Green Fields (Book 9): Exodus Read online

  I didn’t miss exactly how miserable both Gita and Rodriguez looked at that idea, so I spoke up quickly.

  “The five of us will go first.” I indicated me and my people. “The rest can draw straws for all I care. I’m sure they have their own preferences.”

  Elle didn’t ask about the distinction, but I was sure that she’d noticed that, for the most part, the five of us had differently colored gear and lacked any form of rank or group insignia. Well, I had a feeling that she’d soon get to see mine.

  “Perfect. I will leave you to coordinate now, and tell the cook to get dinner started.” The guards let her through the left door but immediately closed it after her, the sound of several deadbolts engaging from the other side somewhat ominous.

  I wondered if we should coordinate with the others, but seeing as Bucky was still silent, I left it at dropping my things on a shelf, peeling myself out of the worst of the outer layers that were dirty as hell, and grabbed some clean clothes from my pack before handing them—and my knife, handguns, and quickly cleaned boots—to the guards. The others followed suit while the soldiers were more or less waiting for someone to tell them what to do. I was sure that Red would start the briefing once it was obvious that we couldn’t listen in anymore. Again it occurred to me that, just maybe, I should have been a little more paranoid, but so far, nothing had set me off. The truth was, I was tired, exhausted, in dire need of that shower, and longing to spend some downtime without having to watch my back, preferably somewhere cozy and warm. If the French wanted to kill us, they could have easily gunned us all down outside their neat little bunker, rather than letting us inside where there was blood to be washed off later.

  And speaking of washing off blood—not only was there electric lighting in the room lined with shower stalls, but they had hot, running water. The level of care I had in me for who was about to see my naked, scarred, scrawny ass was quickly dropping toward zero.

  It took me a few minutes to ditch the rest of my clothes. Most of it went straight into the trash bags provided for that very cause. Not being able to do proper cleaning beyond what hastily stuffed-in baby wipes would accomplish, I’d expected to have developed some lovely rashes in the meantime, but except for dirty skin ready to be scraped off, there was only the bandage from Parker’s hack job of a surgery that needed any attention. The scar was already fading, no longer angry red, but the general area was still tender. Maybe if I could go another day or two without anyone poking me there, it would heal for good. The bruises I’d accumulated from today’s fight were much more visible all over my body.

  As usual under these circumstances, I did my best not to get a faceful of anyone’s body parts that I didn’t need to see too closely before I hopped into a stall, only moderately surprised that Nate followed. The stalls were large enough to accommodate two people, and seeing as I had a week of sweat and grime, with some undefinable fluids from earlier today, plastered on my back, I didn’t mind having someone handy who could wash it all off. I certainly wouldn’t have minded a lot more physical contact of a different nature, but I didn’t want to subject the others to having to listen to that. Nate appeared indifferent himself so I took that as a sign that he was thinking along the same lines.

  They had real shampoo, conditioner, and body wash in an overflowing rack inside the stall, not just something that was closer to dish soap than personal hygiene products. Ah, the luxury. I was liking the French more and more by the second.

  I perfectly hated having to admit that I was as clean as I was going to get—and, more importantly, having to leave the hot stream of water—but as I stepped out to grab a towel to dry off, I did my best not to let much of that show. Having to fight with keeping my balance—again—was bad enough, but I didn’t want to go all frowny-face at anyone for our inspection. If Elle’s dislike for Bucky had been any indication, I could win a lot more favor by being as easygoing and relaxed as possible, so that’s what I was going for. The others were mostly ready by then—untangling and washing my hair had taken a small eternity—with only Gita looking positively miserable where she remained cocooned in her towel. I wondered if I should say something to her, but was honestly too tired and worked up at the same time to get my diplomatic side working. Tanner noticed as well, clapping her amicably on the back—after discarding his own towel in a corner. Modesty had not survived the apocalypse. That, or I was surrounded by out-of-the-closet exhibitionists.

  “Don’t worry, girl. I’m sure those yahoos over there are going to steal the show, anyway.” He pointedly looked in my direction where I was waiting next to the exit.

  I gave him the most innocent expression I could manage, but that held up for exactly the three seconds it took me to drop my own towel and check my scar in the partly foggy full-length mirror next to the door. Most recent scar, I amended to myself, because damnit, parts of my body closely resembled expressionistic art. I did my humanly best to ignore that—my ego really didn’t need that reminder. It was so much easier to focus on the rest. Turning to Nate, I asked, “Did you see my ass? That’s some serious booty developing there.” I got the deadpan stare I deserved for that, which made it easy to crack a smile. Checking again, I made sure that the light peach fuzz on my face hadn’t started to turn into black bristles. “My eyebrows could do with some plucking,” I observed critically, more interested in the scabbed-over cuts on my forehead and cheek—also from this afternoon. “But you still like hairy little women, right?”

  Rather than verbally reply, Nate gave my left shoulder a hard push that made me stagger away from the mirror and toward the exit. Gita’s snicker kept my previous smile firmly planted on my face. Mission accomplished. Then again, her eyebrows were perfectly plucked, so what did she have to lose?

  The room beyond the showers was a rectangular box, floor, ceiling, and walls tiled white except for the huge viewing window opposite the entrance. There was a very sturdy-looking steel door next to the window. The interior was so brightly lit that my eyes immediately started to tear up; there was barely a shadow left directly below my body between my feet, and even that was only a light one. Beyond the glass, Elle, a handful of guards, a woman who I presumed was a doctor, judging from the scrubs and white lab coat she was wearing, and a few less distinctive people were waiting for us, doing a rather good job of not appearing particularly interested or impressed by us as we filed into the room. I ended up between Nate and Burns, which certainly detracted from some of the visible changes my body had gone through over the past weeks, but might also distract from the marked additions—and losses. I tried my very best to appear confident and like I didn’t give a shit, keeping my hands on my hips and my fingers slightly splayed. Because the room beyond the glass window was much darker, I could see my own reflection all too well, not something I cared for particularly. But I certainly was something to look at now, that much was true.

  I was by far not a stranger to my husband’s unclothed form, but we didn’t actually spend a lot of time around each other fully naked. I might win the contest of who got the most scars since the shit hit the fan, but he wasn’t as far behind as might have been preferable. And while I felt like the Frankensteinesque appearance of my left thigh in particular and my toes and fingers in general were impossible not to stare at, there was plenty to ogle between the five of us, also including a lot more ink than I’d have guessed.

  The voice of the doctor—heavily accented but very melodic in a smokey contralto—tore me out of my reverie. “Please turn around. When the light changes, please face forward again.”

  We all shuffled our feet as we followed her directions. Burns snickered, and when I looked at him over my shoulder, I caught him staring at my ass. Very likely it was about Nate’s name and the anatomical heart tattooed there, but I couldn’t just let that fly—particularly as the somewhat cooler air in the room seemed to do nothing whatsoever to decrease his obvious sense of comfort, so to speak.

  “If you even think about whacking off to this, I’ll castr
ate you,” I threatened.

  The snicker turned into a full-blown laugh. “Well, aren’t we glad you’re not a mind reader,” Burns shot back, feeling not the least bit intimidated. “Besides, I’m counting on someone else’s attention so that I won’t have to spank the monkey.”

  We grinned at each other, making me miss the face Nate was making—but his response did a great job filling me in on that. “I’m so damn glad you’re trying to be professional,” he grumbled.

  My reaction got postponed when the lights suddenly turned off, leaving me seeing weird shapes and blotches as my vision slowly cleared of the afterimages. It took me a few seconds to realize that the blue hue the room was cast into wasn’t due to visual randomness but different sets of lights. Glancing down my body, I found slight fluorescent flickers dancing along the fresh scar, same as across my left middle finger’s new tip.

  “Turn around, please,” the doctor instructed. As I did, I saw that weird greenish flicker in the glass reflection as well, same as across a partly scabbed-over cut on my forehead—but I quickly forgot all about that when I saw that it was my eyes that shone in vivid bright green. And not just mine—the same was true for Nate, Burns, and Tanner. Not that hard to guess what that was all about, but that told me nothing about the why.

  Maybe it should have freaked me the fuck out, but I was far too fascinated and curious. Fucking serum.

  There was some nervous shifting going on at the right end of our line as the others noticed, but a few seconds later, the bright lights were switched on once more, and no one seemed ready to gun us down any moment now. The invisible locks on the exit disengaged, the door swinging open as someone pushed on it from the other side. Behind the window, Elle motioned us to walk through. There was a small room beyond, open to the other side of the viewing window, our possessions that we’d handed to the guards earlier waiting for us. Nate exchanged cautious glances with me, making me guess that, so far, he’d never experienced that demon-glow eyes test before, but he looked less disturbed by it than I felt. We dressed quickly, the warmth of the shower and observation room quickly dissipating. Just because they had electricity down here didn’t mean it was wasted on heating when a few layers of clothes could do the job more effectively and cheaper.

  Elle was waiting for us as we filed out of the changing room, the doctor preoccupied with chatting in hushed tones with one of the guards. Still no one seemed disconcerted, or the slightest bit alarmed.

  “You passed,” Elle offered in a disinterested tone, as if she hadn’t expected anything else. That made me wonder if this really was about them inspecting us for bite marks, or simply to see whether we would follow directions well. That blue-light check they could have done with us fully clothed.

  “I take it you know what I was talking about when I told you that some of us are immune to the virus,” I surmised. Rather than reply, she gave me a tight smile. I took that with a nod, wondering if I should ask her if I could watch on the next two rounds of checks, seeing as I still didn’t know exactly who of our illustrious compatriots had been inoculated with the serum, or who hadn’t. Parker hadn’t been, that much was easy to deduce. Bucky was, of course, and I was sure Nate could have verified most of them, at least from back when he’d still been part of their ranks. With Red, Hill, and Cole I was overwhelmingly positive, but except for Cole’s little reveal yesterday about his and Hill’s Delta career, they were surprisingly closed-mouthed about their pasts.

  But I had more important items on my agenda, at least for the next minutes.

  “You are free to head into the base proper, if you’d like,” Elle explained, pointing at the corridor behind her. “Or you can wait here.”

  “Actually, I have a favor to ask,” I offered. “Two, but they’re connected.” She looked surprised, but nodded at me to go on. I couldn’t help but grin. The first really wouldn’t be hard on them, I was sure. “Uhm, the thing is, I would be much obliged if you could, perhaps, come up with ideas to postpone the progress of the other two thirds of our party? Nothing that might get you shot, but I think just a few minutes around Hamilton have been enough to let you see just what an asshole he is, and if you have ways to legitimately annoy him…“

  Elle’s laughter was short but came from the heart. “Say no more. We let you through easily because you were very cooperative, and we already knew what to expect. The same is not true for the rest.” Her gaze dropped to my midriff. “That scar, it’s recent. If you would like to get our doctor’s opinion on it, I’m sure she would check on you right away.” Rather than wait for my response, Elle called over her shoulder. “Inaya?”

  The doctor finished her conversation quickly before joining us, faster than I could turn down Elle’s offer. Elle said something to her in French, her vague gesture toward my stomach making it obvious what this was about. Rather than having me strip, the doctor regarded me with an even, somewhat bored, gaze. “You feel healthy?”

  “A lot more since I got that,” I explained.

  “Then there’s nothing that needs my attention,” she responded, already turning away. Something told me the good doctor had some experience dealing with people who healed unnaturally fast.

  Elle pursed her lips. “If she can’t set bones, she gets bored easily,” she explained. “What else do you need?”

  “Well, you see, the situation is this. The past weeks, way longer than I care to count, we’ve practically spent sitting on top of each other, with Hamilton delighting in making a nuisance of himself. I can’t even remember clearly when my husband and I last had a moment to ourselves.” One of the guards behind Elle cracked a smile, and I could practically feel Nate roll his eyes where he was standing behind me. Traitor. “You’re French,” I went on explaining. “I don’t think I’ll have to spell out the details for you. If you have some kind of maintenance room somewhere with a door that closes where we won’t be in the way…”

  Elle’s snort was rather amused. “Ah, I see. That’s why you want me to delay the dear captain’s progress?”

  I shrugged, not exactly denying it. “Ten minutes. That’s all I need.” And my, did I have to put my foot in my mouth like that every damn time?

  “You have twenty easily, maybe thirty if I can manage,” Elle promised, hard-pressed now to keep from smirking. “Head down the corridor, third door on the right, just where the main corridor takes a turn to the left. It’s an old storeroom where we keep spare parts. If you don’t mind the smell of engine grease, it’s all yours. Bolts from the inside.”

  I thanked her, grabbed Nate’s arm before he could come up with anything that would have made me change my mind, and was off in the direction she’d indicated, Burns’s laughter following us down the concrete corridor.

  Chapter 2

  There was a hint of resistance from Nate but no outright protest, so I chose to ignore it. Screw finding out about the immunological status of Bucky’s men. I needed this, and right fucking now. Our steps echoed on the concrete floor, two lightbulbs doing a shit job illuminating the over a hundred feet of distance between the entrance and the turn Elle had indicated before. The cracked walls were stained with water and covered with moss in places, making me guess that the tunnel—and likely the entire installation—was older than me, probably by a few decades. Cold War era, probably some kind of bunker should the Soviets decide Europe was the perfect stomping ground to turn the conflict into a hot one. Part of my mind idly wondered exactly how many thousands of people all over the world had survived simply because of past paranoia.

  The much larger part of my mind was hell-bent on getting out of my clothes and into Nate’s, so I didn’t exactly dwell on those musings.

  I found the door unlocked if somewhat hard to open, rusty hinges squeaking loudly as I forced it to swing into the room. There were no working light fixtures but right next to the door was one of those LED stick flashlights perfect for illuminating the underside of cars and the likes. I let go of Nate in favor of switching it on, having to slit my eyes as
the sudden glare blinded me. I heard the heavy door close behind me. The next moment, I found my back pressed against the inside of it as Nate grabbed me and whirled me around, his body colliding with mine a second later. I didn’t waste another thought, reaching up to twine my fingers through his hair, eagerly opening my mouth to his tongue. His hands pushed between my back and the door, then went lower to grab my ass, pulling the lower half of my body toward him. I moaned, hitching one leg up so I could get closer to the friction I so absolutely needed.

  My, but I clearly wasn’t the only one needy for attention.

  If the apocalypse had taught me one thing, it was to be stealthy but quick about getting things going, but if I had twenty to thirty minutes, I wasn’t going to try to be done in five. Nate seemed to be thinking along the same lines, actually taking his time to remove some of my non-essential clothes, and letting me do the same to him. I tensed a few times when he inadvertently put pressure on parts of me that hurt more than I could ignore, but it only took a disgruntled growl for him to continue when he paused. He certainly seemed over that notion by the time his hand found its way inside my underwear. A hint of a satisfied smirk crossed his face as he found me quite ready for more, and he didn’t hesitate to follow up on that. I took a moment to sag against the door and close my eyes, enjoying myself. What could I say? There was so much shit going on with my body—of late and still present—that it felt damn good to get an endorphin kick from something pleasurable for once.

  But as fun as that was, and as much as he knew what to do to get me going, it wasn’t enough, and it wasn’t what I was hungering for. So before long, I aimed for his partly undone pants and reached inside with my right hand—only to find him a long shot from where I needed him to be physically able to slake my lust. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, he tensed and stepped away, our height difference making my hand fall away while his managed to stay in place.