guessed.”
Martinez gave me the approximation of a grin, but pain quickly took over. “Neither of you is to blame. You should know that. If you want to blame someone, blame Romanoff, but we all know that he’s not responsible for this, either.” Another agonizing pause followed. “Now, go and avenge us.”
“I wish I could stay—“
“Go!” He interrupted me. “I’m having a hard enough time holding it together as it is. I really need you to go so I can feel sorry for myself and let the painkillers that Patty gave me knock me out.”
I forced myself to show him the smile he was aiming for, softly squeezing his left forearm above the thick bandage that encompassed his entire hand.
“Enjoy your high while it lasts,” I wished him, but already his eyes had closed and his labored breathing was starting to even out. Swallowing thickly, I forced myself to rise, praying that this wasn’t the last I’d ever see of him.
The others weren’t much easier o
n my soul. Taylor and Andrej were out cold so at least leaving them was fast. Yet Clark seemed ready to go back on his statement that he was happy to stay here, and Santos managed to shake himself out of his lethargy long enough to protest—vehemently—that he was fit for duty. Nate looked ready to chew through nails, but rather than give him the pep talk I was sure I would have gotten, he pulled Santos to the side, pitching his voice low enough that I could barely understand from a few feet away.
“Listen, I’m aware that this is a shit job with a hell of a lot of responsibility, but I know that I can count on you.” Santos stopped protesting mid-sentence, confusion slowly taking over from anger.
“Sure. Always.”
“Good,” Nate went on, giving him a good slap on the shoulder. “The chance that they come back to finish our guys off is slim, but we don’t know these people here. I need to know that they are safe. If we had only two men down, I’d say Clark is well enough to take care of that, but he can’t cover three people. That’s a two-man job. If worse comes to worst, they will rely on you to protect them.”
Santos kept nodding, both relief and pride shining on his face. I wondered if he realized that Nate was bullshitting him, but then he looked glad enough not to have to go out there so soon again. The mental scoff that drew from me made me feel guilty instantly. I’d gotten so caught up in my own bullshit that I hadn’t wasted a single minute checking in with the others. Nate obviously hadn’t been that negligent.
And then all that was left was to stow away the two boxes of provisions that Titus and his daughter had collected for us. It was still dark outside but I wouldn’t have any issues finding the road, and all Burns had to do was follow the motion of my car. More than one pair of eyes that watched us get ready looked scared, and it was then that I realized that the people of Isabella were apprehensive to see us go. Four more people, armed and healthy, would have meant extra protection. Instead we’d left them with five people to take care of. But maybe them being frightened was a good thing. It would keep them poised and ready, and give our guys a better chance to make it—provided their injuries didn’t kill them first.
Swallowing around the lump in my throat, I told myself that I was doing this for them just as much as for myself. Then I got into the Rover, strapped myself in, and off we went.
Chapter 6
Taking the gate to leave the settlement would have been the obvious choice, but instead we rocked our way through the not-yet-finished barricade to the south. To someone watching from the road that led into town we would still be visible, but not from the northern border of the forest. My guess was that if Taggard still had lookouts planted, they would be somewhere around there, and our chances of making a stealthy escape might be better this way. No one had protested my assessment, so this was the way we went. In the relative silence of early dawn the crunching of gravel and splintering wood was still deafening to me, but there was nothing I could do about that.
Once free of what would become a sturdy barricade in a few days’ time, I eased the car around the circumference of the already erected wall until the tires hit the road leading away to the west. I’d never gotten around to asking Jared or one of the others why they hadn’t decided on using two gates as the road still perfectly bisected the settlement. Maybe the settlement was easier to defend like this. Maybe they thought they didn’t have enough people to man two gates. While my skin was crawling with the certainty that we were being watched—from inside of the sturdy wooden palisades as much as the surrounding forest—I felt a certain weight lift off my chest. As much as the settlements still meant relative safety on an intellectual level, I couldn’t help but feel locked in. Now I was finally free again, out there where I could run and hide at a moment’s notice—
I didn’t need a therapist to tell me where the fear of being locked in hailed from, but I was surprised that Nate didn’t bark at me when I visibly relaxed as soon as we hit the road. I was sure that he noticed, night vision goggles or not. As soon as I saw the Jeep in the rearview mirror I sped up, going faster than the road and gloomy illumination warranted. Within seconds the clearing around us turned into forest, swallowing us, but I kept the speed from before.
I’d half expected some kind of roadblock, if not more explosives planted en route, but either taking the road west rather than south had let us evade that, or I was just being too paranoid. The road continued to meander through the rich Minnesota landscape as the sky started to brighten behind us, the woods coming alive with the many sounds of animals still native to the region. No more zombies or roadkill like we’d encountered before. For all I knew, we were the first to travel here in forever.
Until a battery of lights came on right in front of me, effectively blinding me in the instant it took me to close my watering eyes.
“Hard left!” I heard Nate shout, and before I could follow along, still stunned by the stark pain radiating from my eyes and brain, I felt him reach over and wrench the steering wheel in that direction. The car hit the side of the road hard, jarring me, but as my foot was still on the gas, we rocked right into what I remembered was a small stretch of vegetation between the road and trees. That we hadn’t—yet—careened into any of them was a miracle.
I more felt than saw the absence of light as soon as we were out of the trail the floodlights blazed, but try as I might to blink the red and white afterimages away, it was useless. “Still blind!” I cried when I felt Nate’s grip disappear from the wheel.
“Just follow my directions,” he called back, immediately followed by a barked, “Right!”
Oh, this was so going to end with us wrapped around a tree, I knew it!
Far was it from me to complain, though—not that it would have gotten any attention, with bullets hitting the passenger side of the car, followed by a hard shove that got the wheel spinning out of my grip. Nate cursed and righted it once more, the ensuing jostling letting me know that we were still not back on the road. More gunfire followed, this time hitting the back of the car and my side. I realized that my sight was returning when I could make out muzzle flashes as I craned my neck, but then something hit the car again and sent me into the harness, disorienting me further. The whine of an engine coming from the rear told me that it had likely been another vehicle, but I doubted that Burns had started a habit of rear-ending me.
“What the fuck is going on?”
Nate ignored my question in favor of returning fire—a very pleasant experience as I hadn’t had my earplugs in, and consequently ended up half-blind and mostly deaf. Perfect.
“You jinxed it!” his reply finally came when his magazine clicked empty and he shoved a new one into his assault rifle.
“Didn’t even say anything!”
“But you thought about it,” he replied, and went on shooting. “Hard left!”
Silhouettes of trees became visible through the windshield, making me figure that I’d turned the car around at least once. Since the floodlights had been turned off in the meantime, the rising sun was the only illumination. That, and several muzzle flashes, this time right in front of me. Before Nate could order me to turn, I did so on my own, bringing him into position to return fire. Bullets pinged into the front and right side of the Rover, making me wince.
“Zilinsky, status!” Nate called out. It took me a second to remember to turn on the receiver of my com, and a few more to fumble with the earpiece.
“—Least twenty, with two Humvees that I can see,” Pia’s voice grated into my ear. “So far your drunk maniac tactic has kept them quite busy.”
Even with adrenaline singing in my veins I couldn’t help but offer a chuffing scoff. “That’s because I’m still pretty much blind.” Burns let out a bark of laughter, which gave me an idea. “Burns, can you tell me where to go? Because Nate is a little preoccu—“
I cut off when Nate sent the next spray of bullets into the, to me, hidden assailants, making me grit my teeth as the return fire ate into the back passenger side once more. I had no idea if he h
it anything—and belatedly realized that with his night vision gear on, the headlights must have blinded him as well, not just me. It still felt like a personal attack. Taggard had had days to watch me cry almost constantly because of the harsh illumination in the underground complex.
“What’s the plan?” Burns asked, followed by some low cursing as the Jeep got its own hail of bullets.
“To run,” I said before Nate could cut in. “Back on the road and floor it. If we can’t shake them within a few miles, we’ll come up with something else.” As much as I hated the very concept of fleeing, we were clearly outgunned, and as long as it was dark enough that they could blind me again, running was our best option. Of course, in an hour or two it would be light enough that driving east would do the same trick, but with three alternatives to that direction I figured it was more of a nuisance than crippling disadvantage.
“Just one problem,” Nate replied. “I have no fucking clue where that road is.”
I was about to laugh when something crashed into the front of the car right next to me—a Humvee, definitely larger than my pockmarked Rover. The impact was hard enough to make my foot slide off the gas pedal, making the Rover come to a momentary halt once all of its wheels were back on the ground. My head smashed back into the seat, stunning me for a second. Shouts got loud outside my window and something thumped against it. Bright patches were still dancing in front of my eyes from the floodlights, but beyond that I was able to make out the forms of several armed men running toward us. I floored it, but rather than jump forward, the back wheels of the car spit up dirt as they were trying to gain traction.
“Any moment now would be good,” Nate harped, then cursed when something small and light fell down onto the hood, making a “ping” as it hit. “Brace—“
Slamming the car into reverse, the wheels finally got grip and shoved the car backward, making whatever had ended up on the hood roll off. The grenade exploded, causing me to scream as what little of my sight that had returned disappeared once more, but I didn’t let that hold me back. Trying to remember where I’d last seen the men advancing on us, I sent the car into a tight circle, still driving in reverse, hoping I’d either scare them away, or back right into them. My heart skipped a beat when I hit something comparatively soft just before I rocked into a solid wall—the still-parked Humvee. Not bothering to wait for another explosive to finally do the job and incapacitate the car, I shifted into gear and shot forward. Something grated, then whined, but the Rover dutifully changed directions, gaining a little speed as it rocked over the meadow away from the patch of burning grass that was a welcome beacon in my rearview mirror.
Green Fields Series Box Set | Vol. 2 | Books 4-6 Page 82