Yeah, that was smooth. The level look I got from Richards told me as much. “You tell me,” he prompted. “It’s only been twenty-four hours since you had four inches of gaping wound in your stomach.”
Ah, that. It wasn’t like I had forgotten about it. I was heavily favoring my other side already, and at that realization let my hand drop to the scar, trying a little less hard to ignore the pain. “Hurts, but no surprise there. Would be more disconcerting if it didn’t, right?”
Red’s lack of a reaction was almost as bad as Nate could get. “Then why were you trying to scramble backwards from a corpse?”
“Tripped,” I offered, making a helpless gesture, very aware that I was massively overdoing it, but I just couldn’t help myself. With my mind still reeling—and from two separate instances—it was hard to pretend that I was doing fine. “You know, it happens when your balance is off because you have to stuff your boots to make up for missing toes, and half your body is still hurting from past and fresh gaping wounds alike, and such.” I should have just shut up. Now it was too late for that.
Red’s brows drew together as he frowned. “If you’re not feeling well, I’ll take you off the rotation, no problem.” Like that was an enticing option, after how our evening had started. Thanks, but no thanks. Even giving me the uncomfortable scare of the week, I’d needed that little exertion to burn off some of the latent tension Bucky’s revelations had left inside of me.
I gave him wide, hopefully innocent eyes. “No need. I’m good. Actually, I should get back to my watch. Now.” It took more effort than it should have to get those words out without starting to hyperventilate. It occurred to me that my mind was trying to compensate, giving me a more concrete target to focus on. Oh great, rather than developing ulcers I was this close to having a panic attack. The way he kept squinting at me made me guess that I really didn’t convince anyone. In a visible show of restraint, I exhaled, holding my breath for a few seconds before I tried again. “Thank you for your concern, but it’s unfounded.”
“You look like you’re a second away from running off, screaming at the top of your lungs,” Richards observed.
That sounded like a rather apt observation. I wondered if congratulating him on that would help, but doubted it. It was impossibly hard to keep the rising panic at bay—but right along with it came a wave of anger that wasn’t any easier to ignore. Hamilton’s words echoed through my mind, mixing with months and months of latent misgivings. That feeling of being helpless and vulnerable returned that I’d only just shaken off this morning, having believed it to be gone for good. What a fool I’d been—as if a dash of mental clarity and my body working just a little better could change my general situation. I did want to scream, but with frustration, and it took all my willpower not to let any of that leak out of my mind and turn into physical action. No, trying to sock Red a good one did not sound like the way to go.
“Anything you need?” I asked, my voice pressed, but at least the dismissal I tried to put into it translated well.
Richards blinked, looking genuinely surprised. “I’d say it’s more the question whether you need anything,” he offered. “Like someone to talk to?”
“And why the hell should that be you?” So much for trying to act civil.
“Who else would you turn to?” There was a note of condescension in Red’s voice that was impossible to miss. “To your husband you need to constantly prove that you’re at least as tough as he is. You need for Burns not to take you seriously to keep you sane, but that comes with the downside of missing out on some heart-to-heart topics. Gita worships the ground you tread on and you’d rather die than show her that you’re only human after all. You don’t trust Tanner, likely because you rightfully believe that he proved himself to become Gabriel Greene’s second lieutenant. And that’s the end of the very short list of people you trust. In many aspects, they all are almost like family to you, and they unwaveringly have your back. But for some things, you need someone who has a little distance. You and me, we have no history, and I think I have proven to you more than once that I have your best interest at heart. It would have been a lot easier for me not to.”
The fact that part of me wanted to believe him didn’t help. “But I can’t trust you, so why would I confide in you?” Red opened his mouth to protest, but I forestalled him. “I didn’t say you weren’t trustworthy; but you have your orders, and we both know, they supersede your conscience, or else you wouldn’t be the lieutenant around here. I get that, and while I personally will never think like that, I can see why the entire lot of you feels comforted rather than alienated by this.” And therein lay part of the crux for me, I realized—that the lines were blurring; always had, but it had been so easy to forget with me having been the outsider, and our scavenging team developing its own dynamic right from the start. I’d never questioned how Pia could be in charge as Nate’s executing hand without having any military rank. She’d just been. And the others had fallen in line, with minimal squabbling about the hierarchy, or at least none I’d been aware of. Now we had parts of us, and Nate’s former teammates, and those that hadn’t been with him since he’d dropped out, and it all got very confusing, at least for me, who loved to see the world in black and white, good and evil, us versus them… and now there was only us left, but an “us” I didn’t quite feel a part of, which was entirely my own fault—as Red himself had pointed out in the past.
“Penny for your thoughts?” he prompted.
I shook my head, more to clear my thoughts than in denial. “It’s not you. Maybe it’s not even me. But we both know, if I ask you, again, what this is all about, you won’t tell me, and I will be annoyed and suspicious, and that’s not a good common ground to have a heart-to-heart. It would go a long way if you gave me just a little.”
He seemed tempted, but that smile told me he was seeing right through me. “Guess I should add ‘manipulative’ to your file,” Richards observed. “And there I thought I’d figured you out.”
I chuckled, but it wasn’t a happy sound. How could he have figured me out when I myself was struggling with the very same thing? That Bucky, of all people, had no problem with that just grated all the more. At least our banter had calmed down my panic, and let most of the anger seep back to the pit of my stomach where it continued to roil.
“Well, if you don’t give me anything, why should I behave any differently?” I’d meant that as words of parting, but Red reached for me before I could get away.
“Just tell me what you scrambling away was all about, and I’ll drop it.”
I considered lying, but antagonizing him if I didn’t have to didn’t sound all that smart. And what did I have to lose? It was likely not very hard to figure out. After all, he was the one who’d compiled their profile on me. Just perfect. “Guess it took the reminder last night of exactly how close to dying I came to really hammer that message in. Not just dying, but turning into one of them, only with my mind still working well enough to grasp the abject horror of it. Intellectually, of course I knew. I’m not stupid. But I wouldn’t have recovered if I hadn’t had a healthy dose of denial going on. That’s mostly gone now.” And damn, didn’t that sound like I desperately needed a hug. And let’s not forget how Bucky’s idea of motivation played into that as well.
Red didn’t attempt to give me that hug, but there was conflicted compassion plain on his face that looked too raw not to be real. “I think you’re not giving yourself enough credit for what you’ve managed to do,” he offered when he broke the lengthening silence between us. “All of us have had a moment that finally made it real. For most, that didn’t come until after the shit hit the fan, but they all volunteered. You only had the choice whether you wanted to give up or have a fighting chance to survive. Even someone who’s leading a very balanced life can struggle with that.”
“And you’re not counting me as ‘balanced,’ huh?” I teased, surprised that my grin was a real one, if still faint.
Red snorted. “Come
on, you get off on that whole ‘deranged psycho bitch’ pretense that you’ve had going on for the past few months. Actually, that might be the underlying issue that leads to your deluge of prejudice. You hate that now that you have to work with us, it’s very easy to see that you’re anything but.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Some of it is true. More so than I like to admit. But please, keep treating me like an intelligent, reasonable person and you might eventually get somewhere.”
“Killed, probably,” Red mused. “And I wouldn’t be surprised if it was your husband who pulled the trigger on me.”
“He’s not the jealous type,” I teased, although there was a hint of truth to Red’s suspicion.
“If he really wants back in, I’m in his way,” Red clarified. “If asked, I would yield, and gladly, but I get the sense that the people who’ve dealt with him in the past weren’t lying when they said Miller was a crazy, ruthless asshole.”
I would have loved to refute that claim—and compared to what I knew of Bucky, Nate really wasn’t that driven to reach his goals over the deaths of his men—but didn’t.
“Guess you’re lucky then that he doesn’t,” I offered instead. “We both got that memo. Either we disappear, or we might get some unnaturally competent help with that.”
A hint of disappointment crossed Red’s face. That made me trust him more, actually, although it also begged the question why he seemed to take Bucky’s warning a lot less seriously than Nate had. With anyone else, that might have made me question my own stance, but in this, I trusted Nate—and Bucky—a hundred percent. I wondered if I should ask Richards about his opinion. He looked tempted to offer it. Yet what he said was something completely different. “Emily Raynor has more pull than Hamilton will attribute her. If you throw your lot in with her, she will protect you. Some may think her research is a dead end, but a lot of people in the right places believe in her. You could make a difference, you know that.”
And again, that siren song, still so tempting even though my survival instinct had already barred that way for good. Still, I had to try one last time. “Well, for starters, if I knew what exactly she is working on, and why we are here right now, that would go a long way toward making me see the faults in my logic.”
Red looked away to hide his mirth, but he’d been too slow. “You really don’t believe in being subtle, do you?” he remarked, scratching his chin on the shoulder of his jacket. “And you know that I can’t, hence you can continue to pretend like I’m the bad guy and you have all the reasons in the world not to trust me. Clever, Lewis, but not really bright.”
“Hey, whatever helps me keep going, right?” I jeered, then toned it down a little. “Look, I get it. Orders are orders. But eventually, you will have to tell me, and if it’s too late, you’re losing a prime opportunity to build some trust between us. You don’t need to give me everything. Just give me something. What’s the harm? I can’t tell anybody, and even if I did, it wouldn’t change anything. We can’t slink off in the middle of the night as that would get us killed long before we could make it to the coast, and there is the matter of you likely catching up to us by the time the destroyer returns for pickup. Disappearing into the French countryside doesn’t really present much of an option. All of us want to survive and get back to our friends and families, which will only happen if we cooperate with you, so what’s your problem? I know that your guys all know what’s going on. Why keep up this farce of forcing us to tag along, completely in the dark?”
Red considered, but then turned away. “Good night to you, too.” And with that, he left me to my thoughts, jumbled as they were.
Well, if he wasn’t ready to talk, I would find out another way.
Chapter 20
I was a little bit cranky when I had to get up in the morning, but otherwise did better than I should have had a right to considering my little freakout in the woods. And the rampant paranoia that was simmering in the back of my mind. Funny enough, my previous fear of someone coming after us here was completely gone. My entire right side was sore from smashing those zombies into oblivion, but poking at the scar helped with disbanding the brain fog from too little sleep. Real sleep it had been, no more of that coma shit—a small but considerable consolation prize. It wasn’t snowing at the moment but the gray sky overhead didn’t bode well, so I put on my overwhites after packing my bag. It had needed some negotiating, but Nate had let me have the ammunition for my sniper rifle back. If I ignored the pain—which wasn’t easy—I felt good enough to run all day, but managed to sell him on the idea that in case of us happening upon any issues of the shambling kind, I could just disappear into the snow and pick them off one by one with my M24. But for that to happen, I needed to carry my own ammo, and the rest was history. Part of me felt like hitting myself over the head for volunteering to drag that extra weight with me, but I couldn’t have grandiose plans of upstaging—or at least outsmarting—our leadership and then let Nate carry my gear.
That we weren’t in a quiet territory became obvious when the early morning light revealed that during the night, we’d had to dispatch more than seventy shamblers. Most of them had been weak ones like those I had encountered, but a few had put up a good fight. Munez had a broken nose and black eye to show for it, and Davis a busted kneecap that forced him to limp rather than run. I was tempted to joke that someone should put him out of his misery, but then realized that I didn’t trust Bucky not to and kept my trap shut. Fire team rotations were adjusted to give Davis some respite for today, and before he sent the first teams forward, Red stressed that being careful was more important than making good headway.
We were on the third rotation, mid-afternoon, when we happened upon a few signs as we crossed a road, and I realized a different possible cause for Red’s lack of asking for a push: One of the signs indicated Ajou ten kilometers to the south. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that rather than look for a campsite for tonight, we’d likely be spending the remainder of the afternoon searching for the source of the radio signal Hill now managed to pick up every time he tried. Even though I had no clue what was waiting for us, the idea that today we might find out a little more helped keep my spirits up. Today might just be a good day.
A sequence of gunshots ringing through the otherwise silent air spoke otherwise. Or maybe not.
I didn’t need Nate’s cursed direction to turn my radio from receiving only to sending. Technically speaking, that should have been the default setting, but I had no intention of regaling the entire group with our bickering, so I usually switched it off.
“Team Two, was that you?” Red asked over the com.
“Negative,” Cole reported in.
“Us neither,” I said before Burns could do the deed. “It’s coming from somewhere south of us, I think.” The low rolling hills were broken up by a thicket in that direction, making it impossible to see farther than half a mile. “We could be there in under ten minutes to check. We’re about two miles out from your current position.”
“Do it,” Red ordered. “But try not to start World War III until we catch up with you.”
Nate gave me a hard look, but I ignored his disapproval as I turned from the road toward the open field leading to the trees. “What?” I asked. “We are closest, and we can still run away if this gets too hairy for us.”
I took off at an easy lope, but clearly, my action had signaled to Nate that I was on a confrontational trajectory today and he set a much harder pace, forcing me to huff and puff after him. We slowed down as we hit the trees, coming to a complete halt when two more gunshots came from much closer now. Nate listened, then pointed deeper into the thicket. Maybe two hundred yards south, the trees were already thinning again, the murk underneath their canopies minimal. Making sure that nothing else was moving except for us, I pushed forward, flexing the grip on my assault rifle to keep my fingers warm and nimble. It was one thing to go for stealth and use my axes, but I was not bringing them to a gunfight.
T
he reason the trees were thinning was a steep slope down into a gorge, most of it bare of vegetation. At the top of the slope, it was easy to see over most of the ground below, including the now dry bed of the river that must have taken eons to carve out the valley. I didn’t need binoculars to make out where the shots had come from. At the foot of the opposite, much steeper, slope, a huddle of maybe ten people were doing their best to hold their ground—against a sea of shamblers that covered most of the ravine, the free zone around the group disappearing swiftly. That they were human still was obvious, not just because they were carrying guns, but also because of their heavy winter gear.
“I think we just found the resistance,” I observed, this time waiting for a nod from Nate to call in. “We have around ten survivors here, about to get overrun by shamblers. They’ve backed themselves up against a cliff. Opposition is at least several hundred strong.”
The frown on Nate’s forehead made me guess that he wasn’t that enthusiastic about the situation, and I felt my heart sink when I realized what that likely meant—Bucky wouldn’t risk our lives on a whim, which would mean we’d come just in time to see the people down there die.
“You know, we could distract them a little while we wait for the others to come to us,” I proposed to the guys. “Maybe that will be enough to give the group down there a fighting chance.”
Burns’s face lit up at the idea, but Nate’s mouth twisted into a thin line. “It’s still insubordination if you start shooting when you know the ‘don’t engage’ order is coming any moment now.”
“Like I give a fuck,” I huffed, already working on getting my pack off my back so I could get to the spare ammo and use the pack to prop myself up with my sniper rifle. “And neither do you, if you’re honest. Besides, I need a chance to see if I can still hit anything with the old lady.” I adjusted the scope, but paused to switch the com back on. “Cole, how far out are you from our relative position? We’re on top of the slope, smack in the middle of the ravine.”
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