Chapter 41
To say Remy felt despondent was an understatement. Her eyes swam with tears as Brandt dragged her by her wrist down the fire escape’s stairs, his grip tight and bruising. She stumbled down the steps, her ears filled with Brandt’s nearly continuous swearing, and thought of her dead friend in the apartment above them. Somehow, through a titanic effort, she managed to not release the sobs threatening to spill up from her gut. To make that extra noise might bring the attention of the infected on the two of them, and she wasn’t willing to put them in that kind of danger.
Two of them? God, the thought was horrible. Just a year ago, Remy had been practically surrounded by friends. There had been seven people who had become as close as seven people could get. Even Ethan and Gray, despite their near-constant bickering, had considered each other friends. And now they were both dead. They were all dead, except maybe Cade, and Remy had no idea where to begin guessing the woman’s location. It was just her and Brandt. And despite the time she’d spent in the man’s company, he suddenly seemed large and frightening. Never had he appeared so imposing a figure as he did now, his forehead scrunched in a low frown, a look of intense concentration on his face as he led her along back alleys and through shop storage rooms, always on the alert for dangers to pop out of the woodwork at the prospect of a free meal.
Remy would be damned if she let anything touch her at that point. She wanted to kill all of the infected in the messiest ways she could think of. She especially wanted to kill the redheaded bitch who shot Gray. She wanted to torture her, to inflict horrible pain on her, before she plugged a bullet into the woman’s head. She wanted the woman to feel every ounce of pain this last death had caused in her heart.
Brandt slowed his brisk walk, drawing Remy’s full attention back to him. He staggered sideways against the alley’s brick wall, bracing his hand against it, and vomited violently on the pavement beside a dumpster, a low groan shuddering up from his gut. Remy hurried to him and rested her hand on his back, her eyes watching their surroundings. His hand found her other hand and clung to it, squeezing tightly as he coughed out the remains of his last meal.
“You okay?” Remy asked once he’d straightened and let go of her hand. His shoulders hunched, and he still breathed heavily as he wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Yeah, sorry,” he said. His voice was hushed, rough and hoarse. “I’m not feeling great.”
Remy immediately pressed the inside of her wrist against Brandt’s forehead. “Are you okay?” she asked again, her tone urgent as a surge of fear washed up in her gut. His skin felt abnormally warm, but she wasn’t sure if it was from their running or from … “Are you … you’re not infected, are you?”
“You already know my suspicions on that,” Brandt muttered as she dropped her arm back to her side. He wiped at his mouth again and rolled his shoulders, a flicker of pain crossing his face with the movement. Before she could comment on it, he continued. “We need to find a place to rest. And then we need to decide what we’re doing next.”
As they began walking again, Remy asked, “What are our options?”
Brandt led her across the street, both of them keeping low between cars to minimize the risk they’d be sighted. It was only after they’d entered the alley across the street that he continued. “The way I look at it, we’ve got two options,” he said. He stopped to look at a rusted red metal ladder. There was no staircase on this fire escape, just a ladder going straight to the roof. “First option is we can keep tracking Cade and hoping we find her sometime soon.” He grasped the bottom rung of the ladder, tugging on it as if to test its integrity.
“And that’s assuming she isn’t dead,” Remy said.
“Yeah. That.” Brandt cleared his throat again and released the ladder. “Our other option is to abandon the search for Cade and instead go to the Westin and kick Alicia Day’s ass across the fucking city.”
Remy looked back at the alley’s opening. She remembered the last time she’d been stopped in an alley like this; Cade had been lying on the ground bleeding, and Ethan had …
Remy shook her head, trying to dislodge the memories from the forefront of her mind. Now wasn’t the time to think on that. The last thing she needed was to crack emotionally—even more so than she already was—and get distracted in the field. Especially now that she thought she heard the faintest sound of shuffling footsteps near the alley’s entrance.
“Brandt?” she said uneasily.
“Yeah?”
“Is there a third option? Like maybe getting the fuck out of here?”
Brandt looked at her sharply, and his eyes darted past her to the alley’s mouth. “Fuck, you’re right,” he said, motioning to her. “Come on. We can’t go up this ladder. It’s stable enough for you, but I’m not sure it’ll hold my weight.”
“Shit,” Remy muttered. She drew her bolo knife from its sheath. She figured a silent weapon was better in this situation than a gun. “Which way?”
Brandt scanned the alleyway before pointing to the dark outline of a door near the back end. “Through there,” he ordered. “Flashlights out.” He hurried to the door and kicked it hard; the doorframe splintered as the door flew open, banging against the wall beyond. “Come on. Let’s get in here before the fucking infected find us.”
Remy twirled her knife in her hand and squared her shoulders as she adjusted her pack. “I’ll lead the way,” she volunteered. The irresistible temptation of adrenaline surged through her veins at the idea of possibly getting the chance to kill something.
The anger Remy had managed to tamp down for the time it’d taken them to get to this point reared its ugly head as she marched, straight-backed, into the darkness. Pulling her flashlight from the side pocket of her bag and thumbing the switch, Remy shone the light down the short hall they’d entered. There was nothing there, much to Remy’s disappointment.
Brandt entered behind her and shut the door. “We’re going to cut through here and go out the first exit we see,” he said as he secured the door behind him.
“Aw, Brandt, don’t take all my fun away,” Remy said. Despite the jest her words implied, her voice was hard and low, loaded with the determination toward slaughter that seethed in her brain.
Brandt cast a worried glance in her direction. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“Shouldn’t I be the one asking you that?” Remy asked pointedly. “You’re the one who managed to infect Gray just by blood contact.”
Brandt grimaced. “We haven’t confirmed that,” he snapped. “So don’t you even play like that.”
Remy shone her flashlight in his face and rested the flat of her blade against his shoulder. “And how exactly should I be playing, Brandt?” she asked coldly. Brandt swallowed as she leveled her gaze at him. “Do you remember what I said to you when we were on our way here?”
“You said a lot to me on our way here,” Brandt pointed out.
Remy pressed the knife a fraction more firmly against his skin. “You know what the hell I’m talking about,” she snapped. “I told you to give me a good fucking reason why I shouldn’t kill you.”
“And I told you,” Brandt replied. “Cade.”
“Maybe I don’t think that’s a good enough reason anymore,” Remy replied.
“And what the hell has changed between then and now?” Brandt demanded.
Remy snarled and slapped his left bicep with the flat of her blade. “You killed Gray!” she said, her voice rising in anger.
“I didn’t fucking shoot him!” Brandt protested.
“You might as well have!” Remy nearly yelled. “You took away any chance he could have had at surviving! You and your fucking … virus!”
Brandt stepped forward, looming over her. He batted the knife aside before backing her up until she pressed against the wall in an attempt to get away from him. His fingers wrapped around her upper arms, squeezing tightly. “It is not my virus,” he said. His voice was so low and his body so close to hers that Re
my felt the words rumbling through his chest. “If I had known what the fuck they were really testing, I wouldn’t have gotten involved. Yes, I feel incredibly responsible for Gray’s death, just like I do for Nikola’s and Avi’s and Theo’s and, yes, even Ethan’s. It’s my fucking fault we’re in this situation, and if I could change it, I would. But guess what? I fucking can’t. So for the love of Christ, stop making me feel more fucking guilty than I already do. I can’t handle it. I’ve got enough fucking shit on my mind right now.”
Remy blinked, her anger momentarily forgotten in the face of Brandt’s self-loathing. It was quite possibly the longest speech she’d ever heard out of his mouth, and she wasn’t sure how to respond.
But what she did know was she most assuredly did not appreciate being pushed around by anybody. And that included the man attempting to threaten her.
“If you touch me again, I swear to all that’s holy—and a few things that aren’t—that I’ll break your fucking nose,” Remy warned. She pushed free from the cage of Brandt’s arms and lifted her knife again, wielding it and her flashlight before her. “Let’s move. The sooner we kick ass, the sooner we track Cade down. And the sooner I can get the hell away from you.”
Chapter 42
It took over two more hours for Derek to finish his explanation of events from the year before. He described the initial outbreak, the one that never made it to the papers or the evening news, the parts of it at which Brandt had only ever hinted when trying to tell Cade about what had happened. Derek talked about how Alicia had caught a cold that no one worried over until the following day, when lab technician Kevin Michaluk never showed up for work. How progressively aggressive Alicia had become, the pathogen inside her continuously mutating and adapting, influencing everything from her mood and behavior to her appetite. How the doctors in charge of her case decided to pull her off the pathogen due to the increasingly violent physical threat she’d begun to pose to the doctors and nurses and scientists. And how, once they were ready to cease testing, they got word of a viral outbreak outside the CDC’s walls, out in the city proper of Atlanta, with symptoms frighteningly similar to Alicia’s. And how they’d come to the horrifying realization that the pathogen had become viral, had become contagious, and had become virtually unstoppable.
The story Derek wove was like something out of the horror movies Cade hated so much. It made her feel queasy just thinking about it.
Something about the tale bothered her, though. As she rubbed at her eyes tiredly with a thumb and forefinger, it occurred to Cade exactly what was amiss.
“Wait, wait,” she spoke up, interrupting Derek for at least the fifth time in two hours. Every set of eyes in the room turned to her. “The Michaluk virus is one hundred percent communicable, right?” she asked, seeking verification as a nagging suspicion prodded at her brain.
“Yes, in my experience, the Michaluk virus has a one hundred percent infection rate when the pathogens from an infected individual’s blood, saliva, or other bodily fluid come into direct contact with the bloodstream or mucous membranes of someone who is uninfected,” Derek confirmed, sounding as if he were reciting from a textbook.
As Derek gave her a strange look, wondering why she’d asked about something everyone left alive already knew, Ethan muttered, “Means they can fucking spit in your eyes and you’d get the damned virus.” Cade didn’t want to think about that possibility.
“You’re … you’re absolutely positive about that?” Cade asked Derek carefully.
“Absolutely.” Derek paused and then added, “Why do you ask?”
Cade pressed her lips together and looked down, studying her fingernails; most were chipped, cracked, and broken. She dug them into her palms and closed her eyes as she debated what to tell them. She’d always kept her personal life personal, her private life private. She wasn’t one to talk about herself easily, and she most certainly wasn’t one to tell a room full of near-strangers the intimate details of her sex life. She blew out a heavy sigh, brushed a stray lock of hair from her face, and looked at Derek once more.
“And you’re absolutely sure that Brandt is infected?” she asked the doctor slowly.
“Positive,” Derek confirmed. “I gave it to him myself. Every test I’ve given him reflected positive.”
“Then how come I’m not infected?” Cade finally asked. In the ensuing silence, she forced herself to continue. “Over a month ago, on the way here to Atlanta, Brandt and I had sex. And I’m currently pregnant with his child.” Cade heard Ethan’s surprised intake of breath, but she shoved on. “By your own admission, I should be infected. But I’m not. Why?”
The silence that followed rested heavily over the five of them. Isaac sat in contemplative silence, while Derek rubbed at the graying stubble on his chin and pondered the problem before him. Kimberly merely sat, tapping a ballpoint pen idly against the back of her hand as her eyes danced from one person to the next.
Finally, Derek cleared his throat and spoke, his words slow and thoughtful as he pieced a theory together in his head. “Perhaps … perhaps the pathogen lies dormant in Brandt’s system, in an uninfectious state. Or perhaps whatever version Brandt has isn’t contagious, which would be the state we were aiming for in testing. This is all pure conjecture, of course. It’s something I’ll need to look into further once we manage to track Brandt down.”
“If Alicia doesn’t get to him first,” Ethan muttered.
“Yes, there’s that particular redheaded problem,” Derek acknowledged.
“It explains why Alicia was so interested in Cade, at least,” Kimberly said. “She knew you were pregnant, didn’t she?” Her eyes met Cade’s, and Cade nodded. “With it being Brandt’s child, if Alicia wasn’t able to get her nasty claws hooked into Brandt, then his baby would’ve been a perfect fallback option. Assuming, of course, that his seeming immunity has passed on to the child.”
“Fairly devious, but it does make sense,” Isaac agreed. A soft tap on the door drew the attention of all present. Isaac rose and went to it, speaking to someone on the other side before turning back to them. “If you’ll excuse me, I have something I need to take care of.”
“And on that note, I need some sleep,” Derek announced once Isaac pulled the door shut behind him. “I’m exhausted, and I want to take a nap before I look over my files about Brandt.” He beckoned to Ethan, much to Cade’s surprise. “Come on, Ethan. It’s about time for your meds.”
Ethan groaned, and Cade glanced at him, raising an eyebrow curiously. “Fuck, do you know how tired I am of getting poked and prodded?” he complained. He slapped his hands against his thighs and rose from his seat.
Cade looked at him with concern. “Do you want me to go with you?” she offered.
Ethan hesitated, and his fair cheeks flushed faintly. “I think I’d rather you didn’t,” he admitted sheepishly. “No offense meant. Normally, I’d say yes. But I need to get my bandages changed and …” He trailed off, giving her a helpless little shrug.
“And you don’t want me to see how bad it really is,” Cade acknowledged. “It’s okay. Really. I understand.” She caught his hand again and gave it a squeeze. “Go get your thing done,” she said. “I’ll see you after, okay? We can get caught up then.”
Ethan nodded and pressed a gentle kiss to her temple. “Yeah, we’ll get caught up before the inevitable ‘What the hell are we going to do about the shithole we’re in?’ powwow session,” he agreed. He straightened and, shirts and jacket in hand, retreated with Derek into one of the apartment’s two bedrooms. Cade watched him go. A touch of despondency hit her as the door shut behind the friend with whom she’d only just been reunited. She sighed and slumped back against the couch, covering her eyes with the heels of her hands.
“Tired?” a voice asked. Cade barely suppressed the startle that surged up her spine. She dropped her hands and looked to the other end of the couch. Kimberly sat staring at her, a touch of concern evident in her blue eyes. Cade had almost forgotten the other w
oman was there.
“I’m still trying to decide if I’m just tired or overwhelmed,” Cade said. She dropped her head against the cushions. “I’m just … I never expected to see him again. I had no idea that he was even still alive. And to walk in and just … see him like that–” Her voice cracked, and she fell silent. “I think I’m definitely overwhelmed.”
Kimberly moved down the couch to sit closer to Cade. “Are you okay? I know it can be pretty startling. I’m sure if Avi walked into the room right now, I’d be pretty damned overwhelmed myself.”
Cade raised an eyebrow. “Avi?” she repeated. “Avi Geller?”
Kimberly smiled. “You know, Ethan had the exact same reaction that you just did,” she said. “Avi Geller, yes. She was my sister, until Alicia Day had her gunned down because she found out Avi worked for the ‘other side’—the other side being Isaac’s people, of course—and thought Avi would bring you guys to Isaac instead of her when you came into Atlanta back in February. Which was the plan to begin with, and we thought Alicia didn’t know. But she did.”
“Damn,” Cade murmured. “I knew that shot wasn’t an accident.”
Kimberly gave her a sidelong glance. “I hear you got shot too.”
Cade shrugged. “I got lucky. If I’d been hit like Avi was, I don’t think I’d be sitting here telling you about it.”
“Considering the high-powered rifle Kyle used, you’re certainly right about that,” she acknowledged. She pushed her blond bangs out of her eyes and glanced at the closed bedroom door behind which Ethan and Derek had retreated. “I’m worried about him.”
“Who, Dr. Rivers?” Cade asked. “Or Ethan?”
“Ethan, of course,” Kimberly answered. “I think Alicia has messed him up pretty badly, though I don’t think you’ll ever hear him say that.”
Cade looked at her sharply. “What did she do to him?” she demanded, anger building in her again. Just the thought of what the woman could have done to Ethan was enough to put her teeth on edge.
The Becoming: Revelations Page 22
