“You were. I mean, you are,” Ethan replied, setting his bottle down. “I just…I don’t know. Anna and I only found out right before Memphis fell. And we were still trying to cope with it ourselves. I hadn’t gotten to the point of talking about it. And then things went to Hell in a hand basket, and it never came up in conversation with you.”
“But…with Remy?”
Ethan shook his head. “Just a matter of circumstance. It wasn’t a slight against you or anything. I told her after we’d had sex the first time. She freaked out because we didn’t use any protection, and I had to tell her to calm her down. She didn’t want kids, said she didn’t see the rightness of bringing children into this world.” He put a hand up before Cade could protest. “No offense, of course. It’s just her opinion and choice, and I don’t think it means she’s critical of yours.”
“Oh, I don’t take it personally,” Cade said. She picked up her knife and resumed cutting the meat. “I mean, I didn’t exactly choose this.” She motioned to her belly with her free hand. “To say it was an accident is probably an understatement of epic proportions.”
Ethan raised an eyebrow, intrigued at the suggestion of an unwanted pregnancy. “So what are you saying? That you regret it?”
“Not necessarily.” Cade scooped up some of the already cut meat and dropped it onto the plate to make room on the cutting board. “It was just…unexpected. And I worry that it prompted Brandt to move things along faster than he really wanted to. I mean, hell, he knocks me up and then feels the need to propose just over a month later. And not long after that, we get married. It just feels insanely fast.”
“Do you regret that?” he asked.
Cade shrugged. “No, not really. I love him, you know? I figure the whole marriage thing was inevitable. It just got here sooner than expected.” She looked down at the clipboard and then swore, slamming the knife down beside the cutting board. “Shit, I’ll be right back, okay? I left something off the list that I gave Brandt, and I need to catch him before he leaves the rec center.” She grabbed her towel and wiped her hands again. “Can you pack this meat up for me while I’m gone? I shouldn’t be long.” Once he nodded, she slipped out of the kitchen, letting the door swing shut behind her.
The meat lay on the cutting board in a small pool of blood, taunting him. Ethan swallowed and circled the counter, stopping in front of the meat to study it carefully. He scooped up the knife that still rested beside the cutting board and gently prodded at the lump of meat. As he examined the meat, his stomach let out another rumble, and he pressed a hand to it as if to quiet it. Ever since he’d awakened, he’d eaten like he hadn’t eaten in a year—four, five, sometimes six meals a day—but none of it had even remotely satisfied him; he had yet to actually be not hungry. He drew in another deep breath, and the scent of blood assaulted him again, setting his stomach off into another loud round of hysterics.
“Fuck,” Ethan breathed out as the temptation became too much. He set the knife gingerly back on the counter, his eyes riveted on the meat. With one last cautious glance around the room, before he even realized he’d done it, Ethan picked up a somewhat large chunk of raw, bloody meat and shoved it into his mouth.
As his teeth sank into the meat and blood flooded his mouth and poured over his tongue, it took everything in him to suppress the groan of pure, unadulterated pleasure that threatened to escape his throat. He closed his eyes as a shudder ran down his spine, and he clapped both hands over his mouth as if to keep anyone from taking the meat from him. He chewed furiously, working it with his teeth, feeling like a man dying of thirst being handed a tall glass of ice water. When he swallowed, all he wanted was more. He grabbed the plate of meat and started to cram the morsels into his mouth, smearing blood on his chin as he gorged himself.
Ethan felt drowsy and heavy when he emerged from the euphoria that eating the meat had brought on, and he looked at the now-empty plate with a measure of forlornness. He was fighting the impulse to lick the remaining blood from the china when footsteps rapidly approached. He looked up to see a thirty-something year old man with black hair. Ethan didn’t know this man who was stepping through the kitchen door, a rifle resting against his shoulder. Their eyes met, and the other man’s stare widened as he took in the sight of Ethan standing there, empty plate in hand, blood smeared on his face, and stray droplets staining his shirt. The man swung the rifle around to point it at Ethan, even as he yelled out, “Hey, I need help in here! Quick!”
“That’s not necessary,” Ethan said. He dropped the plate onto the counter and put a hand up, palm out. “Really. Just…just don’t. Please.”
The man shook his head and adjusted his aim. “What did you do?” he demanded. His eyes scanned the kitchen. “Who did you hurt?”
Ethan looked at him blankly for a moment, and as comprehension broke through the haze shrouding his brain, he reached up and touched his face. His fingertips, already stained with blood, came away with even more red. He must have looked horrible, like a monster, like one of the…
“Oh God,” Ethan whispered as the shock hit him full-force. He leaned against the counter heavily, closing his eyes and gripping the edge like a life preserver, his knuckles turning white. Even with his eyes closed, he could feel the other man’s weapon aimed at his head. It would be his fortune—good or bad, he wasn’t sure which—if the man squeezed the trigger. And as he heard three more sets of footsteps on the living room floor, he couldn’t help but wonder if said outcome would be preferable. He didn’t bother to wipe at the blood on his face as Cade, Brandt, and Kimberly came back into the kitchen. Brandt’s boots squeaked on the tiles as he stopped, and Ethan squeezed his eyes closed even tighter, feeling overwhelmingly ashamed.
“What the hell is going on in here?” Cade demanded. Her words were as sharp as knives, flung out across the room with the irritation and incredulity Ethan had come to expect from her. “Why do you have a rifle pointed at—”
Ethan looked up then, and Cade stopped speaking, her eyes wide as she got a look at his face. Kimberly stood behind her, the expression in her eyes horrified. Ethan looked away, wanting to hide his face. She was the last person he wanted to see him this way.
“I’ll go get Derek,” Kimberly said. She turned and hurried away.
“What happened?” Cade demanded, once the blond woman was gone.
Ethan cast his gaze to the floor. “I just…I don’t know,” he murmured. He reached for a towel and was disgusted to see his hands shaking. He scrubbed at his face, trying to get the blood off. “I don’t know. Cade, what the fuck is wrong with me?”
Everyone left in the room was silent for long heartbeats. Ethan twisted the towel in his hands and slouched against the counter again. His chest felt tight, his breathing erratic as he struggled not to panic. He felt like he was about to hyperventilate. It took everything in him to not hit the floor as the elated mood he’d had previously flowed out of him.
When Cade spoke again, her voice was harder than before. “Keith, put the damn rifle down,” she said. “And, for that matter, get the hell out of this kitchen.”
Keith started to protest, but she interrupted.
“Don’t you even say a word to a single soul out there about what you saw in here, you got it? I don’t want this getting out everywhere.”
“I think everybody has a right to know you have one of the infected stashed in here!” Keith snapped back. “What, are you trying to pull an Alicia or something? This is Dominic Jackson’s doing, isn’t it?”
Brandt opened his mouth to say something and then closed it. He still looked shell-shocked, like he couldn’t comprehend what he was looking at. Ethan really hoped that meant he wasn’t about to put a bullet in his head himself.
“He isn’t infected!” Cade said.
“Like hell he isn’t! Look at him!” Keith took a step toward him, and Ethan reflexively tried to back away. “I don’t know what kind of bullshit you’re trying to pull in here—”
“And I don’t c
are what you think it might be,” Brandt interrupted. He grabbed Keith’s shoulder and shoved him toward the door. “Shut the fuck up. Don’t say a word, or I will personally make sure you regret it. And if you even think about trying to harm him, I will cast you out of Woodside so fast your head will spin.”
Keith and Brandt glared at each other for long moments, during which Ethan forced himself to take in large, gulping breaths. Finally, Keith seemed to crack, looking away from Brandt. “This isn’t over,” he muttered as he pushed past Brandt and stormed out of the kitchen.
“No, it isn’t,” Brandt mumbled.
When the front door slammed, Ethan flinched, and a sudden, terrible fear of being revealed to the entirety of Woodside burrowed its way into his stomach. He bit back a surge of bile as Brandt moved toward him. Ethan didn’t look up at Brandt, who studied him as if he were a butterfly under a magnifying glass. Cade kept her distance, not that Ethan blamed her.
Brandt’s hands came up then, resting against the sides of Ethan’s face, his fingers hooking under his jaw, and Ethan was forced to look up. The two men stared at each other, Ethan reluctantly and Brandt intently. When Brandt spoke, his voice was hushed. “How long?”
Ethan closed his eyes again. “Since I woke up. Since Dr. Rivers did whatever he did to me.”
“What were you feeling? Before?” Brandt prompted. He searched Ethan’s face before dropping his hands.
“I was hungry,” Ethan said. “It never stopped, no matter how much I ate. It was just there. It wouldn’t leave me.”
“And now? How do you feel now?”
Ethan had been so focused on how everyone else was reacting that he hadn’t taken the time to figure out how he was reacting. So at Brandt’s prompting, he focused inward, studying not only his mental state—shaky at best—but his physical state too. And, much to his surprise, he discovered that the hunger was gone, that he was feeling better than he had since emerging from the months of insanity brought on by the Michaluk Virus. With a startled jolt, he looked at Brandt, nodding. “I feel…like me,” he tried to explain. “Healthier. Stronger. It’s gone. The hunger…it’s just gone.”
“What is going on?” Cade demanded then. Brandt didn’t tear his eyes away from Ethan as he answered her.
“I’m not certain,” Brandt admitted. “I have my suspicions, but…” He trailed off and shook his head. “I think we couldn’t have timed this committee meeting any better than we have. Derek’s got some answers he needs to start handing out, and a lot of them have to do with Remy and Ethan. I want to know what’s going on with them, and I want to know yesterday.”
Chapter 6
Remy felt a sense of freedom and liberty she hadn’t felt in months as she walked underneath the trees surrounding Woodside. The sun shone down through the thick tree canopy above her, and the breeze felt more refreshing than it did when it eked over the wall and into the community. She breathed in deeply, smelling the scents of damp earth, rotting leaves, and foliage: the distinct smell that accompanied every forest and woody area she’d ever been in. Closing her eyes for the barest of moments, she sent up a silent thank you to whoever was listening that Dominic had been nice enough to get her out of the community, if only for a little while.
She looked to the man in question, who walked ahead of her, almost creeping through the foliage, following a deer track toward destinations unknown. Remy didn’t care where they were going; Dominic had mentioned searching out supplies, but they could have been taking a trip to the moon and she’d have been just as pleased. Her eyes lit onto his broad shoulders as he meandered along the path, and she smiled as she watched him pause to check his compass. He beckoned to her, and she hurried to catch up.
“What’s up?” she asked.
“We’re coming close to town,” Dominic said. “Maybe another half mile.” He paused before adding, “There are infected in town.”
A bright smile spread across Remy’s face before she could stop it. “Infected?” she repeated. “I’m game for taking on some of those.”
“I know, and that’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Dominic said. He paused, as if gathering his thoughts and figuring out what to say. “I want—no, I need you to please stick close to me. Don’t rush off to fulfill whatever burning need you have to slaughter any of the infected. I’m bringing you along to watch my back, not to perform wholesale slaughter.” She must have had a disappointed look on her face to match the disappointment she felt, because he hurried to add, “Besides, you do it sloppily, and if you’re still going to go with me to Philadelphia, you need to learn how to do it more effectively and efficiently.”
“And, what, you’re going to teach me?” Remy asked, stopping in the middle of the path and folding her arms over her chest. It was a challenge, and she knew it, but she wanted his promise that he was going to do so before they went any further.
“Actually, yes,” Dominic said, as if realizing that answering in any other way would send her on the warpath. “But you’re going to learn how to kill them my way.” He took her elbow and tugged. She let him lead her down the trail as he continued. “I’ve got actual training in how to take down enemies, remember?”
“What, they actually taught you how to kill zombies in the DIA?”
Dominic snorted. “No, not zombies. Just people,” he said. “But the infected are people. They’re just sick, and some of them are dead.”
“And still walking around trying to eat us,” Remy added. She paused, biting her lip as she ducked below a low-hanging branch. “You don’t think I’m going to go like that, do you?”
“Like what? A batch of infected eating you?” Dominic asked, raising an eyebrow and glancing at her.
“No, just…like them,” she said. She was being vague and knew it, but actually saying the words felt like it would make the possibility too real, too likely to happen.
Dominic stopped and stared at her, examining her face, reading the possibilities there like he was so skilled at doing, like he’d done earlier in the main house’s kitchen when she’d gotten so pissed at him for daring to show he cared. Then he slowly shook his head. “No, Remy, I don’t think you’d ever go that way,” he said. “I think you’d go down in a blaze of glory, taking as many of them with you as you could.” He gave her a slight smile and added, “I’ll make you a promise, though, right here and now. If you ever show signs of turning, I’ll personally make sure you never turn into one of the infected. I’ll take care of it myself.” Remy gave him a smile that quavered at the corners of her lips, and he reached out, taking her hand in his and giving it a comforting squeeze. “You’re going to be okay, Remy. You know that, right?”
“I hope so,” Remy murmured. She laced her fingers with his and squeezed his hand in return, holding onto it as if it were her only salvation. She glanced at their joined hands, focusing on them and feeling calluses and rough spots against her fingers. Then she forced herself to pull her hand out of his, inwardly cursing her momentary weakness. She prided herself on not needing other people as much as they needed her, and after the fiasco of Ethan’s death and resurrection, the last thing she was willing to do was let herself actually feel something—anything—for another person.
Dominic seemed to pick up on her discomfort, and he studied his hand before looking forward into the trees. He pressed his lips together and rocked his head forward at the path ahead. “We should get moving,” he said. “We’ve got a lot to do, and we need to try to get back before the sun sets and you need your medication.”
The rest of the trip to the outskirts of Hollywood, South Carolina, was made in a silence that, while not uncomfortable, was stiff with tension. As the two emerged from the shadow of the trees and into the bright afternoon sunlight, Remy found herself standing beside Dominic at the side of a highway. The grass alongside the road nearly reached her waist, and cars stretched down the pavement as far as the eye could see. It was a familiar sight, one that Remy had seen repeatedly over the past year and a half—
—“I can’t get a shot! I can’t get a fucking shot!”—
—and, in Remy’s opinion, was one of the most dangerous settings in the world, outside of dark buildings with lots of rooms. She drew a breath, fighting it into her lungs. Her hands trembled, and she curled her fingers into fists, digging her nails into her palms. Dominic started forward, stepping through a gap between two cars, his hand resting on a holstered pistol at his hip and the other gripping the strap of the rifle he’d brought with him. Remy’s heart leaped into her throat, and she lurched forward and grabbed Dominic by his right bicep to stop him. He turned to face her, his forehead wrinkled in confusion.
“What?” he questioned. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
Remy hesitated and shook her head. She let her hand fall to her side, her fingers curling again. Her cheeks burned with embarrassment, and she looked away, gazing at a blue sedan, all of its doors thrown open and luggage, long-since emptied, spilling out onto the highway.
She opened her mouth, then closed it again. “Are you…are you sure it’s okay? Out there?” She nodded toward the highway and the cars.
Dominic looked at the cars and then turned his eyes back to her. “I’ve been through here a dozen times so far at least,” he said. “While I can’t say it’s totally safe, I can guarantee that I’ve at least reduced the number of infected along the two-mile stretch we’re about to walk.”
When she didn’t respond right away, Dominic stepped back from the highway and turned to face her. He set his rifle against the vehicle beside him—a bad move; even she knew that, and she wasn’t a former DIA agent—and took her face in his hands, making her look up at him. “In all the time I’ve known you, I’ve never seen you look so rattled,” he said. “Talk to me. What’s wrong?”
“Theo,” Remy said.
Dominic gave her a look of confusion, and she remembered that he’d never had the good fortune of knowing Theo, had never had the pleasure of meeting their former medic and self-sacrificing friend. A mental image of the man’s last few minutes of life played in her head like a scattershot film of out-of-sequence snippets—
The Becoming (Book 4): Under Siege Page 5