Green Fields (Book 3): Escalation (32 page)

“There’s nothing you could have done differently,” Burns insisted. “Don’t buy into the shit Miller’s been spewing. You know as well as I do that he only said that because he knew that you needed to hear it. That you needed a reason to go all vengeful valkyrie on those fuckers, and that you needed to be the one who finished him off. They caught him with his pants down. It happens. It was a lucky break—for you. Otherwise, it would have been both of you down there, and trust me when I say that Bates gladly put his life down for you not to have to go through that. Any of us would. And not just because you’re a girl, or you’re the boss’s girl. Because you’re one of us. Now get the fuck over it and move on. That’s the best way you can honor his memory.”

I knew that he was right—probably. But that was a lot easier said than done. I wanted to thank Burns for trying, but somehow couldn’t find the words for it. So instead I went with, “And there I thought the best way to honor him would be to ride into the next brothel and fuck anything on two legs.”

Somehow, his answering guffaw lifted some of the weight from my chest. “That, too. But who knows if there are still any brothels left? Way it seems to me, all girls that are left are either married, or, well. You know.”

Drunk we might both be, but we still kept our voices low enough not to carry. I couldn’t help but glance into the night where I knew the surviving women were sleeping, or at least trying to.

“Trust me, there are still brothels. They don’t call it the oldest profession in the world for nothing. And we’re heroes now, right? What woman in her right mind wouldn’t want to fuck a hero?”

Silence fell, until Burns reached over and clapped me hard on the back. “Don’t worry, girl. You’ll get over it.” He left me alone with the last dregs in the bottle and only my thoughts for company. I remained staring off into the starry night for a long, long time, not sure what to make of that vote of confidence.

The next morning started early and harsh, with exactly the kind of hangover that I deserved—and as I knelt there in the dew-wet grass, puking my guts out, I couldn’t help but feel like I’d really needed that. Not that the splitting headache was anything I wished even on my arch nemesis, but it made me feel alive—if in the worst kind of way.

The guys thankfully ignored the pitiful display I put on, and I didn’t even need to bite anyone’s head off for offering me breakfast. That was, until Nadia, the woman with the niece, approached me, looking about as if she were to engage a rabid dog.

“Hey. Do you have a minute?” she asked, eyeing me as if she was already regretting the decision to start a conversation.

My first impulse was to offer some acerbic comeback, but she really deserved better—even if I wasn’t sure I could do better today. “Sure. What do you need?”

A look of guilt passed on her face, and her voice was even softer as she replied.

“I’m really sorry if I disturbed you, but—“ She hesitated, yet forced herself to go on. “But I feel like I need to talk to you. Explain.”

I shook my head. Softly. “Don’t worry. You don’t. We understand what you’ve been through. No one’s holding that against you.”

I could tell that she tried to smile, but it looked more like a painful grimace. “You think you do. Understand, I mean. But you don’t.”

Unease crept up my spine, and I had to fight down the impulse to tell her to go look for Martinez if she needed a shoulder to cry on. “And you want me to? Understand, I mean?”

Ignoring the clear lack of enthusiasm in my voice, she wrung her hands but didn’t back down.

“It’s probably not fair to you, but I need you to understand. I can tell that you’re feeling bad—“

“Not for killing those bastards,” I assured her.

She paused, clearly trying to find the right words. “You hurt for your friend that you lost. I know what they did to him. I’ve seen it happen to so many men before him…” She trailed off, but when I didn’t speak up, she started anew. “They didn’t just rape us. Or eat us. We never knew which it would be when they came to get one of us. The first time they dragged me out, I thought I would welcome death. That was before I realized that they never just killed, but—“ Again she paused, and my mind was only too happy to fill in the blanks. That much had been obvious from the rants of the sobbing man.

Exhaling forcefully, Nadia made herself go on, her eyes finding mine. “In the winter, when food got scarce, they started rationing. They would just cut off one limb, or parts of it. Enough for them to eat. One every few days. But they were bored, so they pulled us out more and more often. And each time, we would pray that they would just rape us. Not slice parts off us. Do you have any idea how that feels? Begging to God that they will only rape you? Only torture you but not maim you permanently?”

There was nothing I could answer to that, so I remained silent. She took a shaking breath, finally looking away, making me feel like the lowest piece of shit for my inability to comfort her.

“And then a new convoy arrived,” she went on explaining. “With more women. More children. More men. And all I felt was gratitude, because that meant there were seven more people that might end up on the fire instead of me. Two more women that hadn’t been broken and shared by the entire camp yet. Five more men they could force to take their offer to join them, or end just like your friend. And because two of them were married, they made them watch while the camp raped their wives. And then they forced them to do the same to two of us. They weren’t all bad from the start, you know? But not a single one of them didn’t have it coming.”

She glanced down at the floor in front of us, and this time remained silent.

Clearing my throat, I asked, as softly as possible, “The leaders. Or whoever started it. Do you know who they were?”

Nadia nodded. “They had no strict hierarchy, but the one whose nose you broke was one of them. And the one who lost it. He was one of the worst. Didn’t just do what all of them did, but actually enjoyed it. He didn’t deserve an ounce of mercy. I’m glad that you didn’t show him any.”

That made two of us.

Looking up again, she tried to smile, but it fell short by a mile. “Thanks for listening. I didn’t want to burden you with this, but I know that you hate us for not being grateful.”

“Hate’s too strong a word,” I said, feeling like I owed it to her to be honest. “And as I said, we understand. Now more than ever, but all of us do.”

She nodded. “I can tell that your men are decent men. Well, as decent as they still come in this world, but I guess it takes a certain kind of ruthlessness to survive. I meant no offense.”

“None taken,” I replied.

“Please know that we are grateful. For setting us free, for taking revenge for us. For giving us food, clothes, shelter, and for bringing us to safety. Even if we can’t show or express it, because the mere thought of anyone touching me, of being locked in again, helpless, defenseless… It’s too raw. But we do understand the risks you take, and we will forever include you in our prayers.”

That last bit made me grimace, and not just because I wasn’t exactly a bible-thumping kind of girl. Although she spoke with a soft, midwestern accent, Nadia’s complexion looked as if she could have come from India just as well as around here, with thick, dark hair and matching skin.

“After everything that’s happened to you, you still believe in God?” I asked, incapable of toning down the disbelief in my voice.

She considered for a moment, but didn’t seem offended by my question. “I guess when you have nothing left—no dignity, no freedom, maybe not even the will to live—what else but faith will carry you into the next hour, the next day? And didn’t God bring me my avenging angels?”

There was a lot I could have answered to that but likely not anything she would have liked to hear, so I kept my trap shut. It wasn’t my place to diss the one thing that she clearly felt no one had managed to take from her yet. Holding my gaze a moment longer, she then looked away before she turned and left me to myself.

Way to start the day.

When Nate joined me in the car half an hour later, he wordlessly held out a bottle of painkillers to me that I happily accepted. I silently dared him to taunt me for drinking too much last night, but he just buckled himself in and got the map ready, tracing the route that we had selected for the day.

“Ready when you are,” he told me—and I got the feeling that he didn’t just mean about rolling back onto the road.

Chapter 20

We made it to Aurora, Kansas, in under a week, thanks to the largely deserted back roads. I didn’t know what I had expected, but not the giant ring of palisades easily visible from a distance. It must have taken weeks to erect them, miles of circumference as they seemed to have. A sign post spelled out three more miles at the intersection where we stopped, maybe a hundred yards outside of what looked like a rather formidable gate. Glancing at Nate, I waited for him to voice an opinion, but he just shrugged. I wondered if we should tell the women they could go their own way now, seeing as they were all crammed into the two vans that were of no use to us, but that seemed rather cruel. And in some ways, talking to Nadia made me feel kind of responsible for her well-being. The least we could do was to make sure that they were finally safe here—and I didn’t want to consider what we’d do if we found out that they weren’t.

“Do we approach the gate?” I questioned, not quite sure why I even asked for Nate’s permission.

He glanced up toward the men silhouetted against the sky, holding watch above the gate—who’d clearly seen us, likely following our way for the last fifteen minutes. “I think they would have shot at us already if that was their intent.”

I couldn’t help but remember those hillbilly assholes Madeline had left us for. Back then, I’d had a really bad feeling about this. Now? Not so much. I wondered if it was Nadia’s hope that deluded me into a false sense of safety, or if deep down a part of me longed to rejoin society as it used to be, making me equally blind to danger. The fact that I felt like assuming the worst was my default setting now gave me an answer in and of itself.

Easing the car toward the gate, I let it roll until we were in talking distance, the others following behind. One of the men up on the palisade was leaning forward, so I shouted up to him first.

“Hey there.”

A woman appeared by his side, her grey hair whipping around in the light breeze. She must have been sixty, maybe even older, but looked as spry as a teenager.

“Are you the folks coming over from Illinois?”

There was caution in her voice, but also a measure of hope. I briefly looked at Nate again, but he still seemed set on letting me do the talking.
 

“Did you get our radio messages?” I asked, cautious about answering her question first. “We weren’t sure anyone would receive the transmissions.”

She hesitated, but then nodded. “We did.” That obviously still left some guessing open to who we were, but I decided to just go ahead.

“We have several women and children with us who need shelter. A place to live, permanently, if possible. One of them told us she has family here. Her name is Nadia. Her niece is with her, too.” I cast around my mind for the girl’s name, but kept coming up blank until Nate whispered, “Penelope,” to me. “Penny,” I shouted up to the woman.

I heard a high-pitched shriek coming from somewhere behind the palisade, and the next moment a small access door next to the larger gate burst open, spilling out a woman with hair and eyes as dark as Nadia’s. Two armed men were right behind her, but they weren’t trying to hold her back, just covering her as they glanced everywhere at once—us included, but we clearly weren’t perceived as the threat we obviously presented. Theoretically.

I heard a car door slam behind us, and the next moment the girl, closely followed by Nadia, came hurtling toward the woman, launching herself into her arms. The woman started to sob, holding the girl close, before she gathered her sister in the same embrace. Watching them, I felt something inside my chest, but it wasn’t the response I knew I should have had. The three women continued to hug and weep, but they clearly were tears of joy and gratitude.

When I looked away from them to the palisade, the older woman was gone, but she stepped through the door a few moments later. She smiled softly at the reunited family before she approach us. The loose blouse and tan skirt that she was wearing were as impractical as they got, but somehow that was soothing to me. I’d never have worn anything like it at the bunker, too afraid that I’d have to run, flee, and fight any moment of the day. They must have done a good job with their defenses if she felt she could let down her guard like that.

As placid as the look on her face was, I could still tell that she was nervous as she drew closer. Through my open window, she must have seen the well-stocked gun rack between the seats, same as the gear crowding the former back row, but her eyes remained on me as soon as they caught my gaze.

“I cannot tell you how grateful I am for you bringing them back to us,” she told me. “Of course we will happily give everyone who wants to stay with us a new home. We have more than enough space, and with the warmer weather, our crops are coming in quickly.” She paused, clearly debating with herself for a moment. “You’re welcome to join us for as long as you like, too. At least a few hours so you can rest, eat, maybe restock your provisions. Or a few days, too. But I understand if you’d like to remain among yourselves. Community is hard to come by these days, and people are understandably suspicious.”