“I’m not sure,” Nikola admitted, looking to Cade, Brandt, and Ethan in turn for guidance. Remy shook her head and snagged the girl’s scrap paper to figure out the problem, but Brandt spoke up before she could put pencil to paper.
“About twenty hours, maybe,” Brandt said, his tone subdued. He sat on the edge of the table, plucking the knife from Cade’s hands and tapping the flat of the blade rhythmically against his knuckles. He didn’t look at the rest of them. “That assumes we ride nonstop, which we can’t physically do. And it would keep us out on the road longer than I’m comfortable with.”
Remy shook her head again, slowly and thoughtfully. Even as Brandt spoke, she’d mentally begun putting the pieces together. “We need another way to travel,” she proposed. “There is no way I, for one, can handle riding two hundred miles on a fucking bike.”
“Bikes,” Avi repeated. Remy looked up at the blond across from her and raised an eyebrow. She’d figured the woman was an airhead, but she’d never guessed she was deaf, too. “You mean, like, motorcycles? Or…?”
“No, I mean bikes. You know, like, the kind you pedal,” Remy corrected, smirking and looking away from Avi, back to the maps. It was a smart-assed answer, but she didn’t care; Avi’s question had been incredibly stupid and tempted her to agree with Ethan’s assessment of the woman’s mental state. She traced her finger along one of the interstates running east from Alabama to Georgia and hummed thoughtfully. The map began to look clearer, not quite the page full of squiggles it was before. She could see specific roads and highways and all the possibilities open to them.
“So what do you suggest?” Ethan asked her. He sank into a chair beside her and pulled a thin notebook and pencil out of the bag hanging on the back of it. He jotted notes into the notebook as he waited on her response, not looking at her.
“We should take a truck or something,” Remy said slowly. She twisted a lock of her hair around her fingers and snuck a peek at Ethan. She thought about the night before, when she went to him, when she tried to convince him to go with her and Avi, and when things escalated into physicality. Yet again. Her breath caught in her throat; she swallowed the sensation down and beat the thoughts back into their dark little corner. It wasn’t time to dwell on Ethan and the way he’d touched her. She cleared her throat. “We could put two or three of us in the truck and the rest following in another vehicle,” she suggested. “The bikes can be loaded into the back of the truck for when we have to ditch the vehicles. At the very least, we can cut out a chunk of travel time before we have to resort to the bikes.”
“But what route should we take?” Cade spoke up. She leaned against Remy to look at the map. Remy casually slung an arm around her shoulder and gave her a friendly squeeze. Cade rewarded her with a smile and continued. “If we take I-65/85, it’s going to take us right through Montgomery. Last I heard, that city is overrun. But if we go for I-20/59, that goes too close to Birmingham. It isn’t any better than Montgomery. Might even be worse, considering it was a secondary outbreak point.”
“We’ll want to stick with secondary roads, if we can manage,” Brandt agreed. He slid off the edge of the table where he sat and sank into a chair with a heavy sigh. “But that will add to our travel time substantially, along with the amount of supplies we’ll need to carry with us.”
They stared at the maps for a long moment. No one spoke, the weight of the silence hanging over their heads like a guillotine. Remy traced both paths with her eyes, examining the highways and rural roads between them. “What if we travel on the interstates when we’re not near any large cities?” she suggested. “That way we avoid the smaller towns we don’t need to go through, and it puts us at less risk of coming into contact with any infected trapped in the traffic jams closer to the cities. And when we’re approaching more congested areas, we can leave the interstate and stick with side roads and highways until we’re safely past.”
“That…that might actually work,” Ethan said with a slow nod. Remy grinned widely at him. She was glad someone appreciated her ideas, because Brandt looked ready to come over the table and slap her. He’d obviously hoped they wouldn’t figure out a way to get to Atlanta and would give up on the whole attempt. She hated to burst his bubble, but she’d do anything necessary to make this mission happen.
“So long as we can get supplies together, I think we’ll be okay,” Ethan continued. “We’ll hammer out the finer points later. The question I’m asking now is if everyone’s on board.” He looked at them all, and Remy met his eyes unerringly. She gave him a slight, encouraging nod. “If you don’t wish to go, no one here will fault you for it. Those who are going can go, and the others can remain here with enough supplies to last at least through the rest of the month. Or you can decide to simply move on elsewhere.”
“I’m going,” Remy said the moment Ethan’s words died on the air. “I said I would last night. Nothing we’ve talked about since has changed my mind.”
“I’m going, too,” Gray spoke up behind her. Remy gave him a grateful smile. She really did like him. He was stubborn and entirely too much like Ethan in temperament—which served only to muddle her already confused mind when it came to the two men—but he was also loyal and trustworthy to a fault. Despite her mixed-up feelings over Ethan and Gray, feelings compounded by the physical aspects of her relationship with Ethan, she willingly acknowledged that she couldn’t have asked for a better friend than Gray.
Avi nodded and crossed her arms, resting her hip against the edge of the table. “I’m going, of course. I started this, so I have to,” she said, a tinge of sheepishness in her voice. Remy gave her a reassuring smile and nodded her head once in solidarity. At least the woman took responsibility for what she started and planned to help them finish it. Remy had to respect that.
“Cade? Brandt?” Ethan looked to the two on Remy’s other side. Brandt and Cade exchanged an indecipherable look. Cade took the knife Brandt held and studied it absently. It was obvious, to Remy at least, that the two had had a discussion about this the night before, much as she and Ethan had. Well, not exactly, she thought with no small degree of amusement.
“We’re going,” Cade said. Her accent was heavier than usual as she spoke for both of them. Brandt closed his eyes and let out a slow breath, and Cade’s hand closed gently over his muscular forearm.
“Nikola?” Ethan prompted, ignoring the exchange between the two.
The teenage girl looked at the rest of them nervously, her eyes wide. She took a deep breath. “You’ll, um, you’ll need somebody to help with navigation and supplies and stuff, right?” she said.
Remy leaned forward to watch Nikola closely and saw Ethan do likewise. Nikola sounded uncertain, unsure if she wanted to help or not; her tone worried Remy. “Are you sure?” Ethan asked.
Before Nikola could reply, Theo interrupted. “I’m going,” he said in a rush, as if trying to get the words out before he chickened out. “If Gray and Nikola are going, then I’m going.”
“Well, that settles it,” Nikola said, her voice stronger and surer than before. “I am so not staying here by myself. Count me in, too.”
Brandt shoved his chair away from the table, standing and knocking the chair to the floor. “This is so fucked up,” he muttered. He shook his head again and pushed the door open hard enough to slam it into the wall, storming out of the dining room. He left the seven of them looking after him uncertainly.
Cade slid from her perch on the table. “Great. You’ve upset him,” she grumbled, her stilted accent so thick that Remy almost couldn’t make out what she said. “Just fucking great.”
“Something tells me he really doesn’t want to go,” Remy remarked. Her eyes focused vaguely on the door as she pondered over why Brandt was so angry. He’d never displayed such anger over any other mission in which the group had participated over the past year. Perhaps Gray’s theory about Brandt was correct. Maybe it was true that he was from somewhere around Atlanta.
Before Remy could pursue her thoughts furthe
r, Cade growled and slammed her knife into the table. The tip of the blade bit deeply into the scarred wood. The rest of them jumped at the loud thud.
“No, you think?” Cade snapped. She glared at them all, but the majority of her ire was directed at Remy. “You’re asking entirely too much of him on this. It isn’t right. What you’re asking him to do isn’t right. But he’s going to do it anyway, because he’s too fucking loyal to abandon you people. And he’s not going to let me go while he stays behind.”
Remy gritted her teeth and faced Cade down, her own anger flaring up. “He doesn’t have to go, and neither do you,” she pointed out heatedly. “Nobody is forcing either of you to go.”
Cade kicked the chair Brandt had inhabited moments before, sending it skidding across the floor. The sound of it scraping over the floorboards echoed in the mostly empty room. “Fuck, Remy! What kind of people do you think we are? You think we’re going to let the six of you walk into that damned cesspool that is Atlanta while we continue to live our merry fucking lives in this fucking house? You couldn’t survive a damned day in a place as bad as that without our help! You wouldn’t know how to handle yourself on a real battlefield! You’ll probably get your stupid asses killed—”
Ethan slammed his fist on the table, and Remy and Cade both jumped. “We don’t have time for this!” he barked. “Both of you shut the fuck up and stop bitching, because it’s not doing anything to help.” Remy opened her mouth to protest, but he put his hand up to stop her. “Not another word,” he warned, standing and gathering maps from the table. “Nikki and I are going upstairs to work out the rest of the plan. Remy, you and Gray and Theo start getting supplies together. Avi, give them a hand, would you? Cade, just…go deal with Brandt. You’re probably the only person who can calm his grouchy ass down right now without bloodshed.”
* * *
Cade stormed out of the dining room and slammed the door behind her. She fumed over Remy’s careless attitude about the whole mess. And “mess” it was. She had never seen such wanton disregard for safety and common sense in her life. She was so angry that she was nearly irrational; it didn’t take much to set her off anymore, and Remy had successfully managed it. She clenched her fists hard, her nails digging into her palms, and stomped toward the stairs.
She spotted Brandt halfway up the stairs and slowed to a stop. He sat on the landing where Cade used to enjoy relaxing and reading before she grew bored of the literature available in the house. His elbows rested on his knees, his forehead pressing against his palms. He looked like he was in pain, isolated, alone in the world. She felt her anger and frustration draining away like water flowing over glass and slowly approached him. Brandt didn’t move as she climbed the stairs and stopped a few steps below him.
“Hey, you okay?” she asked, sitting on the landing beside him and leaning to get a look at his face.
Brandt didn’t look up right away. He simply continued to sit with his head bowed, his hands braced against his head, staring at the steps below him in silence. Cade felt an impulse to reach up and run her fingers over his thick, curling dark hair in a gesture of comfort. She pressed both palms flat against her thighs to help fight the urge.
His voice was hoarse when he spoke. “I’m sorry about that.”
“About what?” Cade asked. She slid to a knee on the step below her to get a better look at his face.
Brandt shrugged. “I don’t know. For getting so pissed off. I acted like an ass in there.”
Cade shook her head and let go of her knee, resting her hand against his forearm. She gave it a reassuring squeeze and felt his muscles give under her fingers. “It’s not your fault,” she said quietly. “I would have gotten pissed off, too. Hell, I kind of did. Sort of threatened Remy with my big-ass knife in there. You should’ve seen it. I bet you would have loved every moment of it.” She smirked slightly. “Let’s just say there’s a new hole in the dining table.”
Brandt let out a soft chuckle. “I’m sorry I missed it,” he murmured. His fingers worked into his hair, pulling gently at the strands, as if in frustration. “I don’t want to go back,” he admitted. His voice was muffled by his arms, and she leaned in closer to hear him better. “I really don’t know if I can.”
“Brandt, you’ve already told them yes,” she pointed out. “And I know you. You’re not one to back out on something once you agree to do it. And you’re not one to abandon your friends when the going gets tough.”
“Well, the going is about to get a hell of a lot tougher.” He lifted his head and rubbed both hands over his face. His eyes were red-rimmed, as if he’d been crying. Which was a ridiculous thought. Brandt didn’t cry. He was too tough for that. “Those people down there? They think they know what it’s like in Atlanta. They think they have some idea, but really, they have no idea what it’s like. It’s…God, it’s awful, Cade. There are infected everywhere. And it’s like they can sniff you out, like they can track you like fucking bloodhounds, and they always seem to know exactly where you’re hiding.”
Cade sat up straighter and locked her eyes onto his. It was the first time in the entire year she’d known him that she recalled him talking about his ordeal in Atlanta in any detail, the first time he’d given her more than cryptic remarks and allusions she couldn’t catch hold of well enough in order to build a detailed mental picture. “What…what is it like there?” she asked. She took his hand, holding it tightly between hers, and he gripped hers in return, his fingers curling over her hand and pressing into her knuckles.
Brandt drew in a slow breath, and she mimicked his action, holding the air in her lungs as he pressed his lips together, like he was thinking. For a second, she wondered if she’d asked the wrong question. Maybe, even after a year of dealing with the infected, he still wasn’t ready to talk about what had happened to him in Atlanta.
But then Brandt began to speak, low and soft. Cade let out her breath and leaned in closer. He kept his eyes downcast as he tried to dredge up the words to describe the conditions of the city the year before, when the virus was fresh and new and victims were numerous.
“I don’t know how to describe it,” he started. “So much happened back then. So much that I don’t want to think about.” He paused and squeezed her hand again before he continued. “But we’re going to need to know about it. Everybody needs to know what it’s like there, so we can all be prepared. Though I’m not sure there’s enough preparation you can do for something like Atlanta.” He glanced at her, as if checking to see if she was listening, then shifted his eyes to the living room below.
“I was in the city when the quarantine failed,” he admitted. Cade drew in a breath and shifted closer to him, her hands still clutching his. “It happened on January 24th. That’s the day the world officially ended, I think. Beginning of the end or whatever. That’s the day the city fell to the infected, anyway. That’s the day the police and military that was trying to stop the spread fell. Every single one of them, down to the last man. A lot of them fought and died, but just as many froze. Mostly the lower-ranking soldiers, I think. They didn’t see the infected as a danger on the level they should have. They just saw unarmed men, women, and children. They didn’t realize that the infection was a weapon, just as deadly as any knife or gun.
“The orders had been to hold quarantine at all costs,” he continued. “No one in or out, no exceptions. When they put the quarantine in place, the government found a way to shut down the landlines, the cell phone towers, the internet, anything with a connection to the outside world. They didn’t want word about what was going on in Atlanta to get out and cause a panic or a controversy. They were about to give orders that wouldn’t have gone over well with the general public. ‘Shoot to kill,’ they said. ‘Don’t let a single soul out of the city.’ The men didn’t have a choice. Everyone in the city was a potential weapon against the rest of the world.”
“Jesus,” Cade breathed. Her horror at his words and the terror she imagined he must have felt bled into her own vo
ice.
“When it seemed like everybody was dead except for me, I just…I ran,” Brandt confessed. “I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t have any supplies. I didn’t have any water, any food, appropriate clothing. Nothing. Just the clothes on my back and the ammo in my guns. Everybody I knew was dead. I couldn’t get in touch with a soul. Communications had deteriorated so badly or been eliminated so completely that calls for help weren’t going through. I wasn’t going to stick around and let those things kill me.”
“I wouldn’t have stuck around, either,” Cade agreed. “I would have booked it the hell out of there.”
Brandt fell silent, visibly struggling. His fingers were wrapped around Cade’s so tightly it hurt, but she didn’t say anything. She simply gripped his hand in return. “By all rights, I should be dead,” he whispered. “I fucking cheated death once, and I’m worried that it will catch up with me when we go into that city.” He swallowed and added quietly, “But that’s not my worst fear. My worst fear is that the people closest to me are going to die. That…that you’re going to die.”
Cade let out a nervous laugh at his words, shaking her head. “Brandt, come on, you know we’re totally going to live through this,” she said confidently. “All of us. I mean, hell, look at all the shit we’ve survived so far. Exploding RVs and jumping off buildings, and what about that incident with the escalator last fall?”
Brandt smiled slightly as he was reminded of one of their more interesting adventures. “We should have never gone into that mall. I thought it was going to turn into a very bloody reenactment of a scene from Dawn of the Dead.”
“I was thinking Aliens myself,” Cade admitted with a wry chuckle. “That movie used to give me really weird dreams about being dragged under escalators and shit. Don’t ask me why my brain equates Aliens and escalators. It’s a long, strange story.”
He snorted. “You really don’t do well with horror movies, do you?”
Ground Zero Page 8
