Retribution: Green Fields #11 Read online

  Retribution

  Green Fields #11

  Adrienne Lecter

  Retribution

  Green Fields #11

  by Adrienne Lecter

  Copyright © 2019 by Adrienne Lecter. All rights reserved.

  http://adriennelecter.com

  First edition: August 2019

  Produced and published by Barbara Klein, Vienna, Austria

  Edited by Marti Lynch

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, businesses, events, or locales is purely coincidental.

  Reproduction in whole or part of this publication without express written consent is strictly prohibited.

  The author greatly appreciates you taking the time to read her work. Please consider leaving a review wherever you bought the book, or telling your friends about it, to help spread the word.

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  Dedication

  To M

  Even if he doesn’t know why (that’s what he said). He knows.

  What happened in the Green Fields Series so far:

  Bree Lewis thinks her life is getting complicated when the biotech company she is working for—Green Fields Biotech—gets taken over by terrorists… but that’s before she realizes that the zombie apocalypse is about to break out. She decides to help Nate Miller, leader of the insurgents, to find out who killed his brother—and might just be responsible for the end of the world. Together, they flee in the nick of time, barely getting out before the city gets overrun by the undead. Bree learns how to survive and fight, and when they reemerge from the bunker where they spent the first winter in, the new world is full of opportunities. With their most trusted friends, they form the Lucky Thirteen, a scavenger group ready to help the survivors in the settlements, always happy to slay some shamblers.

  Only that their rise to gory glory doesn’t go unnoticed, and before long, Nate’s past catches up with him. They find themselves caught in a trap that none other than Nate’s former best friend and comrade-in-arms Bucky Hamilton has set for them. Bree gets savaged by zombies and barely makes it out alive, but instead of succumbing to the zombie virus, she survives—but with unforeseen consequences. She doesn’t know it yet, but the infection has taken hold deep inside her body, making it start to rot from the inside out. Civil war is brewing on the horizon, and after Bree gets kidnapped by the very same people who tried to kill her before, she’s had enough, calling on scavengers all over the country to help her end this madness. The assault on the army base in Colorado ends in a truce, all sides agreeing that the senseless loss of lives is not something the world ravaged by the zombie virus can take—but their triumph is short-lived.

  When Bree realizes that her body didn’t kick the infection but is, in fact, deteriorating quickly, there is only one hope for her: to get inoculated with the serum that turned her husband and many of their friends into super-soldiers, yet ultimately, at their death, into zombies, and is directly connected to the outbreak of the plague that kicked off the apocalypse. The doctors at the army installation are able to save her life (if not all her limbs, intact) but that comes at a price: Bree and Nate are forced to cooperate with them, and get sent on a mission to France to retrieve information and a possible cure for the zombie virus—and none other than Hamilton is in command.

  Raiding that underground lab turns into a nightmare when the former subjects studied there turn out to be a new breed of even stronger super-juiced zombies, and Nate almost gets killed. When he wakes up on the way home, he’s not quite the same anymore. Bree does her best to add her knowledge to the quest for a cure, but she knows it is futile, wishful thinking. She and Nate decide to disappear into exile since Hamilton issued a warning to them while they were in France: The reason why they keep getting caught up in the worst of the fray is because Nate’s old mentor, Decker, wants his favorite attack dog back by his side. Hiding from the world might just be the only way to evade that fate, and to keep their friends safe.

  Two years pass until events catch up with them once more, and Bree soon finds out that the world has gone to hell in their absence. The civil war they helped incite but thought they’d ultimately prevented with the truce struck has turned into a nasty battle with multiple fronts, what little civilization had returned after the apocalypse now crumbling for good. Kidnapped by slavers, Bree manages to escape, but now needs the help of her old crew to spring Nate from his gruesome prison. She manages to rally support not just from her friends but other allied factions, among them the marines from the Silo, the army soldiers from their joint mission to France, but also her old scavenger buddies, now resembling a bunch of violent lunatics. Together, they launch a successfully attack on the slaver camp, liberating the prisoners and putting an end to the drug trafficking operations. Bree is surprised to find none other than Hamilton had also been wasting away in one of the prison cells—and now she’s stuck with him since Nate is adamant that his former friend is a vital asset he intends to put to good use.

  Having been locked up and forced to kill in the arena at the camp has left its mark on Nate, and Bree is none too happy about the changes in her husband that she notices. But she has no time to dwell on that, because now the time has come for some payback—and that’s something she knows how to deliver.

  Chapter 1

  “Let’s get this party started.”

  It didn’t feel like much of a party, I had to admit. Both the location and people present weren’t looking very festive, or in the mood for festivities. All of us had good reasons for that, I figured; coming together to beat the crap out of some human shit stain wasn’t necessarily a cause for celebration—and being on the receiving end of said intentions couldn’t be that much more fun. I also wasn’t sure if direct, physical aggression was the best thing for my two companions; neither Nate nor Bucky Hamilton looked very enthusiastic at the prospect, but that could have been due to months of trauma, lack of acceptable food sources, drug withdrawal, and sleep deprivation. I was rocking the tail end of what likely amounted to a tenth of what they’d been through, and curling up in a corner while listening to the storm rage outside sounded like a mighty fine plan. Compared to how I was feeling, Cindy—that would be Master Sergeant Cindy Cooper, formerly US Army and more recently pimp, drug lord, and one of my least favorite people around—looked downright peppy. The black eye she was sporting and light bruising along her jaw—both acquired yesterday when we’d hit the camp hard and had kicked the previous administration out—didn’t seem to bother her. That she knew who we were was a given. She had previously been under Bucky’s command from what I’d gathered, and besides, both he and Nate had racked up quite the notoriety status around here. I’d—not so gently—reminded her that we’d met two months ago when she’d shot me up with drugs that had almost incapacitated me but thankfully hadn’t prevented me from killing my way out from under the threat of rape and murder. Her relaxed attitude toward the men lurking behind me must have been an act, but I had the distinct suspicion that she wasn’t quite taking me seriously.

  Nothing like dissuading people of that notion.

  I was sure that she expected me to go right for a punch—and I was absolutely itching to oblige her—but if I’d learned something from how the previous leadership had handled things around here, it was that good ol’ violence was by far not the worst that someone could do to you. She was currently sitting on a high-backed chair that was bolted to the floor, ankles bound to the chair legs and wrists cuffed behind her back to keep her where she was—ideal for me to straddle her thighs and plunk myself down on her lap, my arms casually slung o
ver her shoulders, like you’d do with a lover. Her eyes widened in surprise, and while she locked her muscles in place, I could feel her try to recoil physically—which was, of course, impossible, with the chair setup and all that. We hadn’t bothered with restraining her head or neck—mostly so she wouldn’t break quite that easily when punched—so technically, she could have tried to head-butt me or spit, but instead she just stared straight into my eyes. From up close, it was impossible not to see that her eyes were wide with fear and apprehension, however blasé she tried to act. Three years ago, knowing that I was the cause for that would have made revulsion well up inside of me. As it was, I felt a certain satisfaction roll up my spine. I might not have been the most dangerous person in this room, but I was far from easily ignored.

  “We can do this the hard way, or the really fucking awful way,” I drawled, ending with a chipper smile that I absolutely didn’t feel. “You know that we know what you did, and you can’t expect any of us to go easy on you. So why don’t you spare yourself the worst of it and spill your guts right here and now, and I can promise you that you won’t go through everything that you’ve subjected countless women to yourself.”

  A muscle jumped in her cheek as she gritted her teeth, further steeling herself. Her tone was wry as she responded, not a hint of fear in it. Part of me envied her that level of composure.

  “Gee, thanks. And here I thought you’d try to intimidate me.” Her gaze briefly flickered to who was lurking behind me, but rather than snub me further and address the guys, she looked back to me as she went on. “It shows so fucking plainly that you have no fucking idea what you’re doing. I’m not afraid of you, or anything you can think of threatening me with. I know that those are all empty threats. You don’t have the guts to follow through with anything.” Another pause, and her gaze dropped from my face for a moment. “And you are lacking the equipment to do so.”

  Involuntarily, my fingers flexed in the well-worn leather gloves, but I kept my arms right where they rested on her shoulders. I’d considered taking off the gloves—bodily fluids were a bitch to clean off—but more so than usual, being surrounded by lots of people who could all so very obviously physically best me made me self-conscious about the missing bits and pieces all over again. Yet since I couldn’t very well ‘fess up to that—least of all to this scum—I forced a bright smile on my face, deliberately ignoring her insinuation—and turning it around on her again. Sorry, missy—you won’t get a chance to try to get into my head.

  “Not having a dick just means I can go right on to shoving my shotgun up your ass,” I told her conversationally, making sure my grin remained strong—and hopefully a little anticipatory. “I’ve always been curious what happens when you take point-blank range to the next level. And watching you bleed out on the floor from having all your internal organs perforated would be worth not getting all the answers.” In turn, I ground my hips forward, as if the very thought did some interesting things to me.

  Her face remained impassive, but I didn’t miss her convulsive swallow. So she did take me seriously, at least to a point. Interesting. Also borderline useless until she started spilling her guts, hopefully before I had to pick up one of the knives set aside in plain view and help along with the physical analog of that. Yet rather than fold, she said, “Like that’s very motivating.” Her attention again skipped behind me, to the right, where I knew Hamilton was lurking. “Why do you indulge this damn imbecile? She’s just wasting your time, and very ineffectively.”

  I wasn’t stupid enough to look over my shoulder—and leave my nose, ears, and possibly eyes and neck exposed to her—but part of me was burning to check the look on Hamilton’s face. Normally, I would have expected his favorite expression around me—a perfect sneer—but I doubted he would give Cindy that satisfaction. He didn’t speak up, so I guessed he was holding her gaze evenly. He’d gotten really good at that silent “I’m still better than you” gloat—I’d been subjected to it all morning while we’d gotten some more caffeine into our systems and had pretended to do more than unenthusiastically push oatmeal around chipped bowls while Andrej and Pia had shot suggestions to and fro about how to best get started with the interrogations while the three of us had mostly just listened. Why it was us rather than them in here was easily explained—the Ice Queen had other shit to take care of, like getting the day-to-day of the new management sorted out, and someone needed to take care of getting more cars up and running. That left the three of us idle. I couldn’t pass up the chance to haunt one of my new least-favorite people in the world, and as it stood, both Nate and Hamilton were amazing for scaring anyone shitless with their sheer presence. It didn’t matter that there was a thick, dark bruise around Bucky’s neck where he’d almost gotten strangled yesterday, or that he’d lost most of his physical bulk over the months of imprisonment in the camp; it just made him look even more the lean, mean survivor that he was. In turn, Nate’s comparative bulk came with its own implications—and that was a can of worms I fully intended to keep the lid on as long as humanly possible. I hadn’t been the only one who’d noticed that he’d barely eaten more than a single spoonful of oatmeal this morning. Granted, I was the wrong one to ask if it had been edible or not, but the fact that everyone at the table had been watching in silence spoke volumes.

  Another fight for another day. Today, all that was on my agenda was to get some answers out of this fine specimen before me.

  Absentmindedly playing with the hair at the nape of her neck—which made her already tense body go rigid—I went on chattering. “If I were you, I wouldn’t count on either of them losing it and ending your miserable existence quickly. I could be wrong, but Hamilton must have a huge beef with every single one of his former soldiers who turned on him, and Miller... where do I start? With the fact that you murdered the one woman who showed him a thread of kindness, or that you prepped his wife to get raped to death? No worries—we won’t go the eye-for-an-eye route, but when you bite it, we will have to bury you in pieces.” Her eyes narrowed as she got ready to deflect that, but paused when I gave her a dazzling grin. “You saw my hands, right? You really think I couldn’t replicate how they worked me over?”

  Confusion crossed Cindy’s face, quickly followed by dread. This time when her gaze flickered in Hamilton’s direction, it wasn’t in challenge but seeking confirmation—that she must have gotten, seeing how she paled. “You’re lying,” she accused, her tone flat.

  I allowed myself a snicker, hoping that my acting skills were a little more on point than usual. Being around Hamilton was a kind of torture, so I wasn’t lying exactly, just not telling the truth.

  “How did you think they got Miller to cooperate with them in the first place?” I asked, pitching my voice as if that was a rhetorical question. “I can tell you that pretty much every version I’ve heard of how we betrayed the scavengers is absolute bullshit, but you wouldn’t know, right? Because you betrayed your people and slunk away when things went sideways at the base in Colorado.” Cole had told me that she’d been part of the defense when we’d hit the base, and had been presumed dead when she hadn’t been around after we’d forged our rickety truce—that had changed nothing, least of all for the better.

  “They wouldn’t,” she insisted, sounding like she needed to believe that more than she actually did. “They must have known that you’re useless without half your fingers. You’re a damn scientist. What use are you if you can’t do science?”

  I was itching to correct her several misconceptions, but since that would likely have undermined my act, all I could do was shrug. “Guess all they cared about was my husband’s cooperation.” I paused, taking a moment to shift on her lap again. “But none of that is relevant now, except to stress just how low my bar for things I will not do has become. So why don’t you do us all a favor and spill your guts, and we can be done before lunch break.”

  I already knew what was coming when she visibly set her jaw. “You’re not getting anything from me, cunt.”
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  I considered before I got up, finally getting a chance to glance at the men behind me. Nate looked grim, Hamilton eager. “Too bad,” I muttered, then looked at the table with the extensive amount of scalpels and other things, and back to Hamilton. “Wanna lend a hand?”

  “With pleasure,” he drawled in what must have been the first agreement the two of us had reached without fighting beforehand. Oh, how torture and dismemberment brings people together! I cast a last glance Nate’s way but still didn’t get anything from him back, least of all a warning. I didn’t know exactly how it made me feel that he was happy to lean back and relax while watching me torture a woman who, without a doubt, deserved to be punished—but maybe not quite like this.

  “Then let’s do this,” I offered as I mentally squared my shoulders and picked up a scalpel.

  Hamilton stepped up to our captive’s back and grabbed her right hand, forcing her fingers apart. She tried to fight but to no avail. “How do you want to do this?” he asked, still jovial going on friendly, which weirded me out on so many levels—but was a welcome distraction from what I was about to do.

  “Joint by joint,” I shot back. “Let’s take this slow.”

  And slow I took it—even if I was screaming inside every fucking second.

  As it turned out, both Cindy and I had been wrong—it took us a lot longer than lunchtime to get her talking, but talk she did. And scream. So much screaming that I was loathe to continue simply because it grated on my very soul. But as it turned out, Bucky and I were a surprisingly good team—once we started, neither of us could stop or even ease up, a silent contest of gritted teeth and narrowed eyes going on that was so much easier to concentrate on than what we were doing… or the bucket full of discarded bits that rested on the floor right in front of Cindy so that she could easily keep track of our progress.