“What do you suppose we do about that?”
“Make you get used to favoring your left,” Nate offered. “And if your thigh supports it yet, a lot more kick and knee action. You’re quick, and now more than ever, most of your strength comes from your hips. Use that. We’ll work on agility tonight.”
He cut off there, frowning at something behind my shoulder. I didn’t need to turn to know what—or rather, who—it was. My shoulders tensed, and that punching bag wasn’t all that enticing anymore to hit, compared to other possible targets.
“Yeah, those hips don’t lie,” Bucky drawled as he came sauntering over, Richards trailing after him. Judging from the sweat stains on their shirts, they must have been sparring over in the corner. Red gave me a curt nod of greeting that, once again, puzzled me. I might have even responded with a smile under different circumstances, but not now.
Nate resorted to glowering at Bucky, so I said what needed to be said. “Fuck off.”
Bucky was all smiles as he kept staring at me—or, more precisely, at my taped-up hands. This once I would have preferred him to ogle my goods instead, but in baggy sweatpants and a still oversized thermal as I hadn’t managed to fill out enough yet, I could see why that wasn’t that appealing. And leave it to the asshole to zero in on what would make me the most uncomfortable.
“My, my, such language,” Bucky drawled. “Normally, I’d venture a guess now what else you put that filthy mouth of yours to, but it’s obvious that nothing’s going on there.” My right palm started to cramp with how much my fist tightened, but I kept my trap shut. Left hand, I told myself. I was so going to get my left hook up to speed, even if I spent the entire day punching my knuckles bloody.
Sadly, my fuming silence seemed just as satisfactory to Bucky as if I’d snapped at him.
“If you don’t mind, we’re not here to chat,” Nate said, as perfectly neutral as Red was fighting to appear—both not quite managing.
Bucky was quick to make a grand, all-encompassing gesture. “Please, by all means, continue to amuse us with your clown show. With not much else on board as far as entertainment goes, watching you has become a favorite of many.” At least he had the grace to walk away after that, but I didn’t care for how he and the two soldiers he joined by the squat rack started to chuckle, the odd glance directed at us.
“I don’t get why you always let him rile you up,” Red remarked. Before I could reply, he went on. “We came over to check on your progress. The commander decided yesterday that he’s extending his patrol route, so we get an extra four days on board. Do you think you’ll be combat ready eight days from now?”
I offered up the sweetest pressed smile I could muster. “Why don’t you keep your face right there and find out yourself?”
Nate’s warning look kept me from falling into a fighting stance. There was the danger of Red taking me up on my offer, and then I’d look mighty old ten seconds later. “Easily,” he answered Red’s question.
“Good.” Red nodded, ignoring my antics. “If you need anything, let me know.”
At Nate’s acquiescence, he turned around and left the hangar. I looked after him, still puzzled. “I just can’t get a read on him.”
Nate snorted. “Why? Because he’s not as much of an asshole as you’ve come to expect from everyone?”
“Probably,” I admitted. “So, left hook?”
“Start with some legwork first,” Nate advised as he stepped behind the punching bag to keep it in place.
That, I did, soon working up quite a sweat. He was right, of course—the few times I tried to use my right hand, all I got for it was a lot of pain and little effect. Anything below the elbow was useless. My left hand still hurt aplenty as it was, particularly when I hit the stump of my index finger and the knuckle right adjacent to it, but it would do in a pinch. My left leg didn’t do too well supporting me on a right kick, but sending both my left knee and heel into the bag worked well enough to make Nate stagger back on the fifth try. I allowed myself a small whoop of victory with some hopping in place, which earned me a chuff from him—and a small smile.
Small as these triumphs might have been, they motivated me a lot, just as Nate must have planned. I kept at it until sweat was dripping off me, to the point where I felt I was going to fall over from overexertion. I was halfway through Nate’s water bottle—mine long since spent—when I gave up, and after a cautious look around, pulled off my thermal. There was no use in me keeling over due to a false sense of modesty. The sports bra I was wearing underneath covered more than what two of the female marines doing pull-ups over there were showing, and no one dared ogle them. I still felt a tad bit self-conscious as I glanced toward my reflection in the mirror by the free weights, but unlike a few days ago, what I saw didn’t make me want to recoil anymore. Sure, I was still scrawny as hell, but my skin was back to a nicely flushed color, the dark ink of my tattoos standing out in contrast. I hadn’t had a chance to check on how the 13 low on my back looked, but most of my scars were far enough away from it not to have distorted it too much. With my hair up in a now messed-up bun, the three X-shaped marks across my neck were visible as well. For the first time in a while—or maybe ever—I felt proud of them, no longer resenting but appreciating that they set me apart. The woman who was staring back at me was one thing above all else: proud to be who she was. I could live with that, I decided. Fuck the scars and missing appendages—nobody cared when they got my boot in their teeth.
With newly found vigor, I went after the bag, my body moving easier now that it wasn’t sweating as if I was sitting in a sauna anymore. Elated, I started hopping in place more between attacks, loving how my muscles tensed and flexed, making it easy to ignore the residual discomfort. My thigh held when I grabbed the bag and sent my right knee into it three times before dancing back once more, same as with the kick that followed.
“Step away,” I told Nate. “Gotta try something.” As soon as he did, I tensed, then jumped forward, delivering a roundhouse kick with my left leg. And damn, that was a good one, making the bag swing hard enough that I had to duck and roll to avoid getting hit by it on the return swing.
I laughed as I came to my feet, immediately resuming an easy jog. Nate gave me a quick thumbs-up as he caught the bag and stabilized it again, resuming his place. I geared up for some left jabs next, but loud clapping from the other side of the hangar made me pause and look over. I knew I shouldn’t—if I’d learned one thing over the past week, it was that I really shouldn’t give a shit about anyone else but myself. But of course I did, because it was Bucky doing the mock applause, beaming a bright grin my way.
“Well done, Stumpy! Good for you, seeing as with those scars, you couldn’t hack it as a stripper.”
Anger, hot and so consuming that I felt my vision narrow at the edges, raced up my spine, making my entire body shake with it. Ever since walking into that base, it had never really left me, but the punishing amount of exercise Nate had put me through over the past days had done a lot to reduce it to low-simmering embers in the very back of my mind, easily ignored and almost forgotten. But now all that swung into reverse, fueled by my latent—and often quite prominent—frustration. I felt my already elevated pulse spike, my heart pumping furiously to get enough oxygen to my muscles so they could gear up—
The punching bag hit my hip just above my aching left thigh, forcing my attention to skip from Bucky to Nate—who was doing some bona fide glaring as well, yet not at the idiot over there, but at me. I could read him well enough to know that he wasn’t actually angry with me, but frustrated with the entire situation. It was the warning in his gaze that got me to force myself to calm down. Right. Not losing it, not getting put down like a dog—that was what we were aiming for.
“Left jabs,” Nate ground out, holding the bag securely now that he’d gotten my attention. “You need to hit harder, and faster.”
That’s exactly what I did. I poured all my anger, frustration, but also a whole lot of grief into each p
unch. What did words matter? They couldn’t hurt me. Not if I didn’t let them. And one day, very, very soon, I would be ready to retaliate, and Bucky could bet his stupid fucking grin that it wouldn’t be with slander.
Chapter 6
Whether it was my newly rekindled anger, or the fact that I was more active, by evening that very day I had to admit that I wasn’t getting enough calories into my body. Realistically, it seemed to be the latter—whatever it was about that damn serum that let those inoculated with it increase their metabolic rate to accomplish increased physical feats seemed to have kicked in, whether I’d tried to gear up or not. Or it was the simple fact that my body was recovering at beyond miraculous speed; considering the injuries it had sustained, I should barely be able to sit up on my own, not do workouts that could be considered as such. As I didn’t feel hunger, I couldn’t easily judge just how much my body was screaming for sustenance, but the fact that I felt weak rather than exhausted when I got up for dinner was telling. After raiding the protein and fat sections of the mess hall, I inhaled two more shakes once we got back to our quarters, and even that was barely enough to make me feel normal. That wasn’t all of it, of course. While I understood why Nate was smart enough not to let Bucky bait him, I was also angry at him for not defending me—as if I would have wanted that, but still. So it was for the better that Burns asked me to tag along with him, giving Nate and me some much needed space and time away from each other.
I was looking forward to the training session with Burns—at least until I saw him chatting with some of the soldiers while I did my warmup, souring my mood drastically. They seemed to have a mighty fine time together, laughing and joking around. It didn’t get better when rather than do drills or some other exercises, Burns signaled me to join him at the pull-up bars.
“Up with you,” he suggested, going as far as offering his interlaced hands to boost me up.
Chuffing, I took a running start, easily propelling myself up to grab the bar—only to thump back down onto my feet when my right hand slipped right after my fingers closed around the bar, and my left really didn’t have the strength yet to hold my entire weight.
Burns gave a knowing nod, reaching for the resistance bands hanging to the side—and to make things even worse, he selected the strongest one to tie it to the bar. I glared at him as I put my foot into the bottom loop of it, not suffering gracefully as he grabbed my rib cage from behind and—easily—pushed me toward the bar. I was tempted not to grab it, making him hold me there until we both felt stupid, but abandoned that plan after a moment. With Burns, I could never know; he’d likely laugh his ass off through ten minutes of not letting me down from there, turning the tables on me. Even more so, I resented the fact that with the support of the band, enough of my weight was off my hands to let them retain their still weak grip.
“Sheesh, girl, take the ego out of it,” Burns grumbled behind me as he let go, only stepping away once he’d made sure that I wouldn’t plonk down once more. “You’d think that almost dying a second time and rebounding quicker than one of those battery bunnies would last longer, but no. You have to take the shittiest advice from our collective playbook, of course.”
I glared at him, swinging forward and back slightly as I tried to distribute my weight better. My right hand was protesting vehemently, but I gritted my teeth and forced myself to push through the pain. The left was doing much better, particularly when I tensed more to attempt an actual pull-up. That wasn’t happening, but just feeling that my arms, shoulders, and back were slowly regaining the strength to get there was balm on my soul.
Yeah, I might have had a slight problem with my ego, but far be it from me to admit it.
“You’re one to talk,” I groused. “You’re not the collective butt-end of every joke around here.”
Burns chortled, until he realized that I was serious. “Like fuck you are. Hamilton’s an asshole, you know that. His people know that, too. Most may prefer him to Miller, but a lot of that is due to having gotten fed shit they couldn’t refute, and mere habit. They sure don’t have a clue where to shelve you, but you’re doing a great job giving them the wrong ideas.”
Annoyance made it just a little easier to continue holding on for another ten seconds. “And pray tell, what wrong ideas would that be?”
“That you’re the spiteful shithead Hamilton says you are. Damn, do I really have to spell that out for you?”
My right hand finally gave, and I quickly untangled my crossed legs from the band so I could drop to my feet. My arms hurt almost as much as my hands, but a little shaking and swinging took care of that. The foul taste that Burns’s words left in my mouth was harder to disband. There was challenge in his gaze when I met it, making me jut my chin out defiantly.
“Guess you do. Maybe he’s right.”
Bless him. Rather than take me seriously and continue to glower at me, Burns threw his head back and laughed, slapping my shoulder good-naturedly to make me stagger forward. “I’ve so missed this,” he offered, a shit-eating grin on his face. “You’re ten times more fun to be around when you’re annoyed out of your mind. On the way up to the Silo I thought I’d never get to have this level of fun, seeing as you and your mister finally buried the hatchet, but now you make me almost happy to be in this shit show of a situation.”
“Gee, always so happy to amuse you,” I fake-whined, but then dropped the act. “Seriously, what did you mean with that? There’s a good chance that at least some of them were at the base in Colorado. I must have shot someone they knew, or at least knew someone that did.”
“As did I,” Burns drawled, getting real. “And they won’t let us forget that. But that doesn’t mean that most of them aren’t realistic enough to see that holding onto useless grudges won’t benefit anyone. You pretty much rotting from the inside out went a long way toward smoothing over quite a lot of ruffled feathers. That, and the fact that you are an enemy worth having fought against, underlined now by how hard you’re working on dragging yourself back out of your grave. They’ve all been there at one point or another, and they know how awful and hard it is. Strength—of character, not just sheer bull-neck brute force—is something they can all relate to, and admire. You’ve paid the piper, and now you start fresh with a clean slate. Sure, they’ll rib you where they can, but you’re used to worse from Martinez and me. Remember when I called you both pretty ladies when I was doing my push-ups with you both sitting on my back? You offered to find a parasol somewhere and some fancy petticoats to make the picture perfect.”
Oh, I remembered, the memory making me smile. “That was pretty funny,” I had to admit.
“And you barely managed fifteen push-ups at the time yourself, and looked ready to die after five rounds of sprints,” he was quick to remind me. “So what’s different now? That you actually have the strength, agility, and muscle memory to pull all that off without a hitch?”
“You know it’s not that simple,” I complained. “And it’s different whether you laugh your ass off at me being weak as a kitten”—as he’d so lovingly remarked each and every time I’d landed face-first in the dirt on my push-ups—“or those assholes.”
Burns snorted. “The difference is all in your head.” When I just stared at him, he nodded toward the soldiers he’d been talking to before. “I’ve been on more missions with Hill than I can count. He’s a good guy. Actually, the last time I was in the field with him, we were sneaking through your hometown, trying to extract you before the undead got to you.” I couldn’t hide my surprise at that revelation. “You know how that turned out,” Burns went on talking as if he hadn’t noticed my curiosity. “Without him, Hamilton, and some of the others, Martinez, Smith, Cho, and I would have been toast.”
“Why did you come with Nate then?” I asked what had been puzzling me for just about as long as we’d known each other.
Burns gave a noncommittal grunt. “Gut feeling, for the most part. I knew about his discharge, but never tried to follow up on that with him, se
eing as he dropped off the face of the earth after that. Figured, oh hell, another one jumping onto the crazy train. But seeing the old bunch of misfits back together, I realized that, misgivings or not, they were still the people I’d rather tough out the end of the world with than my comrades of many, many years. You’re partly to blame for that, as well.”
“Me?” I didn’t have to feign surprise there.
Rather than reply, Burns nodded at the bar. “Up first, story time later.” This time, it was enough for him to boost me up so I could hold on to the bar and get my feet into the band on my own. He poked my obliques hard to make me tense my core muscles to better support myself before he resumed his tale. “Call it instinct, if you will. Or being too much of an optimist. What Miller did—or at least the version they fed us—made me doubt both him and my own dedication to the cause. He’s always been someone to play it fast and loose if he could, but he’s a good leader who’d never needlessly endanger his men. Seeing a good ten of the old gang working with him reminded me of that once more. And then, there was you. When we set out to fetch whatever they wanted to grab from your old workplace, they had updated your info from scientist with useful skills to possible person of interest working with the forces we expected to oppose us. But I was there when they dragged your sick, raving girlfriend out of your home, and let’s just say that I found it highly unlikely that someone who’d live with someone like her would be a bona fide bad guy. You were scared, and confused, and you had all the reasons in the world to let Hamilton whisk you away to safety and relative luxury. Yet you chose to stick it out with Miller and his people. Sure, I was convinced that you’d been actively plotting with him beforehand, which I now know you weren’t, but it doesn’t matter—somewhere along the way he convinced you that he was doing the right thing, and you trusted him to keep doing so. Call me a sentimental fool, but I wanted to believe that there was some good left in him. That something had either gone terribly wrong, or it all had been some even deeper undercover shit than we were already mired in. And I’m not the only one who’s been holding on to that belief.” He exhaled slowly, briefly checking on my progress. “Plus, most of them read the protocol of what he told you while they were getting ready to take you apart. Hearing it from him did a lot to make people second-guess what they thought they knew.”
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