Green Fields (Book 2): Outbreak Read Free Page B

about to go down the drain? Sure, I had been running for my life, and then almost got buried underneath tons of concrete and steel, but shouldn’t any decent person have thought about what happened to their loved ones the moment they were in relative safety again? But I had the sinking feeling that therein lay the real issue.
    “Bree, answer me,” Nate repeated. “When did you last see her?”
    Swallowing thickly, I forced myself to reply to his question, my stomach sinking further.
    “Thursday night, just before I went to bed. She fell asleep on the couch, watching TV. I didn’t even kiss her good night because I didn’t want to catch—“
    A sob wrenched itself from deep inside my chest, and I quickly stifled it with my right hand, barely feeling my teeth as they sank into my knuckles. Knuckles of the hand that was barely scabbed over from the cuts that I’d sustained while I’d crawled through the destroyed bottles in the hot room where I’d been hiding; the hand that still had the angry red burn across the back of it from where the coffee had spilled when the first round of explosions had gone off that had turned a usual Friday afternoon into a nightmare that I would likely never forget—
    The way Nate kept squeezing my arms felt more supportive than the gesture had a right to be, and when I looked at him again, I could clearly see that he was hurting for me. That alone seemed so at odds after his mostly no-nonsense behavior of the past day, but then he had been on a mission. Now, all that was left for us was to survive—those of us who were still alive.
    “You can hate me for saying this now, but we don’t have time to sugar-coat it,” Nate suggested, his voice hard but still kind of gentle. “There is nothing you can do for her.”
    I knew that—rationally, but my heart still wanted to dance to a different tune. I still didn’t know how the infection was spreading all around us, but if the way Raleigh had died was any indication, anyone would be dead within two days—or worse. And Sam’s two days had run out even before I’d seen that video.
    “She… she was—“ I started, swallowing hard when I just couldn’t go on for a moment. “She came home sick on Wednesday afternoon. She called me to pick up some chicken soup on the way home but I forgot—“
    Nate cut me off before I could go on.
    “You know that you can’t help her,” he said. “Even if you could make it across town—and I honestly don’t think that we have any time left—trust me, you don’t want to. If she was lucky, she’s dead. And if not, she’d just come after you the second you unlocked the door to your apartment.”
    The cynic inside of me supplied a third option—that she hadn’t remained home but instead stayed with whatever latest girl she was cheating on me with. If you could call it cheating considering that I suspected and had always been too placid to get in her face about it. And who was I really to throw stones? But the fact was the same—she was likely dead.
    Martinez stepped up to us, remaining a little to the side as if to lend us some privacy but clearly intent on butting into our conversation.  
    “From what we know, most infected have died within the first twenty hours. The latest numbers are giving a ten-hour window for incubation, and less than thirty average until it’s over.” He cleared his throat, avoiding my gaze. “And about one in ten… well, you know.”
    “Comes back as a zombie?” I asked, my voice still pressed but a little less frail now. There was no sense to sugar-coating that, either.
    “Yup,” was all he provided, clearly uncomfortable. The very idea was too absurd to consider, and still—even the looters were wearing face protection, not that it would change anything.
    Nate cleared his throat, making me focus back on him. “I know that this is hard for you—“
    I interrupted him before he could go any further.
    “I get it. She’s dead. And we need to go. So,