Green Fields (Book 3): Escalation (38 page)

I had to admit, part of me wanted to accept right then and there, but I forced myself to put down the folder instead of scouring it for details about that super soldier serum, and held his gaze steadily. “Give me some time to think about it.”

“Of course. I wouldn’t want you to make this decision lightly and regret it later. But might I ask a small favor in the meantime?”

“Your secret’s safe with me,” I joked. At least I thought I was joking.
 

“I’m sure it is,” he replied smoothly. “But no, something else. Would you mind meeting with the different work groups today and discussing their findings? Should you decide not to stay with us after all, that would still help us tremendously.”

That left me a little conflicted. “I’m not sure if I’ll have the time.”

“Don’t worry about the mercenaries,” Stone said. “They don’t look too keen on leaving just yet. This morning, they set up some kind of obstacle course outside on one of the meadows, and they’ve been rolling around in the grass there ever since.”

That made me wonder… “How late is it?”

Grinning, Stone checked the watch on his wrist. “Quarter to twelve. Almost noon.”

The very idea that I’d slept a good thirteen hours on end just stunned me—until what else he’d said sank in. The look on my face must have spoken volumes, because he was quick to assure me, “They likely thought you needed the rest. Or why else wouldn’t they wake you? You weren’t exactly hard to track down.” When I didn’t respond, he shrugged. “Or they had another, equally valid reason. I just wonder why you would continue to subject yourself to this. I could see it in a woman who doesn’t have other options. It can’t have been pleasant, these past months.”

My mind was only too ready to replay the best-ofs to me immediately, but I staunched that by-now familiar feeling of guilt.

“It hasn’t been all bad,” I forced myself to say when the worst had passed. I didn’t think I was fooling anyone with that.

“Be that as it may, you have other options now. Options that you should consider in earnest. Even if you’re not striving to get more involved in research, we could use your expertise in any capacity whatsoever. We’re short-staffed on all levels. I just wanted you to know that it’s your choice. You can finally accomplish all the things you set out to do when you signed up for college. The world needs you, Dr. Lewis.” Another pause. “I’ve taken up enough of your time now. The folder remains with me in this office, if you want to peruse it later. I don’t want to keep you any longer from whatever you choose to do.”

That was a dismissal if I’d ever heard one, and I took my leave, half-drunk coffee in hand. It felt weird to take any beverage out into the lab proper, but if they really wanted to promote me to their leader, I doubted that anyone would have my ass for it, the health hazards to myself aside.
 

And as I stepped out of the office and watched the scurrying going on all around me, I couldn’t help but consider how that might be—to be leader of this bunch. To work on saving humanity.

To never have to run for my life again. To never spend entire days in the cold, half-deaf from gunfire. To never starve again. To never again know for a fact that someone died because I had fucked up.

It was tempting. Oh so very tempting.

Chapter 23

I spent the next few hours in the lab, mostly telling people that what they were already doing was a good thing, but if they stopped for a moment to consider why they were doing it, they’d have seen for themselves that they could have gotten better results with half the work. It made me feel incredibly arrogant, but no one gave me the stink-eye. Well, except for Greg Lowe, who only ducked in to listen for two minutes and left before anyone could ask why he hadn’t made all the comments that seemed so obvious to everyone now that I’d made them. Someone refilled my coffee, and later even brought me steamed vegetables that tasted like the fucking best thing I’d eaten in my entire life. Yes, I definitely could get used to this.

But that didn’t change a thing about the fact that the longer I spent inside the lab, the more claustrophobic I was getting. The press of the people around me didn’t help, either. My head started to hurt while my body got restless, to the point where I excused myself to drop down onto the floor and do a quick fiver set of thirty push-ups each. Burns would have laughed at me for cutting it short, yet when I got up again, everyone was staring at me as if I’d gone insane.

“What?” I asked, cleaning my palms on my pants legs.

“Why would you do such a thing?” one of the young research assistants asked—likely one of the most qualified guys down here.

“And how?” another chimed in.
 

I stared at them for another few seconds before it dawned on me what exactly their issue was.

“I’ve spent the last ten months running, shooting, and all around carrying gear almost as heavy as half of what I weigh now with me. You need good core muscle strength to keep that up for more than a couple of minutes.” More disbelief met me.

“Did they really make you do that?” Megan asked. “And you still wonder if you should stay with us? After almost a year of that, I wouldn’t move a muscle for weeks!”

“That sofa in Brandon’s office is mighty comfortable,” Ethan offered.

Shaking my head, I told them to focus on their work again, but couldn’t disband that feeling of alienation.

Two hours later, I had enough and left the lab, just in time to run into Amy and the girl who had—unbeknownst to me—cleaned my entire stack of dirty clothes. In all the chaos of everyone wanting to hear my opinion on everything, I had completely forgotten about that, and getting presented with the clean, fresh-smelling evidence of that just added to my inner restlessness. I knew that they meant well, but still.

“Thanks. Just let me bring that to the car and I’ll join you for dinner.”

When I held out my arms to her, the girl still wouldn’t let go of my laundry. “I can bring that to your room,” she offered.

“My room?” I echoed, dumbfounded.

Amy, smiling warmly, explained. “We took the liberty to prep a room for you, in the building right behind the lab. I heard you slept in Brandon’s office last night. That’s really not necessary. This way you only have a few more yards to go and can be in the lab in under two minutes from stepping out of bed.”

“Uhm, thank you?” I said, not quite sure what to make of that.

“You’re welcome,” Amy replied, completely ignoring the doubt in my voice. “We really mean it when we say that you’re welcome here. Whatever you need, if we can provide it to you, we will.”

This was starting to get a little creepy, but following along seemed to be the easiest way to get rid of them. I was insanely glad when Amy told me that dinner wasn’t ready yet, so I took off before she could rope me into doing anything else with her—like braid my hair or paint my fingernails.

On the way back to the cars, I found Martinez lounging in the shade of a tree, reading. He looked up as I drew close, grinning. “Hey, chica.”

“C’mon, get off your ass,” I teased. “Run a few laps with me.”

“Getting all sweaty with you? Always,” he shot back, abandoning the book where it had dropped to the ground.

I didn’t bother with setting an easy pace or warming up—with no exercise at all for two days, I felt like my muscles were screaming to get a good workout done. Martinez kept up with me, but before long, he was huffing and puffing too much to strike up a conversation. Or maybe it was just me who felt like talking, who knew?

Within minutes, we’d run half the distance between the town border and the palisades. Martinez pointed at a dirt track leading off to the right where I could see that obstacle course Stone had been talking about. It wasn’t that much—a few tires to skip through, some rope to crawl under, a few blocks of wood to vault over, and a rope suspended from the side of a rickety shed I wasn’t sure would survive if I tried to scale it. Burns was currently sitting on the roof of the shed, lending its stability some credibility, but I was doubtful whether it would hold us both. Only one way to find out, right?

Leaving Martinez behind, I sprinted the last few yards over to the tires, throwing myself through the course without much regard for anything, letting my body find its way through and around the obstacles. A year ago that would have ended very soon in a very painful way; now I was pulling myself up onto the roof a bare minute after skipping through the first pair of tires. Burns was right there, lending me a hand to spare me that final push. The shed roof held yet groaned ominously, making me grin as I regained my balance.

“Nice to see you’re not too lazy yet to move that fine piece of ass around,” Burns remarked, quickly stepping away so any punch I might have been tempted to throw would miss. I didn’t try, out of breath as I was, but the temptation was still there.

“If any of you assholes would have bothered waking me this morning, you could have spent half the day staring at it,” I shot back.
 

“Aw, damn.” Burns groaned, sitting down next to where I flopped onto my back, panting as I stared into the sky. “So, are we going to lose you to these lab rats now? Because I already told the boss that he’d better crack out his sweet side, because I’m so not enthusiastic about going zombie hunting without your weird stunts to brighten the day.”

That made me snort, but also brought the grin out that I was sure he’d been aiming for. “What sweet side? Don’t tell me he’s been holding out on me? Because I only know the asshole and the jackass side of him.”

“There’s a difference between that?”

I shrugged. “Degrees of the same, I guess. But only one makes me want to actually kill him sometimes. The other I’ve gotten used to by now.” I thought about it for a while, and when Burns continued to eye me askance, I finally answered. “I don’t know. I really don’t. But it’s my decision. Nothing that Nate does or doesn’t do will influence that.”

“Probably for the best,” Martinez said as he pulled himself up onto the roof on my other side. “Why don’t you ever help me?” he complained to Burns.

“Because you’re too pretty for your own good, and falling flat on your ass only serves you right. To teach you humility,” Burns replied, grinning—what else?

“Fucker,” Martinez replied succinctly.

“You wish.”

I had to admit, I’d missed this—more than I wanted to admit, really. Listening to the guys bicker over my outstretched body between them, I watched as the sun sunk behind the palisades, again painting the sky in pretty colors—and still I felt nothing inside. With the exhilaration of the run leaking out of my muscles, all that was left was a bone-deep weariness.

“You know, I’ve always found sunsets overrated,” Burns remarked, likely remembering my remarks from a few days ago. “Always reminds me of these weird-as-shit greeting cards, you know which ones I mean? With the motivational messages.” I nodded.

“It will get better soon,” Martinez offered, but shut up when I glared at him.

“I don’t need your well-meant but completely pointless sympathy,” I ground out, returning to glowering at the sky instead.

“We’ve all been through this,” Burns said. “We get where you’re coming from.”

For whatever reason, that upset me rather than made me feel understood, which I figured had been his intention. “They don’t.”

“Who’s they?” Burns asked.

“They. The people here. Amy. The people in the lab.”

Burns scoffed. “Screw them. Delusional nerds, the lot of them.”

Blinking, I tried to find the reason why exactly his reaction bothered me so much. “I used to be one of them.”

“Yeah, used to. As in past tense. You’re not like them anymore,” Burns stated.

Looking at him, I frowned. “You say that like it’s a good thing.”

“Because it is, in my absolutely not humble opinion,” he replied. “None of them would survive out there for a moment. Or in there, if their fancy little barricade gets destroyed. Doubt that the handful of guards that they have can do anything to save them. You, on the other hand, don’t need saving.”

I knew that his vote of confidence should have made me feel better, but it didn’t.

“I just don’t know why I’m doing this to myself,” I whispered, not realizing that I’d said it out loud until I saw Burns furrow his brows.

“You don’t really mean that. You’re usually not such a whiner.”

“Well, thank you so much for taking my feelings seriously,” I replied, feeling anger rise inside of me. I wasn’t sure if that was better than indifference.

“What’s gotten into you all of a sudden?” Burns asked. “You on your period?”

Screwing my eyes shut, I forced myself to count to ten inside my head before I replied. “No, I’m just sick and tired of you guys treating me like shit.”

The resulting pause was heavy enough that I opened my eyes again, looking first at Martinez, then at Burns. Although he hadn’t said a thing, Martinez looked guilty, while Burns was mostly pissed.

“So, one day of pampering and everyone fawning over you, and we’re not good enough for you anymore? Good to know that you’re not just a bitch, but a fickle one at that,” Burns ground out, leaning toward the edge of the roof. “You know what? If you like it so much here, why don’t you stay? Begs the question why you ever came with us in the first place.”