“What about that bunker you told me about?” I asked, my voice hollow, but starting to shake toward the end.
I could see the pain in his eyes that the clear defeat ringing from my words caused him.
“It’s there, don’t worry. I didn’t lie to you. But it is just that—one bunker. A house in the middle of nowhere that’s hopefully filled with provisions for a couple of weeks that might get us through the winter. Might. It’s not a solution, and it’s not some weird kind of fairy kingdom, far removed from reality where nothing can happen to us. Even if we’re relatively safe inside, the moment we step out the door, hunting season is open again, and we’re the top prey.”
Of all the things that I’d wanted to say to him—ask, inquire, demand, even scream at him to tell me—none of them held any importance anymore. Defeat so heavy that it physically hurt in my chest crashed down on me, crushing that last glimmer of hope. Taking a deep breath was impossibly painful, as if the very energy required for that was more than I still had left inside of me.
With that realization, something else suddenly made sense.
“They all know, don’t they? The guys. Burns, Andrej, Martinez. They know.”
Nate nodded, not missing a beat.
“Of course they do. They’ve known from the first day on.”
I wondered if I should feel stupid about my fleeting idealism, but as soon as I averted my gaze, his finger appeared under my chin, forcing my eyes back up to his. It was a familiar gesture, achingly so, but it didn’t hold that gentle comfort anymore that I’d been longing for so fucking much.
“I’m not saying that we’re giving up,” he told me, his eyes burning into mine. “Life is shit, and the sooner you accept that, the sooner you can come to grips with that knowledge. Learn to deal with it. Find the will to go on. You wouldn’t believe how far sheer stubbornness not to die can get you.”
His words had the ring of truth to them, but right then I really didn’t see it.
“So, what, we just keep going on? Constantly on the run? Constantly losing people? And for what?”
His soft smile was a sad one. “Everyone has to find the answer to that themselves. Wanna know what kept me going this past weeks?”
I nodded, the motion so soft that it barely made his finger move.
“This,” he said, bringing both of his hands to the sides of my face so he could kiss me, both gentle and slow, and with so much emotion poured into me that the sheer impact of it choked me up. It was a brief kiss and he moved back, but without letting go of me. Our foreheads were so close that I just needed to lean forward to touch mine to his and we remained standing like that, staring into each other’s eyes with darkness all around us.
“I know that you’re hurting,” he whispered, pain and desperation similar to what I felt clawing at my heart heavy in his voice. “And it kills me to see you like that. That first week, when you cried yourself to sleep, clutching that photo of Sam? I wanted nothing more than to go over there to hold you, to comfort you, to do anything to take the pain away. And I know that with every hit that we take, something deep inside of you dies. I want to keep all of that away from you. If I could, I would stash you away somewhere safe, keep all that from you, make sure that nothing bad ever happens to you again. But I can’t, because that’s not the world we’re living in anymore. And as much as I want to, I can’t protect you. The only one you can completely rely on, the only one who will get you out of even the worst of situations, that’s not me. That’s you. The only thing that I can do is help you get stronger. Teach you skills. Give you the tools to get through anything. I don’t want to because the sheer fact that I have to means that I’m hurting you. But I will do anything to assure that you will survive. Do you understand? Anything.”
That was probably the most fucked-up declaration of love in the history of humanity, but considering that we were likely on the last page of that book, it was oddly fitting.
Exhaling slowly, I felt my chest seize up as air left me, but the next inhale was just a little easier, and the one after that more so.
“Everything you did—“ I started, but had to cut off because words were failing me. Trying again, I took another deep breath. “She’s right in that. You always do send someone out to babysit me.”
His grin held just enough of an evil tint that I felt my own mouth quirk up.
“I’d rather call it learning on the job than babysitting. Would be pretty stupid of me to lose you just because whoever should have your back flaked out on you.”
It was so much easier to let humor carry me through the doom and gloom inside of me, but it didn’t really feel sane or healthy to be able to do that.
“Yeah, because whose ass would you be kicking with all those snide remarks of yours if I wasn’t around anymore? Might actually bore you to death.”
He gave a shrug that I felt in my entire body from how he was still holding on to me, clearly not intending to let go any time soon.
“Probably. And it’s so fucking easy to get a rise out of you, how could I resist? I’m spending a pathetic amount of time coming up with the exact perfect thing to say to make you lose it, and you almost never disappoint me.”
“You’re such an ass!” I huffed, incapable of keeping that grin in check now. His hands slid from my head down over my shoulders until they stopped at my hips, and he pulled me close, making our bodies collide. The nasty voice at the back of my head told me to stop right there, but reason was the last thing I wanted to listen to right now. So when he kissed me again, I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled myself flush with his body.
It would probably have been the reasonable thing to talk. The sane thing. But right then all I needed was to feel alive, and there’s only one thing in the world that ever does that trick.
An undefined time later I pulled my clothes back on. My mind was still blissfully empty, but that latent sense of dread and defeat was still there. Muted now, dimmed enough that I knew that I would be able to somehow get through the night, and tomorrow? Tomorrow was a new day, and even if right now I felt like it was impossible to go on, I knew that my stupid, fucked-up idealism would drag me back onto my feet and make me go on, reason be damned.
Nate was a little slower than me to get dressed, letting out a low groan as he stretched before his shirt blacked out the bright white of the bandage. It was the first time since that night in Maude’s kitchen that I’d heard him utter a single sound of pain, and the significance of that wasn’t lost on me. Maybe even more than what he’d said before—and what he hadn’t—that show of trust and vulnerability hammered home the message that was so insignificant yet so damn important to me that I knew that it would be exactly that what kept me going.
Whatever happened, I wouldn’t be alone in this world.
Watching him pluck his clothes back into place, I couldn’t help but smile at the sheer absurdity of our situation—until another thought intruded, coming with a hefty dose of scorn.
“You know, sometimes I’m really astonished that you don’t choke on your own hypocrisy.”
He looked up, vaguely amused.
“All part of the package. But what heinous act of mine are you referring to now?”
I shrugged.
“First you ream me about that whole ‘you’re fucked if you get pregnant’ thing when I got my period, and then you don’t even use a condom?”
He paused in lacing up his boot—no idea when that had come off, I’d kept mine on—his eyes shining with the reflection of starlight.
“I can’t knock you up.”
That got the snort it deserved. “Listen, buddy, even in the times of the zombie apocalypse wishful thinking won’t get you anywhere.”
Nate straightened and stepped close to me, but kept just enough distance that he could properly gloat down at me.
“It’s not wishful thinking. It’s the truth. I literally can’t knock you up.”
That made me frown, and not just because it meant that he’d beh
aved like an ass to me over nothing. Well, besides that whole toughening me up thing that I still didn’t know what to think about.
“Seriously?” He nodded. “Then why did you use condoms the first few times we hooked up?”
He shrugged. “Would have been more out of the ordinary if I hadn’t.”
“Why?”
“Why what?” he wanted to know.
“Why can’t you knock me up? And if you say now that I should know how the biology of that works, I’ll hit you where it hurts, and I don’t mean between your legs.” To underscore my words, I reached out and pressed my fingers into his side, but gently enough to make sure that I didn’t hurt him. Much.
His answering smile was full of irony, and he winced just a little.
“Because of the very same reason why my body managed to pull through when I should have bled out, even before you cut me back up and Martinez sewed me back together. Some advantages come with side effects, and not all of them are always negative.”
For someone else, that might have sounded cryptic enough not to make any sense, but I wasn’t stupid, and even if I’d never get to use my PhD anymore, I could still add up two and two. Although in this case, it was more like two and two and two and… too many sequences to name, but they painted a very clear picture.
“Makes sense,” I muttered. His eyebrows rose, making me shrug. “Just like they do it with maize, you know? If you fuck around with something enough to patent it and make a shitload of money, you don’t want it to be able to propagate on its own.”
“Thank you so much for referring to me as a thing,” he replied, his tone dry.
“I’m probably not the first one,” I said, considering. “So that’s what they did with you. Shot you up with some inactive virus that made you stronger and more resilient, moderately resistant to pain, and left you infertile? Oh, and not turned you into a zombie. Guess that’s a perk, too.”
He didn’t even try to deny it, but then he wouldn’t—even less with me. He would probably have been pissed at me if I’d been too dumb to make the connection—or too timid to confront him with it eventually.
“Immune, too.”
“Come again?”
He shrugged, then peeled back the sleeve of his jacket. Even in the near darkness, I could make out the scratch on his forearm, which at closer inspection turned out to be a frighteningly clear imprint of teeth. My first reaction was to shy away—proving that I had learned a thing or two over the past weeks—but then curiosity won over, making me lean closer but not quite touch the wound. It was scabbed over and had clearly been cleaned, but there was no sense to denying what it was.
“How?”
“We found out?” I nodded. “Andrej was really the one who found out. They got him at the bridge, couple of hours before Thompson. He knew that he was doomed but figured he might as well hang in there and help the rest of us. Only that then Thompson and that kid got sick, and he was still around, kicking. We waited another day, and still, no reaction. He was smart enough to tell Martinez the night we stayed at Gerry and Maude’s, so Martinez got to clean the wound. Turns out, just because you don’t get infected with that shit doesn’t mean that bites from something that was gnawing on road kill just before isn’t that sanitary. But after that the wound healed normal. Then Burns got mauled good on one of the first looting trips and bounced right back, and it was kind of clear that it wasn’t just a stroke of luck.”
Not that much of a surprise—and particularly in retrospect it suddenly made even more sense why either of the two was usually somewhere around.
“Who else?”
Nate shook his head. “I’m not going to out people who’ve already been through enough just to satisfy your curiosity. I told you about these two because I know you—you need evidence and clarification. And because when you’re out and shit goes down, you need to let them take the hit for you. Because chances are, they’ll walk away from it. You won’t.”
It made sense, and I silently agreed with him. Knowing what I knew now would influence my behavior. Likely. Probably. Maybe. But what else he’d said—accidentally—made me grin.
“You said ‘people,’ not just ‘guys.’ So the Ice Queen’s one of you, too.”
I got a glare for that, but one that he defused with a grin after a moment. “Don’t even hope that I won’t tell her that you’re calling her that in your head.”
Oops. “Guess fair is fair, huh?”
“Considering that it would probably not work if I tried to hit you hard on the back of the head to delete your short-term memory, guess I’m stuck with that slip-up now.”
“You better not even try,” I ground out, but that smile was still there. It felt good to smile again. Even with what I knew now—what had finally, ultimately—sunk in, I felt just a little better already. And yeah, the sex had helped, too.
“So—“ I started, trailing off right there.
“So?”
“So where do we go from here? Does this change things? Are we going to keep this a secret?” I looked from him to me and back.
“Not sure it’s exactly a secret to start with,” he admitted, but it didn’t sound like he cared. That reminded me an awful lot of that talk I’d had with Martinez.
“You think the guys would react differently around me if they knew for a fact that we’re…” Whatever we were.
Nate, of course, found my indecision how to go on terribly funny, judging from his smirk. “Honestly? I doubt it. Of all of them, I think the two college kids are the only ones who haven’t realized yet that they shouldn’t screw with you, let alone breathe a word about screwing you, and they weren’t an issue to start with.”
“Because of you?” I just had to ask. The way annoyance was tickling my thoughts, I knew that I likely wouldn’t want to hear that answer.
But Nate surprised me. “No. I think that’s entirely your doing by now. Won’t say it didn’t help that you’re sleeping with the boss, but they’re not that stupid.”
I just had to know. “Why?”
He considered for a moment, as if he was weighing whether to tell me the truth or not, but my decision from the beginning of our conversation seemed to count still.
“It doesn’t take years of experience to be a leader, Bree. And those who want to follow and have no ambition to put up a fight usually pick up on that quality in people rather quickly.”
Of all the things he’d shared with me tonight, that was the one thing that hit me out of the left field.
“Seriously?”
“Don’t sound so damn perplexed. Doesn’t suit you,” he offered.
“I am not a leader. Just look at my life so far. Before. Stuck in a dead-end side street of the career I really wanted? Too chickenshit to finally break it off with the girlfriend who was, for all intents and purposes, only a friend for the last couple of years? And I’m not saying that to put me down. I really don’t see it.”
Nate looked at me for several seconds straight, waiting for me to change my mind, I thought. His voice was soft, almost coaxing, when he finally gave his answer.
“The only thing I asked of you to help me with, back in the lab, was to get the raw data that I needed. Needed because I had to watch that video. Had to watch how my brother died, to find closure. Words on a piece of paper just didn’t cut it. You didn’t need to sift through his data, or make that video, or agree to go in a second time to help me plant the explosives. And you sure as hell didn’t need to go back to eliminate every trace left of that virus. That didn’t just take guts. That takes the will to make an executive decision and stick with it.” He turned his head, staring into the direction of our camp. “I’m sure that if I die tomorrow, a couple of them would stand up and take my job, fully knowing what it entails. The same as you now know, the good and the bad. They’d even do a good job, I think. But if you stepped up, every single one of them would yield to you, with pleasure.”
“Bullshit. They’ve only known me for four weeks—”
He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Would they butt heads with you any chance they got? Sure. Would they try to advise and support you to the point of sabotaging you? Likely. But what makes you a leader is the will to lead, not the knowledge how to do it best. You just have to be bright enough to listen to those who do know, and make the decisions that they don’t want to be responsible for. That’s how a team works. That’s how we work. And that’s how we’ll make it through this shit, whatever fate throws at us.”
I didn’t know why, but that made me smile.
“You actually believe in fate?” I couldn’t help but tease him a little.
“What’s the alternative?” he questioned. “The sure knowledge that somewhere some fucker engineered the plague that eradicated the human race and left us last few survivors with odds stacked against us that are impossible to surmount?”
And, just like that, he brought me right back to the bottom of reality.
“You couldn’t just let me be carefree and happy for five minutes, eh?”
He shook his head, but before he turned away, he leaned in to steal one last kiss.
“I respect you too much to lie to you. If you don’t like that, well, boo hoo.”
There were still a million things that we could have discussed, but I didn’t hold him back as he started walking back to the others and quickly caught up with him. It didn’t really take long to reach the clearing, leaving me just a little apprehensive to step out of the cover of the trees.
“Think they heard us?”
He shrugged, completely nonplussed. “Does it matter?”
“Well. No. But I’m still wondering.”
Nate paused, glancing back over his shoulder at me.
“You know how tight the perimeter is set up with conditions like this?” No time to really case the landscape, or make sure that there wasn’t anything lurking out there, he meant.
The Green Fields Series Box Set: Books 1-3 Page 51