Green Fields (Book 2): Outbreak (22 page)

The leader contemplated this for endless seconds, but then lowered his gun, even if he was the only one. “Stand down,” he told his men. Then, to us, “You can go. But we’ll be watching you. So you don’t get any funny ideas, ya know?”

“Don’t worry. We won’t,” Nate promised, and with a jerk of his chin started walking. The rest of us followed—weapons still up and aimed at the slope—and I was kind of glad when Burns and Andrej fell back to guard our rear. Only when we were out of range did the guys slowly lower their guns, but still kept them at the ready. We spread out a little more, but tension remained in the air, at least until the men on the slope dropped back into the trees, out of sight.

Martinez relaxed next to me and let out a loud breath, prompting me to do the same.

“Damn. But the one time anyone compliments me on my curves, it has to almost end in a bloodbath,” I muttered, braving a smile when Burns guffawed behind me.
 

“You want compliments? Shit, girl, you just need to let me know and I’ll praise your ass and tits from sunup till sundown. Just didn’t dare yet. Too afraid you’d cut off my cock if I’d try.”

Glancing back at him over my shoulder, I gave him the brightest grin I could manage.

“Your cock, and your balls. Wouldn’t want to unbalance you, big guy.”

I think it was Santos who snickered somewhere in front of me, and Martinez snorted.

“Just because he’s packing muscle everywhere else doesn’t mean he’s packing much there.”

“Why, you checking him out, Martinez?” Andrej asked.

“Professional curiosity as a medic, is all,” Martinez insisted. “After all, if he gets his balls cut off, I should know if he’ll need stitches, or if a bandage will suffice.”

Our banter got us a few sharp looks from the front, but I couldn’t kill the smile on my face. Post-fright jitters, I was sure, but it was actually fun to let off steam like that—and be included in the ribbing.
 

“Someone’s following us,” Santos cut through our mirth, making everyone snap back to attention.

“One of them?” Andrej wanted to know.

“Nope, doesn’t look like it.”

We slowed, moving into a tighter formation, but when I looked back, it wasn’t any of the armed men following us. It wasn’t even anyone male, at least not over the age of approximately ten, I realized. Four figures were slinking along the trees, two taller and two smaller ones, and when they saw us slow down, they ran down the increasingly softer slope, waving at us.

“Wait up! Please.”

Glancing at Martinez, I could see a similar unease on his face as I figured was on mine. As they came closer, it was easy to identify the four as a woman and her three children—presumably hers, but I doubted she would have taken them with her if they weren’t. The oldest—a girl of maybe thirteen—didn’t look particularly happy, but the frightened glances she kept shooting back where they had come from were obvious enough. The smaller children—two boys—were maybe eight and ten, the empty looks on their haggard faces enough to give me nightmares. I didn’t even want to consider what they had been through to just up and run after us, but that didn’t mean I was happy to see them here now.

No one said anything, but the looks Nate and Pia were trading made it clear that they were debating. The Ice Queen appeared ready to chew steel, and while Nate didn’t exactly seem ecstatic, he kept his hostility in check.

The woman gathered her two smaller children close to her as they reached us, stopping several feet away. Her older daughter lurked behind her shoulder, still stubborn but with hope now dawning on her face.

“Thank you,” the mother called, out of breath from their jog. “Please, take us with you? I promise, we won’t be a burden. I can cook, do your laundry. We won’t slow you down.”

I highly doubted the latter. Yet before anyone else could rain on their parade, Skip spoke up, attempting something that might have been an encouraging smile.

“Of course you can come with us,” he promised. Then it occurred to him that heavy silence still hung over the entire group, and he looked hopefully at Nate. “Right? What’s four more people? You took us in, too.”

Pia looked ready to remedy that any moment now, but after another tense moment, Nate nodded, stepping around the group and up to the woman, his face stony.

“You can come with us, at least until we find somewhere safe for you to stay. But only if you follow our rules.”

I hadn’t been aware that we had any rules—well, except for not act like a stupid fucktard—but no one spoke up, thankfully. The woman was quick to nod, offering a hesitant but clearly relieved smile.

“Thank you. I promise, you won’t regret it. I can be very resourceful.”

That I didn’t doubt, and I really didn’t like the way she was smiling at Nate now. Yet true to his general stoic behavior he just nodded and turned back to assume his usual place next to Pia.
 

“Just make sure that you keep up with us,” he called back, and on we went.

Chapter 15

We stopped a little early that night—still away from the river, but even I could see that the clearing next to a small creek, open on two sides with just enough trees growing nearby to serve as cover, was ideal to make camp. Because we’d already done our drills in the morning, Pia selected a few of the guys to go foraging instead, but drove home the fact that they shouldn’t use their guns unless a zombie was already chomping down on their necks. At first, I was happy not to be selected, but then I noticed that first Bates, then Santos disappeared behind the small thicket, Madeline—the mother—in tow.
 

And, just like that, the relative ease I’d so far felt around the guys was shot to hell.

The first change of guards was up, and when Martinez got up to do the rounds, he shook his head at Burns and instead came up to me. “Wanna tag along?”

I sent him a long look, but then got up, grabbing my shotgun. “Sure.” So far I’d been spared the extra time on my feet, but now that additional bit of exhaustion wasn’t that bad anymore.

We quickly swung by Pia to let her know that we were out and about, neither her nor Nate batting a lash at seeing me for support. Avoiding the trees, we cut right through to the stream, walking along the riverbed while we scanned the terrain for movement or anything large enough to hide one predator or another. I figured it would be any day now for the wildlife to take back what humans had claimed.

“Thanks,” I said when the silence got too heavy.

“You’re welcome,” Martinez replied with a grin, giving me a sidelong glance. “I figured that if I didn’t at least try to defuse the situation, it was just a matter of time until you’d actually try to castrate anyone who was even looking in your general direction.”

I couldn’t find it in me to deny that accusation—if it even was one. He sounded more bemused than anything else.

Silence settled, until Martinez cleared his throat. “You ever heard how that whole ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ thing works? Or worked, I guess. Can’t expect anyone to give a shit about regulations anymore when there’s no military around.”

I shook my head, at least a little curious. “I thought they’d disbanded that, anyway?”

“Technically, yes,” he agreed, but his smile said something else. “Practically speaking, it takes a certain kind of paper pusher to settle down on base with his boyfriend and insist on claiming full benefits and marrying. But I know from experience—and you can shove that joke right down where it came from, honey—that even before that there were a lot of horndogs in the army who never gave a shit about what ass they were tapping, and what anyone said about that. They just didn’t like it if it happened between people of different rank, or going steady within a unit. But that’s not the point I’m trying to make.”

“It’s not?” I teased, feeling myself relax a little more. “You know, I’m fully okay if you and Burns do the dirty. I just don’t need to see it.”

“Your humor is getting as bad as his,” he noted, giving me a playful glare. “Anyway. Case in point, my last captain was a woman. Miranda Reynolds, although I doubt anyone ever called her anything except Captain Reynolds.” His smile turned a little sad. “Guess she still is a woman, considering that tough bitch is likely holed up somewhere, taking out those undead fuckers one shot at a time. But what I’m trying to say is, guess what happened when after our tour was over and we were back in the states, we all saw her in a dress for the first time, her two-year-old daughter in her arms?”

I shook my head. “No, what?”

“Nothing,” he declared. “If you spend nine months in the dirt, getting shot at, and the only thing that keeps the unit together and our hides safe is your captain, you stop seeing her as a woman, even when she slaps you in the face with her femininity. Which she didn’t, because, I swear, her wife called her ‘ma’am,’ too, no shit.”

“And you’re telling me this why exactly?”

He shrugged.

“Because you don’t need to be afraid that any of the guys will try anything on you. I doubt they would even if you’d never picked up a gun, but as things are now? Burns might rib you about the tampons for another year or two, but I doubt they consider you game for anything. I mean, they’re guys; can’t guarantee that one or another isn’t jerking off to thinking about tapping your ass, but they’d never act on it. And not just because half of them are still guessing whether you’re batting for the other team or swing both ways.”

That this detail was out I was well aware; everyone except Santos, Skip, and Steve had been around when Nate had made it glaringly obvious to me that I couldn’t head back across town to Sam, and I figured that the others probably filled them in at one time or another. I wasn’t delusional enough to think that they didn’t gossip behind my back.
 

“What do you think?”

Martinez shrugged, clearly stating that it was of absolutely no interest to him in so many words.

“For the first few days or so? Just the ladies. But considering that since then your picture is right next to the definition of ‘woman scorned’ in the dictionary whenever you glare at Miller, I’m pretty sure that you fall somewhere else on the spectrum.”

I couldn’t help but laugh at that. And there I’d thought I’d been kind of stealthy about it.

“That obvious?”

Another shrug. “Not to everyone, I guess. With some of them, you’d have to hit them with the truth for them to guess correctly. But I didn’t become a medic just because I dropped out of med school after two semesters and figured I might as well do something with that. I have a knack for reading people, and considering that we’re kind of short a shrink, I might as well do that work, too. I mean, can you imagine your typical therapist reasoning with a zombie? ‘Yes, I can see where you’d think my super developed brain would be especially delicious with my wall of degrees and shit, but just think about what that says about you and your relationship to your father,’” he said, forcing his usually low voice into a high falsetto.

“Whatever,” I said, deciding not to add more fuel to his speculations.

“But I’m right,” he insisted, with only a hint of question in his voice. “You and him, you’re a thing?”

I thought about how to reply, and that fact alone was enough to make my stomach seize, and not just because I was hungry.

“Shit, I don’t know what to tell you. I have no fucking idea. Hell, I don’t even know if we were, before.” There was no reason to define what I meant with that. There was only one event now that anything got referenced to, time-wise.

“Well, I’m not too sure how you straight folk do it, but I would think that he’d leave enough of an impression for you to remember whether you had sex with him or not.”

I rolled my eyes at his joke.

“Yeah, we hooked up,” I admitted.

“But?”

“But nothing,” I tried to evade.

Martinez scrutinized me for a moment. “How exactly did you two meet? I don’t really know much about that mission of his, but you don’t really seem like you were familiar enough with any of his team to have been a part of it.”

I didn’t know what to reply, so I just stuck with the truth.

“He figured he’d need my help. So after stalking my credentials for months, he tracked me down. He seduced me, although he claims that it wasn’t his intention, which was just to get kind of friendly with me so when they set their plan in motion, I might be more inclined to help. And that he’s been behaving like a royal asshole toward me since the shit hit the fan I don’t have to explain.” I paused, really not liking how sulky that sounded. “I mean, I get it. Things are bad right now, and, seriously? My relationship status is way down on my list of priorities. Making cat food more edible is way up higher.”

I doubted that much of that was news to Martinez. He and Andrej were chatting enough that I didn’t doubt that Andrej had already provided him with little tidbits here and there.

It came as a surprise when he frowned and shook his head. “That really doesn’t sound much like him.”

“What, that he’s as amicable as a human turd?”

At least I got a grin for that.

“No, that part you don’t have to convince me of,” he admitted. “But I don’t think that he was only trying to get into your pants to convert you to the cause. You said yourself that he told you that it wasn’t so.”

“And you believe that?”

“Do you?” he asked, his smile gentle.

“Honestly? I don’t know what to believe anymore.” Hugging myself while carrying a shotgun wasn’t exactly feasible, but I really wanted to. “But it makes no sense. If he really had a thing for me, why would he completely ignore me now? I’m absolutely not asking for special treatment, but he could at least be friendly once in a while, like you and Andrej are. Heck, right now even Burns is acting like a brother to me, and I think he gets off on being an ass.”

“I doubt that Nate’s feelings for you are exactly those of brotherly love,” Martinez snarked back, still grinning. “And I’m probably the wrong person to ask about shit like that.”

“You’re the only person I have right now,” I offered.

“Well, there’s that,” he admitted, falling silent for another couple of yards. “I just know that he is a decent guy, at least when he gives someone his word. Ruthless, yes, but what you told me really doesn’t much sound like him. I’m not saying that he couldn’t act like that, but I’ve been around him long enough to feel like he wouldn’t. We both know that he can be persuasive as hell, which is what I think he would have done if he’d just needed your cooperation. Sat you down, dished out all the facts, and made you believe that it was in your best interest to help him, or that you already had a common goal. I’m not saying that he can’t be charming, but I’ve never seen him use sex as part of his persuasion methods.”