Free Resurgence: Green Fields book 5 by Adrienne Lecter

but I was way beyond that. At least not having to use my legs meant that my thigh could recover somewhat, even if it still hurt from last night’s abuse.  
    It was about thirty minutes into our ride when he suddenly stopped the car, then reversed and backed into a field, stopping behind two trees that were conveniently standing beside the road. At first I thought he’d simply given up on watching me dissolve into liquids, but when he got out, his binoculars at the ready, I couldn’t help but wonder what made him look so tense. I waited for a few seconds until my vision somewhat normalized before I followed. He was standing beside my door, staring over the rolling plains toward the horizon.
    “What’s wrong?”  
    He didn’t react at first, but then handed me the binoculars. “See that rise over there? Leading back the way we’ve come. Do you see the plume of dust?”
    I didn’t see anything, but that wasn’t exactly a surprise. It took a lot of blinking and wiping away residual moisture before I could focus on that hill he’d referred to. I was just about to hand back the glasses when I noticed that the air above part of the rise was hazy.
    “A group of cars?” I guessed, checking once more before I let him have his fancy tool again.
    “I think so,” he replied. “Could be a stampede of cows, too, but I doubt it. Zombies wouldn’t be stirring up that much dust.”
    It could have been our streak, hungering for beef once more, but I had to agree—that cloud seemed to be shifting, faster than even a super-charged zombie could run cross-country.  
    “Should we try to hail them?” I said, more wondering aloud than actually asking.
    Nate hesitated, that in and of itself alarming me. “Let’s not,” he suggested. “Actually, let’s not let them know that we’re here. Although I’m afraid that it’s already too late for that.”
    “You think they came after us?”
    He shrugged. “They’re certainly honing in on where we were when we placed that call. Call me paranoid, but isn’t that too much of a coincidence?”
    “But why now?” I asked. “We stayed at the motel for over a week. They could have hunted us down way easier there. And you did talk to Sunny from there, right?”
    Nate gave me a quizzical look. “Campbell may or may not have set up a signal scrambler while we were clearing the building. There was no time to get it when we had to flee.”
    Now didn’t that sound promising?
    “Shit.”
    The corner of his mouth quirked up at my exclamation. “At least now we know—or as good as know—that the channels aren’t safe.”
    “You think it’s someone at the Silo who ratted us out?” I asked, really not liking those implications. Not feeling safe out here was one thing—but not knowing who else to trust made me a different kind of antsy.
    Nate shook his head. “No. But I think the network is compromised. Let’s try not to test this until we’re close enough to where they can’t just pick us up off the road and make us disappear for good.”
    A sobering thought, as if I’d needed any more of those.
    We kept watching the plume of dust disappear in the distance before we got back into the car and continued on, this time heading north. Nate debated taking a greater detour, but it wasn’t like it was hard to get lost in rural Minnesota. It was likely a good idea not to take the most direct route, so that’s what we decided on.
    Nate took pity on me once the sun was close to setting—or maybe he figured that by then I was moderately useful again. With paranoia riding shotgun, we hadn’t really made a lot of headway since noon, and the house we ended up selecting for our nightly stay was so well hidden that we only chanced upon it because we were trying to avoid coming too close to the next larger road. I got out with Nate, supposedly for backup, but it took almost my entire strength to remain upright, my shotgun ready. If I’d actually had to use it, it would likely have kicked