Resurgence: Green Fields book 5 (44 page)

Frank mumbled into the mic, hopefully as he was taking notes, before he spoke more clearly again. “I’ll see what I can do. But don’t get your hopes up. We’ve lost people a lot more proficient at survival than a bunch of traders. If they haven’t signed in with us in the meantime, they’re likely all dead.”

“Thank you,” I said, trying to sound like I meant it. “You’re my only hope.”

A pause followed—with luck, he realized that it was one of the nerdiest obscure quotes out there. But rather than acknowledge it somehow he just signed off, leaving me standing there none the wiser. My shoulders slumped as a visceral feeling of defeat rushed through me, making it hard to breathe for a few seconds. What if I was wrong and they really weren’t looking for me, thinking I was dead? Or, worse, Taggard’s people hadn’t just snatched me up but killed the others? In a town as large as Yuma, who would miss a few traders?

Fuck.

I knew that I couldn’t think like that, but it was hard to fight the dark thoughts threatening to crush the spark of hope inside of me. I knew they were still alive. And even if they weren’t, there were a lot of people out there who would follow me on a bloody warpath of revenge.

A light touch on my arm made me jerk away, too late realizing that it was only Sam. She gave me an unreadable look before she nodded toward the door. “Let’s get you a place to sleep before you keel over,” she offered. To Hamish, she asked, “You’ll tell us if they call with news?”

He nodded. “You’ll be the first to know.”

Sam led me away, and I didn’t protest. Sleep sounded even better than food had before, and I needed it about as much. She went to one of the smaller, newer houses that turned out to be little more than two stories of sleeping quarters, each room holding two rows of cots. “It’s not much, but we’re trying to be thankful for what we have,” she explained by way of apology. To someone used to sleeping on the ground or in the questionable comforts of a car seat not exactly designed for restful nights, it was an unexpected luxury. I would have been happy with just a blanket on the floor, too.

As soon as my head hit the pillow, I felt exhaustion overwhelm me—but that didn’t mean that my mind was ready to shut up and let me sleep. I dozed off quickly enough, but startled awake what couldn’t have been more than a couple of minutes later, sure I was back in that damn tiled cell. Sam looked up from where she’d sat down on the cot next to mine, a book in her hands that had seen better days. The concern on her face seemed more like reproach to me, so I turned over and tried to go back to sleep.

The most I managed was a fitful slumber, interspersed with nightmares and memories—the factory; Taggard’s underground complex; the cannibal compound; the motel room. I was running until I couldn’t run anymore, fighting until all strength had left me, until everyone I’d ever known or cared about was dead. That was the worst—not just that they were all dead, but that I was alone. All alone in the world.

Through the small window high up in the wall I could see the progress of the sun across the sky. I gave up a few hours after noon, feeling not a little rested although I could tell that my body had recharged somewhat, likely due to the food. Sam was still there, watching me more than reading her book. I remained lying on my back, eyes closed, for another ten minutes, waiting for exhaustion to finally do its thing and pull me under, but alas, that didn’t happen.
 

“Remember when I used to volunteer at that shelter, in college?” Sam asked, her voice low enough that I couldn’t read the emotions swinging in it. Turning to face her, I raised my brows, silently prompting her to go on. The look on her face remained unreadable, but a certain pleading quality became noticeable in her tone. “Despite what you may say, you’re behaving awfully like the women I met there. Who were abused by the men in their lives.”

I couldn’t hold back an exasperated sigh, although I already knew that would just spike her ire. “Sam—“

“No, listen to me,” she insisted, dropping her book in favor of turning to me, her hands folded in front of her. “The way you startle and jerk all the time. The way you look at everything like a deer caught in the headlights. You can maybe alleviate everyone’s suspicion here because they don’t know you, but I do. Or at least I used to.”

Letting air escape slowly through my cracked lips, I tried to find words that I simply didn’t want to say. “I’m not saying that a lot of shit didn’t happen to me over the past year,” I tried to explain. “But Daniel isn’t responsible for any of that.” Which wasn’t quite true, but Nate had never deliberately traumatized me just for the heck of it. And he’d always been there to let me vent or otherwise learn to cope with the situation. Only now that for the first time that I really, actually needed him… But I knew all too well that thinking along those lines wouldn’t help me.

Sam let out a frustrated snort. “So this thing between you and him—“

“Our marriage,” I cut in, knowing I hurt her, but anything that would get her to leave me alone was better than this.

Her mouth twisted with derision, and her tone turned sharper as she continued. “I thought you died out there, you know? When you didn’t come back home that Friday evening.” She paused, giving me a chance to speak up but I remained silent. Her next breath was clearly audible, speaking of a world of hurt that I immediately wished I could take from her. “All this time I grieved, and the truth is that you were cheating on me with some guy. That’s why you didn’t come home. Typical.”

I knew that I didn’t deserve this, but still felt like she had a right to say so. “Sam—“

She shook her head, making me fall silent again. “Guess I can’t fault you, right? I always knew that sooner or later you’d go back to… Nevermind. How did you get out of the city?”

I shrugged, not sure exactly how much to tell her—and how much of what had actually happened she would believe. “Yes, Daniel and I were together,” I said. “Then it became obvious that we had to flee, so we ran.”

“So you abandoned me,” she pressed out, anger low in her voice. I tried to shake my head but stopped myself. In a sense, I had.

“I couldn’t have made it across town by the time we realized what was going on in the morning—“

“It would have been too late by then,” she cut through my protest, her eyes boring into mine. “They sent a detail to fetch you, you know? Apparently you were on some list of important people worth saving. They waited until after midnight before they brought us all into their evacuation camp. They said maybe you were already there as they were sending someone to your work place, too. And when they flew us out, I saw what was going on down there, and I knew, you couldn’t be alive anymore. There was that bridge with all those people trying to run—“

She cut off there, looking away. The impulse to vault up from my cot and shake her until she told me every damn detail was there, but I cut down on it. What were the chances that it had been that very bridge where the nightmare had really started for me? There had been planes and helicopters flying overhead, leading the undead surge straight to us.
 

But none of that mattered now, and it would have been cruel to explain that to her.

“Sam, I’m sorry—“

Her sharp laugh cut me off again. “Don’t be,” she huffed. “I’m sure that your Daniel helped you move on quickly.”

A slight echo of that old pain deep in my chest flared up, but it was mostly how I was hurting her feelings that made me speak up.

“I mourned you. For weeks. Months. Heck, just last week I thought of something that you’d have said, and it still hurt. Yes, I moved on, but you would always have remained a part of me. Because I loved you. I really did. Whatever else happened, that never changed.”

There was, if anything, only satisfaction visible in her gaze. “Loved? As in, you used to?”

Anger made me want to snap at her, but I forced myself to calm down before I answered. “Yes. But meeting him had nothing to do with that—“

“Liar,” she grumbled, narrowing her eyes at me. I held her gaze evenly.

“It’s true, and you know it. I’m not saying that everything was terrible toward the end, but what we had barely even resembled a relationship. You were sleeping around, and I was doing everything to keep myself out of situations where we had to do something together. We would have both been much better off if we’d just called it quits and parted amicably.”

I knew I shouldn’t have said that when I saw the stricken look on her face, making me feel like shit. After a year of not pussyfooting around anything with Nate it was hard to remember that I had never been this frank with Sam—which was likely the cause for the rift that had opened between us.

“It was all terrible for you?” she whispered after swallowing thickly. Oh great. Next thing she would start to cry, I knew it.

Shaking my head I looked to the side, trying to salvage the situation somehow. Fighting like this was so useless. I felt like slapping myself for how I was wasting what still felt like an opportunity I had never expected to get—to spend one more hour with her and tell her all the things that I never got to say.

“Of course not. I’m sorry I said that. I didn’t mean it like that. It’s all just…” I trailed off, then sat up so I could reach over to her and take one of her hands between mine. She let me, but her grasp was lifeless. “So much has happened. I can’t think straight right now. Finding you alive here, it’s—“

“Too good to be true?” she offered, a weak smile ghosting over her features.

I nodded. “Pretty much, yeah. It’s the first good thing that’s happened to me in a really long time.”

Sam considered my words before she pulled her hand away, but rather than withdraw further, she got up and walked around my cot, sitting down behind me so she could lean against the wall. She patted her thigh, and after a moment’s hesitation I lay back down, my cheek cushioned on the soft folds of her skirt. Her fingers went up to my hair, stroking gently, making me relax instantly. The sense of familiarity sweeping through me was enough to choke me up.

“I’m sorry I said that,” she murmured as her fingers continued their soothing tracks. “About us. I guess I’m not used to you being so…”

“In your face?” I suggested.

“Blunt,” she corrected, her tone slightly chiding. That made me chuckle, and when I looked up at her, I saw a slight smile building around her mouth. Exhaling forcefully, she looked as if she was steeling herself for something.
 

“What kind of guy is he, that husband of yours? Must be quite the catch to turn you of all people into a lying cheater.”

So much for backing down, but I did my best to ignore her barbs.

“Do you really want to know? I never did. Still don’t want to. It’s in the past and…” I trailed off there, leaving her to draw her conclusions from that.

Sam shook her head, dismissing my concern. “Tell me about Daniel.” She stressed the name weirdly enough to make me frown. When she saw that she let out a scoff. “I saw the tattoo on your butt. I can read. What I don’t understand is why you’re lying about your names.” She paused, the ire on her face turning into discomfort. “Are you in some kind of trouble? You’re safe here. And I won’t tell anyone.”

It was tempting to tell her at least some parts, but I decided that it was a bad idea. “The less you know, the better. But I can tell you that much.” At her nod, I asked, “What do you want to know?”

She shrugged. “What kind of guy is he?”

“He’s kind of an ass,” I admitted, incapable of not grinning for a second. “But it’s okay, because he’s like that to everyone. He sees me, who I really am. Who I could be if I stopped bullshitting myself. And he accepts me, strengths and flaws alike.” I was sure that Nate would have laughed at that assessment of him, the mere thought making my heart ache. “He’s fiercely loyal, and he’d lay down his life for me in a second. I’ve lost count how many times he saved me over the past year. I wouldn’t have made it without him for a day out there.” I wondered if that had been too vehement, but the frown on Sam’s forehead softened gradually.

“He treats you right?”

A weird question, but I nodded nevertheless. “He does have a penchant for gloating when I screw up, but it’s not like I’m not worse when he does. We… harmonize.” Normally not how I would have described us, but without going into details it was the best I could manage.

“How did you meet?” Sam prodded.

I hesitated, but the official version was tame enough—in most aspects—that I could very well run with it. “We met in a park. He was there, running with his dog. The damn animal jumped all over me and got dirt on my clothes, and he insisted that I had to let him buy me coffee in turn, and, well…”

“One thing led to another?” she guessed.

All I could do was shrug. “Well, yeah.”

I could tell that she knew I was lying, or at least omitting parts of it. “How long has this been going on? When was the first time you—“ She cut herself off there, glaring at the wall rather than down at me but I knew who that ire was reserved for.

I debated flat out refusing to answer, but if she really wanted to know…

“First time we fucked was in the alley right behind that coffee shop. And until the shit hit the fan we’ve been acting pretty much like horny teenagers.”

I’d seldom seen Sam so appalled at anything I’d done, and in a way that gave me a twisted kind of satisfaction. That she clearly hadn’t seen coming. Of course that also made me feel incredibly petty, but also melancholic. So much had happened since then. So much had changed—and some of that entirely because I’d been acting like a wounded animal, licking her wounds. If my stint as Taggard’s guest had done one good thing it was to shake me right out of that phase.