Green Fields (Book 2): Outbreak (37 page)

Burns switched places with Andrej, taking over the lead, and we continued west, Madeline’s car integrating seamlessly into the column. I only once chanced a glance to the side, finding Nate glaring at me, which snapped my eyes right back to the road. The storm clouds up ahead fit my mood perfectly.

Chapter 24

It was still hours from actual sunset but when lightning forked across the sky, hitting a large oak in a field to our right, Burns sent his car into the next small access road in the other direction. It was dark enough that I’d been yearning to switch on the lights for an hour now, and felt relieved when I saw another thicket up ahead that was perfect for hiding the cars underneath, Faraday cages be damned. A now defunct powerline ran about a mile away, a much better target than the low trees for the brewing storm.

Normally, I couldn’t wait to get out of the car, and while I definitely burned to get out of my pants, I remained sitting, the trash bag gently squeaking underneath me as I squirmed. From the corner of my eye I could see Nate still glaring at me, but he eventually got out, stretching before he stalked over to where Pia started coordinating. Loot had to be distributed, dinner decided on, and although I doubted that anyone would want to sleep outside the cars tonight, there were still a hundred different things to do before we could settle in for the night.

A good ten minutes passed until Martinez came walking over to me, the fact that he was in full gear with his rifle across his chest making me guess that he was up for guard duty. Yet at the same time, I saw Burns and Andrej set out to establish the perimeter, making me frown. I doubted that tonight we’d need extra guards out.

Martinez knocked on my window rather than just open the door, so I had to do that myself as I glanced at him wearily.

“I am to escort you to the creek over there, and make sure that no zombie bites you in the ass while you clean up.”

“Escort me?” I echoed, hoping to draw at least a smile from him, but he just stared me straight in the eye, waiting. Sighing, I slid out of the seat and reached back for my backup clothes, not bothering with picking them apart first. The way it felt, I was up for a full bath, anyway.

No one looked at me—or even in my general direction—as I walked through the camp and over to where I could hear the water gurgling over the gales of wind. It was about to start raining any moment, the temperature dropping rapidly now, but I didn’t care.

At the edge of the creek, I sat down and took off my boots, then peeled myself out of the remaining layers of my gear, until all I was wearing was my sports bra. Martinez dropped a tube of portable wash soap next to me before he stepped away, resuming his guarding stance up on the bank of the creek. Grinding my teeth, I stepped into the icy water, sitting down in a low pool to cover as much of my body as possible. After a moment, I took the bra off, too. Might as well do my entire washing, as it was.

There was no real refreshment to cleaning up, and I spent the better part of half an hour scrubbing my soiled clothes. When even I had to admit that they were as clean as they were going to get, and my motions had long since turned compulsive, I wrung them out one last time and threw them into a wet heap as I dressed again. They would likely stink up the car as they dried inside, but damp and clammy was still better than the alternative. I’d even thought about just ditching them, but considering I still only had one change of clothes that really fit and could withstand the wear and tear of our everyday life, I didn’t want to risk it.

Following Martinez back to the camp proper, I wanted to set to cleaning my guns next, but neither the shotgun nor my Beretta were where I had left them. A little panicked for a moment, I found them—wrapped in a cleaning cloth—in the leg room behind the passenger seat of the car. Not my side—his. I was tempted to pull them over, but then left them where they were. I still had my knife, and I knew where they were stored.

Ditching my wet clothes in the back, spread out as much as possible, I stepped away from the car again, only to find that I was alone. I wondered if I should just sulk in the car with a can of tuna, but when I realized that Madeline and the kids were doing just that, I forced myself to walk back over to where the others were sitting around in a lose circle. There was a dish and cutlery waiting in my customary spot next to Burns—an honest-to-God plate, heaped with beans, cooked rice, and gravy—making me stop in my tracks.

“Seriously?”

No one looked up from where they were munching beans and rice straight from the cans they’d been prepared in, doused in gravy. No one answered. So I sighed, sat down, and ate my food. As uncomfortable as Nate’s scorn had been in the car, the way he was actively avoiding me now was way worse. The way everyone else was ignoring me? Hell.

I somehow made it through my meal, yet as soon as I was done and wanted to get up to wash the stupid plate, Martinez plucked it from my fingers, still not talking to me. Frustrated, I glared after him, then followed him when it became apparent that no one was even going to crack a joke.

“Hey,” I said as I walked up to where he was crouching by the water. I saw his shoulders tense—evidence that he knew I was there—but he didn’t react otherwise.

Closing my eyes, I counted down from five, trying to quench the annoyance that was riding shotgun with the last tendrils of fear and the mountain of frustration currently drowning me.

“Look, I get it. I screwed up. But I’m the rookie, remember? I’m supposed to screw up.”

Those had been Martinez’s exact words in week two when I’d managed to almost damage one of the guns in my attempt to reassemble it. I had been on the butt end of every joke that entire evening, but not even while it lasted did I feel like holding a grudge.
 

Martinez paused, and I knew I had him. Yet when he straightened, all he said was, “Yeah, but you’re no longer a rookie.”

That didn’t help me at all.

“And where does that leave me now?”

He shrugged, still averting his eyes, but not in an avoiding kind of way. More like I wasn’t worth his attention. That stung a lot more.

“You’re a nuisance,” he confirmed my guess, turning away to head back to the camp.

I wasn’t sure if I felt like disagreeing, but I couldn’t just let that go.

“Yeah, okay, can’t deny that,” I started, still hoping for a smile. Nothing. “Look, just tell me what I can do to set things straight? I won’t even balk if it’s digging latrine holes for the rest of the year.” The nasty voice at the back of my mind was quick to supply another possible way of making things up to the guys—if I wasn’t of use for anything else, I might as well walk the path Madeline had chosen—but I pushed that away before it could take hold. I’d screwed up, yes, but I hadn’t gotten anyone killed. Besides, I was sure that if Nate was down to leaving me somewhere or shooting me in the back of the head to put me down like a dog, he would have done so already.

Martinez sighed, and finally caught my gaze, if only for a moment.

“You pretty much proved today that you’re not one of us. So don’t ask me how we would settle things if you were.”

“But I am one of you!” I protested, running after him as he tried to leave me there. Martinez walked a little faster, almost running himself, barely making it back to the others before I could catch up to him. That left me standing outside their circle, panting, and I suddenly was too sick of this shit to let this go on for another endless minute.

“Guys, can I have your attention, please?” No one looked up, but I was sure that they were listening. “I screwed up, okay? And I’m not asking you to just ignore that. But you’re acting like a bunch of pussies, too afraid to tackle the issue at hand.”

That got me some glares, but compared to before, that was an improvement. Pia caught my gaze when I looked over to her, her lips curling up into a snarl.

“We can’t work with incompetent imbeciles,” she ground out, her accent heavier than usual with the emotion swinging in her voice. That should probably have made me backtrack, but that would have been the coward’s way, and while I was a lot of things, but not that.

“I won’t ever get competent if you don’t give me a chance to learn,” I replied, trying to keep my voice even.

“Why should we bother?” That from Burns, for once completely serious.

“Because we’re not exactly in the position to be picky about who we drag along with us,” I pointed out. “We’ll lose enough people that we can’t spare. Don’t be stupid enough to put someone out just because she screwed up.” I wasn’t exactly afraid of them exiling me, but it sounded like a good thing to point out.

Pia gave a derisive snort. “You’re the last to call anyone stupid.”

I shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. I’m not even denying that I screwed up. I just don’t see how I messed things up beyond repair. I didn’t even get anyone killed.” At my reply, Nate raised his right hand, pushing back the sleeve, where a set of new bite marks stood out angry red against his skin. Swallowing thickly, I did my best to staunch my rising panic. “Hurt, yeah, but you won’t turn into a zombie. We all know that.”

With Skip and Steve back in their car, Santos and Cho were the only ones who looked at me, flummoxed but not alarmed, making it obvious that this “secret” wasn’t really one. Neither of them asked for an explanation, though, making me guess that just the part that I was in the know was news to them. The current evening entertainment was likely too engrossing.

“You disobeyed a direct order,” Nate said, his voice so cold that it made me shudder. But at least now we were talking.

“You only told me not to go after Madeline. I went after the kids,” I pointed out.

“I told you not to be a fucking hero!” he shouted, coming to his feet, eyes blazing with fury. The forcefulness behind it might have made me want to take a step back, but my defiance now reared its ugly head, steeling my spine.

“I wasn’t trying to!” I replied, heat making my words louder than I’d intended. “I was talking to Erica, and suddenly they were gone, so I had to track them down. I didn’t expect that they’d be a good quarter mile away from the car by then.”

My defense wasn’t a good one, judging from the way his nostrils flared as he inhaled.

“You let them sneak by right under your ass? And you think that’s going to help you?”

“Didn’t say that,” I grumbled, then sighed as I tried to rally my thoughts. “Look, I get it. Yes, I let them sneak by me. I screwed up. And I kept screwing up when I wasn’t careful as I went after them, and by the time I realized in how much shit I was, it was too late. I couldn’t just leave them there—“

“Why not?”

Nate’s question made me look at him bug-eyed. Was he seriously asking me that?

“Because they are part of our group. Because they belong to us. Because they are two children who’ve been through enough already, and it’s not their fault that their mother is a fucking walking and talking health hazard!” I caught Pia’s eye roll, focusing on her instead. “I’m not talking about what else she does. But it’s pretty damn obvious that the kids didn’t just wander off and miraculously ended up sitting on a swing, far enough away from the car that they were both out of sight and earshot.”

I’d had time aplenty in the car to mull over that little detail. I already knew that if I went to confront Madeline, she would sell me some kind of bullshit about the kids seeing the playground and wanting to go over there—or maybe even running off on their own—but I wasn’t stupid enough to believe that those lethargic meat bags were capable of doing any of that. And I wasn’t the only one, judging from the look on Pia’s face. It wasn’t surprise on there that I’d put two and two together. It was horror that any mother could do something like that. Another piece of the puzzle that was the Ice Queen, and nothing I could do about that now except file it away to ponder later.

“I’m not looking for excuses for my behavior,” I offered, much quieter now as frustration gave way to something else, something much more bleak. “But I am asking you to give me another chance. And to not let me off the hook. I screwed up, so it’s only fair for me to suffer the consequences. Please. Don’t make me beg for this, because I already lost my dignity in that backyard, and there’s not much you can do to make this worse.”

I thought I saw Burns’s lips quiver, but he reined himself in before it could blossom into a smile. Looking at each of them in turn, I did my best not to appear too defiant as I crossed my arms over my chest, likely failing catastrophically. Their silence went on forever, a torture on its own, until Pia spoke up.

“You have to make amends, to each of us. If you’d just made a wrong decision, I would let you off the hook with the tongue lashing of your life, but you disobeyed a direct order. You endangered all of us. You have to bear the consequences of that.”

I held her gaze, even though I could taste bile in the back of my throat.

“Bring it on.” I knew I was so going to eat those words tonight, but I owed it to them not to cringe or cower now. I’d been around them long enough to realize that bravado was as much part of the deal as following up on it—and, more often than not, it was just that first step that was hard. Once thing were going, they just kept on rolling.

I could tell that Pia was greatly amused by me, and all too happy to take me up on it. Getting to her feet, she walked over to me, stopping just inside my personal space. She didn’t need the extra inches she had on me to stare me down.

“You sure about this? No one will hold it against you if you back out now. After all, you are just a scared little girl.”

Swallowing, I did my best to smile up at her. “I’m sure. And I’m not—“

That’s as far as I got, because her fist hitting my stomach hard made talking—or breathing—impossible as I cut off with a gasp, not enough air left in my lungs for a whimper. Pain exploded from my intestines out, making my knees weak, but I forced myself to lock them as I bowed over, panting.

By the time I managed to straighten again, Pia was back at her previous place, idly munching on some sunflower seeds.