The Girl Who Kicked Ass (Death Fields 3)

“Why do you think my team of ’misfits’ can do it and your soldiers can’t? Or is that your plan? We’re expendable?”

Erwin’s forehead creases and a strange glint appears in his eyes. “When a country becomes a warzone and factions develop, inevitably a group of rebels or radicals forms to work against the existing government. Your sister has already created a massive resistance with not only her Fighters but the Hybrids as well.”

“So where do we come in?”

“If your friend Faraday was here I wouldn’t have to explain this, but I can see that for a lifelong rule follower like yourself it’s complicated. We need someone to break into their system to bring them down. Someone to infiltrate. A group that is fully funded, armed, and sanctioned.”

I feel sick to my stomach. “You want us to strap bombs to our bodies and become terrorists?”

“No. That’s not it. You’ll be liberators. The true resistance. Free the people and we’ll give them the real vaccine and safety.”

I know I can’t trust this man. I know it, but at this point, with Wyatt gone, I have little choice. “Can you do that? Do you have the vaccine?”

“I will once you bring it to me.”

“And then you’ll use it the right way? To help people. To end all of this? Because I’m not like my sister. What she’s doing is wrong on so many levels and I can’t be a part of it.”

“I’m a believer in the system. Everything your sister stands for is an abomination. I need strong, healthy, immune people to take down Jane and her armies.” He gives me a grim smile. “Additionally, I assume that if I betray you a second time, you’ll kill me.”

Chapter 2

Forty-eight hours later, we’re climbing out of the back of a cargo truck near the Tennessee-Georgia border. Two miles away is a rest area turned Vaccine Clinic just like the one we were stationed at, and recently escaped from, across the state. I look at my team, dressed in ragged, worn clothing. Cole has a lump of dirt on his cheek and I lick my thumb before smearing it down the side of his face to look more realistic.

“Thanks,” he says.

“No problem.”

I turn to the others and say, “Remember, we go in as survivors. We’re starving and exhausted. Do not forget your false identity. We’ve got to get in there, grab as much of the vaccine as possible, and get out.”

“They keep the vaccine locked up,” Jude reminds me.

“Well someone is going to have to charm their way into getting the key.” I look directly at Jude and Parker when I say this.

“I don’t feel comfortable not being part of the infiltration team,” Davis says. Everyone has agreed, except him, that he should wait at the vehicle.

“There’s too much of a risk you’ll be recognized,” I tell him for the fifth time. The dude is built like a tank. Like a non-green Hulk. He’s not the kind of guy you forget.

“And you won’t?” he challenges.

I rub a little more dirt on my cheeks and tuck my hair into the wool stocking cap I found in the lost and found on the base. I scratch my neck because it itches from the scratchy fabric already.

“Look,” I whisper. “You’ve got to hang back just in case something goes wrong. You and Paul. I can’t worry about keeping an eye on him in there.”

Paul must hear his name because he walks over. Everything about him seems steady. “I don’t mind waiting. Honestly, the idea of going through quarantine gives me anxiety.”

“We’ll be in and out—fast,” I say, trying to reassure everyone.

“How fast?” Parker asks.

I sigh, rubbing behind my ears. “Okay, I have no idea how fast. No more than twenty-four hours, but I’m hoping to be out by the shift change, which cuts it to twelve.”

No one likes the sound of that but we head off toward the highway, leaving Davis and Paul hidden in the woods just off the road. It’s a warm morning, the hot Georgia sun beating on our faces. There’s absolutely nothing around; no buildings, no cars, abandoned or running. Just the quiet that surrounds a dead stretch of the highway, so isolated that it encouraged the government to build the rest area out here in the first place. From the map, it looks like we’ve got three miles to walk before we reach the center.

There’s nothing but the sounds of cawing crows in the distance and our boots on the pavement as we walk down the deserted highway. Cole and Jude carry a handful of pebbles, tossing them down the road one at a time, trying to see who can get closest to the center line. The apocalypse version of Bocce ball. Jude’s rock bangs into Cole’s, knocking him out of the lead.

“Nailed it,” he says.

“Yep,” Cole says. “Best two out of three?”