Green Fields (Book 3): Escalation (44 page)

Through the stupor of my half-suppressed memories rose a picture—exactly the same mark, if with just a single X, partly covered in blood and dirt. Now that I knew what it signified, it made sense—we were by far not the first group to go through this, and one of the others must have found their untimely end at the cannibal conclave. I wondered if that signified anything, but in the end, it was the same. I just hoped that the surviving woman who had a similar mark on her hand wouldn’t get into any problems with the good folks here now.

The moment they were done with him, Nate shot to his feet, making everyone around him scurry away. Yet all he did was walk over to Stone with a blank look on his face to accept the clipboard Stone handed to him, starting to scribble on it without missing a beat.

Andrej was up next, after the guy with the tattoo gun had switched out the needles and cleaned his equipment. At least they seemed to care about basic hygiene, and I couldn’t help but be glad that they had a second set of equipment ready, apparently for those who would only receive one mark. Campbell and Bailey followed, the latter tense as hell—acute needle phobia, it turned out. Then it was Burns, and true to his nature, he actually chatted with the guy who was inking him the entire time, completely unnerving the soldiers standing guard. I winced when it took three guys to bring Pia to her knees—literally—and she cursed and spit the entire time, adding a few more phrases to my ever-growing repertoire of Serbian words. Some of them were colorful enough that under different circumstances I would have laughed.

I really didn’t feel like laughing now.

Once Pia was released and stalked over to Nate, accepting the clipboard from him and practically stabbing it with the pen, silence fell, anticipation heavy in the air.

Stone resumed his role as MC, with Lowe once again gloating in silence.

“You have a choice,” Stone said, speaking to the five guys remaining between the guards, all glowering back at him as one. “You are free to remain here, or select any other permanent settlement of the union. We have gotten word about the settlement you’ve listed as your base. The Wyoming Collective, if I’m right?”

He waited for anyone to acknowledge his words. When no one did, he went on as if nothing had happened.

“If you decide to return there, we will organize a guarded transport for you, but you’re required to remain with them. Any breach will be seen as a violation of the law, punished accordingly, and you will not be given another choice about taking on nomad status. If you require more time, you are free to take it.”

Still no reaction, and Stone’s smile turned a little sardonic.

“Anyone deciding to join your former comrades, step forward please.”

I knew that this was my signal. My stomach was already heaving, but I forced myself to ignore it. None of the guys—from either of the two groups—was looking in my direction, but I could tell from the slightly different kind of tension that they were waiting to see what I would do.

Well, no sense in making this harder on anyone than it needed to be.

Exhaling slowly, I bent down and picked up my pack by a strap, my fingers curling around the sturdy material maybe a little too tightly for comfort. The first step was the hardest, the second not much easier, but by the third I knew that I was doing the right thing. I heard a few murmurs behind me, but that was it. Keeping my eyes fastened on Stone’s back, I stepped farther away from the crowd, feeling terribly exposed. When I was abreast with Nate, I swung my arm to the side, pitching the pack toward him so that it sailed in a perfect arc to land right next to his boots, sagging against his ankle. I didn’t turn my head far enough to see his face, but I was sure that he knew that I’d just handed him two thirds of my backup arsenal. The beretta was now safely tucked away at the small of my back.

Lowe and Stone still seemed unaware of what was going on behind their backs, leading Lowe to open his mouth after all.

“Doesn’t look like your guys are particularly fond of letting you continue to order them to their doom,” he jeered, likely at Nate.

With my hands now free, it was easy to shrug off the lab coat, and I let it drop in my wake, not caring what became of it. Underneath I was wearing my charcoal underarmor shirt that was itself thick enough to likely fend off a biting zombie, with my washed-out My Little Pony tee over it that was loose enough to flap lightly in the breeze. Sadie had spent quite some time last winter drawing with permanent marker on it, adding a punk mane, eyepatch, combat boots, and what I thought was supposed to be a shotgun to the motif. It definitely held some sentimental value.

Another step and I reached up to gather my loose hair in one hand, pulling it into a high bun that I secured with a hair tie. I couldn’t even say why I’d left it down the past days, but it felt right to have it out of my face again. Eating hair in combat—not a good idea.

Then I passed Lowe and Stone, and I gave them a moment for their eyes to go wide. So they really hadn’t expected this.

“It’s called respect,” I told them both. “Something you wouldn’t know the first thing about.”

The moment I stepped up to the tattoo guy, I heard the soft scuffle of boots as Martinez fell in line behind me, the others queuing up behind him.

The guy with the tattoo gun eyed me critically as I crouched down before him, bowing my head.

“You sure about that, doc?” he asked. “No turning back once I start this.”

Gritting my teeth, I looked back up at him, then gave him one of the condescending glares that sometimes even shut Burns up. “I have an IQ of over 145. Trust me when I tell you that I am more than just sufficiently aware of the ramifications of my actions.” Glancing over to where Stone was still staring at me, I couldn’t hold in a derisive laugh. “I made one right decision in my entire life, and that was to choose the right side back in Lexington. And I have absolutely no reason to step back from that decision now.”

“Suit yourself,” the tattoo artist said as I bowed my head again. “Nice shirt.”

“Thanks.”

I locked my muscles as I felt him swab the back of my neck with alcohol, and forced my eyes to remain open as I heard the buzzing sound of the tattoo machine turning on. A first prick, followed by a continuing scratching sensation that made me want to rear up or at least scrape my nails over the afflicted region, but I forced myself to remain absolutely still. It was done in less than three minutes, and even though they seemed endless to me, they were over before I could start regretting my decision.

“Hand next,” the guy said, giving me a weird look when I placed my left hand on the provided low stool. “Girls usually do the right.”

Grinning up at him, I snorted. “I’m the driver. I’m always on the left. If I pull up to your town gate, this is what you’ll see first,” I said, giving him the finger of my left—window-sided—hand. He actually laughed, his eyes twinkling, and didn’t protest further as he set to work. Watching didn’t really make it any better, but I forced my mind to go blank as the black ink sank into my dermis, forming a mark that would remain with me forever.

And I still didn’t regret a thing.

My legs were a little shaky as I got up once the tattoo was cleaned up, but I refused the bandage the guy offered me. Between all the ink the guys were sporting already, I was sure that one of them would know a thing or two about aftercare. The sooner I got away from here, the better.

I didn’t look at Stone or Lowe as I walked over to where Nate was waiting for me, the barest hint of a smile on his face. He simply held out the clipboard to me. There was a paper—with one of those old-fashioned blue sheets to make copies—pinned to it. A list as I saw at the first glance. In Nate’s somewhat horrible scrawl I could read “Lucky Thirteen” at the top of it, with his name following—yet with leaving the first half of that line blank still. The others had signed their names below, and somewhere in the middle there was a struck-through “Chris Bates” on it. When I glanced up at Nate, he gave me a tight smile.

“I thought it was only appropriate. We started this as thirteen, and considering that we’ll likely end this with all names blacked out, it seemed fitting. Don’t you think?”

I nodded, feeling my throat close up, but the lump was already easier to swallow than a day ago. Signing my name right in front of Nate’s, I handed the clipboard back to him. If Pia had wanted that spot, she’d have claimed it already, I was sure.

“So how are we going to do this?” I asked.

“I’m in command of strategical and combat decisions. You’re in command of commercial and civilian decisions. We each have the right to veto each other’s vote, but let’s try not to grid-lock the entire operation more than twice a week, shall we?”

He actually extended his hand to me, making me snort, but I took and shook it nevertheless.

“Yeah, so not promising anything there,” I said, unable to keep a smile—a little forced, but still sincere—in.

“I said ‘try’ for a reason,” Nate grunted, shaking his head when my smile widened.

“Like you can handle it when I’m not railing at every single thing you say,” I shot back. “You’d get so fucking bored right out of your mind that you’d start some stupid shit just to get a rise out of me. You’re welcome.”

Burns’s laughter cut Nate’s answer short. “Shit, I’ve missed this! Life’s so dull when you’re not bickering all the time.”

I glared at him before I let my gaze drift over to Nate. “I think I’ve missed other things more.” His answering smirk let me know that the message had been received.

And then we waited another endless twenty minutes until the others were done with, a weird mix of tension and anticipation gripping my body, making me restless. I couldn’t believe just how much I was looking forward to swinging myself behind the wheel of the car again, and I was almost hoping that we’d find a reason not to just mow down the next group of shamblers at the side of the road but get out and dispose of them the old-fashioned kind of way.

That probably made me one sick fuck, but then I felt like I was in the right company.

Santos was the last to get his Scarlet Letter, and once he’d signed the list, we got the original for safekeeping while Stone pocketed the copy. Not that it mattered. We also received a somewhat beat-up looking receiver system for the car and a rather long list of frequencies, separated into states. Clearly, we hadn’t been the only ones to come up with that idea—and maybe if we’d been a little faster with it, we might have spared ourselves some grief. Or not. If even our folks at home had joined this insanity, I couldn’t see how we could have avoided it for that much longer. Nate’s lack of protest made a lot more sense now.

Stone stepped up to me before we could start toward the gate and the cars parked beyond it, disbelief still heavy in his gaze.

“Why?” was all he asked.

I thought about it for a moment, not sure if I could give him an answer that he would understand.

“Because I’m not going to support a system that defines itself once again through oppression,” I replied. “If I have the choice between being free or being locked in, I’d rather take my chances out there.”

“But you could have everything here that you ever wanted. You could have made a difference,” he said, clearly frustrated.

Cocking my head to the side, I studied him, deciding that I wanted to tell him the truth, whether it mattered or not.

“There’s no vaccine. There never will be one. You’re wasting your time hunting an idea while you could do something useful instead.”

His brow furrowed, disbelief clear on his face.

“How can you say that? You yourself carry antibodies that—“

I interrupted him with a smirk, hard-pressed not to grin at Nate. “Acquired immunity, yes. But that won’t do shit against a zombie bite.”

“I don’t understand,” Stone began, but then cut himself off, a calculating quality coming to his gaze. I was too tired of this shit to keep this up for much longer.

“Do I really have to spell this out for you, Stone? When a man and a woman are really into each other and too lazy to go loot for condoms because he can’t knock her up anyway, there’s that certain possibility that sooner or later her body will adapt. Although I’m still not completely discarding the theory that it’s simple survival instinct to keep me from having to blow his head off because he’s an asshole all the damn time.”

We really must have been more discreet than I’d expected—including back when Nate had leveled the Green Fields Biotech building to the ground—because Stone looked surprised beyond comprehension. Snorting, I shook my head. “I still stand by my statement that I’m morally opposed to the shit you’re pulling here, but the fact that he’s hung like a horse and fucks like a Trojan doesn’t hurt.”

Anything further that I might have said got drowned out by Burns’s laughter, but I was pretty much done anyway. Turning around and looking at my ragtag band, I jerked my head toward the gate. “Let’s get out of here.” No one protested, yet when I let my eyes skip over the gathered people, I caught Amy smiling at me. Us, really, as Nate suddenly grabbed me and bent me over his arm, leaning in to kiss me in the most cheesy, overly dramatic way possible, to a chorus of catcalls cheering us on. So much for that.

Of course he had to ruin it the moment he pulled back with the worst impression of a neigh ever, making me laugh and snort at the same time—very ladylike indeed.