Retribution: Green Fields #11

by Adrienne Lecter

  Fucking hell—

  “I presume you are asking yourself right now, what the fuck is going on?” Marleen sing-songed, sounding way too chipper for what she was doing. Or maybe not. Obviously, my new friend Marleen wasn’t someone who actually existed. She let out a low chuckle. “I do hope you can put two and two together now, but I’m afraid it’s too late for you. I’d say I was sorry but unlike someone who just thinks he’s a bad guy and cut out for this line of work, I’m not capable of that sentiment, and really, it would be a lie. I accepted a challenge when I took that contract seven years ago, only that now my golden opportunity is a real cake walk. Too bad.”

  She paused, the hand on my shoulder squeezing ever so slightly. “You know, I love to hear myself talk, so I’ll wait another couple of minutes here. Rushing gets you caught, you know?” She sounded like she was smiling. I itched to punch that smile right off her face but couldn’t even keep the drool from dribbling down my chin.

  “You’re probably asking yourself now, why is this happening?” she went on chatting. “It’s nothing personal, really. You’re technically not even my mark. Your husband is, although I have orders to keep him alive a little longer. First, he has to suffer, and only after that comes the legendary ‘to the last breath’ part. Although, this could just do the trick. A shame, really, but seven years of complications is long enough.”

  She waited, as if I was capable of responding. I tried, but the paralytic had completely set in now, to the point where I couldn’t even close my eyelids or move my eyes. I hadn’t felt a needle’s pinch so she must have coated the blade of the knife in it. Warmth continued to spread across my lower back and over my ass, but I wasn’t fooled—that was my blood, leaking from the wound. The fact that I could feel my fingers and toes go cold as circulation shut down at the end of my extremities lent more evidence to the loss of blood.

  “My initial plan was to kill Zilinsky as she seemed the only one close to him, but she’s not someone you just surprise,” Marleen went on, her tone still conversational. “Same goes for Romanoff. I took an immense risk, pretending to flip so they could turn me—but as I said, having a soul in this line of work is always something that holds you back. Not sure if you’re the jealous type, but trust me when I tell you that I only fucked Miller because I knew that would take my perceived threat level down a few notches. You wouldn’t believe how many guys that move works on.” I felt her shift, as if she was trying to get a look at my profile. “Or maybe you do. I didn’t really bother finding out more about your background since you were so quick to both let me close to you, and to hand me that golden opportunity on a platter. Really, telling me directly who you’d expect to kill you in exactly what way, and it fits into the overall framework of the job? That’s too good to pass up. A shame that I had to clean up a few messes along the way, but hey, lives are cheap these days.”

  A shudder ran through my body, twisting the knife awfully, but none of that was voluntary. Marleen let go of my shoulder to check the pulse at my neck. I could feel how slow it had gotten where her fingers pressed into my skin.

  “Not much longer now,” she whispered, her tone comforting although it couldn’t have been intended as such. She resumed her prattling. “I didn’t want to kill Scott; he was a good man. Ruthless enough to deserve to make it. Such a shame. But when I realized that Stone was trying to make a run for it, I had to act. Sadly, Scott threw off my aim and thus you could have your little chat with Stone in the lab. Was it enlightening, I wonder? He doesn’t know enough, so I’m not concerned, but that mistake’s on me, him even getting the chance to make a last stand. Eden, now, I didn’t mind killing her; she’s been almost as annoying as you. If she’d just followed Cole to the cars like she’s tried before and sucked him off while he did his thing, she’d still be alive. Not really a waste there, but it did take me five minutes to drag her carcass over to the dead scientists so nobody would find her too soon. Not that it matters. You were still here, doing shit you’re not supposed to do. I couldn’t have snuck up on you like that if you’d been doing what any warm-blooded woman would do after surviving shit like this—fuck her husband. But no, you had to go review what the scientists have been up to here. Maybe I can’t even fault you for that; not sure I’d want to have sex with a guy who’s probably thinking about which parts of me he could eat in the meantime.” Again she halted, considering. “Too bad I won’t be here to see this play out. I wish I could watch, but the fact that you’ve also gotten the serum has complicated my life immensely. I could have just killed you and staged it as a revenge job by someone else, but overwhelming you might have gotten problematic. You really saved me with your rampant paranoia, you know that? And Hamilton made it so easy for me to steal his knife when he went into the lab with you. I wonder why he kept it all these years if he hates Miller so much. It was a gift from him, you know? I’d hold it up so you can see the engraving to prove it, but if I pull it out now, you’ll die too quickly and the paralytic won’t shut down your body as you reanimate. It’s a messy way to go, and needs so much great timing.”

  She checked my pulse again, which was just as well as her silence let me hear my own sluggish thoughts. I could see her plan unfold now—make it look as if Hamilton had killed me. Nate wouldn’t take that well—and it stood to reason that none of the three of us would make it out of here alive.

  I had to give her that: it was a good plan. Only too bad that it hinged on my demise.

  “It really is a shame that I couldn’t mortally wound you the conventional way,” Marleen simpered on. “The impact would be so much worse—and maybe I could have made it look like I’m innocent so I could have stuck around a little longer. See the entire drama unfold, you know? I might miss the end now, and maybe we won’t even have the great showdown. Too bad, really.”

  She seemed poised to go on but then halted. I strained my ears, praying for footsteps, but whatever she’d heard was too far off for me to catch. My heart sank when she relaxed.

  “My time to go,” she explained as I felt her shift. She left the knife in as she pushed me off her, making me flop over onto my side, my body alight with new waves of agony. The floor was cool underneath my cheek except where my blood continued to spread, soaking into my clothes. I saw one of her legs step into my field of vision as she leaned over me so she could twist the knife, both doing more damage and making sure it stayed in. Then she turned around so her face was above mine, leaning down to me like a young girl would to a puppy. “I know you won’t make it. But in the off-chance someone finds you and you don’t die of blood loss now but from your single remaining kidney shutting down because I just shredded it to hell, tell them this.” She smiled, but now I could see it for the mask it really was. “Decker sends his regards.”

  Without another look back, she stepped away from me and left, her light steps almost immediately swallowed up by the roar of my pulse in my ears. The bloody latex glove that had covered her knife hand she took with her, not even leaving that clue behind. I thought I heard her voice a few moments later, coming from further into the complex, toward the hot lab. A male voice answered her but it was too low for me to catch—Richards? But I couldn’t be sure. I tried to scream, or just make any sound, but I couldn’t even blink when blood started seeping underneath my cheek and to the corner of my eye.

  Simply trying to move was getting incredibly hard. My pulse was down to around one beat of my heart where there should have been five. Then, ten. I felt the gloom of the room around me deepen but had the feeling it wasn’t from the corridor lights dimming.

  I was bleeding to death, on the floor, and it was anyone’s guess how long it would take for someone to find me. Hell, maybe they wouldn’t even come looking, and once the paralytic wore off, my reanimated corpse would stagger aimlessly through the corridors in search of food—

  At first, I chalked up the thumping I heard to what my struggling heart was producing, but then I felt something rhythmic against my cheek—steps, coming closer. H
eavy steps, from someone not trying to be stealthy. I heard muttering next, too low to make out words but I’d recognize that voice anywhere—Hamilton. The spark of hope that someone might find me in time flickered, about to die, but I forced my mind to focus. Yes, there was the possibility that he’d just stand there and watch me die, but for that, he had to find me first, and that was also the first step to my possible survival.

  Dipping deep into what little remained of my energy reserves, I concentrated only on making a sound. A single sound—a croak, a grunt, anything would do. My jaws were partly slack and my lips open—it should be able to get out, if I just managed to get my throat and lungs working under my control. The paralytic wasn’t wearing off by any means, but I felt more aware than on that damn operating room table. Maybe it was because they’d given me the serum just before getting me in there, versus years later now. Or maybe the fact that my body was slowly but surely pushing toward the end results of the serum meant that the paralytic couldn’t as fully claim me as before. My world narrowed down further until all I could see was the patch of floor in front of my face as I strained and pushed, but that was all I needed to see—as right behind the corner of the workbench was one of the two doors to the lab, and I’d see anyone stepping in here, just as he would see me.

  I couldn’t tell whether I succeeded, or whether it was luck that brought Hamilton to the door to glance inside, but it didn’t matter. His focus was higher up as he scanned the room, looking for someone standing in there, or maybe sitting on a chair. The whooshing sound in my ears was so loud that I almost didn’t understand him, only fragments coming through, “errand boy” and “better things to do” among them. Seeing nothing, he turned to step out again, which made my frustration and panic increase tenfold. Always did he have to get in my face, and this once when it would do me any good, he managed to ignore me? Rage boiled up inside of me, overwhelming and loud, turning the low vibrations in my throat that I could feel but not hear into a growl.

  Hamilton jerked to a halt, probably because what had made it out of me sounded a lot like what a shambler about to charge might utter. His casual stance snapped to full alertness as he listened, slowly turning his head to catch a repeat sound. I tried—oh, did I try!—but the sudden surge of hope nixed the anger, turning me back into a lifeless husk on the floor. Hamilton’s head continued to swivel, and when he couldn’t see into the last row at the back, he took three slow, deliberate, utterly silent steps—and then he froze.

  He was standing far enough away that even at the weird angle that my cheek was pressed into the now-bloody floor, I could see up to his face. Recognition lit up his expression as he quickly took in the scene. I could only imagine what was unfolding in front of him—my limp body, twisted on the ground, lying in a spreading pool of my own blood, with a knife sticking out of the lower right half of my back. Two agonizingly slow heartbeats he simply stood there, considering. If I could have screamed, I would have done so, more out of frustration and helplessness than anything else.

  “Ah, screw it,” he muttered, and a moment later, he was kneeling by my side. He was smart, hesitating a second to see if I moved. Only then did he check my pulse, and when that must have been inconclusive, he held a hand in front of my mouth and nose to check whether I was still breathing. I did my very best to push air out of my lungs to make it easily detectable, but my body was hell-bent on shutting down. Hamilton’s eyes narrowed as he stared into my face, likely disappointed that I didn’t sneer back at him—either alive so he knew I was still in there, or dead so he could finish me off. He prodded my shoulder but I couldn’t react. His expression twisted into a deeper frown, concentration pushing away his usual look of misgiving as he must have been running through a few mental checklists.

  “Something’s not quite right about this,” he said to himself. Sadly, I couldn’t give my opinion—also not when he reached out and grabbed my breast, and he really did get a good feel. None of the mental protest made it into a physical signal, not even my indignation managing to rekindle my anger, also because the move made no sense. That was, until he got his flashlight out and directed it right into my eyes, making a different agony explode in my head. “Thought so,” he muttered as he clicked it off almost immediately, dropping it mindlessly on the floor. “You’re chock-full of paralytic. Your pupils don’t even contract. No way you wouldn’t have come for my throat for doing that.” And we both knew he didn’t mean searing my retinas to the point where I was still seeing weirdly colored patches.

  “Let’s see about that,” he went on talking to himself, doing a quick check on me but coming to the conclusion that the knife wound was causing the leak all over the floor. I felt him gingerly push away fabric and prod the area around where the blade had sunk in—and my, that was not pleasant—but left it where it was. I heard him curse then—he must have realized that it was his knife. “Asshole trying to frame me with that, too, huh? If I didn’t know it’s impossible, I’d guess you did this to yourself, just to get back at me.” He wasn’t uselessly sitting there while he talked but pulled his jacket off, followed by his shirt, which he grabbed in one hand. With the other, he went for the knife and pulled it out, immediately pushing the wadded-up fabric against the wound.

  And then, he froze.

  A sound very much like the growl I’d uttered came from the direction of the other doorway. It was only when Nate came stalking—and I really meant moving like a tiger on the prowl—around the workbench to where he was in full view of the scene that I recognized him. I felt Hamilton tense, but, if anything, he pushed the shirt tamponing the wound even harder against me to staunch the blood flow. “Tell me that this is not what it looks like,” Nate uttered, his tone as hard and menacing as I’d never heard it before.

  “It’s not,” Hamilton said, his voice pressed but calm—a first for him. He definitely realized what conclusions Nate must be jumping to, and did his best to deescalate the situation. “Just think—if I ever went for her, it would be in her face, because I’d humiliate her before I chose to finish her off. Or not, to rub it in yet again that she’s no match for me.”

  Nate’s eyes narrowed, his hand dropping to the side of his thigh and the knife there, strong fingers wrapping around the hilt. Hamilton swore under his breath and tried again.

  “If I really wanted to kill her, why stab her in the kidney that’s not there anymore? You know her diseased, scarred carcass better than anyone else. You know that the worst of her scars are on the opposite sides of her body—her left leg, the back of her torso at the right. Where they removed her kidney, part of her liver, and her useless-as-fuck ovary. Whoever did this got his hands on the falsified report that switched the torso scars to the other side. Trust me, she can verify this for you, because I have it on good authority that Richards read the real one, too, and blabbed about a different detail to her that’s been omitted from the false report. But for that, you need to back the fuck off now so we can save her life. She likely knows who did this, too. She’s weak, but her vitals are still going strong. She’s pumped full of paralytic and some shit that slows her heart down so it takes longer for her to bleed out fully—don’t ask me why. Maybe so if we hadn’t found her, she’d turn while she was still paralyzed, and could have torn your throat out while you held her in your arms like a baby and bawled your eyes out. Fucking think, man!”

  Nate was still standing there, staring down at us, his face frozen in a rictus of hate. I could see how much it cost him not to give in to the rage boiling inside of him; not to launch himself at Hamilton and slice him up or kill him with his bare hands—and I’d die in the time it took him to do so. I realized then that this was what Marleen must have meant with the outcome she couldn’t stick around to watch—Nate losing his shit, killing Hamilton, and either being pushed too far to rein himself back in or wounded too heavily not to die himself. Either outcome would end with three super-juiced, freshly converted zombies—or at the least two, if Hamilton’s skull got smashed too badly for him
to turn. Nate alone would likely be enough to kill the remaining members of our group, and the paralysis delay might lead to me finishing off whoever wasn’t completely dead after he was done. It was a brilliant plan, based on Nate’s biggest weakness—his love for me.

  Quite frankly, I was impressed with the range of that, but not so the situation it had thrust me into. Hamilton kept crouching over me, the wadded-up shirt never moving, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I’d get bruises from that alone.

  Five seconds passed. Ten. Nate took a step forward, and I knew Hamilton was getting ready to let go of me so he could defend himself—but the moment passed, and rather than try to punch Hamilton’s lights out, Nate dropped to his knees next to him, taking over. Hamilton scrambled to his feet, his boots squeaking on the floor, and he was off toward the cafeteria, hollering “Medic!” at the top of his lungs.

  It took maybe five minutes for Sonia to limp into the room, with everyone else who could move in tow, Burns lugging her kit for her. Nate spent the entire time almost motionless, putting even more pressure on the wound than Hamilton had before if that was possible. He didn’t say a single word out loud, but I heard him whisper a barely audible litany of, “Don’t die. Please, don’t die.” He didn’t touch me anywhere else, but considering that any jostling of my body felt as if someone was trying to squeeze what remained of my blood right out of me like juice from a ripe orange, that was probably for the best.