Beyond Green Fields | Book 3 | Lost & Found [A Post-Apocalyptic Anthology] by Lecter Adrienne

Author:Lecter, Adrienne [Lecter, Adrienne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Zombie Apocalypse
Published: 2020-10-04T04:00:00+00:00

Talk in the Dark

Talk in the Dark: A conversation that happens during the first night just after GF#10: Uprising. Nate's POV

Talk in the Dark

The foremost emotion on my mind is elation.

Elation that it’s over. Elation that I have my life back; free will and choice are intellectual concepts that you only ever value when they are being taken from you. Taking them back doesn’t feel like you’ve gained something, just that you’re no longer missing something essential.

I didn’t allow myself to exactly plan for this to happen, and not in this way, so there’s no disappointment inside of me at the lack of triumph. I’ve been through enough shit in my life to know that wins like this don’t feel good. At best, they make it easier to stare down the demons that drive you on until the very last step, but that’s it.

Relief comes next. Relief that, right now, I only have to deal with the shit that I want to deal with. That I’m not just free, but have a small army at my beck and call. It took Zilinsky exactly ten minutes after I tore that asshole’s head off to assume command of the disorganized mess our assault left behind and whip everything into a frenzy of cleanup and securing assets. One look at my face when she saw me standing in the corridor outside the prison cell wing, and the central room that has been used as a joint kitchen and prep room is now our headquarters, complete with sleeping room for thirty plus people. Sure, it’s crowded as fuck and stinks to the high heavens, but solitary confinement of any kind isn’t in my foreseeable future. She and Romanoff have also taken over securing our prisoners and working out who of the previous slaves is of any further use to us, or is best taken care of in another way. She’s also negotiating with the scavengers—Harris chief among them—what to do with the camp now. None of the leaders of the other factions spoke up—not a single word—when she seamlessly integrated them and their people into our cohort. I’ve seen a few of them watch her, a look of bewilderment on their faces. I get the sense that their admiration has easily doubled over the past hours, considering the actions my left and right hand—Zilinsky and my wife—have set. As usual, I get a certain kick out of that. Part of being a good leader is inspiring loyalty in your followers, and that includes having competent subordinates to delegate your business to. That both women would pound me to a bloody pulp if I ever referred to them as such just makes the deal all the sweeter.

Elation, relief… both emotions I’ve yearned to call my own again for endless weeks, but both are fleeting at best. As long as the entire citadel is alive with people going this way and that to drag out bodies, clean up the debris from the fight, reinforce broken-down doors, and all the other myriad of tasks, it’s easy to concentrate on the positive only.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.