“I’ve got her!” a hoarse voice shouted above her. It took Cade just seconds to recognize the voice as Cortez’s. She fought back a grimace and debated struggling against him again, but knowing her luck, it’d end in spilled blood—and it wouldn’t be his. “This way! Over here!”
Two sets of footsteps ran toward them. Cade sighed heavily and went nearly limp against the ground. There was no chance she’d make her way out of this one, not right now. Resigning herself to trying again at another point in time, she allowed Cortez to haul her off the ground and turn her to face Alicia, who steadily approached, a look of fury on her face.
Alicia stopped in front of Cade, her eyes cold and angry. She raised her fist and slammed it against the side of Cade’s jaw, right over the place where, hours earlier, the butt of a rifle had bruised her skin. Cade clenched her teeth as a surge of pain ripped through her face, but she managed to keep from crying out. She wouldn’t show any weakness in front of this bitch. She was better than her.
“Get her back to the car,” Alicia ordered. She fumbled at a pocket of her pants and pulled free a pair of handcuffs. “And put these on her. I don’t want to see that happen again.”
Chapter 22
Brandt slammed the SUV to a stop twenty miles into their journey. The occupants of the Escalade rocked forward violently. Remy nearly tumbled right out of her seat, and she braced a hand against the dash to save herself from that fate. She turned her glare onto Brandt, gritting her teeth, and snarled out, “What the hell, Brandt? You trying to throw me through the windshield?”
“No. I’m trying to figure out where the fuck I’m going,” Brandt snapped back. He dug his fingers into the steering wheel hard enough that his knuckles turned white. He didn’t bother looking at Remy again. He didn’t need to. He felt her anger across the entire front seat. “We don’t have a map.”
“And we need one?” Gray spoke up from the back seat. “I thought you knew your way all around Georgia.”
“What, do I have the word ‘Garmin’ printed across my fucking forehead?” Brandt grumbled. “I know my way around most of Atlanta, not the entire fucking state.” He opened his door. “Wait here. I’m going in that gas station to see if they have any maps.”
Remy huffed and flopped against her seat. Thankfully, she didn’t make a move to follow him out of the Escalade.
Gray, however, was another matter.
“Get back in the car,” Brandt ordered when he heard Gray’s door shut.
“You might need backup,” Gray said.
Brandt grabbed Gray’s upper arm and shoved him back toward the Escalade. “And Remy might need it more. Get in the fucking car.”
Gray looked like he was wavering between defying Brandt’s orders and going back to the SUV. His eyes flickered from Brandt’s face to the Escalade and back again, and he opened his mouth to protest.
“Gray,” Brandt said warningly, drawing the man’s name out and shaking his head.
Gray’s shoulders slumped, and he rolled his eyes. “Fine. Whatever. But if you get in trouble, I’m coming in after you.”
Brandt pushed at Gray’s shoulder again. “I don’t need any help. Now go.”
Brandt made a point of waiting for Gray to get back into the vehicle. Then he turned on his heel with a scrape of boot against pavement and strode across the highway to the darkened gas station he’d spotted. His heart pounded uncomfortably as he stepped over the clogged, overgrown gutter and onto the cracked gas station parking lot. His eyes scanned the lot, studying it for signs of danger. Something fluttered in the corner of his eye, and Brandt whirled in that direction, drawing his sidearm as he moved and pointing it toward the threat, even as he mentally cursed himself for leaving his rifle in the Escalade. But it was only a half-rotten sheet of newspaper, pushed around by the cool breeze that skimmed over the lot. Brandt shook his head at his own jumpiness and lowered his weapon.
The gas station’s front door was broken, glass littering the tile and concrete. It wasn’t an unusual sight; most store windows and doors they came across seemed to be broken nowadays. Brandt peered into the store, squinting into its dim interior. He didn’t see anyone or anything inside. He eased over the doorframe, lifting his Beretta and quickly clearing the store before he headed toward the front counter. He skirted a knocked-over display of candy bars, kicking one out of the way, and scooped up a map from the overturned display on the counter. After skimming over it to make sure it was the map they needed, Brandt tucked it into his back pocket and turned to leave the store.
An infected woman stood nearly within arm’s reach of him.
“Jesus!” Brandt gasped. He stumbled backward instinctively, striking the front counter and finding he could go no farther. He swore under his breath and lifted his Beretta with the intention of putting a bullet in the infected woman’s skull. Before he could get the weapon fully raised, however, the woman lunged, her broken fingernails seeking out his face.
Brandt threw his arms up, bracing his hands against her shoulders and pushing her off him, nearly dropping his Beretta in the process. Thankfully, he managed to keep his grip on it, and as she went for his face again, Brandt put a booted foot against her stomach and kicked her away from him. She grabbed at his arms as she was repelled back, and her nails dragged down his right forearm, cutting into his skin. Brandt grunted in pain, but he didn’t let it stop him from raising his arm and pointing the gun at the woman’s face. He fired three shots, the second two reflexively, right into the woman’s face. She collapsed to the floor in a pool of blood.
No sooner had the woman hit the floor than three more infected emerged from their hiding places—two from behind shelves, one from the back room. Brandt cursed and raised his sidearm again, taking aim at the nearest one: the gas station clerk, his uniform torn and bloodied, his face pale and gaunt with hunger. Brandt flexed his finger on the trigger.
A pair of arms grabbed Brandt from behind and wrapped tightly around his neck and shoulders. Brandt’s shot went wild, plugging into a light fixture in the ceiling and sending a shower of glass to the floor. Brandt flung himself backward against the counter, knocking the infected man who’d grabbed him off balance. Fingernails on his shoulder tore fabric and broke skin. Brandt ignored the pain and turned, putting a bullet in the man’s head. The man’s skull exploded like an overripe melon, blood and bone and gray matter splattering across the mostly empty cigarette display cases.
Brandt’s shoulder and arm ached, sending waves of stinging pain like fire through his skin. Brandt forced himself onward through the pain, turning around and aiming his weapon again. He was going to take out the three targets that remained, the three that had begun to close the distance between them.
Brandt’s intention to squeeze the trigger was interrupted once again. This time, it was by a veritable hail of gunfire from his right, seven shots in total. Every single bullet hit its target, and all three of the infected went down. Brandt blinked in surprise and lowered his gun. Remy stood in the gas station’s doorway, Brandt’s spare Sig Sauer in her hands, Gray standing behind her with Brandt’s M-4 Carbine rifle.
“What the hell is this about you not needing any backup?” Remy snarled. Her dark eyes narrowed, and she skimmed the convenience store for more infected. “We don’t go anywhere without backup, remember? Ethan’s rules.”
Brandt lowered his Beretta and gave Remy an irritated grimace. “Yeah, well, Ethan isn’t here anymore,” he pointed out. “So his rules don’t apply.”
“Like hell they don’t,” Remy snapped. “Those rules have kept us alive this long, and I think—”
“I am in charge now, Remy, not Ethan,” Brandt snarled. He pushed her to the door and out into the parking lot as he continued. “Not Ethan,” he repeated. “Me. And if you’re not going to follow my orders and stay in the fucking car when I tell you to, then you can get the fuck out of here.”
Remy stopped in the middle of the lot and turned on Brandt. She lifted the Sig Sauer and pointed it right a
t Brandt’s head. Brandt and Gray both stopped, and Brandt instinctively put his hands out in a gesture of placation as Remy spoke.
“I make my way through this shithole of a life killing as many fucking infected as I can physically manage before they get to me,” Remy started in a cold, hard voice that Brandt had never heard from her before. “Those bastards killed my family, and they killed Ethan.” Her grip on the weapon noticeably tightened, and her finger rested firmly, assuredly, against the trigger. “By your own damned admission, you were involved in the virus’s testing. You were involved in this shit getting out. You were involved with the entire world’s ending. You might even be infected in some way. Now, tell me one fucking reason why I shouldn’t put a fucking bullet in your head.”
Brandt’s jaw tightened. His eyes met Remy’s. There was no hesitation in her gaze, no concern whatsoever over what could happen if she squeezed the trigger. He vaguely remembered the words Dr. Derek Rivers had spoken to him the morning the CDC had been wiped out: Don’t get killed, okay? You might be needed one day. At the time, the words had been strange and cryptic, lacking any real meaning, and there’d been no time to ask. Brandt doubted he’d have gotten an answer out of Derek anyway.
But as Brandt faced down Remy and her gun, and as his mind struggled to give her a reason why she shouldn’t kill him, Brandt’s mind skipped right past everything to do with the testing and the drugs and the Michaluk virus and instead settled on a single word.
“Cade,” he said softly. He lowered his hands limply to his sides. A trickle of blood inched down his forearm, and the pain in his wounds returned to sharp focus. “Because of Cade.”
That was all it took. The hard look in Remy’s brown eyes softened, and she abruptly lowered the Sig Sauer that had, until then, been aimed right at his forehead. “You better do right for her,” she said firmly. “And the baby. Because if you don’t—”
Brandt’s eyes widened as Remy’s words registered in his ears. “Wait. Baby?” he repeated. “Who said anything about a baby?”
“I did,” Remy replied. She turned away from him and strode toward the Escalade. “Cade is pregnant. She found out earlier today, before those bastards took her.”
“Oh Jesus. Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” Brandt demanded. He hurried forward to catch up with Remy as she stormed to the SUV still parked in the middle of the highway.
“We had other things to do that were more important,” Remy snapped. She grabbed the driver’s door and flung it open. “Get in. I’m driving. Let Gray get a look at your arm and shoulder. You’re bleeding all over the fucking place.”
Chapter 23
The van bearing Cade against her will had stopped for the night. Since her attempted escape in the woods, Alicia had seemingly decided that the best course of action was to treat Cade as a nonentity, as an inconvenience to her plans. The treatment—and the handcuffs—chafed at Cade’s composure. She was in a dark mood, stewing as she sat on the seat in the van, her legs hanging out of the open back door. She watched her three captors stand in a cluster outside the vehicle, bickering among themselves. Alicia gesticulated as she talked heatedly, gesturing pointedly at the van where Cade sat. Cade scowled, but even as she did so, she focused her ears in on what Alicia said to her companions, her curiosity getting the better of her.
“I want to know where they are!” Alicia nearly shouted as she jabbed her finger in the direction they’d come. “They should have caught up to us by now!”
Cade discreetly cut her eyes away from the group and scanned the tree line. The vehicle was parked haphazardly in the gravel on the side of the road, its back end jutting out into the highway. Save for themselves, Cade couldn’t see any signs of civilization anywhere she looked. If it weren’t for the handcuffs around her wrists and the lack of a weapon in her possession, Cade figured it would have been a great place for a second escape attempt.
Shaking her head free of her thoughts of escape—Heaven knew it hadn’t worked well the first time around—Cade shifted her gaze to the group again. Dominic dropped a hand onto Alicia’s shoulder and squeezed.
“Calm down,” the man said, his voice deep and gentle. His other arm was secured in a makeshift sling, immobilizing his injured shoulder. “Yelling isn’t going to get them here faster.”
“Or at all,” Cortez spoke up. “I know Carlos. He would be here if he was coming. He’s not coming.”
Alicia turned on her heel and went to the back of the van. She flung the door open and started to shove supplies around. “We can’t afford to lose two members of our security team.”
“Then you shouldn’t have brought any of them along,” Dominic said. “You should have left them at the Westin to keep an eye on Eth—”
The redhead cut him off. “Well, I didn’t, okay?” She slammed through a bag, pushing the items inside it around. “And now it’s all nothing but a massive clusterfuck.”
“You can say that again.”
Alicia slapped a bottle of water into Dominic’s hand. “Give her this,” she ordered. “And don’t mention him again.”
When the man brought her the bottle and cracked it open for her, Cade took it gratefully. She hadn’t realized just how thirsty she was until she’d seen the bottle in Alicia’s hands. She drank, greedily and deeply, spilling a trickle down her chin as she held the bottle awkwardly in both of her cuffed hands. The man watched her carefully and then glanced at Alicia, who’d moved away from the vehicle and was arguing with Cortez once more. This time, though, Cade couldn’t hear what was being said.
“Look,” Dominic said, keeping his voice low. He propped his arm on the doorframe above Cade’s head. “I’m sorry about all this, okay? Alicia … she can be forceful sometimes, especially when she wants or needs something very, very badly. And this is definitely one of those cases.”
“And what in the world does she want with me?” Cade asked before she took another swig of water.
The man shook his head. “Just your cooperation. Please,” he said with emphasis. “I want to see everybody come out of this okay. I don’t want to see anyone get hurt.”
Cade gritted her teeth. “Oh, like you guys hurt Remy?” she bit out. Dominic flinched at the words.
“Regrettable,” he said. “And if I’d known what she intended and what Carlos and Justin had planned to do, I would have stopped them.”
“You know, when Brandt finds her dead and me missing, he’s going to find you, and he’s going to kill you all in the most painful way he can manage,” Cade said steadily, meeting the man’s eyes. “And when he’s done? I’m going to spit on all your fucking corpses.”
Dominic grimaced and snatched the bottle from her hands. “Don’t let Alicia hear you say that,” he warned. He threw the bottle into the gravel. “She doesn’t take too kindly to threats.”
“I don’t care what she takes kindly to,” Cade snapped. Her eyes flitted to the water gushing from the bottle and over the rocks, and she fought to conceal her disappointment at the loss of the water. She really was still thirsty.
“Is there a problem over here?”
Alicia’s voice cut through the evening light to interrupt whatever reply Dominic could have formulated. He jerked back from his looming stance over Cade and turned to the woman approaching them.
“No problem,” Dominic said. “Just explaining to Miss Alton exactly why she should go out of her way to be cooperative with us.”
Alicia stared at them and then nodded shortly. “Get in. We’re moving.”
The man’s posture visibly stiffened. “At night?”
“All night,” Alicia confirmed. “We don’t have time to spare. We’ve got to get back to the Westin.”
Cade raised an eyebrow but refrained from speaking. The Westin? She thought it over, wondering if the Westin to which the woman referred was the massive one in downtown Atlanta. But if it was, that didn’t make any sense! Why would a group of people choose to live in Atlanta? Atlanta was, by all accounts Cade had ever heard, a verita
ble cesspool. It shouldn’t have been someplace people would want to live anymore.
As she pulled her legs into the van and as Dominic slammed the door closed, Cade began to wonder just how much she didn’t know about what was going on.
Chapter 24
It’d been nearly eight hours since Derek Rivers had revealed the truth to Ethan. And despite the passage of time between the revelation and that moment, Ethan still felt the incessant urge to punch the nearest wall. Fortunately, he refrained—primarily because he felt no desire to nurse busted knuckles—and instead paced in the eighteenth-floor room in which he’d lived for the past month. He trekked across the thick carpet, stopping near the door before turning on his heel and making his way back to the window, trying his damnedest not only to put together what Derek had told him, but to combine it with Alicia’s words and motives and with the man he’d thought he’d known. It seemed like everybody around him was lying to him, hedging around the truth, bending it, twisting it, and avoiding issues and problems that needed to be addressed. And frankly, he was sick of it.
“Stupid son of a bitch,” Ethan muttered. He passed by the bed once more and glanced down at it, eyeing the pistol that lay there. “I knew I shouldn’t have trusted you. I should have just taken Cade and moved on.”
Ethan knew, though, that it was irrational to blame Brandt for this. Brandt’s initial secrecy couldn’t have been helped. If what Derek had explained to Ethan was accurate—and Ethan had no doubt that it was accurate, as the man had actually been there when it happened—then there had been a significant chance the military was seeking Brandt out, trying to track him down and do Heaven knew what to him. Considering he’d been involved in the testing of what would later become the Michaluk virus, it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that he was being hunted for extermination or experimentation. He’d likely hidden the fact from the others in order to protect them. Ethan couldn’t say he wouldn’t have done the same.
The Becoming: Revelations Page 12
