The Becoming: Revelations (The Becoming Book 3)
Title Page
Prologue:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Epilogue
About the Author
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ISBN (trade paperback): 978-1-61868-040-2
ISBN (eBook): 978-1-61868-041-9
The Becoming: Revelations copyright © 2013
by Jessica Meigs.
All Rights Reserved.
This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.
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Prologue
From the Journal of Ethan Bennett
March 21, 2010
My name is Ethan Bennett, and I am a dead man.
I officially died a month ago at the hands of a group of homicidal people infected with the Michaluk virus. I suffered serious injuries and contracted the virus while attempting to delay their pursuit of my friends. I was saved from succumbing to the virus by sheer luck—and with the help of a medication cocktail that holds the virus at bay. For now, I only have a low risk of becoming like those who killed me.
For now.
I’m with a group led by a woman named Alicia Day. She’s former Marine Security Forces, and the people here hold her in very high regard. She leads roughly one hundred and fifty men, women, and children at the Westin. Through their hard work, they’ve turned this hotel into a small village. Almost thirty of those people are infected with the virus in a manner similar to me. It’s only through the miraculous chance of having a CDC doctor here that I’m able to write this, that the infected living here are able to continue with their lives, such as they are. Despite the daily medication regimen, they’ve eked out a reasonably productive existence in the hopes that something more permanent can one day be discovered. They live for that hope, though there’s always the chance their bodies will hit the point where the medications are no longer effective.
Alicia tells me it is imperative we find Brandt Evans. He was one of my companions before I became infected, and I don’t know where he is. I can’t remember where any of my friends were to go after Atlanta. And honestly? That terrifies me. Because if what Alicia tells me about Brandt is even remotely true, then my best friend Cade and my lover Remy and hell, even Gray (as much as I dislike the bastard)—they’re all in danger. If Brandt is infected, he poses a major risk not only to Cade, Gray, and Remy, but to the entire world.
But Brandt Evans is also a hope. A possibility of a key to the cure for the Michaluk virus. And that is a chance we can’t afford to let pass.
Our bodies have begun to adjust to the medications. I’m fine for now, but there are many who aren’t. The drugs are losing their effectiveness for many; there have already been four people to spontaneously fall ill this week alone. Four people Alicia took away from the others and put down, as she felt it was her responsibility to do.
We can’t keep losing numbers like this. We need a cure, and we need it fast.
And we’re hoping Brandt Evans can give us one.
Chapter 1
Remy Angellette’s nights had become filled with entirely too much coffee. That wasn’t a good thing. The liquid—however dark and rich and deliciously bitter it was—kept her awake far more than she’d already been before the group’s flight from Maplesville over a month before. Her nerves jittered at the thought of them running out of the sparse supply of coffee grounds to which they’d already been reduced. But the sleeplessness caused by the caffeinated drink and her own willpower was far better than the nightmares that plagued her every time she closed her eyes.
Remy wasn’t sure if Brandt had caught on that she wasn’t sleeping, but Gray definitely had. Oddly enough, he hadn’t said anything to her about it. Instead, he’d often join her on the roof of their newest safe house late at night, and together they’d sit in companionable silence, watching the stars and dwelling on their thoughts, their hopes, their dreams, or their lack thereof.
In the weeks since the terrible events in Atlanta, Remy had dwelled incessantly on Ethan, on Theo, on Nikola, and on Avi—especially on Avi. Every time Remy’s thoughts lit on the woman, she was bothered by the suspicion there was something more to the story. Avi had hidden something important from them—her mannerisms, the way she’d avoided directly answering questions, her flowery speeches, and her flat-out helplessness when facing down infected all made that glaringly obvious—but what that “something” was, Remy had no way to find out. The other woman was dead and therefore impervious to Remy’s questions and accusations, no matter how loudly she made them in her head. Remy hadn’t been affected by the woman’s death, beyond the initial shock of it—after all, she’d only known the woman for a few days—but the one who’d fallen only minutes after her …
A sob threatened to well up in her throat as Ethan’s face appeared in her mind’s eye, but Remy quickly tamped it down. She couldn’t stop the tears that stirred in her gut, though. Ethan had fallen, had met a terrible death at the hands of the infected while trying to save the rest of them. While trying to save her. And Remy had fought, had tried to get to him before it was too late, but Brandt hadn’t allowed it. He’d held her down, pinned her to a rooftop, while on the ground below, Ethan died.
Remy wasn’t sure she’d ever forgive Brandt for that.
Boots scraped on the roof behind her, shuffling and bumping as their owner climbed through the second-story window to join her. Remy pulled her knees to her chest and set her bolo knife besid
e her, lovingly tracing her fingertips over its wooden hilt before wrapping her arms around her knees. The owner of the boots approached.
“Hey,” a quiet voice greeted her. Brandt. Of course. Her chest constricted at the sound of his voice, and she couldn’t help but think on the words he’d said to her when he broke the news of Ethan’s sacrifice: He stayed behind to give the rest of us a chance.
But Remy hadn’t wanted that chance. She just wanted Ethan.
“Hey, Brandt,” Remy replied. She suppressed a sigh as her hope for peace and quiet was dashed. She could just ask Brandt to leave her be, and he’d likely do it. But, despite the lurking bitterness she felt toward him, Remy still wanted his company, any company. So she kept her mouth shut and pressed her lips together as the tall man settled onto the shingles beside her.
“I thought it was Gray’s turn to keep watch,” Brandt said. He rested an arm against his bent knee and glanced at Remy. “What are you doing up here?”
Remy shrugged and kept her eyes locked onto the darkness. She couldn’t see it, but if she strained her ears, she could make out the faint sounds of the Atlantic Ocean, its dark gray waters breaking on the beaches a mere two blocks away. Remy had seen it only once, when they first arrived in the tiny coastal South Carolinian town near Hollywood. She’d immediately disliked it. It was a far cry from the beautiful blue waters and sugar-white sands of the Gulf of Mexico near which she’d grown up. Compared to that paradise, the coastline in the distance looked like something out of Dante’s Inferno.
“Couldn’t sleep,” Remy admitted after the silence stretched too long. “Figured I’d let Gray get some rest since I’m awake anyway.”
Brandt gave Remy a sad smile that she just barely saw in the moonlight. “Thinking too much?” he asked gently, understandingly.
Remy didn’t want his understanding. “You don’t even know the half of it,” she muttered. Her voice revealed how disgusted she was. At whom, though, she wasn’t sure.
“You could try me?” Brandt offered. His own voice was tinged with a fair amount of the concern that did a fantastic job of pissing Remy off. She didn’t want Brandt to waste his time being concerned over her. There wasn’t anything to be concerned about.
Remy glanced at Brandt, ready to offer a blunt refusal, maybe an excuse for why she didn’t want to talk to him. But as she opened her mouth, Remy caught a glimpse of the darkness in Brandt’s eyes and quickly shut it again. It was a haunted, disturbed look—the look of a man who’d stared into the pits of Hell for far too long, had seen things that couldn’t be unseen. The expression unsettled Remy. Maybe Brandt wanted an excuse to talk about some things. Maybe his concern over Remy’s problems was a pretense for examining his own.
“Are you okay?” Remy ventured. She tucked her feet beneath her and settled onto her boots to cushion her seat against the roof. She locked her eyes onto Brandt’s, trying to force the man to look at her. He glanced at her fleetingly before his eyes darted back to their surroundings.
“What do you think I’m asking you?” Brandt replied. He ran his hands through his dark hair. The gesture reminded Remy, painfully, of Ethan. “You’re not sleeping,” he continued. “You’re getting, what, two or three hours every couple of nights? That’s not healthy.”
“You’re not my father,” Remy muttered. “Not even Eth—” The name caught in her throat, and she drew a deep breath. Her eyes welled with tears, despite her best efforts to prevent their appearance. “Not even he could get away with ordering me around like that.”
Brandt didn’t reply right away, though he did finally look at Remy, studying her closely in the moonlight. She looked back at him through tears threatening to spill. Memories flooded her brain, hammered at her skull, trying to force the tears from her eyes against her will. Brandt gave her a sad smile and squeezed her shoulder. “Yeah, I miss him too,” he admitted.
That was all it took for the tears to stream down her face. Remy bit her bottom lip, but the pain from her teeth did nothing to quell the sobs that clawed up from the empty hole Ethan’s death had left inside her.
The next thing she knew, Remy was in Brandt’s arms with her face pressed against his chest as painful, gut-wrenching sobs she’d fought for a month to restrain broke free. She grieved for all her lost friends, for Nikola and Avi and Theo and especially Ethan. But she also cried for the four survivors, the ones left behind to cope with the losses they’d sustained in such rapid succession and the difficulties they now faced in surviving without the man to whom they’d looked as their figurehead for the past year.
“Why did he have to do that?” Remy managed. “Why did he have to play the motherfucking martyr? Couldn’t he see that we need him? That I need him?”
“Of course, Remy,” Brandt said. He rubbed her back in slow, soothing circles. “Of course he could see that. Of course he knew we needed him. That’s why he did what he did. He cared enough—he loved all of us enough—to give up his own life so we’d have a chance at ours.” Remy looked at him again. The dark, haunted expression was back in his eyes. “If he hadn’t done that, the infected would have circled the building and swarmed us when we came out the front doors. And then we all would have died. Ethan would never have found that acceptable.”
Remy let out a shaky breath and lay against Brandt, her eyes closed, listening to his heartbeat and his steady breathing. It was the closest she’d ever felt to him, like being comforted by an older brother she’d never had. The thought made the bitterness inside her subside, made a fleeting smile brush against her lips. Brandt ran his fingers over her hair and kissed the center of her forehead. Then he dug a tissue from his pocket and pressed it into her hand.
“Thanks,” Remy murmured, wiping at her eyes. She squeezed them shut and fought to gain control of herself. It felt like everything inside her was displaced, like her stomach was squished into the middle of her back and her heart was down by her liver. “God, what is wrong with me?” she asked. “I’m not acting like me at all.” She gave Brandt a tight smile that barely masked the tears still threatening. “Fuck. I’m okay, I promise.”
Brandt rubbed Remy’s back again and looked across the yard with a vacant expression. “You lost someone you love,” he said. “I can’t imagine how hard that is. I haven’t dealt with that in a long time.” He glanced to the window behind them. “I hope I never do, either.”
Remy pulled away from him and glanced at the window. “Speaking of which, how’s Cade today? Any improvement?”
Brandt brightened. “I think her fever finally broke,” he said with enthusiasm. “She’s noticeably cooler than she was yesterday.”
Remy gave Brandt a happy smile as relief coursed through her. They’d been crazy with worry over Cade; Brandt had almost gone insane with the stress he’d experienced over the woman’s briefly worsened condition.
The infection—thankfully not one of the Michaluk variety—brought on by the gunshot wound to Cade’s side had raged through her body for three weeks, and they’d fought a desperate war against it. They’d pumped Cade full of what few antibiotics they had, given the woman as many fluids as they could work down her throat, constantly bathed her with cool cloths as her fever skyrocketed and her body sweated and shivered. They hadn’t been sure they’d treated the infection properly, but they’d taken what Gray knew and run with it. They’d clearly done something right, because Cade’s fever breaking was a very good sign.
“Got scary for a bit there, didn’t it?” Brandt asked. His voice was thick with an emotion Remy recognized immediately.
“You love her, don’t you?” she murmured. With the way he constantly glanced at the window, it was clear where he wanted to be—and it was not on the roof with Remy. Not that she blamed him.
Brandt didn’t look surprised by Remy’s question. He shifted his eyes to hers and nodded. “Yeah, of course,” he said, as if it were obvious.
Remy traced a circle over the knee of her jeans, picking threads out of a hole in the fabric. She dabbed the t
issue at her eyes again. “Would you marry her? If you could?”
Brandt looked at the shingles, considering Remy’s question. “I think if it were an option, I would,” he admitted. “But I don’t think it is. Hell knows the world’s so bad off, the chances of finding a priest in this cesspool are slim to none.”
“Oh, you’re a traditionalist,” Remy mused. She patted him on the arm and smiled. “You know what I think? In this world, you don’t need a priest to be married in the eyes of God, so long as you’re both faithful. I think in circumstances like these, God would understand if you just said you were married.”
Brandt looked at the night sky. “I don’t know. Maybe I want something more than just us saying, ‘Oh hey, we’re married.’” He made a few overly dramatic hand gestures, and Remy laughed. “I can’t explain it. Besides, I don’t even have a ring for her.”
“I don’t think Cade cares about all that,” Remy admonished him. “She’s never struck me as being into the whole flowers and romance and rings and churches thing.” She clapped her hands. “But I’ll tell you what. I’ll talk to Gray. He’s still—”
“No, don’t do that,” Brandt protested. Remy swatted his arm to stop him.
“Shush, man,” she ordered. “I’ll talk to Gray. He’s still got his family’s Bible. He might not be ordained, but I don’t think that matters. Next time you and Gray go on supply, you can hunt down a couple of wedding bands. I bet Gray would marry you guys sometime after you got back. When you’re ready for that, of course.”
Brandt hesitated. The dark look in his eyes had been replaced by a hopeful expression. “You think it’s a good idea?” he asked. “I mean, is it something Cade would even be interested in?”
“Don’t worry about it so much,” Remy said. “Take your time with it, okay? Talk to her about it when she wakes up, see what she thinks.”
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