Rose was certain she would have bursted out laughing at the mention of the occult if it wasn’t for the day’s earlier events. “We, uhm, we might be able to confirm some of it,” Rose said stepping forward, clearing her throat. She had waited for Connor to jump in and mention Vincent when the briefing was done, but he remained quiet. She ignored the dirty looks of the rest of her squad. Information was like gold during war, but if this was her new team, they all needed to be on the same page. “I don’t know about the occult nonsense, but there does seem to be some kind of chemical warfare we haven’t… I haven’t seen before. Some kind of rabies that causes the victim to go mad and attack,” Rose began to elaborate. “It’s what killed one of our members on the way here. There was a...”

“No, your fucking stupidity took care of that,” Josh interrupted Rose , pushing himself off the wall as he stalked towards her. “Not following orders got Vincent killed, not a fucking cannibal,”  he continued, his eyes clouding over with anger. Before Rose could spit out a response though, Connor jumped in. 

“Pittman, take a beat. Vincent’s death was an unfortunate one, but it does no good throwing blame around. What’s done is done. Why don’t you go try and get a signal outside and radio that we’ve made it. See if we can’t get some kind of transportation help either,” he ordered, his tone icy. Rose knew just because he was defending her, didn’t mean he didn’t also blame her. It did no good showing the cracks in his squad to the others. It made them look weak… made him look weak. “And Private Lehman, I don’t remember you being fucking addressed. Fall back and speak when fucking spoken too. The woman was obviously war crazed, she wasn’t rabid,” he said, now directing his anger at her. 

“Yes sir,” Rose said through gritted teeth, returning to her spot beside Samson, refusing to make eye contact with anyone. She knew she was speaking out of turn, but she also knew what she saw. War crazies didn’t explain that woman’s deformities. It didn’t explain her unnatural strength or the bite she took out of Vincent’s neck. Connor was in denial and the partisan group was offering an explanation. A crazy explanation that must have been exaggerations but an explanation. It wasn’t beyond the scope of reality that a new form of chemical warfare was causing psychosis.

“I’m not sure what you guys are expecting to find out there, but we’ll help break into the facility,” Connor said, turning back to the map. 
[hr]
Rose was busy watching the steam rise out of the kettle stout. The two groups had dispersed after a bit more planning. They were to head out an hour before dawn by foot. No vehicle could be given by the American’s so for the time being, they would walk. Everyone was making food and settling down for the evening. Samson was busy cleaning his weapon next to Rose, whistling a soft tune Rose didn’t recognize. It helped passed the time though, so Rose didn’t bug him with idle conversation. Instead she sat there watching the kettle heat up, waiting for the familiar screech of hot water. 

“You were caught off guard,” Samson said, speaking softly, answering a question Rose hadn’t asked. He started back up on the broken tune. 

“Come again?” Rose asked, looking up, her brow furrowed. 

“You fell over from the woman. You were caught off guard. We all were,” he said. He was trying to comfort her. Look out for her. But he was wrong. Rose knew she wasn’t. She had her footing, and despite her smaller stature, she was strong from all of the training. There was no way that woman should have knocked her over. 

“Stop.” Rose demanded, cutting him off. She knew what Samson was doing. He was trying to convince her it wasn’t her fault, that she didn’t mess up today. She didn’t want to hear it though. The kettle broke the tense silence that was threatening to fall over the pair. Rose used it as an excuse to make up the MREs to avoid talking any further.