“I won’t tell you anything, cunt!” he bit out, his voice shaking slightly.
I shrugged as I crossed my arms over my chest. “Be my guest. It’s not like we’re going to just let you go.”
His gaze flitted to Nate but focused on me again.
“Can’t even make any threats worth making me piss myself,” he goaded, giving me a condescending leer.
I opened my mouth to tell him in detail what I thought of that accusation, but Nate cut me short. “She doesn’t need to.” The prisoner’s head turned, but perched on the stool as he was, he couldn’t see what was going on behind him. Nate stepped up to him, gripping his shoulder with one hand, and rammed his knife into the prisoner’s right kidney with one smooth stroke. The prisoner screamed as I tensed, hard-pressed not to take a step back. Well, that had escalated quickly. Nate shot me a look that was part warning, part apology, but neither could be heard in his tone as he crooned into the prisoner’s ear. “If you’d just been some random asshole out to kill us, I would have been satisfied with beating the information we want out of you, and calling it a day. But you’re a traitor. I don’t gladly allow traitors to live. But I’m happy to give you some quality time regretting your decision until your very last, agonizing breath.” He twisted the knife, making the prisoner elicit a sound that made my hair stand on end. Message received, loud and clear. Nate waited until the resulting panting had died down before he went on, his gaze locked on me now. “Just if they haven’t filled you in, let me do the honor. My wife has always had a wonderfully sordid imagination, entertaining us on more than one occasion with questions like, would the cannibals mutilate her before they raped her, or afterward? Mind you, that was before the people you are working for gave her some extra, real-time inspiration. So if you think you’re the only sick fuck around, guess again.” He twisted the knife once more before he stepped away, leaving the weapon rammed in to the hilt. Probably for the best, or we’d have had minutes at the most before the prisoner would bleed out like a stuck pig. What an apt analogy.
I could have cracked my knuckles now or tried for some other imposing, possibly intimidating gesture, but Nate’s introduction made me guess that just standing there, staring the prisoner down without showing any emotion on my face, would work a lot better. So that’s what I did, at first. But turned out, not for long.
Chapter 18
I was hungry, thirsty, and rather irritable by the time full darkness hit. My back ached from staying more or less in one place, and the knuckles of my right hand were bruised, the skin split in a couple of places. Staring down at Elijah—our prisoner—I forced a smirk onto my face that I really didn’t feel. He looked like death warmed over, and he knew it. I had to hand it to him, he was a tough bastard, still holding onto life long after it must have occurred to him that Nate had told the truth—he wasn’t going to walk away from this, and death wouldn’t come quickly. And still, he was leering at me, triumphant, because even three hours into this, he still hadn’t told us anything except for his name.
I was slowly but surely getting tired of this.
Nate—and Dan Harris, as it turned out—had been quite inventive where matters of persuasion were concerned, but except for giving me yet more fodder for nightmares, none of that had yielded any results. Either Elijah was actually hard to break, or we were much too enthusiastic about taking him apart, sending him straight into severe shock territory. I wasn’t even ashamed to admit that I would have caved halfway through someone first ripping my fingernails out, then continuing with crushing each fine bone of the hands and feet in rather methodical fashion. The entire procedure made me appreciate just how dense Taggard had really been about getting under my skin—and that, way back when, Nate had only tried to persuade me to help him at the Green Fields Biotech building, rather than convince me that it was in my best interest to do so. None of that mattered now, of course, and we were still none the wiser.
Watching Nate as he took a drink of water, I couldn’t help but get annoyed. This simply wasn’t working.
Maybe, just maybe, Taggard had had a point with sticking to psychological punches for the most part.
“Exactly how do I tie a tourniquet if I want to cut his dick off?” I asked, amused at the weirded-out glances I got from the peanut gallery. “I know how to do it for an arm or leg wound. Any suggestions? Maybe even experience?”
Our prisoner, so far weathering out the storm well, tensed, his swollen face not exactly paling underneath the bruises but the pinched look he regarded me with made it hard not to laugh. I flashed him a grin—this time a real one—and didn’t feel a thread of guilt at how he shied back from me, as much as he could.
Nate’s considering look made me wonder if he was calling my bluff or actually thought I was serious about this, but replied evenly after a few seconds.
“If you don’t slice through the femoral artery, I think you should be good whatever you do. A rubber band might suffice.”
“Like this?” I picked one of my spare hair ties from my pocket, trying hard not to spill any extra ammo in the move. It was a bright pink one no less, very befitting the occasion. Elijah’s eyes remained glued to my hand, and only at Nate’s affirmative grunt zoomed to my face.
“You can’t be serious—“ he started, but cut off when my kick hit him squarely in the stomach, making him topple over onto his back. I sprang after him, leaning over his prone body just as Nate and Harris came in to hold down his torso and legs. Keeping my gaze on his face, I pulled out my knife with my free hand, studying it briefly, then poked at his crotch, making sure to stab through the layers of fabric, but not too deep. His pained gasp told me that I hit something. His frantically wide eyes let me know that he was taking me seriously. About damn time.
“Just tell us what we want to know,” I crooned. The playful lilt in my voice was surprisingly easy to come by. “I get it. You’re a big, tough guy. Pain doesn’t do a thing to impress you. Maybe we have been going about this the wrong way. I wouldn’t have caved at a few twinges, either. But then, I’m a woman, and nature has given us some major perks where pain resistance is concerned. For giving birth and all that shit, you know? Holding out so long, you deserve to be seen as a woman, perhaps. So let me do the honors. I’m sure you’ll feel so much more feminine once I’ve cut off your dick and shoved it up your ass cunt, don’t you think?”
Part of me waited for someone to start laughing their asses off, but the entire camp seemed to have fallen silent, holding its bated breath. Elijah’s eyes danced wildly, pleading with Nate and Harris, but both of them were sporting determined looks now. Oh, they wouldn’t enjoy watching any man’s dick get cut off, but they’d gladly lend me their hands while I got busy.
“Wait! Stop!” And the Academy Award goes to… “Get that fucking crazy bitch off me! I’ll tell you everything I know!” Some coughing followed, bloody spittle hitting my chin and cheek, but I refused to give him the satisfaction of watching me flinch. Elijah continued to wheeze, and at Nate’s nod I moved away, letting him pull our prisoner into a partly upright position. Maybe there was too much blood in his lungs not to suffocate in a prone position.
It would have been just my luck that he’d start laughing at me now, then died that very instant, but the weird purple in his face receded slightly as he sunk in on himself, leaning forward.
“Talk.” Maybe nudging the blood-soaked back of his torso wasn’t necessary, but damn rewarding in and of itself.
A pained sound, part whimper, part exhale, answered me, but then he started explaining, his voice defeated. “Don’t know who our contact was. Jim approached me a couple of days ago, explained. How this fucking crusade of yours was doomed from the start. Because they know you’re coming, right? You’re not stupid enough to expect them not to, right?”
Rather than reply, I kicked him again, waiting patiently after his mewling had died down. “How many turned against us? And why? If you wanted to join those fucktards you could have just walked up to their gates a
nd rolled over onto your bellies, asking for a good rub.”
“You still don’t get it, do you?” he asked, glaring up at me. “Nobody gives a shit about you, or what happens to the scavengers. All of us, we’re fed up with sitting around, afraid. I don’t give a shit whether I sit in Dispatch, or New Angeles, or in my own fucking car. It’s always the same. It’s just a matter of time until something kills me. Fucking undead. Friendly fire. Shit, stubbing my toe or getting bitten by a snake might do it, damn infection and all that. The world’s turned into a hell of a nightmare, and you cunts dare to rant about freedom? You and your fucking army already have all the freedom you’re ever going to get!”
Maybe I was just slow, but that didn’t make any sense to me. I glanced at Nate, but he only had a blank look back for me. Harris, on the other hand, compressed his lips into a thin line. His discomfort finally made the lightbulb go on in my head.
“You betrayed us because those idiots promised you the serum?” I asked, incapable of keeping incredulity out of my voice.
Elijah spat, his silent glare answer enough. The impulse to slap some sense into him was strong, but his contempt let me know that it was an impossible task. I might as well conserve my energy.
“How many were involved in this?” I asked again. “Can you remember any of their names?”
My question got a smile spreading on his bruised face. “Sucks when you don’t know who you can trust, eh? Well, la di da, welcome to my fucking world.”
So much for cooperation, but in the end it likely didn’t matter. It wasn’t like I could have trusted his words if he’d denounced anyone. Like with that cunt that had almost gotten to me, it was impossible to tell friend from foe, as the line separating each other couldn’t be thinner. After losing half of our people, at least for active duty, in Isabella, I hadn’t thought I could be any more frustrated, but I’d been wrong. What welled up in me now and threatened to choke me was ten times worse. Staring at Nate, I silently begged him to do something, to find a way to turn this around and make it all better, but his stoic silence let me know that this wouldn’t be the case. Turning my attention back to our prisoner, I thought about what else to ask him, but from the way his eyes kept glazing over, I figured he was so deep in shock that now that he’d spewed his word vomit at me, there wasn’t much left. I could have just let him suffer until his last breath, but then gripped my knife harder and sliced his throat open, narrowly avoiding the fountain of blood gushing from the wound. He was dead by the time his lifeless body hit the ground. Part of me envied him.
“That went well,” Harris muttered, avoiding my gaze when my eyes snapped to him. “Gotta go see to my folks, if you don’t need me here any longer.” He left as soon as I’d inclined my head, the dead body between us a silent reminder that there was still a lot of work to be done.
I was about to ask Nate what to do now when voices got loud coming from the south, soon to reveal the Ice Queen with Jason at her heels stalking across the disorderly camp. She was seething with anger—not exactly an uncommon occurrence, except maybe that she portrayed it so openly—but there was guilt in her eyes as she joined us, looking at the useless piece of meat on the ground.
“I thought the camp was established and secured when we left—“ she started in what sounded awfully like an apology, but Nate cut her off with a jerk of his chin.
“They attacked from within our perimeter. From what we can tell, most of them have been with us for days.”
Pia’s pinched expression perfectly mirrored my own feelings about that. “We have no way of monitoring who joins us,” she summed up that fracas.
“Exactly.” Nate scratched the back of his neck, an unconscious gesture I was sure, but so very telling in the light of Elijah’s revelation. “Did you find anything?”
She hesitated, her ambiguous shrug unexpected. “Tracks of supply lines. The odd burnt patch on the ground where they must have taken care of the shamblers. If they posted lookouts this far out, they were well-hidden and we didn’t find them.” Definitely a point she didn’t like to admit. “It’s inconclusive. Could be from fifty people, or five hundred. Unless we get closer and do a proper recon mission, we won’t know anything.”
Nate took that with another nod, dismissing her with the same gesture. Pia lingered, her tense body language screaming with the need to jump into action, but rather than bolt she forced herself to relax.
Clearing my throat, I caught both their attention, and that of Jason and Charlie in the background, too. As soon as the two men had joined our circle, I let out a frustrated sigh. “We can’t go on with the plan like that. At this rate, a small pack of zombies could finish us off by the time we make it to the rendezvous point.”
Silence answered me, heavy with agreement and displeasure both.
“Options?” Nate asked, glancing first at the Ice Queen but then on to me. I wasn’t sure if that annoyed me or made me feel validated. It didn’t matter, of course. All that petty squabbling didn’t matter anymore.
“We could switch up the meeting point,” I offered. “I know it’s a risk if we blast it out now, but at least we’d know where to watch out for a trap. Anyone who wants to join us is likely already on the road, and a few miles more each day should be doable. It only took us three days from Harristown to Dispatch in spring, and we were going at an easy pace. They can make it to, say, somewhere in Kansas or Nebraska by the time we get there. We can take a few days to reinforce our base camp, get some rest, stock up on what we need, and redistribute provisions, gear, and ammo.”
Nate considered my point, but the others already looked surprisingly convinced.
“We could hit the installation within a two-day drive from there, if we stay to the western parts of the states,” Jason pointed out. “That would be about a week from now. That’s a lot less time for the other side to gear up for another strike. They likely plan to ground us in Harristown, days later. By the time they have extra troops there, this mission might as well be over already.”
“Or the change in plan makes them spring their next trap early,” Pia grated. “Just because you think you killed all the insurgents—“
“Very likely not,” Nate agreed with her. “But time is our best defense.”
“We will be missing out on some support from people who just couldn’t make it there in time,” I interjected.
“However this ends, we’ll need someone to scrape the wounded off the ground once we’re done,” Nate said. “Having a second wave of support ready once we’re done is never a bad idea, even if it crimps some people’s glory. If we lose, their numbers might give our survivors a fighting chance. If we win, the stragglers can always go after what inevitably fell through the gaps in our offense.”
Jason nodded. “Another point. Having so many scavengers in one place at a time makes it easier to coordinate for how we’ll dig in for the winter. Any ten or twenty of us can’t do shit when the settlements hold fast against us. But I doubt they’ll still think they can let us die in front of their gates if there are a hundred of us.”
That made Charlie chuckle. “Damn, a hundred capable people don’t need a settlement to hunker down. With those numbers we could clean up any town, send half the people out for provisions while the rest fortifies the defenses. Most of those settlements were built last year with a fraction of that manpower. Add a few guard posts a day out, and we might even give Dispatch a run for their money come spring.”
His enthusiasm made me want to both scoff and smile, but I clamped down on either reaction.
“Unless something catastrophic happens in the meantime, we set out tomorrow morning as planned,” Nate ordered. “Bury the dead. Burning so many corpses will attract too much attention. I’ll coordinate with Gita to make sure she gets the changes in plan out to New Angeles, and whoever else she’s in direct contact with.”
The nasty voice at the back of my head wanted to protest. Just because I’d happened upon her in a bad situation didn’t mean we could trust her.
Maybe that had been staged. Maybe she was playing me just as Anna had been, and Elijah had taken the fall for her to cement our trust—
I forced my mind to stop jumping into overdrive. As ridiculous as that idea might have been a month ago, Gabriel Greene trusted her—and Tanner—and that was good enough for me. Looking out over the camp, I could see more than one group eyeing one another suspiciously, making me realize that the actual loss of life that we’d suffered wasn’t even the hardest blow.
“You really think this is going to work?” I asked Nate when the others were out of earshot.
He gave me a lopsided grin that was direly lacking in humor. “First rule of combat: Any and all plans go to hell. Now that we’ve gotten past that stage, it can only get better.”
“Or we could all end up dead, or locked in tiny, tiled cells,” I offered.
“How I’ve missed your idealistic outlook on life,” he harped, but rather than turn away and leave me fuming, he grabbed my hips and pulled me close, his forehead touching mine. Considering the amount of blood and grime we were both covered in, that wasn’t the most romantic gesture I could have come up with. Like, handing me a wet towel to clean up with, for instance. I glared up at him, letting him read those thoughts right off my eyes, which warmed his smile considerably. “Yes, I think it will work. It’s not like we won’t continue with our random ass driving, and we will have two or three rallying points just to be sure that our strategy is extra confusing. It sucks that we had to kill what we thought were our own people, but for everyone we’ve lost, we’ve now gained two more people who are convinced they are fighting the good fight. No one would have bothered with staging a coup like that if they thought we were insignificant.”
Green Fields Series Box Set | Vol. 2 | Books 4-6 Page 99