“Can you please shut up about it?” Mark hissed. “I’m fine. Out here on the Plains, we don’t need a shrink to help us talk through our problems, or take medication to help balance out the chemicals in our brain. We just adjust our hat and get back to work. Ain’t nobody else gonna do it for us.”
He didn’t stomp off, because that would have been completely stupid, but he didn’t attempt to walk quietly as he headed toward the stairs either. Sidney felt bad for him. She really wished that he hadn’t decided to come with her, even though his presence had allowed the bombing of the base fence and he’d saved her from falling off the roof. He needed to stay back with Vern and, apparently, with Katie.
Sidney rested her head against the wall. Everything was so difficult. She just wanted to go home and snuggle with baby Lincoln and her cat, Rick James. Thinking of the baby’s chubby little cheeks made her smile. She wanted to hold him forever.
Her gaze drifted back to the stairs where Mark had disappeared and her vision went fuzzy as she allowed her eyes to relax. Until she could stop the Iranians from coming after them, she couldn’t go back. They had to put an end to the occupation. They had to be free.
And she was the only one who could do that. Vern was bedridden for the time being. Katie and Sally were just kids who were good in an ambush, but they didn’t have the tenacity to go into the heart of the Iranian camp and do this. Carmen, well, she was Carmen. Great with kids, a very good nurse, and a borderline pacifist, so she was out. Mark was a good assistant, even if he lacked the vision to develop a long-term solution.
Sidney’s mind clicked off the people in her group. That was it. Those were all that was left after Jake had taken off with the Army guys on some damned fool’s errand to Washington, DC instead of staying to help fight off the Iranian threat. She knew that he was trying to help with the greater cause to develop some type of vaccine, but the truth was, it felt like he’d abandoned her and Lincoln out here.
He did abandon them out here, she reminded herself. It was up to her to carve a safe place for her family. Mark’s boots on the stairs shook her from her ruminations and she focused her eyes.
“Looks like the area around the house is clear,” he announced when he came into the room.
She nodded. “Okay then.” She grasped the barrel of her M-4. “I’ll tag those few stragglers out there. That’ll help clear the way and tell us if there are more of them around that we just can’t see.”
“Good idea.”
Sidney moved over to the window and crouched down. After placing the rifle in the window sill, she cleared her mind. All she needed to do was aim and shoot. Just like Jake had taught her. This was the easy part.
After this, they had to go back out amongst them. They had to go to the airport. That’s where they’d be able to hit the fuckers. That’s how she’d create a safe zone for her family.
29
BIGGS ARMY AIRFIELD, FORT BLISS, EL PASO, TEXAS
MARCH 9TH
Hannah stood in the center of the showers, allowing the water to wash over her. It was a typical Army facility; large, open bay with showerheads lining the walls and a freestanding metal unit with four showerheads in the center of the room. The design allowed the maximum number of people into the space at one time. Not an inch of space was left unused. It was efficient in a way that the civilian world would simply never understand—or maybe they did now that all that was left of the civilian population lived in the refugee camps on base.
The hot water felt good on Hannah’s body. She could feel the soreness already setting in. It had been almost a year since she’d ran for pleasure instead of sheer terror. Her endurance hadn’t fallen off nearly as much as she’d expected. The weeks and months of constant walking had maintained her body’s conditioning for the distance running that she’d put herself through around the airfield perimeter.
She’d needed the distraction of physical exercise. She’d needed to put the memories of what she’d found in Brazil behind her. It had been a shock finding the pictures of Grady in that facility. The fact that he’d been there, as part of their twisted experiments, was soul-crushing and she had to put it behind her. Running was her solace. It was cathartic for her. Always had been.
Sounds of movement behind her made her wipe the water from her eyes. Two women, both much larger than her had come into the shower bay. One of them was soft, borderline chunky, while the other appeared to be chiseled from a rock. She was overly muscular and intimidating. Hannah turned back away and squirted shampoo into her palm.
She began massaging it into her scalp, forgetting about the other women in the shower. It was a communal living arrangement on base, she was just happy that it wasn’t some progressive coed shower bullshit. She’d seen those in the past and didn’t understand how anyone thought that was a good idea.
The act of washing her hair in an actual shower felt amazing, even if the issued shampoo didn’t particularly smell that great. She hadn’t been able to do much more than a whore bath with rags from a bucket in so long that it seemed like a luxury. It was a luxury that those outside the wire would never get.
Grady.
She pushed the thought aside. She was
