Resurgence: Green Fields book 5 (2 page)

Try as I might, that didn’t keep our conversation from tanking. It was a blessing when Burns decided to park his ass on the hood of the Rover, leaning onto the open door between us. His eyes kept scanning the lot, but it was obvious that he wasn’t at his most alert. Unlike Martinez, he couldn’t even look at me, which didn’t really make this any easier.

“Hey, big guy,” I said, thumping the door so it bumped into his arm. “It’s not the end of the world.”

I got the ghost of a grin for my effort, but his eyes remained on the building. “You couldn’t just stick it out with the rest of us and die of old age and boredom,” he remarked.

“Nope. Not dramatic enough,” I huffed. Anything else I wanted to say got drowned out by a coughing fit, blood and more phlegm joining the puke on the ground. Martinez was wise enough to step back, and when I just went on hacking up my insides, Burns pushed him away so he could thump my back until finally I managed to get a grip on myself again. As he pulled away, the back of his hand brushed my cheek, ice cold to me.
 

“Shit, you’re burning up,” he said, following that up by checking my forehead next. I batted him away, and when Martinez made as if to try next, I pointedly glared at the gun rack between the seats.

“Don’t get any stupid ideas, chico. You shouldn’t even be that close to me right now. Just because none of us caught anything from someone who’s sick yet doesn’t mean that I’m not contagious.”

Maybe it was the fact that my statements carried a certain amount of weight due to my virology background, or maybe Martinez had been aware of that possibility before, but he made sure to inch away again, even if he didn’t look happy about it.

Santos joined our pity party, looking a different kind of miserable. He was heavily favoring his left foot and Martinez had put his right arm in a sling earlier, forcing him to stick with handguns only for now. Half of his face was swelling, with bruises on his chin and cheek starting to bloom, and I bet that there were a lot more hiding all over his back and torso. It took me a moment to discern exactly why he was looking so damn miserable—besides the obvious, of course.

“You’re not fucking responsible for this,” I told him, my sharp tone making his lowered eyes snap up to meet mine.

“But I am,” he protested. “If Romanoff and I had been faster—“

“You might just have ended up shot as well,” I bit out, interrupting him. “Hell, when Cho and I went for the front room, I was pretty sure that we were abandoning you. The odds were entirely stacked against us. Four people against a good fifty zombies and three idiotic soldiers? They didn’t get me because they overwhelmed me. They got me because that fucking asshole shot me! If he hadn’t, Cho would still be alive and I wouldn’t be spitting up my intestines. You have nothing to blame yourself for. If anything, you both showing up when you did is the only reason why they didn’t tear me apart right there. Although I’m starting to wonder if that wouldn’t have been the easier way out.”

“Always is,” Burns offered. “But then you couldn’t have done your hero stunts. Would have been a waste of a perfectly good opportunity.”

I glared at him before I sagged back into the seat. “Didn’t feel very heroic, killing guys who should have been on our side.”

“But they weren’t,” Burns insisted. “And that’s the point. We all know how it is. You follow orders, and sometimes that puts you on the wrong side of what’s right. They knew why they were there. They could have deserted. Banded up with us. Or not actively shot us when their little ploy with the locked-away zombies got out of hand.”

I must have looked less than convinced because Martinez took right over. “Remember when we first met? In the hallway in the Green Fields Biotech building? We—Smith, Cho, and me—made the decision not to shoot you. We had orders—explicit orders—to take out anyone we encountered. We had your picture on file in the last update we got just before we breached the building. Cho called in to confirm with command. And still we didn’t shoot. Wouldn’t have even if the undead hadn’t caught up with us, but that sure helped. It takes a special kind of fucktard to make the wrong decision in a situation like that.”

Santos and Burns obviously agreed with him. Clearing his throat, Santos asked, “Did you at least kill that fucker?”

“Zombies got to him first,” I admitted, snorting. “Because he was too fucking stupid to gun them down, rather than us. Screamed like a little girl, too.”

Grim satisfaction answered me from all around, making me feel just a tad better. Of course then I had to start coughing again, reminding us all that the end result would be the same in a day or two. Damn but I hated being such a downer.

It didn’t take long for the others to return, Nate and Andrej slightly winded while the rest seemed downright bored. So much for guessing at who’s hand the resident shambler population had found its end. I hated myself for thinking like this, but I was glad that soon I could stop pretending like this didn’t downright kill me. And just curling up and waiting to die sounded a lot less bad now that my body was slowly but surely giving out.

Nate and Pia still had some discussing to do while the rest of the gang lined up to take their leave. Burns didn’t hesitate for a second, barf-breath all but forgotten, to hug me, tight enough to make my ribs hurt. Martinez did the same, if somewhat less ferociously, ignoring my repeat protest that he shouldn’t get too close. The others left it at somewhat more reserved shows of affection like fist bumps and the odd slap on my shoulder. I suffered it all as graciously as I could, my throat so tight that coughing wasn’t an issue for the moment. Pia was up last, and she completely took me off guard when she leaned in and hugged me as well, if briefly.
 

“I will make sure that he doesn’t kill himself,” she whispered into my ear, almost too low for me to catch. I just had enough time to squeeze back before she was gone, turning away to shoo the others to their cars. My Glock she left on the dashboard.

Nate remained standing outside of the car, watching as the others took off into the darkening gloom of dusk. There was barely any red in the sky left, and the light evening breeze made me shiver. He noticed, finally tearing himself out of his momentary stupor.

“Let’s get you up there. We already got bottled water and some provisions set up.” I would have loved to glare at him, just out of principle, but the simple act of being picked up was too damn uncomfortable to let me get away with nonsense like that. He tightened his grip around me as he felt me tense, but there was no way around it. Maybe I could have tried hopping on my good leg but only with heavy assistance, and I doubted that would have gone down any better. Thankfully there was a flight of stairs right there at the end of the building, and Nate pushed open the door to the last room. It was just as dingy as I’d been afraid, but after how rough we’d been living for the past year, it was practically luxurious. He made as if to deposit me right on the bed, but I protested. I was so not going to die in a heap of bloody, gore-splattered gear if I could prevent it. He ended up leaning me against his front while he helped me peel myself out of my jacket. My pants were so sticky with blood—mine and Cho’s—that he gave up and cut them right off. I tried to avoid looking at my left thigh, but even in the near darkness it was easy to make out just how savaged my leg was. Nate ended up depositing me in the one rickety chair there was in the room so he could use some water and one of my back-up shirts to wipe away the worst of the grime. I’d never felt less sexy being completely naked in front of anyone. As soon as he was done, he bundled me back up in sweat pants and a hoodie before he carried me over to the bed. While I was busy beating the pillow into submission, he dragged the chair outside and got another one from the room next door, making a second trip for more blankets when he realized that I was still shivering under those already provided.

And then he settled in for what I guessed must easily be one of the longest nights of his life. Mine, too, because if I could help it, I wouldn’t waste a single second I still had with sleeping.

It didn’t take long for my fever to spike, and I was out cold maybe an hour later. Not that sleep brought me any rest, or relief for that matter. Memories merged with fever-induced hallucinations, and then didn’t even disappear when another violent coughing fit tore me awake again. Exhaustion and pain soon got unbearable, wiping away any mental concerns I might have still been hanging on to. Nate was right there, trying to feed me water, then hot tea when I couldn’t swallow that any longer. He tried to keep me warm when I was shivering with chills and did his best to cool me down when sweat broke out all over my body. He didn’t flinch when I was too slow to lean over the edge of the bed to hurl up more blood, and told me to suck it up when I whined that he didn’t need to remain crouching by me to keep me upright when I had to use the toilet.
 

An eternity later, the sky lightened again, the day dawning bright and hot. Electricity wasn’t working so no air conditioning, which promised to make us both even more miserable, if that was possible. I wasn’t completely sure but I thought that Nate made one or two trips down to the car, fetching a few more provisions.
 

The hallucinations got worse, as did the pain and exhaustion. Even my teeth, nails, and hair were hurting, about the last parts I could—or should—have felt discomfort from. If I’d still had enough strength to reach for the gun on the nightstand, I would have shot myself, but I was too weak to push away the blankets. Nate pointedly ignored how I kept glancing that way.

We didn’t really talk much. What was there left to say? I knew that any oath I could have badgered out of him was moot the moment I took my last breath. Besides, I wasn’t the kind of woman who would tell him to go out there and seek comfort in the arms of another.
 

My grasp on reality continued to slip. Lucid moments got few and far between. At one time I thought I felt the bed dip beside me as Nate climbed on and hugged me to his body, but the next moment he was back in his chair, staring at me with sad eyes. I reached out for his hand, but when I blinked I was on my back, staring at the much darker ceiling before he rolled me back into a stable side position, the soiled sheets forgotten on the floor.

Then a different pain started, deep down in my abdomen. It was strange but also kind of familiar, not unlike my period cramps. From one moment to the next it was a lot like that, only stronger, sharper. A thought fluttered across my scrambled mind, not even well-formed enough to be called an idea. A possibility that was all but impossible. One more opportunity missed, not that it should have existed. And that was the moment when I decided that I was so done with this shit; that I didn’t need any more grief to heap on top of all my regrets—and I just let go.

The last thing I was vaguely aware of was Nate grabbing my head and shouting my name. Darkness closed in on me, wiping my mind clear of thought.
 

And then, nothing.

It took a long, long time until I became aware of something again.

A touch, soft enough not to even stir the fine hair on my arm.
 

Nate’s voice, talking in low, soothing tones, reading to me.

Light chasing darkness away, only to be swallowed up by lengthening shadows.

Seconds passed. Centuries.

And through it all, he was there, a constant at my side. I didn’t know what I had done to deserve that. I certainly didn’t know why I was still alive.

It was some time after I became aware again that I finally stopped waiting to bite the dust, and forced my eyes to remain open. The room still looked as I remembered it. Drab. Brown. There was an undefined stench in the air that I was afraid was coming from me. I idly wondered if I had already started to decompose. I definitely felt bad enough that dying would have been a blessing, but that in itself probably meant that I was very much alive. I was weak, so fucking weak that just keeping my lids from fluttering closed took effort. Turning onto my side was impossible, and even shifting slightly made the agony in my lower abdomen flare up again, same as with my left leg.

So it hadn't all been just a dream.

Staring straight up at the ceiling, I wondered if I could simply suffocate myself if I stopped breathing. Too bad that my lungs kept expanding with every slow, labored breath that I tried not to take, but I was too frail to retain control over that. A tear slid down my clammy face, causing another blinking fit. Yet this time my mind remained alert—or as alert as it got—sweet, sweet oblivion denied.

I must have made some kind of sound because Nate startled awake from where he’d been dozing, still in that chair, but his head pillowed on his crossed arms on the bed. From the thick stubble all over his face alone I could tell that some time had passed since I’d last had the mental capacity to retain anything. I just stared at him, holding my breath. He blinked sleep out of his eyes and managed a small smile, but his eyes remained clouded, troubled with concern.

“Do you want some tea?” he asked, already reaching for the thermos on the nightstand. “Should still be warm from last evening.”

My eyes were drawn to the windows, but I gave up trying to gauge the time. Something was off about the light filtering into the room, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. It didn’t matter, anyway.
 

Ignoring his question, I asked the much more pressing one. “Why am I still alive?”