Green Fields (Book 2): Outbreak (29 page)

“Splat?” I proposed, shrugging.

“Didn’t they teach you any physics in school?” Burns said, inserting himself into the conversation. “At twenty miles per hour, maybe, but hit anything that size at fifty miles and you’re toast.”

“So I veer around it. Or break and go over it slowly. Or, I don’t know, spin the car into a mad drift and just shove it straight off the road,” I replied, not even very serious.

“You’d have to reinforce the bumper, and likely the sides too for such a stunt,” Santos said. “That would take time, and make the car heavy. You’d need a car that has enough power to still go fast, which means gas guzzler. And there’s still the issue that making that much noise will draw every single shambler out of the hills for miles. I don’t think that the weirdos up there started with the cars.”

Clearing my throat, I shrugged. “Then we go slow enough that they’re less loud. No armor needed, we can just drive over the zombies, and we still make a lot more mileage than we do now.”

“Beats walking, too,” Burns agreed with me.

As euphoric as they’d all been to join in my little fantasy, the following silence was heavy enough to make us all realize that it was just a dream.

“It’s a valid possibility,” Pia rasped, stepping into our little circle. “We’ve discussed it before but decided that it’s too dangerous. But getting hunted down by lunatics is even more dangerous. We could try.” Smiling wryly, she added, “And what’s the worst thing that can happen? We all die? Car crash sounds better to me than rotting away one limb at a time.”

I hadn’t expected such humor from her, but then I doubted that she was kidding.

“So we just grab a car and give it a spin?” I asked, not sure if I was kidding.

Pia grunted dismissively. “I’d prefer not to sit in something that had a rotting corpse in it for weeks. No, we go into a small town, clear it out, and select the most promising cars that we find. We only have to find the right town first.”

It was too dark to read maps now, but the guys quickly lost themselves into suggesting manufacturers and models, showing more enthusiasm than… since this whole shit had forged us into a group. I couldn’t quite shake the sense that this was more of a gamble than Pia let on—but I had to agree that just the prospect of finally getting ahead of everything that kept happening was enough for me to feel comfortable about the risk. And she was right. A quick, painless death was not the worst fate out there.

I would have loved to continue adding what little wisdom about cars I possessed, but the annoying trill of Madeline’s voice got me to scoot further away from the circle jerk of automobile fantasies, and inch closer to where I could just make out her and Nate’s forms. They were talking quietly between them—not that the guys were that loud, even if the conversation was heated; we’d all learned to tone it down—but not whispering too low for me to catch their words as soon as I was out of the middle of the other conversation going on.

“You know that I trust your decisions as a leader,” Madeline was just saying, layering smooth conviction on as heavily as her makeup. “But you said so yourself. We all have to carry our own weight. And as much as she’s pretending to be a soldier, she’s not. I don’t understand why you let her continue to make an ass out of herself.”

That she was talking about me was out of the question; with Pia as the only alternative, who else could she have meant? There was no pretense to anything about that woman.

I must have made a sound as I crept closer because Nate glanced up, his eyes zeroing in on me, but he quickly looked away, leaving Madeline none the wiser as he replied.

“What exactly is it that you would have me do about that?”

Was he actually agreeing with her? The hot flames of anger licking up my spine certainly made it easy to believe just that, but I forced myself to remain as level-headed as possible. Back—what felt like a million years ago—in the Green Fields Biotech atrium he’d sounded exactly like that when he’d interrogated Gabriel Greene, using apparent interest to lull him into complacency, making him spill more than Greene had wanted to admit. Was that happening now again? But to what end? What could Madeline possibly be hiding that she didn’t say outright? She’d already pretty much told him that he should barter me away for food. Couldn’t get much worse than that.

Madeline hesitated, but I didn’t buy for a second that it was out of compassion.

“What use is she really to you as a guard, or a fighter? You always send her out with someone you trust will bring her back safely. Your men could cover so much more ground if they didn’t have to babysit her.”

There was a hint of truth to that, and it grated that Nate didn’t step in to defend me. Then again, I knew him well enough to realize that it just wasn’t his way to act like that. If I’d needed defending from him, I’d likely not have been worth it in his eyes. His reply pretty much confirmed that guess.

“What else should she do? I’ve seen how she mends her pack. I wouldn’t want her anywhere near the holes in my clothes.”

Admittedly, my sewing skills were bad, but then we didn’t really have the proper gear for that, either. And the patch was still holding, even a good two hundred miles later. But that knowledge didn’t help to dampen the boiling anger in the pit of my stomach. It was pretty obvious what she was getting at, and beating around the bush didn’t soften that blow at all.

“Do I really need to spell it out?” Madeline asked, annoyance making her sound sincere for the first time.

“I think you do.”

She sighed, as if what was coming next was paining her. I highly doubted that.

“As a leader, you know how important morale is. And I don’t have to tell you that what I do is helping improve morale.”

Another thing that I was ready to disagree with; the only thing she accomplished was to split the camp in two between those who thought that forgetting about what was going on for a few minutes was worth crashing harder afterward, and those who knew that it wouldn’t help from the start.

Nate replied with a grunt that could have been affirmative, and while that lack of protest annoyed me, I had to give it to him—telling her to her face that she was whoring herself out for nothing would just have been cruel.

Misjudging his reply, Madeline surged on. “Just consider how much more improvement there would be with double the capacities. The math is as simple as that.”

Silence fell as she waited for a reply, and every second of that grated down my spine. I really didn’t need him to defend me, but seriously? Even letting her think for a moment that this was an option he was considering was insulting to me, and I wouldn’t have minded a little support there.

It was then that I realized that it wasn’t Madeline that he was playing, but someone else.

At least it was too dark now to see the steep blush—fueled by anger—that was rising in my cheeks.

Coming to my feet, I deliberately kicked a piece of wood away, announcing what I hoped sounded like my approach from the rest of the camp. I managed not to stumble as I stepped up to them, and I didn’t even look whether my feint was working or not—the beef that I had with her was not the one I was going to resolve, right fucking now.

“Can we talk?” I asked Nate, glaring down at him. Even in the near darkness I didn’t miss the smile ghosting around the corner of his mouth.

“I think we are already engaging in conversation? You know, that thing where I say something and you say something—“

My snort made him cut off.

“It’s so cute that you actually think that I was asking nicely,” I shot back.

Now that smile turned into a smirk, and after a moment he got to his feet, way too lithely for someone who still had bandages around his torso and had spent half the day running from lunatics in trucks.

“Madeline, as much as I always enjoy our conversations, I think I have to deal with this now.”

“Of course,” she replied, satisfaction lacing her words. Did she actually think that Nate was going to break the news to me now that starting tonight I’d have to entertain the camp with something else than my laughable attempts to throw Martinez over my shoulder?

Leading the way, Nate stepped out of the small clearing we’d made camp in and into the woods, or what counted for them. When he stopped after about a hundred yards, I could still see the crouching figures of the others over there. At least we were safely out of earshot.

And, just like that, I didn’t know what to say. Perfect.

Chapter 19

Exhaling slowly, I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned against the trunk of the next best tree, but quickly pushed away again when I realized that I had too much nervous energy inside of me to remain immobile. Nate had no such issues and did exactly what I had intended to across from me, his dark clothes making everything except for his face and what I could see of his hands disappear.

“I know that you’ve been wanting to have this conversation for weeks, so I doubt that you actually think that the silent treatment will do now,” he observed, his tone wry enough that I knew that he must be smiling at me.

Exhaling forcefully, I gave up finding the right words inside my head and just let spew forth the first thing that was on my mind. It wasn’t like that was so unusual for me.

“If you want to fuck her, you should. Because leading her on is just stupid.” His answering chuckle made me smile, even if it pulled my anger right back into the forefront of my mind. “Seriously. I mean, what are you waiting for, my permission or something? Granted. If you really want to stoop that low and stick your dick into that, be my guest. Just don’t make me watch.”

He was outright grinning now, but at least he stopped laughing.

“I have absolutely no intention of doing either. But very generous of you, allowing me to screw whoever I want to.”

“You know how I mean that,” I chuffed, then let out a weary sigh. “I’m not stupid. Almost an entire month? I can get the hint, you know?”

“I don’t,” he replied, amusement slowly fading from his voice, getting replaced by something else. I just couldn’t say exactly what. “She’s not the one I want to fuck.”

That made my rising indignation fall right back in on itself, and I really wished for a little more light right now to be able to better judge the look on his face.

“Why is she even here? I know that she annoys you. Maybe not as much as me, but you’re not all that good hiding that gnashing of teeth that you do when someone wears down your patience.”

Nate shrugged. “Do you want the truth, or do you want the convenient answer?”

That second option irritated me. “Why wouldn’t I want the truth?”

“Because some things you can’t walk away from once you’ve actually wrapped your mind around them, and it’s often more convenient to postpone that for a later time.”

That was cryptic enough to give me pause, and I waited until my anger had simmered down further before I gave my reply.

“The truth.”

“Are you sure? Because it’s not necessarily weakness to know when not to take an emotional hit. We’re all stressed out. It’s okay not to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders.”

It was then that I realized that I would walk away with more from this conversation than just the little issues resolved between us. Hopefully. Unease crept up my spine, making me wrap my arms around myself, but my answer remained the same.

“The truth. I can take it. Even if I might not want to, but I can. And you know that.”

He inclined his head, and that simple gesture held more recognition and acceptance of my strength than I’d expected to get from him. While that should have made me feel great and cherished and shit, it actually left me scared. Scared of the words that he was about to say.

“Madeline and the kids, same as the college guys, are only along so there’s someone in our group who will get eaten first.”

“Excuse me?” I didn’t have to feign incredulity there.

“You heard that right the first time,” Nate told me, completely nonplussed. “You’re making progress, but if I discount them, you’re still the weakest link in our chain. Understandably so, and I’m not telling you this to make you feel bad or some shit. It’s the simple truth.” And not the first time that he remarked that, really. “So to assure your survival, we’re keeping a buffer between the hungry, raging hordes of the undead and you.”

This conversation wasn’t going in the direction I had pictured, and it was slowly dawning on me that he’d been right with his warning.

“Seriously?”

He nodded. “Couldn’t be more serious than that. Because, honestly? I’d rather get rid of them yesterday than keep any of them around for one hour longer than I have to. I’m even surprised that we didn’t lose anyone because of them yet, but I guess that would serve as a means of natural selection.”

That was a harsher judgment than I would have given, but in a twisted way, it felt strangely satisfying to hear him say that. At least I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t happy to have Madeline around. Then again, I kind of would have preferred if this was just some bitchfest between us women, a senseless, stupid way to let off steam.

“Plus, they’re a good distraction,” he went on, cutting through my musing.

“You mean, on top of being a buffer?”

Nate inclined his head, the look on his face too serious for the joke that I’d tried to make. It was a bad one, really, but not that bad.

“This is probably one of the most selfish things I’ve done in my life, but on many levels, watching how the whore in particular kept your mind off other things was worth dealing with all the emotional fallout.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, not liking where this was going. But then I had insisted on the truth—the whole truth.

“Guess I don’t have to tell you that I’ve been in a hell of a lot of shitty situations in my life? Wanna know what always kept me going? What made me push through, ignore pain and fear and just the plain wish to give up and die?”

I shook my head, swallowing thickly. “No. What was it?”

He exhaled slowly and pushed away from his tree, stepping up to me so that we were close enough to touch, but not quite doing so.