Five Roads To Texas | Book 11 | Reciprocity [Sidney's Way 3]

by Parker, Brian

  He did abandon them out here, she reminded herself. It was up to her to carve a safe place for her family. Mark’s boots on the stairs shook her from her ruminations and she focused her eyes.

  “Looks like the area around the house is clear,” he announced when he came into the room.

  She nodded. “Okay then.” She grasped the barrel of her M-4. “I’ll tag those few stragglers out there. That’ll help clear the way and tell us if there are more of them around that we just can’t see.”

  “Good idea.”

  Sidney moved over to the window and crouched down. After placing the rifle in the window sill, she cleared her mind. All she needed to do was aim and shoot. Just like Jake had taught her. This was the easy part.

  After this, they had to go back out amongst them. They had to go to the airport. That’s where they’d be able to hit the fuckers. That’s how she’d create a safe zone for her family.

  29

  * * *

  BIGGS ARMY AIRFIELD, FORT BLISS, EL PASO, TEXAS

  MARCH 9TH

  Hannah stood in the center of the showers, allowing the water to wash over her. It was a typical Army facility; large, open bay with showerheads lining the walls and a freestanding metal unit with four showerheads in the center of the room. The design allowed the maximum number of people into the space at one time. Not an inch of space was left unused. It was efficient in a way that the civilian world would simply never understand—or maybe they did now that all that was left of the civilian population lived in the refugee camps on base.

  The hot water felt good on Hannah’s body. She could feel the soreness already setting in. It had been almost a year since she’d ran for pleasure instead of sheer terror. Her endurance hadn’t fallen off nearly as much as she’d expected. The weeks and months of constant walking had maintained her body’s conditioning for the distance running that she’d put herself through around the airfield perimeter.

  She’d needed the distraction of physical exercise. She’d needed to put the memories of what she’d found in Brazil behind her. It had been a shock finding the pictures of Grady in that facility. The fact that he’d been there, as part of their twisted experiments, was soul-crushing and she had to put it behind her. Running was her solace. It was cathartic for her. Always had been.

  Sounds of movement behind her made her wipe the water from her eyes. Two women, both much larger than her had come into the shower bay. One of them was soft, borderline chunky, while the other appeared to be chiseled from a rock. She was overly muscular and intimidating. Hannah turned back away and squirted shampoo into her palm.

  She began massaging it into her scalp, forgetting about the other women in the shower. It was a communal living arrangement on base, she was just happy that it wasn’t some progressive coed shower bullshit. She’d seen those in the past and didn’t understand how anyone thought that was a good idea.

  The act of washing her hair in an actual shower felt amazing, even if the issued shampoo didn’t particularly smell that great. She hadn’t been able to do much more than a whore bath with rags from a bucket in so long that it seemed like a luxury. It was a luxury that those outside the wire would never get.

  Grady.

  She pushed the thought aside. She was here, trying to achieve a little bit of peace. To—

  “You that pilot that came in the Blackhawk by herself?”

  Hannah’s eyes shot open. The chunky woman’s face was less than two feet from hers. “Excuse me?”

  “I said, are you the pilot who brought that Mexican Blackhawk in here a couple of days ago?”

  Something wasn’t right. She didn’t like how this woman had moved up on her while her eyes were closed. A quick glance over her shoulder showed that the muscular one was closing the distance to come up behind her as well. What was going on?

  “I’m sorry. You must have me mistaken for somebody else,” Hannah replied, sidestepping the question. She didn’t know what these two were up to, but she decided it was in her best interest to avoid them.

  She reached out to turn off the water and the fat woman’s hand shot out, gripping her wrist like a vice. “Hey!” Hannah cried out.

  She tried to pull away, to no avail. The woman’s flab concealed a healthy amount of muscle, so much so that Hannah was powerless against her.

  “Yeah, look.” Hannah felt her arm pulled upward and the other one examined her hand.

  “Looks like bite marks to me. You one of them infected bitches?”

  “No, I’m—” The punch came from out of nowhere, landing directly over her belly button. “Oof!” All of the air left her.

  “You been out there with them,” the muscular woman accused. “No way you lived that long without being one of them.”

  Hannah regained enough oxygen in her lungs to let out an ear-shattering shriek. Fatty’s other hand slid up over her mouth, cutting off the sound. She was jerked violently to the side as the woman twisted her arm around behind her back. There were several rapid punches as the thinner of her attackers used her like a heavy bag.

  “Infected whore.” The words swam in and out as the big girl said it directly into her ear.

  “Please,” Hannah gasped, beginning to lose consciousness.

  “Shut up, freak. You’re either one of the infected,” the woman pointed to her hand, “or you’re an Iranian spy. Either way—”

  Hannah was aware of another blow to her midsection, but her mind was already in the process of shutting down. She was going to black out. Then they’d kill her. She knew without a doubt that these two would kill her. They were part of that anti-immune movement that thought people with a natural immunity were somehow in cahoots with the infected or something crazy like that. She struggled to stay upright, to not give in.

  Her one free hand reached back, grasping a handful of hair. “Oh yeah, baby,” the bitch behind her said, yanking her arm up higher. She felt the tendons beginning to go in her shoulder.

  She clutched at anything she could find with her hands. The hand that was trapped behind her latched onto a nipple and she dug into the skin with her nails. Releasing the fat one’s hair, she trailed her other hand downward. She felt her hand go between the woman’s thighs and brush against something hard. Round.

  Hannah clutched at the ring and pulled with everything she had left. The woman screamed, releasing her as she tried to pull away. The big girl slipped, her feet flying out from underneath her. Hannah’s index finger was stuck in the woman’s clit ring and the momentum pulled her down with the big girl until it tore free. A dull, metallic clank reverberated from the freestanding shower unit as the muscular girl landed what would have been the knockout blow to Hannah’s face against the unit.

  “Aiyee!”

  It was a near simultaneous scream of agony from both women. One, a bloody, torn mess of a vagina, the other with a broken hand. Hannah scrambled on all fours across the shower tiles, tried to stand, and slipped. She pushed through the pain tearing across her body. She had to get out of the showers. To the hallway. It was her only hope.

  “Where are you going, bitch?” one of the women yelled. She felt a meaty hand around her ankle and she kicked out, landing the heel of her foot across the bridge of a nose. The hand released her. “Mother fucker!”

  She redoubled her efforts, sloshing through the water on all fours. She made it to the tile in the dressing area and her hands slipped, knocking her chin against the floor.

  “Come back here—whoa!”

  Hannah saw the muscular woman’s wet feet slip on the dry tile, the same as her hands had done moments before. It happened so fast that her mind barely registered the fall. A sickening thud echoed across the dressing room as the woman’s head slammed into the corner of a heavy wooden bench.

  The woman didn’t move and Hannah stared in horror as blood began to cover the white tile. Moaning from inside the shower room shook her from the shock and she used a bench to pull herself to her feet. She hobbled forward, reaching for the door.
>
  When she emerged into the hallway, Hannah yelled for help. She could barely move. They’d worked her over good. It was all she could do to stay upright. All she could…

  Hannah’s legs gave out and she fell. Her hands barely caught her from hitting her face onto the floor once more. She wanted nothing more than to go to sleep. She screamed once more, this time, she heard far off voices of alarm. People were responding.

  Down the hallway, she saw several soldiers appear, running toward her. She smiled. As she did so, her eyes focused on her bloody fist. She didn’t remember—

  Hannah opened her hand. A healthy chunk of jagged flesh protruded from the silver ring resting on the first knuckle of her index finger. “Got you, bitch,” she groaned and closed her eyes.

  30

  * * *

  MANHATTAN, NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK

  MARCH 11TH

  “He’s awake if you wanted to go see him.”

  Grady looked up to see Specialist Mitchell standing in the doorway. The kid looked like he’d finally gotten some sleep. He’d been awake, tending to his patient’s needs for several days and had begun to get sloppy, so Sergeant Turner had ordered him to take a break while one of the other soldiers changed out the IV bags and kept the medication drip flowing.

  “Really?” Grady asked, setting aside the pair of ripped pants he was sewing a patch into. He’d gotten so bored that he was almost finished with all the little annoying tasks that he’d told himself he’d get done, but never had the time to do until now. The patches in the pant leg weren’t pretty, but they’d do. “I would’ve bet that he was going to be out for a week or so.”

  Mitchell shrugged. “He’s still pretty loopy from the morphine. Sergeant Turner is with him now.”

  Grady nodded, pushing his hands onto his knees to help himself up. The LT was in an apartment three doors down from the one he shared with Taavi and David, so it wasn’t a long walk to the makeshift hospital room.

  He knocked softly before opening the door without being told it was okay. The knock was more of a courtesy than anything else. “Hey, I heard you’re awake,” Grady said as a way of announcing his arrival.

  “Back here,” Sergeant Turner’s gruff voice replied from the master bedroom where Lieutenant Murphy’s makeshift hospital room was located.

  Grady walked stiffly toward the back. Murphy had gotten injured, almost killed, because they’d gone after him. He’d been foolish and allowed himself to give in to the anger and hatred that coursed through his veins. It was his fault that the kid was in this state.

  The room was pretty much unchanged since the last time he’d been in there two days prior. They’d been fortunate that several of Jefferson’s people had been nurses before the outbreak and had been willing to assist in the lieutenant’s surgery and recovery plan. As Grady looked at the shrunken form on the bed, he wished that there’d been a doctor or two who’d stepped up. Mitchell had done his best, but there was no way that Murphy was ever walking again.

  “Hey… How’re you feeling?” he asked delicately, feeling ridiculous.

  Murphy’s head fell toward him and a smile creased his lips. “I feel like shit.” He still had a pair of handcuffs on each wrist, just in case Grady’s blood carried enough of the virus, but neither handcuff was attached to the railing anymore. At this point, four days later, he was likely out of the infection danger zone.

  “You look like shit too, sir,” Grady joked.

  “It must be worse than I thought,” Murphy mumbled.

  “No way, you’re good to go,” Grady lied. “You’ll be up and going before you know it.”

  “Bullshit,” the lieutenant sighed. “You’ve never called me sir before.”

  Grady thought back. Surely he’d been more respectful than that during their time together. Hadn’t he? “Wait a minute, sir. I distinctly remember calling you sir when we were both standing on top of the Strykers and you wanted to switch out the ammo on the CROWS.”

  “Okay. Maybe once.” Murphy blinked hard several times, then appeared to try to focus on Grady. “Shoot me straight. What’s the deal?”

  Grady glanced at Sergeant Turner. The old soldier shook his head slightly. “Ah, I think you’re gonna be laid up a while. You got shot in the stomach. Specialist Mitchell did a bang up job patching you up though.”

  “Mitchell?” Murphy tried to laugh, but stopped himself mid-chuckle. He was in a lot of pain.

  “How’s your pain level?”

  “Hurts,” the lieutenant admitted. “I can’t feel my dick, Harper. Did I lose my dick?”

  “Nope. That tiny little thing is still there. You’ll be stuffing it into Sidney Bannister in no time.”

  “For fuck’s sake, Harper,” Sergeant Turner groaned.

  “Ah, sorry.” Grady searched for something to say, but came up short. He was terrible at this sort of stuff, more so after his time in captivity.

  “S’okay,” Murphy exhaled. “I like her.”

  “Yeah, that’s why I—”

  “Jefferson get samples?” Murphy asked. He was beginning to fade.

  “Yeah. He took a shit ton of blood from me. Enough that it made me woozy, after the transfusion and all.”

  Turner shook his head sharply. Murphy was just waking up and didn’t know about the transfusions. Grady and another soldier with O-negative blood, the Brooklyn kid, Feliciano, had both contributed during the ROLO transfusion outside on the street, but Mitchell had gotten each of them to donate another bag right before he’d gone to work sewing up what he could inside the lieutenant’s back. Murphy had a lot of Grady’s blood coursing through his veins. He hadn’t yet considered how the man would handle that news.

  “Okay. Good,” the lieutenant muttered, oblivious to the transfusion part.

  “Hey, LT,” Grady said haltingly. “I… I’m sorry, okay. I went out looking for trouble and found it. You got messed up because of it. So, thank you for coming after me.” He sighed. There, he’d gotten it off of his chest.

  “That’s what we do for our people,” Murphy replied. “Rangers never leave a fallen comrade.”

  Grady nodded, but didn’t respond. He’d bargained with that idiot gangbanger to make him believe that he could be bought just for the services of a couple of girls and was on his way to deal with Scorpion when the shooting started. He closed his eyes as the memories of the jagged end of the curtain rod sinking into flesh spiked his heartbeat. Their skin tore open, exposing the muscle beneath, bathing him in their hot blood. Bodies struggled under his strong grip as he choked the life from them. Their eyes locked on his as they fought for their last breath, trying in vain to fend of the Angel of Death that he’d become.

  Whatever those Iranian fucks had done to him was alive and well inside. He ground his teeth together in an effort to bring his mind back to the present. He’d have to work every day to suppress it, but after what happened when he went hunting the gang, he vowed to never give himself over to the hunger completely again.

  “Yeah, well, thank you, LT,” Grady managed to say through the steady thrumming in his ears. His heart was pumping a mile a minute. He needed to calm down. “I promise I’ll make it up to you.”

  “If Jefferson can make a cure, that’s all I need.”

  “If he’s as good as he says he is, then we should be okay. I gotta go. I just remembered something.”

  “You sure I didn’t lose my dick, Harper?”

  “I’m sure, kid,” Grady laughed. “You’re gonna be okay.”

  He nodded to Sergeant Turner and left quickly. He practically stumbled down the hallway because his equilibrium seemed to be off. There was no way that this was sustainable. He needed that cure as much as anyone.

  His hand fell on the doorknob to his apartment and he fell through the doors, startling Carla and Mandy, who sat on the couch playing a card game with David.

  “Whoa, Grady!” Mandy exclaimed. “You look like—”

  “I need you,” he hissed. “I need you now. Both of you.�
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  “Now?” Mandy asked, glancing at the boy, then back at him.

  “Now,” he demanded, staggering toward the bedroom.

  “Um… Okay,” Mandy replied. She turned to David and said, “We need to go help Mr. Grady with something, buddy. Alright?”

  “But we’re in the middle of a game,” David protested.

  “It’ll just be a little bit. Then we’ll get back to it.”

  Grady heard the kid say something, but it was lost to him. He went into the bedroom and kicked off his boots, then tore his shirt away. The bloodlust was threatening to overtake him. He bent down, rummaging inside his backpack for the supplies he’d picked up yesterday. He had to do something to stop himself from giving in to it. This was the only thing he could think of.

  The girls came into the room and shut the door quietly. “We’re here,” Mandy said from behind him.

  He straightened and turned. Carla already had her shirt up over her head.

  “No! Stop!” he hissed. “I told you girls that I wasn’t going to do that with you.” He gritted his teeth. “You’ve been through too much.”

  “Uh…” Mandy seemed lost. “Then what are we doing?”

  He held up the handcuffs he’d gotten from Phil, the ex-cop who was Jefferson’s bodyguard. “I need you to secure me to the bed.”

  “Oh. And then you want us to fuck you?”

  “No, dammit!” He tossed the handcuffs on the bed and sat down. “I just need you to do this. Secure me to the bed. There’s something… I have a… Just tie me to the goddamned bed and leave me here for a couple of hours.”

  Mandy sauntered forward. “Whatever, it’s your kink.”

  “It’s not a kink, Mandy.” He tried to convey his need for her to do this with his eyes. He couldn’t risk telling anyone that he was a walking killing machine, barely keeping his serial killer tendencies in check. “Please.”

  “Yeah, okay, man.” She picked up the handcuffs and handed a pair to Carla. “Here ya go, babe.”