Poison Ivy Ch. 02

The truck suddenly hit a ditch, jostling her awake with a startled snort, and she wiped a bit of drool off her chin, happy no one had seen her passed out and snoring with her mouth open. She could hear the two up front talking, their words a bit obscured by the sounds of the engine.

"... enough of this shit. Alphas don't have a legitimate war to fight so they make one up to keep up appearances. You know how many grunts lost their lives in that shit? Twenty-eight. Twenty-eight fucking Betas died, and their bodies were left to rot in Chid forest, all so some Alpha prick could claim it was a victory over the Torrins trying to encroach on one of our bases. Fuck them."

Ivy straightened, now completely awake and alert. She tilted her head closer to the cab, focused on hearing more.

"Wait, that really happened?"

"Yeah it happened, but it didn't fucking have to. Are you not fucking listening? Torrin ambassadors came three weeks ago to negotiate with Nelson. They came the three weeks before that, and the three before that. Nelson's got some kind of a fucked-up deal going on with them. I heard about the raid on Chid while I was restocking his fucking liquor cabinet. Three days before it happened."

Ivy felt sick. Her mind raced. What they were saying was impossible. Right? She wasn't General Nelson's biggest fan, but he wouldn't intentionally put his own people on the chopping block. Twenty-eight soldiers. Twenty-seven... And Markus. He wasn't that evil.

Was he?

Disposable Betas. He called them disposable. Like plastic forks.

She was going to throw up. She started shivering, even though it was way too fucking hot in the back of this goddamned truck. She needed to get the hell back to Rico Battalion, find Sergeant Prescott and Kentucky, and figure this shit out.

Ivy started rifling around in the boxes, careful not to draw attention to herself. She grabbed a pair of fatigues and pulled them on over her leggings. She decided to wait until they were closer to Chid to pull on the uniform top, wearing only a white tank top and her pants. Oh, and a very lacy, very skimpy pushup bra. Complements of Lt. General fuckface. You may call me Hunter, he had said.

Asshole. By telling her to address him by his first name, instead of his military title, he had effectively stripped her of her rank and status. Like she was a fucking civilian. She stiffened as a terrible thought occurred to her. Had he been in on it? Was that why he'd come to Chid in the first place?

No. The dude had some fucked up ideas in his head, but she'd been there. She'd seen him shooting down Torrins. He might have been angry that she was out there, but he'd grabbed Markus. He'd defended them while she was treating the injured.

A slicing pain shot through her abdomen, and she doubled over. Fuck. When was the last time she'd eaten? Or had anything to drink? Was it possible to feel nauseated and starving simultaneously? She gave her head a good shake, slapped her cheeks a few times, and told herself to get on with it. She needed to find something that would make this uniform just passably believable until she could get one of her own, much smaller ones on. Had they cleaned out her locker already? Taken down the sheet that isolated her from the rest of the males in her barracks? Dismantled the hammock she had built for herself so she wouldn't take up a whole three-tiered bunk?

There were no scissors in the medical box. Shocker. Nor sutures. Double shocker. She looked around. Boots. She had forgotten all about the fucking boots. She looked down at herself and shrugged. If anyone gave her uniform any kind of good look-over, she was fucked anyway. Running shoes weren't going to be her downfall. She rolled up the extra fabric on the bottom of her pants and tucked her hair into the collar of her shirt. She needed a belt, but she couldn't find anything she could use. She gave her make-shit uniform a quick glance.

Good enough for government work.

It was another two long hours before they reached Chid FOB. By that time, she was sweating bullets, alternating between hot and freezing. Her muscles ached from the ride. The hole in her shoulder burned. She needed some fresh air.

The truck finally, finally began to slow. Ivy grabbed the uniform top and pulled it over her head, groaning when she looked down at herself. She looked exactly how she would expect anyone else to look if they put on clothes that were five or six sizes too big. But they were here, and there was little she could do about it now.

As soon as the truck stopped, she crawled to the end and squirmed out of the narrow opening between the truck bed and the lower plank. Dropping to her feet, she glanced around, stood up, took two steps, and promptly fell flat on her face.

Fuck.

"Poison?" she heard someone call. Double fuck.

"Poison, what the fuck?"

She looked up, brushing the pine needles off her face, to see Kentucky jogging over to her. Oh, thank God. Of all the disastrous possibilities, Kentucky was probably the only person on base that would help her unconditionally. He was her best friend in this Battalion, and no matter what happened on the field or in the hell that was the med tent after a raid, they always had each other's backs.

"Hey Kentucky," she said quietly as she shooed off his attempt to help her up and got to her feet. "How's life?"

"Poison, what the hell are you doing here?" Kentucky hissed under his breath. "You're not supposed to be here!"

"Sure I am," she said confidently, drawing herself up to her full, albeit unimpressive, height.

"Seriously, Poison, what the fuck? We all saw you get dragged out of here by that Alpha, and rumor is..." he dropped his voice to a whisper, "that you're a fucking Omega!"

She laughed. "That's ridiculous. You know I'm Beta. It was all a misunderstanding. I'm just short, and that guy is just a prick." Ivy gave her friend a calculating look. "What's changed, Kentucky? Did you change your hair?" She gasped. "Did you get the job?!"

"Yeah," he said, looking a little too elated in Ivy's humble opinion. "I got the job."

"Congrats, asshole," she said, punching his arm, and she meant it. If it had to go to someone, Kentucky was the obvious choice. He was intelligent, compassionate, and fair. The guys loved him, and especially the younger ones looked up to him like a big brother. He'd make a great boss.

"Thanks, Poison. So... what's going on with your uniform?"

She looked down at herself. "Uh... They, ah, they wrecked mine when they brought me back to main base. These were the smallest they could find on such short notice. Let me just grab my gear and I'll report for duty." She started to push by him when he grabbed her arm and pulled her closer to his side.

"I don't know what the hell you're doing, Ivy," he whispered into her ear, "but don't fucking lie to me, okay? We both know that you were not put on that truck purposefully. You're a crazy good medic, and you've saved my ass more than once, so I'm giving you a pass for now. But as soon as you get back to med tent, you will tell me what your plan is. Because if you think for one second that Alpha motherfucker isn't going to figure out where you are in a matter of hours and come raising hell to drag you back a second time," he said darkly, "you've got another think coming. You got me?"

Ivy nodded and swallowed hard. He was right. How long could she possibly have expected to stay here before Officer Fuckface (or Logan, or Hunter, or whatever) came looking for her? In her haste to escape him and get back home, she obviously hadn't thought that part over very well. Until the Alpha figured out she wasn't what he thought she was, he was going to keep coming after her.

Kentucky released her arm and walked off. Careful of her too-long pants, Ivy shuffled across the dirt path that passed for their main road, clutching the bunched-up fabric at her waist to keep it there instead of around her ankles. She reached med barracks and rushed in, immediately kicking off her pants and heading for her locker.

Careful not to wake up the sleeping night shift Betas, she opened her locker and breathed a sigh of relief to find her pint-sized uniforms right where she left them. She grabbed a pair and pulled them on, sighing with pleasure at the familiar feel of the scratchy material against her skin. Trying to rub away the oncoming tension headache she was getting, she grabbed the bottle of her iron supplements, made a mental note to get more, and popped one in her mouth, swallowing it dry as she hightailed it back to med tent.

When she walked in, she only saw Kentucky, Q and Bear. Q and Bear looked up from their work sorting through that damn pile of paperwork and jumped to their feet. "Poison!" they said in unison.

"Hey guys," she nodded.

"Kentucky said you were back, I guess I just thought he was fucking around with us," Q said, his damn baby blues glistening.

"Fuck, Q, you need to learn how to hold it together. And didn't I tell you to get a fucking hair cut? I'm back, but maybe only for a few days. Kentucky?" she said, looking at him pointedly. He nodded and got to his feet. "Keep working," he barked behind him as he walked toward her. "We'll be back in a sec."

He led her out the screen door with a hand pressed to her lower back and over to a bunch of picnic tables across the way. It was later in the day and everyone had cleared out after dinner, so they had the little area to themselves.

"Spill it," he said after they sat down, straddling the bench and facing each other, like schoolyard children about to share a secret. She took a deep breath. "Okay, yes, the fuckface Alpha does still think I'm Omega. But I'm not!" she finished quickly, before he could say whatever it was he was going to say when he opened his mouth. "I'm not, okay? So just settle down. I admit I wasn't thinking when I hitched a ride back here. But listen to me. On the way here, I heard the drivers from main base talking. Kentucky... This whole thing is one big fucking lie."

He was looking at her like she was insane. Okay, fair enough. But she knew what she'd heard.

"Nelson has been feeding the Torrins information. They've been coordinating raids on Lostran bases together. The guy in the truck said he heard Nelson talking about the ambush three days before it happened. I don't understand why, and I don't know what the old fuck is getting out of it, but what does he care if a few thousand soldiers die? I don't have all the answers. But I do know I just held Markus's hand while he died for fucking nothing."

He blinked. "You realize you sound crazy, right?" he asked her, shaking his head. "Did he give you something? Some drugs or something? You were pretty out of it when you guys left. Maybe you're hallucinating?"

She slammed the palm of her hand down on the table, making him jump. "I'm not hallucinating, jackass. I'm serious. I need to find Prescott and tell him. Maybe the enlisted can go above General Nelson's head, you know? Maybe the Chief of Staff doesn't know!"

The concerned look on his face just pissed her off. "Ivy..." he started.

She held up her hand. "Stop. Just stop." She looked at him squarely. "I know it sounds crazy, okay? I wouldn't have believed it had I not heard it myself. But it's true. You should see the room they put me up in, Kentucky. It's in a fucking mansion. Like, a legit mansion, with gold and silver and marble in it. They're living like kings! He thinks of enlisted soldiers as consumables. Like they can just keep replacing us with new, fresh faces every so often and it'll be fine. How many lives have been lost in this campaign, huh? A few hundred thousand, not counting the Torrin lives lost?"

He looked down at the table and ran his fingers through his dark hair. All of a sudden, she had a horrible feeling. "Kentucky?" she said softly. "What is it?"

He looked up at her, and she knew what was coming before he even said it.

Only Q and Bear. No Toad.

"No," she whispered. "No, no I sent you with him to make sure he was okay!" Tears began to gather in the corners of her eyes, and she tried to blink them away as she shook her head. He looked down again and something twisted in her gut. "Say it," she ground out between clenched teeth. "I need to hear you say it, Brad."

He looked up at her and she watched in horror as a tear drifted down his cheek. "Toad didn't make it, Ivy. He's dead."

Her heart dropped all the way to her toes. She groaned and put her face in her hands. "Toad," she whispered.

"I'm sorry, Ivy. You told me to watch out for him. I just... It all happened so fast. I heard gunfire, I turned around, and he was on the ground."

She looked up at him through her fingers. He was pale as a sheet. The fingers raking through his dark hair were shaking. She reached out to grab his hand and squeezed it. "Not your fault. It's not your fault, Brad."

He looked down. "If what you're saying is true, Poison," he said, reverting back to her nickname, "then he died for nothing. I can't accept that."

No. Not for nothing.

"How many fugitives did we pick up in Chid this month?" she asked him, chucking a finger under his chin to bring his eyes to hers. "How many, Brad?"

He swallowed. "Twelve."

She nodded. "Whatever our reasons for being here, twelve people now have a chance at life because of people like Toad and Markus. Don't cheapen their sacrifice."

Just then, the high-pitched whine of the alarm sounded, startling them both. Wide-eyed, they sat facing each other for a tense moment. Ivy moved first.

Before she got more than two steps away from the picnic table, Kentucky shot to his feet and grabbed her wrist, yanking her back. "STOP, Poison! You fucking know you can't go out there!"

She whirled on him, yanking at her wrist until his hold broke. "Fuck you, Brad," she hissed, bloodshot eyes burning with anger. Not at him, not really. But if he thought he was going to prevent her from doing exactly what she had signed up to do five years ago, to protect and save the entirely bull-headed and frustrating dickheads of Rico Battalion, she was damned well going to tell him exactly where he could shove it.

And it sure as shit wasn't up his nose.

"After everything I just told you, after what we've been through, after Toad, you're going to stop me? And why, because some fuckhead Officer got a hard-on for a girl he just happened to stumble upon and didn't want to take no for an answer? You're going to send me back, to him?" She blinked, surprised as anyone when a few frustrated tears ran down her flushed face. "Fine. Send me back," she growled, shoving him back a few feet with two open palms to his chest. "Call the fucker up, Kentucky. Rat me out. Maybe he'll rape me this time instead of just forcing his fingers into me. Maybe he'll send me back here after he gets his fill. Whatever you're going to do, you'll do it after the fucking mission."

Kentucky just stared at her, his mouth gaping, some undefinable emotion twisting his features into something almost ugly.

"He... He forced you?" He asked quietly when she stubbornly refused to meet his eyes. "Ivy, I'm..."

"Forget it, Brad." The base was a buzzing hive of activity, soldiers rushing to get into gear and report to their assigned units. She watched it all through a blurry filter, knowing this really might be the last time she'd head out those gates. After all, she was a disposable Beta, wasn't she?

She sighed, her shoulders letting go of some of the tension she'd been wearing like a rucksack. "You're already down one medic. Let me go now, and I'll do whatever you decide is best after the mission. You know you could use the extra body. Besides," she shrugged, the corner of her mouth pulling up in a smirk. "I physically assaulted an Officer. I ran away from a Lt. General. I snuck off base in a supply truck, stole a uniform, and ignored direct orders to stand down. Can't be in much more trouble than I already am."

Arms crossed, Kentucky nodded and took a step back, giving her room to maneuver around him. "After the mission. You know he's going to come for you. And when he does, you're going back to the main base with him, and you're gonna stay there this time. Deal?"

She flinched, as if his words had flown out of his mouth and actually slapped across her face. It stung. The thought of Kentucky, Kentucky of all people, her best friend in this godsforsaken place, wanting her to stay away made her heart sink to her stomach. "Deal," she said, forcing the word out of a throat tight with emotion.

And maybe a touch of nausea.

They took off together to the med tent to gather up their gear. Once night shift was awake and geared up, they separated. Day shift absorbed Kentucky, Turbo and Icepick. Ivy, since she technically wasn't part of the club anymore, went with Turbo, the youngest of the medics, and Kentucky went with Q. She looked over at Kentucky as they were getting ready, watching him check the locks on his rifle and do a quick survey of the supplies in his med pack. His words still hovered in the air between them, and he snuck his own, pitying glances her way. Why had it felt so shitty to have him tell her to go away, and never come back?

They separated out into their respective units and left base. Ivy and Turbo's unit headed toward the East side of the perimeter. Another attack coordinated with the enemy and General Nelson, Ivy guessed. She experienced déjà vu as they walked through the towering pines, rifles drawn, their footsteps padded by the floor of pine needles below their feet.

They hadn't gotten very far when she heard a soft thump, and then a short, muffled cry, like someone had fallen to the ground behind them. She spun around, narrowed eyes sweeping the area. Nothing. Same old gloomy, weirdly beautiful forest.

When they reached the perimeter, the unit split up into two teams of six. Usually positioned in the middle of any formation, Ivy grabbed Turbo before they parted ways, pulling him in for a hug. "Be safe out there, kiddo," Ivy breathed, arms tight around his waist. She would have ruffled his hair, if she could reach his head. He laughed and pulled back a little. "I always am. You gonna be ok, Poison?"

She nodded, finally letting go and stepped back. "I always am." She smiled, and if it was a little sad, she didn't think Turbo noticed. Patting him twice on the arm, Ivy turned to where the five soldiers she'd been teamed up with turned around a corner, the last guy to disappear around the bend giving her a sharp whistle and waving her forward. "Better go, Poison," Turbo said, shoving her playfully. Grinning in earnest, she flipped him off and started jogging to catch up.

Reaching the spot where her team had veered off to the left, Ivy looked around, confused. Where had they gone? She hadn't been that far behind.

A soft crunch, like a twig snapping beneath a boot, sounded to the side. She peered into the dense thicket of evergreens, watching for any movement. There. Several yards away, something low to the ground was moving forward. An animal? A few steps forward, through a ground littered with roots and stones, brought her to the object now rolling to a stop. Frowning, she bent to scoop it up, dropping her med pack from her shoulders as she straightened.

It was a helmet.

A hand clamped over her mouth, another around her waist. She was yanked backwards into a hard torso, her feet kicking several inches off the ground. Her grip on the rifle slipped and it fell forward and out of reach. Her breath hitched. Officer fuckhead had found her once again.