Nate snorted, but that typically male, I-just-thoroughly-satisfied-my-woman look he gave me mollified me somewhat. “And there she is again.”
Which was to say, thoroughly confused me. “‘She?’” I echoed.
“The woman who knows that the entire world lies at her feet and there’s nothing she can’t conquer,” he explained. “Last time you were looking at me like this was when we hit Dispatch and the Silo for the first time. Before the factory—”
“And everything went to shit,” I finished for him, exhaling forcefully as the usual pang of pain twinged through my heart. “I can’t believe that’s only been, what? Seven months ago? Eight? Feels like a lifetime.” Nate didn’t protest my assessment. “Guess I had a lot to work through.” Again, no contest to that. I couldn’t help but mull that over some more—which got increasingly harder when Hamilton assaulted the door once more, his shouts muffled into unintelligibility. The door behind my back shuddered dramatically, my weight not quite enough to keep it entirely shut. It stopped moving when Nate sagged sideways against it, both of us leaning into the sturdy material with our shoulders now. “I’m so not going to miss this,” I noted.
He gave a mirthless bark of laughter for an answer, but his expression remained surprisingly calm. “This will pass also,” he reminded me. “It’s only for a few more weeks, until we’re done here. Once we’re on the destroyer, we can easily avoid each other, and after that…” He trailed off there, reminding me that neither of us had a clue what to do once we were back across the ocean. The only thing that was sure was that we weren’t going to stick around, and not just because of Hamilton. That latent unease that had started clinging to my soul since Bucky’s reveals about Decker—the ghost he and Nate both had assumed was a thing of their past—returned, making my skin itch all over.
“I want to go back to how things were back then,” I found myself voicing my thoughts without much intent, but the words rang truer than I’d expected. “I want to be that woman again. I don’t want to give a shit about anything or anyone outside of our group. Fuck helping people who don’t even want our help or only if they can abuse our gullibility. Who fucking needs a job anymore? We just do our thing, and that’s it. We can easily fortify our hideout and get whatever we need to keep it going forever. That’s what we should have done in the first place.”
It wasn’t the first time I’d come to that conclusion, and Nate didn’t protest. The next bang against the door just seemed to underline the necessity of acting on that plan.
Taking another second to ground myself—for all the good that would do me as soon as I got face to face with that asshole outside the door once more—I pulled away, mentally giving myself a shake. Nate was right—nothing we could do about our situation now… except that wasn’t true. I couldn’t control Hamilton, but I sure as hell could control how much I let him goad me on. Maybe it was simply because I felt more self-assured now—and with the edge of my anger quite dulled due to residual feel-good shit pumping through my veins—or maybe it was Nate’s reminder about how things had been last spring, but I sure as hell wouldn’t let Bucky continue to rain on my parade. If I really missed feeling like I was the queen of the world and could do whatever the fuck I pleased, why not try getting back into that mindset? Super strength and endurance certainly didn’t hurt.
“So, play it by ear?” I asked once more, getting ready to face the music.
“The same as usual,” Nate agreed, picking up the soiled thermal and getting ready to shut off the flashlight while I got the door handle.
“Then let’s do this.”
My pull on the door was a little too hard, making it open in a dramatic motion that almost jerked it out of my hand before I could let go. I used the momentum to propel myself into the corridor, ending up smack in Hamilton’s face, who’d been getting ready for the next round. He didn’t seem particularly pleased seeing me waltz right up to him, but I did my best to keep my shoulders down and body relaxed as I slipped past him—the fingers of my right hand wrapping around my Glock where it was once more stashed in the holster at the small of my back. I didn’t draw, didn’t even tense that arm, but it was damn reassuring to have my gun ready should I need it.
“Are you finally done?” Bucky sneered in my face. It was unclear what reaction he expected to get from me, but the easy—and still a little winded—smile he got seemed to enrage him further.
“What’s the urgency?” I quipped, more lighthearted than I would have managed earlier. “Just because you can’t find anyone to bump uglies with doesn’t mean that I can’t get laid.”
A day ago—heck, a few hours ago—I would have cringed at what seemed like just the next instance of my constant foot-in-mouth issue, but unlike before whenever we’d skirted any issue even remotely alluding to anything sexual, I felt my confidence surge rather than falter. Over the past weeks, I’d given Hamilton way too much power over me because of that, and this was going to stop now. I might have felt a little ridiculous at the notion of wrapping myself into a security blanket made out of my own sexuality, but really, why shouldn’t I? It was about time I owned my shit once more, and stopped letting anyone, least of all some limp-dicked asshole like Hamilton or Taggard, take that away from me. And seeing the anger in his eyes let me know that, somehow, he realized what was going on.
It was also impossible to miss the confrontational expression on Nate’s face where he ended up just inside the door, not bothering to step around Hamilton to physically shield me with his body because, lo and behold, I didn’t need that anymore.
Keeping my smirk in place, I slowly withdrew my hand from my gun, relaxing into an easy stance. Let Hamilton see that I wasn’t afraid of him. And yes, having a few of the French at my back now that I was facing Hamilton helped, a little. It also reminded me of my recent trust issues, which took some of the glow from my mental triumph, small as it was.
Bucky seemed more than ready to sneer his misgivings at us forcing him to wait for us to join him right into my face, but Elle, stepping up next to me so the three of us could see her without having to stop our childish glaring game, spoke up first. The look on her face had a bemused quality to it but was lacking some of the previous leniency. Peachy—we were already wearing out our welcome.
“I’m sorry that I have to interrupt your conversation,” she offered, pausing long enough to let her neutral tone be as chiding as it was intended. “We have finally established satellite connection, and, at best, that gives us a fifteen-minute window.”
I had a certain feeling where this was going, and quickly nodded for her to go on, hoping that neither Nate nor Bucky would take this chance to have at it and make us all look bad. Another missed golden opportunity to take Hamilton down a notch, but Nate’s assessment had been right: if we killed him, we might as well consider asking for asylum in France, because getting back to the States would likely be short of impossible.
A slight woman with light brown hair behind Elle gestured further down the corridor. “Gabriel Greene wants to talk to you.”
Chapter 3
My first reaction was to want to crow in victory because my guess as to who was to blame for our surprisingly warm welcome had been correct. I cut down on the impulse quickly, also because riding shotgun with that sentiment came the almost-missed sense of paranoia that always shut me up. So the black, fat spider in his New Angeles web had flung his reach right across the ocean—answering one question and posing a hundred new ones. Rather than dwell on it, I gave the woman a nod, starting forward.
Elle fell into step beside me, ignoring our two hulking, glowering followers. “We have time for introductions later. The weather is clear tonight so we should have good reception, but you’re well-advised to get your important things stated first,” she iterated.
I acknowledged that with another nod, a little absentminded as I tried to sort my suddenly buzzing thoughts. There I’d had weeks with a lot of mental downtime to make up theory after theory, and suddenly found mys
elf with seconds to decide which one to go with.
The turn the woman had indicated before led into a large, dome-shaped room, full of the remainder of our people mostly scattered around the perimeter, and a handful of not-yet-introduced French. The half closer to the door was dominated by a table that was large enough that ten people could have easily lain down on top of it. Red was leaning against it, facing the opposite wall but just now looking back over his shoulder at us, his expression carefully neutral. On the wall, there was a bank of monitors connected to three workstations, all but one dark. I couldn’t help but compress my lips in not-quite irrational misgivings at seeing Greene’s face on screen, leached of color and with static because of the less-than-stellar connection pixelating the image every few seconds. No surprise that Gita was busy talking to him, Tanner lurking at her side as if to ensure nobody would keep her from giving her status update.
As I passed by the table—on the free side, to avoid bumping into Richards—I caught a few odd smirks but did my best to ignore them. I could tell that my face was still flushed and I was obviously not cold although I was only wearing a tank top on my upper body. While it had sounded like a neat idea to in every possible way rub it in Bucky’s face that any sway he held over me was slipping fast, I hadn’t exactly considered who else would see me like that. Well, no avoiding that now, and I refused to feel weird about it.
Leave it to Greene to make that impossible.
As I stepped up to Gita—and not so incidentally to where Burns was lounging against the wall next to one of the computers—Greene’s attention shifted to me, and Gita shut up after finishing her current sentence, a recount of what we’d found at the conservatory, from what I caught. I rocked to a halt trying to still look relaxed, but as I crossed my arms over my chest I was suddenly reminded that, unless I stuck my hands into my armpits, my fingers would be in plain view. So I quickly continued the motion and dropped my arms to my sides, putting my fingers onto the tops of my thighs where they would hopefully be out of the focus of the webcam, wherever it was mounted. If that meant I was idly fingering the holsters of my Beretta and knife, that was pure coincidence.
Rather than greet me like any normal person would, Greene squinted at me, and I could tell that he didn’t miss any of the scars now in plain view due to my state of undress. His eyes returned to my face, yet not quickly enough to keep me from gnashing my teeth. “Is that your freshly fucked face? I really didn’t need to ever see that.”
Irritation burned away any thread of self-consciousness left from feeling like a mutilated freak-show, forcing me to fight for composure for a moment. Rather than snap at him, I donned as pleasant a fake smile as I could. “Gee, it’s so sweet of you all to always be up in my business and worried about the state of my marriage,” I drawled. Greene’s mouth snapped open as if to refute that, but I talked right over him. “I hear we’re pressed for time? I’ll make it short then. I assume it’s because of you that the French not only were expecting us, but have done so with the notion that I’m somehow some kind of savior-level VIP?”
From the corner of my vision I could see Bucky make a face where he’d stopped next to Red, while Nate—having settled just out of his reach, next to Burns—didn’t hide a snort. Oh, the overflow of support was melting my cold, dead heart. I had to admit, the situation was kind of funny, and not just because it irked Hamilton to no end. Elle, to my other side, didn’t react, clearly content to observe rather than judge prematurely.
Greene’s obvious mirth about the truth of my observation surpassed his gloating at my obviously flushed state from moments before. “That is correct. I will leave the explanation of the details to the lovely Madame Moreau, and Gita should be able to fill in the blanks on our side.” At the mention of her name, Gita hunched her shoulders, looking slightly uncomfortable—a reaction I couldn’t quite place. It couldn’t be because she’d figured I hadn’t worked out yet that she was along because she was Greene’s spy—that had been obvious from the day we’d set out on the journey north to the Silo, and then so, so far beyond that.
“Instead you’re going to tell me why we’re here?” I ventured a guess, then turned to give Richards a blank stare. “Told you the time was running out where you giving me a bone to chew on would make a difference. Clock’s officially stopped ticking.” Richards didn’t react, and Hamilton doing the same confirmed my guess that Red playing “good cop” to his “bad cop” had been going on since we’d come to that damn Canadian base of theirs.
Greene’s response made me focus on him instead. “I sure hope so. If you’d like to fill me in on what you already know so that I don’t have to repeat everything?”
Exhaling slowly, I rocked back onto my heels, buying myself a moment of time to sort out my working theories. Well, there went nothing.
“My guess is that we’re here because Raleigh Miller, while working on the serum project, made more of a breakthrough than we previously thought or was in his personal notes. That means, someone else was doing the actual experimenting, likely in a lab not too far from here or else it wouldn’t have made sense to leave a trail of breadcrumbs right from the coast to wherever it is we’re headed. Call it a cure.” It took some strength of will not to look over my shoulder and single out Cole for divulging that little detail. “What I’m not quite sure of is why we’re on such a tight schedule that they had to pack me up before I could heal at least somewhat, but I doubt it will be notes we’re here to pick up, and while most labs have nitrogen tanks to store biological material for long times, I can see why being over a year and a half into the apocalypse might make things rather pressing.”
Greene snorted. “It’s the fuel.” When I eyed him askance, he leaned back in his oversized swivel chair, a bout of static turning the motion into three choppy intervals. “The fuel for the plane that dropped you off at the ship, and the ship also. Even if they found reservoirs that were full and untouched after the shit hit the fan—which I doubt—what’s still available is slowly rotting away. You must have gotten into the same trouble with refilling your cars more than once already. A year from now, or five? Who knows if any of that fuel is still useful for anything except gunking up the engines. We’re heading right back into the stone age, so any fast travel over long distances has to be done before the last drop has spoiled.”
That was a sobering thought—and a better explanation than I’d come up with myself. I was sure that if I admitted that, either Hamilton or Cole would laugh in my face again like they’d done with my short-sightedness about possible radiation issues from nuclear reactors. They could all, collectively, go fuck themselves for all I cared, so I took Greene’s explanation with a nod and went on.
“So, possibly secret lab it likely is. I know France had a couple of BSL-4 labs but I somehow can’t see anything connected to this shit being done in an official site. I’m still not quite sure how your father’s company managed to pull off doing that kind of research while pretending to be just your run-of-the-mill biotech company.” I cut off there, making myself stop rambling. Time, right, I reminded myself. “I still don’t quite understand how you could have anticipated that we’d end up here without knowing of Raynor’s invitation for me”—and I sure as hell hoped he’d been as oblivious as me, or else our next meeting would not be a peaceful one—“but you obviously sent Gita along because you expected that her hacking skills would come in handy. I like to delude myself into thinking I’m along because of my superior intellect and the fact that I am one of the last surviving people who has the scientific knowledge to do anything with the material and information we might recover, but I’m not that naive.” I allowed myself a small chuckle there. “The security system of the lab is likely the same that you used at Green Fields Biotech, and while my access has never been activated, it’s likely in their system. A generator and a few minutes of time are likely all Gita needs to change that. And my, aren’t we all happy you decided on iris scans rather than palm prints?” I couldn’t help myself and shot
a gloating look at Hamilton. Oh yes, my guess had obviously been right from how he was grinding the enamel off his teeth. Turning back to Greene, I waited for his answer.
“Gee, and there I thought I could dazzle you with a fountain of new knowledge,” he grumbled, but it was only a momentary one. Picking up a file, he briefly looked down at it. “You’re heading to Paris, more precisely to La Défense, the satellite city just to the east of it. The lab is situated underneath one of the towers, a good twenty levels below street level. As for your guess why you’re along, I think you hit the mark spot on.”
“Why’s everyone always so disappointed that I’m a smart cookie?” I couldn’t help but complain. “I didn’t get my PhD for being pretty or land any job because I was boinking the boss. Just his brother, and years after his death, but who’s counting?” Burns gave the appropriate chuckle to that while Greene chose to ignore me. Really, this was no fun!
“I’m sure that Emily Raynor in particular will be delighted if rather than get your head bashed in, you use it to help her analyze whatever you find,” Greene proposed.
“You think that’s a likely possibility? I’m rather attached to the integrity of my cranium, and while we’ve had some fun moments involving light evisceration, things haven’t really gotten to the point where I was actually afraid anyone would kill me.”
Now Greene looked properly curious, but a somewhat stronger burst of static made him ignore the point. “As much as I’m sure that you all had a great time with bonding exercises, I’m actually referring to what might be waiting for you in that lab.”
Green Fields Series Box Set | Vol. 3 | Books 7-9 Page 76