“They are reverse-engineering their new serum,” I pointed out. “Maybe that’s why? Because they simply couldn’t get the old one anymore?”
Burns gave a disbelieving grunt. “Taggard’s not one of them.”
“One of who?” I asked.
“Those that got the serum,” Burns explained. “But he was obsessed with it. Kept harping on us others that if he had the kind of strength we do, he’d do more than just follow orders and get shit done.”
“Looks like he finally got his wish,” I offered, but then paused. “Or he’s still biding his time until they’ve perfected it. But that would make him one stupid bastard, going toe-to-toe with me.”
“Can’t object there,” Burns mused, offering up one of his bright grins. Normally I would have grinned right back, but right now that was the farthest thing from my mind. Instead, I stared at my half-eaten breakfast, once again having to make myself gulp it down. At least the texture matched the blandness of its taste.
In the meantime, Nate dropped into a crouch next to where Andrej had gotten his maps out, the two of them debating as they every so often glanced at the hand-drawn map Nate had brought over from the car, presumably from when he’d talked to Stanton again. Burns handed me a coffee refill once I’d washed out my cup, but the deep, meaningful talk that I was dreading was about to come, didn’t. Instead he turned to Campbell and started ribbing him about scaring the shit out of me, making all of us laugh again.
Damn, it felt so good to be back.
Before long, Nate got up, kicking a few pebbles our way to get our attention. “Get ready. We’re moving out in five.” His eyes fixed on Burns and me. “That is, if you ladies finished your coffee chat?”
While I strode over to the Rover, Burns hopped and twirled through the camp in the worst approximation of a ballerina, making even Nate grin for a moment. If I’d expected him to show some semblance of nice behavior reminiscent of last night I would have been sorely disappointed, but I minded less about that than usual. Nice would have been, well, nice, but what I really needed was normal. Lots and lots of normal.
I did let out an indignant squawk when he grabbed my ass in passing. So much for that.
“Don’t think I won’t hit every single pothole I find on the road,” I threatened as I swung myself into my seat.
“Considering that in an hour or two you’ll be blind as a mole I think I can chance that,” he replied as he buckled himself in.
“Has it ever occurred to you that habitually commenting on someone’s weaknesses doesn’t make you a nice guy, or even a decent human being?”
Nate paused for a second as he gave that some thought, but delivered his reply with a lopsided smile. “You’d never have fallen for a nice guy, so actually? I don’t give a shit.”
Exhaling loudly in exasperation, I grabbed the map he held out to me. “Where to first?”
Still smiling, he pointed out the route he and Andrej had agreed on. Two minutes later we were back on the road.
Chapter 3
Three days we spent on the road, driving until it got too dark to see in the evenings, and still we were a good fifty miles behind the last verified point that Stanton had told us late that fourth time that we managed to get her on the line. We were near the Canadian border, not that far from the Great Lakes. It was early afternoon with the sun shining mercilessly down on us, but up here it was more bearable than out in the plains. I even felt marginally clean as we’d made camp near a lake last night, and after a day spent in the hot oven that the car turned into, jumping into the cool water had been more than just a hygienic necessity. The guys had followed my good example—also forgoing any kind of swimwear—which had led to a few uncomfortable if hilarious moments as we’d slunk back out of the water one by one, to a chorus of lewd comments. They didn’t leave me out of it, much to both my chagrin and amusement. It certainly made me feel a little better about my bony knees—and other, somewhat softer parts of my anatomy. Nate ignored us, as usual, and that night he didn’t curl up next to me but instead slept on the other side of camp. I didn’t mind that much—nightmares I might still be having, but they didn’t keep me up well past when everyone else had fallen asleep anymore. Maybe I should have gotten up and joined him instead, but I was a little apprehensive of what that might have signaled that I didn’t feel like showing—yet.
The squawk of the radio made me startle up from where I’d been dozing in the passenger seat, my sniper rifle cradled in my arms. Nate made a sound that was somewhere between an amused scoff and a laugh, but I ignored him. Turning on the mic, I did my best not to sound like I was still half asleep.
“What’s up?” Presumably, whoever hailed us would know who they were trying to reach.
“Bree? It’s Alec. From Montana,” the voice more whispered than spoke.
I frowned, until I remembered that Stanton had referred to one of the Silo’s communications techs by that name. That he didn’t identify himself further made me instantly suspicious.
“Sure,” I replied, doing my best not to sound as tense as I felt.
“Ronny said you should visit Izzy,” he stated, talking so quickly he swallowed half of the syllables. “Not Martin or Kelly. Just Izzy. Stay clear of the syrup.”
With that he hung up, making me frown at Nate. “What was that?”
He gave a shrug. “No fucking clue. Ask the others?”
When I did, I got a lot of grunting back and the odd lewd comment, but nothing useful. Prank calls and the apocalypse didn’t go well together.
I was still frowning to myself when Pia’s voice dragged me back to the here and now. “Andrej says you should check the map, see if you find anything there.”
“How does that make any sense?” I asked but dutifully switched my weapon for the spread-out map.
“Petty Officer Stanton’s first name is Veronica,” Pia grated over the line. “She must have told her tech to try to disguise her message like this. She would, if she found something but didn’t want to alert anyone who might be listening in.”
So much for believing that the channels were safe. Still grumbling under my breath if now for a different reason, I searched the map, until I found—
“There’s a Kelly and Martin Landing,” I said, feeling hope flare in my chest. “North of Finland.” Searching on, I laughed. “There’s a Maple directly by Lake Superior, and yup, there’s Isabella.” That didn’t exactly call for super sleuthing, but I would never have squinted at the fine print on the map without the prompt. “Guess we should check that out?”
“Anyone know anything about this?” Nate asked.
“If it’s a settlement, we’ll see that once we get close,” I suggested.
“If we get close,” Nate remarked. “It could be a trap.”
I couldn’t help but frown. “Wouldn’t it have been less suspicious to just tell us to go there directly, without playing guessing games?”
“But that would require a base level of cooperation from Stanton,” Nate reminded me. “Extrapolating from what little you’ve told me, if those are the same people who roughed you up, Stanton might not be in a condition to still cooperate. Or they’re afraid she’d manage to warn us somehow.”
Wasn’t that a nice thing to mull over?
“You think that’s what happened?”
Nate shook his head. “No. I think she’s well and healthy, and got one of the techs to hail us so no one would suspect her. Wilkes isn’t stupid. If he doesn’t know yet that she’s helping us, he must be suspecting it. Maybe he put pressure on her, and this is her last resort. Or he told her to delegate so that if the shit hits the fan, some hapless guy will be caught in the crossfire and not his very competent aide who would be missed.”
The latter sounded a lot more like Wilkes than him sacrificing Stanton.
“Still doesn’t answer the question what we should do,” I reminded him.
Nate waited for me to offer an opinion, but when I remained silent he grabbed the mic. “Zilinsk
y, options?”
It took about half a mile before Pia replied, likely after she and Andrej had come to a conclusion. “We go in, but this time we stay together. No subterfuge. Either it’s a trap, or they don’t care who we are. If we show strength and confidence, any strange reactions that we get are a hint that we need to be careful.”
Nate considered that. “We go in. Four of us.” He glanced at me, the line of his mouth curving up on one side. “I won’t be able to keep Lewis strapped to the car if I tried so I might as well give up. That makes two of us. Select the other two.”
Before Pia could answer, Burns spoke up. “I’m coming. You need at least another bruiser if things go bad, and I know Taggard. If he and his people stopped there, I have a much better chance than you to identify him from what people tell us.” With the last confirmed location north of here it only made sense that, at best, they’d stayed the night or stocked up on provisions.
“I’m coming, too,” Pia said. “Romanoff can have command of the remaining party. We’re taking the Jeep.”
So it was decided. That didn’t do a thing for the feeling of apprehension rising inside of me, but I wasn’t going to ignore Stanton’s hint over that.
We stopped one last time at the edge of Lake Superior to talk strategy and inform everyone of any fallback points we might need should our plan, as it was, disassemble. Losing me like that in Yuma seemed to have left a lasting impression. I didn’t protest. On the contrary. The map we had indicated that Isabella used to be not much more than a handful of buildings around a post office, with more scattered around in the forested wilderness. I didn’t doubt that back in the day, the entire region must have been plagued by hikers and canoe aficionados. Even now it was inviting enough to spend a few days just laying low to recuperate. Minnesota certainly had a milder climate than Nebraska—at least in the summer months—but maybe that was just because of all the water and trees everywhere. I could get used to that, but doubted that would happen. The idea of Nate and me settling down in a log cabin made me crack up, if only for a moment. Maybe this was where the bear that I’d encountered on my mad dash from the zombies had come from? All those trees could easily hide an army of predators. Suddenly, the promise of shade and coolness didn’t sound quite that inviting from where we were standing in the middle of what was likely the last large road for days.
“Second thoughts?” Nate asked, approaching from where he’d done the last-minute map-scrutinizing with Andrej. Our escape backup plans likely had backup plans now, too.
I shook my head, although I could tell that with the way I was hugging myself I didn’t look very convincing. “No. Just waiting for the other shoe to drop, I guess. It’s been four days without anyone personally threatening my life.”
The hint of a smile tugged the corner of his mouth up. “By now we could open a store with all these other shoes that keep raining down on us. You know that we could just drop the point and disappear?” I must have made quite the face at the insinuation of us turning into a bunch of cowards because he was quick to raise his hands. “I’m not saying that I want to do that, just stating options. You know what my obsession with hunting down my brother’s murderer led to.”
“Why, you getting sick of me?” I teased, but my grin must have been a feral one at best, judging from his deadpan stare.
“Bree, I mean it. There’s a chance that we will never catch up, or that we’re chasing the wrong caravan. The trail could have gone cold already. I get that you think you need to do this to avenge Gussy, but—“
“I am not doing this just for someone else’s benefit!” I hissed, what good mood I’d had all but wiped from my mind. “I’m doing this for entirely selfish reasons! I want revenge! I want to make that fucker bleed and watch him drown in a pool of his own vomit! And if you bite my head off for being selfish next, do you think that just because they tucked in their tails and ran that they won’t set up shop elsewhere and continue with their sick project? Wasn’t it you who was all ‘we need to help the people because we’re the only ones who can’ in spring?”
I expected scorn from him—his usual default reaction to me going off in his face like that—but Nate continued to regard me with that stoic calm that drove me insane.
“The only thing I give a shit about is you,” he replied, his tone as measured as mine had been heated. “Look where altruism got us. I’m over it.”
“So you really want to quit?” I asked, perplexed. Where was all that coming from?
The fact that Nate considered that question in earnest stoked the flames of my anger. “Want? When has what I want mattered?” he asked in what sounded awfully like a rhetorical question. Before I could start hissing and spitting, he forestalled me with a raised hand. “Don’t get me wrong, the sheer fact that those fuckers abducted you and locked you up is enough that, to me, they’ve signed their death warrants. But as much as I want to smash in their teeth and let you exact all the bloody revenge in the world on them, what I care about is you,” he stressed again. “I wouldn’t do much caring if I didn’t ask you at least once if you really think what is about to come is worth it. Because if the entire fracas at the Green Fields Biotech building taught me anything, it’s that one death doesn’t undo another.”
My mouth was already open to deliver a scathing reply when my mind caught up with my rage-blinded thoughts. Shit. I’d completely forgotten to mention any of the details I’d learned in my time both at Taggard’s uncaring hands and in that settlement afterward. In the light of my own anger and need for blood, it had naturally taken the backseat. I could tell that Nate noticed the sudden change in my temper but he didn’t ask, casting me straight into a new dilemma: did I really want to tell him that at least in part he had been set up when he’d thought that all he was out for was revenge?
“Sometimes I wish I could read your mind,” he muttered, tearing me out of my musings again.
“Trust me, you don’t,” I supplied, then put on a brave smile. “Remember, my mind’s full of considerations whether the cannibals would have fucked my dismembered corpse before I bit it?” And my, hadn’t that joke lost the last of its humor in the light of my recent experiences. That realization made me feel even more like crap—but it also gave me the answer Nate seemed to be looking for. Couldn’t have that, now, could we?
Exhaling slowly, I forced myself to speak as calm and measured as possible. “Nate, I can’t let this go. I can’t just turn my back on what happened and walk away. Maybe if it had just been me. Or me and Gussy. Or even me, Gussy, and Erica. But they’ve been doing this for months, to God knows how many women. I know that whatever happens, whether we hunt them all down or not, it won’t change a thing about what happened to all those victims—and it won’t change what happened to me. If you’re afraid that I’ll end up disillusioned because killing Taggard is no save-all for my soul, don’t worry. I’m aware of that. I’ve already seen what losing Bates did to me, and that no amount of satisfaction over killing the cannibals alleviated my grief nor my guilt. I’m not looking for that. But I cannot let them go on. Call me a stupid bitch with a hero complex, but I can’t drop this. I can’t, and I won’t. Happy now?”
He shook his head, but did so with a lopsided grin spreading on his face. “To be happy I’d have to ditch these yahoos around us and get some quality alone-time with you. But satisfied, yes.”
“Didn’t you mean that the other way round?” I jeered. “Maybe that’s what’s wrong with our relationship. You’re constantly confusing sex with happiness.”
“They usually do go hand in hand,” he replied. “Speaking of which, if you want to make me happy in the meantime, you could lend me a hand…“
My exaggerated sigh made him trail off, but the grin remained.
“Just to get this right, we’ve spent weeks reinforcing the cars, including the seats and belt harnesses, just so you can make me unbuckle mine to give you road head? I may be ready to risk my life for a lot of stupid things, but not so I can accidentally bi
te your dick off.”
As such things went, Burns had to choose that moment to walk by us. I earned myself a loud laugh from him. “Anyone ever call you sophisticated?” he teased.
“Only accidentally,” I replied with a little huff. “Are we ready to head out? I’m quitting if this heads any further into dick-joke territory.”
“That’s what she said,” Nate mumbled—but loud enough for half of the gang to hear it—as he turned toward the driver’s side door. “Everyone, strap back in. We’ll stop again five miles out, but I doubt that we’ll find a good place to do some recon before reaching the settlement. Keep your eyes open for anything suspicious, including wildlife.”
“The only thing I’ve seen around here are jackasses,” I told him as I took my seat to his right, pointedly fussing with the belts as I strapped myself in. Nate refrained from answering, but the slight grin remained on his face. That made me want to snap at him all over again, but really, it was a relief compared to the somewhat tenser silence that we’d had going on for the past days.
It took us another hour and three stops to dispatch some shamblers to reach our destination. The presence of the zombies alone was enough to raise my hopes—zombies often meant roadkill, and nowadays there wasn’t that much out there that would roll over a squirrel or rabbit to leave a carcass. Predators like wolves or foxes would have done away with their prey before the undead could have been drawn close. There weren’t many of the shamblers around, maybe ten to fifteen each time, but considering that most of the state was deserted, it was a sign that something worth preying on was around. Could have been the settlement, but it was easy to guess that we were on the right track. And seeing that a squirrel wasn’t enough to keep a handful of zombies occupied for long, the caravan must have come by not that long ago.
Unity: Green Fields book 6 Page 3