CHAPTER 24: SIZING UP THE COMPETITION

Envy had been stewing all morning, ever since Rusty and his Ranger buddy almost left camp without her. After almost getting left behind wihout being consulted for their group's very first real scavenging run, Envy was now determined to keep toe-to-toe with the guys, for, as was clearly demonstrated in such popular shows as The Walking Dead, women who didn’t immediately flash around a fancy sword and kick all sorts of ass in the middle of an apocalypse got relegated to cleaning, cooking, and other bullshit busywork tasks that nobody really needed to be done because nobody any longer gave a shit because the world ended and nobody cared about a cute, fresh-cut cluster of flowers sitting on the table when zombies could bust down the door any minute but frilly, stupid girls did anyway because it made them feel homey and special and reminded them of more happy times 'back on the farm'. Fuck that. She'd rather eat raw cat shit and bathe in armpit grease.

The guys were carrying the guns, which Envy thought was fair, considering both of them were trained to kill with them. She, on the other hand, put her foot down when they tried to make her ride bitch on the snow machine.

“I can drive,” Envy said, smoothly taking up the front of the machine. “Climb on.” Let Rambo and his buddy Bigfoot sit behind her.

There was an awkward moment where the two guys tried to come up with a way to broach the subject that they didn’t think a woman should be driving because, also demonstrated by The Walking Dead, any woman who tried to drive in an apocalypse automatically crashed their car, usually spectacularly, and had to be rescued before zombies—or in this case alien maggot-babies—ate her.

The two big guys glanced at each other, and she saw it cross their minds that it should be one of them to drive, especially since they were in a manly, life-or-death situation where testosterone should take charge…

Envy twisted the key, firing the engine. “Get on or get left.”

“You know, size makes a difference in driving a snow machine,” the Ranger said, “especially with passengers.”

Envy shot him a look, and he winced. “Ma’am.”

“You guys have the guns,” Envy said. “You shoot bad guys, I drive.”

Again, that male exchange of ‘We Know Better But We Can’t Tell The Silly Girl That.’ Jesus she had gotten so sick of that over her life, and she had thought that spending six summers fighting for her life in the wilderness had given her enough street cred to avoid the inevitable male chauvinism to drip out of their flaccid minds once they realized they were bigger, stronger, and there weren’t any rules anymore.

God, she hadn’t been so nervous and uncomfortable since her father had invited her to tea at the luxest restaurant in Manchester and told her, on no uncertain terms, that she was not only going to marry Eider if she wanted to inherit his fortune, but she would have to broodmare for him, too. Ugh.

It was the Ranger who saved her. He seemed to shrug it off, smoothly mounted the machine behind her, and scooted up close to her back. “Mind if I grab on?” he asked, holding his arms up for her to see.

“As long as you don’t reach for titties or puss,” Envy said, trying to sound as confident as she really wished she felt. As it was, she was on high alert, wanting nothing more than to say fuck it and go off and be on her own for the rest of her short life. She knew she could do it, and she wouldn’t be slowed down—or dominated—by a bunch of dick-swinging testosterone.

The Ranger almost gingerly put his hands around her waist and kept them solidly in one place, maintaining her modesty. Bigfoot, for his part, climbed into the makeshift sled they had fashioned out of a couple of two-by-four runners and a shipping pallet and signaled he was ready with a wave of his arm.

“Ready?” she called over her shoulder.

“Ready when you are, Captain,” Sgt. Sicara said into her ear.

Envy hit the gas and got the machine started up the hill.

Immediately, she realized that, with an extra passenger who was heavier than her and a sled, it was harder to steer the machine. The damned thing wouldn’t turn when she wanted it to, and the runnels kept getting tugged off to the side, pulling them into snowdrifts that she barely got them out of before blasting off to try and bury them in the side of an avalanche.

She noted by the way the Ranger’s hands tightened like iron on her stomach that he’d noticed, but thankfully, he didn’t say anything.

After about a couple miles of close call after close call, knowing that it just took one fuckup and they were all walking back to the lodge, Envy got that feeling, the kind that said she was just one wrong turn from a disaster, and she finally let off the throttle and slowed the machine to a stop, her face burning. She couldn’t even look at the Ranger as she said, “My hand still hurts from the fight with that grub. Can’t get a good grip on the throttle.”

She chanced a glance at his face, saw his expression, and humiliation hit her like a sick wash of rot in her guts when she saw he knew it wasn’t her hand that had made her pull over . Fuming at herself, fuming at being small, fuming at the world in general, she couldn’t look at him as she got up to offer him the driver’s seat.

Sgt. Sicara stopped her with a hand on her arm. “Hey,” he said softly. “It’s all about weight.”

She shrugged him off, his kindness only making the shame worse.

“What’s going on?” Rusty called from where he was hunched over on the sled, shielded by a blanket. He threw piles of volcanic-crusted snow from his shoulders and turned to peek over at them through his parka.

Sgt. Sicara met her eyes, then raised his voice and shouted, “Her hand’s hurting. Probably infected—having trouble running the throttle.”

“We need to go back?” Rusty called.

“No,” Envy and the Ranger said at the same time, quickly scissoring that off at the root before it had a chance to bloom. She gave the Ranger an irritated look.  Already, he and Rusty had talked over her about leaving her there with the invalids and children because she had a slit, not a cock. Of course, they hadn’t said as much, but they might as well have been screaming it from the rooftops when they had automatically assumed she’d want to stay behind in the warmth of the cottage and hadn’t even considered asking her to go along on their little reconnaissance mission to grab the piles of weapons Harvey had stored up there. “I’ll just ride bitch,” she said, climbing up behind Harvey. She didn’t ask, just threw her arms around his abdomen and tried not to think about how hard it was, or how much bigger his arms were where they brushed hers.

I hate being a girl, she thought. It was a thought that had plagued her off and on, ever since she realized her dearest daddy’s greatest aspirations for her had not been to become a doctor or a lawyer or an astronaut, but to merge the assets of two wealthy families with the contents of her womb.

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“And here we go,” the Ranger said, hitting the accelerator. He got up on his feet and used his big body to lunge the machine around rocks and snowdrifts, much more effectively steering them than Envy had.

It only made the shame settle in the corners of her guts, simmering there like rotten eggs. I should just go, she thought. She didn’t have to put up with this shit. She’d survived months on her own, in the backcountry. Screw being shown up by a big-muscled stranger who just strode in like he owned the place.

She chewed on that for the next twenty minutes as Harvey drove them up the Pass and into Archangel Valley. She really didn’t have a good reason to stay, aside from company. And, after what had almost happened to that Mandy lady, even that was looking a little less pleasant for her. After all, she might be able to survive on water and a couple of sharp rocks, but she couldn’t kill a pissed-off Army Ranger with her fists if he decided to try to take something she wasn’t willing to give…

It had started to snow by the time Harvey slowed them to a stop beside the hollowed-out husk of a burned tank, and Envy had been so distracted by chewing on whether to stay or go that she didn’t notice the pile of corpses until he shut off the engine.

Seeing the dead men—all special ops, if what Harvey had told them was true—Envy got a twist of fear as she contemplated what, exactly, could have wiped out such a well-equipped team with nothing but its breath.

“Guns are on the other side of the tank,” Harvey said, dismounting. “Put them on the opposite side of the pass entry, just in case some bozo drove by and saw ‘em.”

Rusty grunted and got off the ‘sled,’ shaking snow and volcanic ash from where it had accumulated on his back and shoulders. “Well,” he said, taking a breath and letting it out through his teeth, “this looks like it was a shit show.”

Envy, though, couldn’t take her eyes off the pile of bodies. The two guys left her with the machine and started grabbing gear and loading it on the sled, but she could only stare as they walked back and forth past the pyramid of corpses like it was a pile of lumber.

“Aren’t we gonna bury them?” Envy whispered, as Rusty slapped the last batch of machine guns on the sled and started wrapping them with a blanket.

The Ranger glanced at her, then surreptitiously moved so his big body was between her and the dead men. “Can’t do much for them right now,” he said. “Frozen ground, not enough food or manpower to justify digging fifty graves.” He scuffed his boot at the snow and his eyes caught on one body in particular, singed except for a little middle finger doodled on his white helmet. When Harvey looked back up at her, he actually looked embarrassed. “Believe me,” he said, his voice almost a hoarse whisper. “If I thought we could, I would.”

“It’d take ten guys and a backhoe,” Rusty grunted, cinching down a strap on their haul. “Mother Nature’ll sort them out.”

“I’m hoping to get back up here before they thaw out,” Sgt. Sicara said. “Maybe with some heavy machinery.”

“Or at least drag ‘em down into the Valley and bury ‘em there,” Rusty agreed. “That’s another trip, though.” He cocked his head at the pile of bodies. “Twenty trips.”

Envy, who hadn’t moved from the snow machine throughout the mission, who had just sat on the vehicle, staring at the dead guys in wide-eyed horror like a girl, realized just how useless she’d been the entire trip, and it cinched home her desire to strike out on her own.

They don’t need me for anything other than a fuckbuddy, she thought. And, she knew better than most that she wasn’t suited for that kind of life. She also knew she could handle herself on her own better than she could guide this little group as it’s ‘Captain.’ Let the SpecOps guy do his thing, let Rusty do his thing, and let Envy go do her thing. Nobody said anyone had to stick together for an apocalypse.

Then the Ranger looked her right in the eyes and said, “Thanks for coming along.”

At first, she thought he was being sarcastic, and her face reddened. “I—”

“I didn’t want to come up here with just the jarhead,” Harvey said, casting Rusty a sheepish glance as he wandered off to take a piss, out of earshot. “I’m still about fifty percent sure he’s waiting to find a good time to ambush me, take my gun, and use it to put a bullet in my head.”

Envy felt the heat fading from her face, realizing he was being completely honest with her. “He probably feels the same way,” she said, watching the big man give a little shake and zip up, his back to them.

Harvey took a deep breath. “Yeah. Not a fun place to be. Neither one of us really knows where the other stands.” He turned back to her, looking curious. “He’s even willing to pretend you’re a Captain to protect you.”

Whoops.

But he didn’t sound pissed, just curious. “Why is that? You guys boyfriend-girlfriend or something?”

The chortle that came out of Envy’s throat at that idea was utterly spontaneous, and actually made Harvey grin. “I’ll take that as a no.”

“Don’t take it as an invitation, either,” Envy warned.

Harvey frowned at her. “Then you and the doctor…?”

Remembering her promise to Douglass if he could man up and grow a pair, Envy felt herself bristle. “Can’t a girl hang out with a couple of guys and not be sucking one of their dicks?”

Harvey broke out in a big grin. “Yeah. Yeah she can.” He pulled off his black tactical glove and held out a big hand. “Harvey Sicada.”

She saw the hand was calloused, thick-fingered, and like twenty times harder than hers and Envy grimaced as she placed her own, relatively smooth hand in his. “Envy Travis.”

“Well, Captain Travis,” Harvey said, glancing over his shoulder at Rusty, who was now blowing snot from one nostril at a time with a finger, “I think me treating you as a superior officer is about the only reason that twitchy brute over there hasn’t shot me yet, so if that’s what it takes to get on the guy’s good side…” He grinned and turned back to her, “Your secret’s safe with me, Captain.”

“I probably won’t be around much longer,” Envy blurted.

Harvey’s grin died on his face. “What?”

“Look, I, uh…” Envy didn’t know how to say she felt intimidated by a couple of guys who knew how to kill people. “I’m not really a team player,” she finished, using some of her father’s favorite lingo. “I like to be on my own. Spend a lot of time out in the woods. Alone.”

Harvey looked at her with a little frown like he was piecing together a strange new puzzle. He glanced at her, then at the big guy who was prying up a piece of metal sheeting from the destroyed tank. Then he turned back to her and pulled the gun from his belt.

At first, her heart gave a startled hammer, thinking he planned to use it on her.

“Here,” he said, offering it to her.

“Huh?” Envy asked.

He was already unbuckling the holster from his belt. “We got plenty of others,” he said, gesturing to the pile on their sled. “Just gotta clean ‘em up first, but they’re same make, model, caliber… It’s all standard issue stuff. Mine’s just cleaner, ready to pull the trigger.”

“I…” Envy swallowed. “I don’t want your gun.”

He handed her the belt and holster. “Stick with us and I’ll have you deadeying shit in a week,” he said.

Envy automatically got suspicious at ‘stick with us.’ “Why you want me to stick with you?” she demanded.

The Ranger gave her a really long look, kicked the snow again, then brought his eyes back up to her face. “Miss, if there’s ever been anything I learned out in the field, it’s use every advantage you’ve got to stay alive.”

Envy wasn’t following. She told him so.

Harvey jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the big Marine. “Your buddy over there cornered me last night, when I was headed for the shithouse. Scared the everlovin’ shit outta me—thought he was there to murder me and get his bullets back.”

Envy felt herself flush. “Sorry, he’s just being protective. I’ll talk to—”

“Big ape pulled me aside and started telling stories like he was convinced you were Jesus himself,” Harvey went on overtop of her. He gave her a very long, analyzing look. “Did you really save him from a plane crash?”

Envy swallowed hard and nodded. “Flight to Fairbanks.”

The Ranger grunted. “Well, he told me that’s why you three survived—that you had a feeling—and right there I decided I wanted you on my team.” He shook his head, letting his breath out through his teeth as he watched her. “Ma’am, you can carry the guns, you drive the car, you change your name to Bobby and fucking put on a strapon and wave your shiny new dick around, I don’t care. To have that kind of intel before you get hit… Miss, that saves lives, and I’m willing to do anything to make sure this…” he stepped aside so she could once again see the massive pyramid of bodies, then met her gaze with a long, earnest look, “…doesn’t happen again.”

Envy’s heart gave a little startled hammer when she realized just how serious he was, and how seriously he wanted her as a partner, not as a potential fucktoy in a world suddenly sans fucktoys. She was flushing embarrassedly and opening her mouth to respond when Rusty suddenly dropped the sheet metal, scrabbled backwards in the snow, and started screaming like his testicles were on fire.