Green Fields (Book 4): Extinction Read Online Free PDF Page B

know that you can be a lot more use out here with the shotgun in your hands than in a lab somewhere. Isn’t that the reason why you’re here, with us?”
    I waited for him to add the part about my admission that it had been his sexual prowess that had turned me away from science, but the joke seemed to have run its course. Finally. It had been fun the first five times, tops.
    Pia let out a derisive sound. “Rifle or carbine would be better. You simply make more damage when you don’t have to fight in close quarters.”
    I ignored her gripe. I knew well enough that everyone but me agreed on that point. They still weren’t going to change my mind. And I did take the AK that was right now in the rack where my shotgun was during the day when I had to mow down greater numbers at a distance. I just preferred the shotgun for when I didn’t have to.
    “I wouldn’t be sitting here if I thought I could make that kind of a difference,” I answered Nate’s question. “But doesn’t mean that part of my life has to be over forever. I can do both. Adventuring scientist, like the great inventors of old.” That got me the laughs I expected, but Nate didn’t leave it at that.
    “You sure that’s healthy?” he asked.
    “What, destroy my eyesight by the dying fire? Probably not,” I shot back.
    He gave me one of his deadpan stares that let me know that he wouldn’t let me bullshit my way out of this tonight.
    “It’s only been two weeks and already you’re starting to regret your decision not to stay in Aurora. Take over their lab. Be their queen bee. Something like that has a tendency to fester, to turn into an obsession. I’d rather not lose you because you get so mopey that you get careless and end up dead because of it.”
    “Aw, don’t worry, I wouldn’t give you that satisfaction, dying of sloppiness,” I griped. “If I die, it will be in an act of defiant stupidity. Or heroism. According to you, that’s the same, right?”
    He grimaced, but not quickly enough to hide his beginning smile. That was an ongoing discussion all right.
    “You didn’t even deny that you are mopey,” he said. “Something’s up.”
    Sighing didn’t really do much, so I stopped fidgeting with the blade of grass that I’d been twirling for the past minute and stared straight at him.
    “I’m pissed, okay? Livid, actually. Happy now? Admitting it doesn’t change a thing, and it doesn’t help anyone, either.”
    “Makes you more human,” Burns grumbled next to me, giving me a nudge with his shoulder. “And lacking cable TV, listening to your tirades always serves for prime entertainment these days.”
    I rolled my eyes at him, but when no one else spoke up, I let out my breath in a rush.
    “It doesn’t matter. Just because those cowardly fucktards believe…” I trailed off, then started anew. “I made the right decision. I don’t regret it. I just really wanted a bath, is all. Happy now? I’m throwing a temper tantrum like a small child because I feel gross.”
    I got grins and the odd chuckle, but Martinez didn’t let me get away with that.
    “You’re not the only one who feels like that. Except for the bath, maybe. I’m not sure that standard of hygiene has made the rounds yet. I wouldn’t call it outright betrayal—“
    Bailey interrupted him, not quite incidentally scratching his neck. “Coming close enough to it as it is,” he offered. A few supportive murmurs rose.
    Martinez stared at the fire for a few seconds before he glanced back to me. “Call it whatever you wish. We all feel it. You just have the added benefit of having had another option that none of us had.”
    “You could have stayed,” I replied. “You knew a couple of the guys who were doing guard duty there.”
    “And spend the rest of my life hunkering behind a wall, knowing each and every day that if that wall comes down, we’re all dead? No, thanks. I’d rather take my chances out here,” Martinez said. His usual easy smile