“Are you sure it’s missing?” she asked. “Maybe you used it and don’t remember—”
“What sort of idiot do you think I am, Kim?” Derek asked, sounding harsh and almost bitter. Kimberly had seen him like that only once before, and he’d been angry with himself then. She figured it was probably the same situation again. “I track everything. I record everything. If I dispose of a vial, I write it down in here.” He grabbed a blue notebook and slapped it onto the workbench between them. “If I get a new sample from Brandt, I write it in here.” He slammed another notebook, this one red, on top of the first one. “And if I use one in testing, I note it in this one.” He added a yellow notebook to the pile. “I never not record anything. There is a vial missing.”
Kimberly frowned and shoved her hair back as she thought the problem over. “Do you think you might have misplaced the one you took with you to the meeting?” she suggested. “You had it in your coat pocket, remember? Maybe it’s still there.”
The doctor buried his head into his hands again. “I’ve already looked. It’s not there.”
“Shit,” Kimberly murmured. She could see why he was concerned now. The last thing they needed was for a sample to go missing and for the wrong person to get their hands on it. She rocked back on her stool and thought the situation over again, trying to decide on the best course of action.
“How do things look outside?” Derek asked after a long silence, during which Kimberly considered and tossed three different ideas.
“I haven’t been out since me, you, and Ethan went to the medical house to gather some supplies,” she said. “But I know it wasn’t good then, and I don’t expect it to have gotten any better.”
Derek nodded and shoved a few stray papers to the side. He rested his forehead against his hand again. “Where are we going to go when they get in?” he asked. “We can’t expect to be able to pick up and set up shop in a new place, can we? The chances of finding everything we need to get the lab going again are nonexistent.” He shook his head, rolling it back and forth across his palm. “It’s over, Kim. I don’t see us being able to continue our research after this. Not if we get uprooted.”
Kimberly was trying to keep a positive outlook on what would likely be a terrible future for them all, but with Derek talking like that, it was almost impossible. She sighed and dragged her hand through her short blonde hair, shaking her head and trying to focus past the sickening, ominous feeling settling into her stomach. She straightened on her stool and scanned the room and equipment they’d collected. “I guess we’re just going to have to make the best of whatever comes our way,” she said. “That’s about all we can do, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, I suppose so,” Derek said. He didn’t sound like he believed his own words, and he didn’t look at her as he slouched lower on his stool. He rubbed at his eyes and sighed. “We have a vaccine now, Kim, or as close to a viable one as I can get under these circumstances. We need to get my research and the samples into the hands of someone who can take it further. I refuse to believe we’re the only ones left. There has got to be someone out there who can take this and run with it further than I can.”
“What are you proposing we do?” Kimberly asked.
Derek shook his head. “I don’t know. Before, I’d planned to talk to Brandt, to see if he’d be willing to let a volunteer with some basic medical know-how take the samples and go in search of someone who can possibly help us with them.” When she gave him a wide-eyed look, he rushed to add, “No, not me. Just someone we could trust.” He sighed. “Now, though, with the community being attacked, I don’t know how we’ll be able to get the possible vaccine out of here and to a safe location. All of our work might be for nothing.”
Kimberly stood up and shook her head. “I refuse to think it’s over, that this is the end of the road,” she declared. “We have worked entirely too hard to just give up now, and I’m not going to let you even think about doing so.”
“Well then, what do you suggest we do?” Derek demanded. “Because I hear you saying all this shit, but I sure as hell don’t hear you giving me any solutions.”
Kimberly pushed away from the workbench and started for the basement stairs. “I’ll take a few samples and go myself,” she said. “I’ll hunt down someone who can take them and do what needs to be done, do what we can’t do ourselves.”
“You can’t possibly think I’d let you go on a mission like that!” Derek exclaimed. He rose from the stool he’d been mired on since she had come downstairs, and she smiled inwardly at the expression of determination and anger on his face. “I need you here! I can’t do this by myself!”
“Do all of what by yourself, Derek?” Kimberly retorted. “We have a grand total of two patients, and one of them won’t be a patient for much longer. Ethan’s almost at the point where he won’t need me for anything medical anymore, and you’re the one dealing with Remy’s medical care. As soon as she’s cured, you won’t have any patients, and neither will I. It’s time, Derek. We’ve got to take action before it’s too late. And the minute the infected manage to surround the entire community, it will definitely be too late.”
“So you want to, what, take some supplies and charge through the mess that’s right in front of the community gates?” Derek asked. “That’s just asking for you to get eaten!”
“Don’t be so silly,” Kimberly said. “I’ll climb over the wall at the back of the community. All it’ll take is a ladder and some rope. It’s not that hard.”
“What about backup?” Derek countered. “You’re an okay shot with a pistol, but you’re not that great. You’re going to need someone who can help you, and I don’t know if there’s anyone here who will be able to do that.”
“You act like I have zero ability to take care of myself. I’d have thought that Atlanta would have proven that I’m capable of doing what needs to be done to keep myself alive,” Kimberly said. She jabbed her finger at the stairs. “And there are over fifty people up there, at least half of whom would probably try to volunteer to take me to wherever we need to go so I can get the samples into the right hands.”
Derek stood there silently, staring at her, his jaw bulging as he clenched his teeth. He looked like he was thinking over what she was proposing and disliking every second of it. Finally, he let out a low growl and shook his head. “Fine, do what you think you need to do,” he said. “But I get to help pick who goes with you.”
Kimberly barely suppressed the whoop of pleasure at his concession. She turned and started up the stairs. “I’m going to go find Brandt and tell him what’s going on,” she said. “Maybe he’ll help me find someone to go with me, and then we can figure out what to do after that.”
Chapter 16
Remy managed to move from the medical house to Dominic’s without being accosted by anyone. As she stood on the porch waiting for Dominic to answer the door, she focused on being calm and controlled and on forming a plan of action to avoid the doctor’s intended fate for her—because if the doctor was discussing it again, then that meant he was probably planning to do something soon. She had plenty of ideas, but almost all of them were long and complicated or just plain stupid and almost always ended in certain death. One idea stuck out from the rest, though, and as she mulled it over, she wrapped her fingers around the object she’d stolen from Derek, as if it were a talisman that would guarantee her success. The coolness of the glass against her palm offered her some degree of reassurance but did nothing to settle the nerves twisting in her gut.
The door swung open, and Dominic stood in the doorframe, looking decidedly uncomfortable at the idea of letting her into his home—never mind that he’d invited her himself. He looked her up and down and glanced past her as if checking to make sure she’d come alone, and she held her breath, hoping he wasn’t about to change his mind. She let it out as he sighed and motioned for her to enter.
“Come in. Make yourself at home,” he said. And as she stepped over the threshold, he added, “But not too
much at home.”
Remy smiled and stepped into the house, pausing in the foyer as he pushed the door shut and locked it again. As Dominic bolted the door, she took a few moments to examine the interior of the house that no one else in the community had seen. It was dark, all of the windows having been boarded over, so she couldn’t make out much beyond the halo of light cast by the small camp lantern that Dominic held. She could see the outline of a table to her right, shoved against the wall with several tools laid on it, and hooks had been driven into the wall above it; jackets and coats and some sort of backpack—emergency supplies, if she knew Dominic—hung from them. She shoved her hands into her pockets, the fingers of her right hand caressing the vial tucked inside, and rocked on her boot heels as she said, “Nice place you got here.”
“Stop blowing smoke up my ass,” Dominic muttered, though even in the dim light, Remy could see the grin on his face. He slipped past her, tapping her on the arm. “Come on, follow me. Dinner should be ready.”
“Oh really?” Remy asked. Enthusiasm slipped back into her voice for the first time since Cade had yelled at her near the gates. “When did you start cooking this? There’s hardly been enough time between me stepping into the medical house and me getting here to get anything done.”
“It’s soup,” Dominic said. “I cooked it earlier today and just warmed it up.”
At her dubious look—soup didn’t seem like the most enticing meal to serve a woman after inviting her into his home—he added, “It’s the good kind, not that canned crap. Well, not totally. The vegetables came out of cans.” He shrugged. “And I think it might actually be thick enough to qualify as stew.”
“Does it have meat in it?” Remy asked.
“Well, yeah, some squirrel. Why?”
“Then it’s a stew, because stews have meat in them,” she said, smiling as she followed him into the kitchen. She leaned against the counter as he pulled the lid off of a small pot on the propane-fueled camp stove set up on the counter.
“And what, soups don’t? How do you explain chicken noodle soup?”
“I’ve never been totally convinced that that chicken is real chicken,” Remy quipped, and Dominic laughed. As he ladled the stew into two bowls, Remy felt the tension in her muscles and back melting away like butter in a warm pan. She fingered the vial in her pocket again and bit her lip, trying to decide if she wanted to let him in on her plan. She didn’t know what would happen, and if it backfired, she might need assistance that she couldn’t give herself. Assistance that might require bullets.
She shook the thought away and focused on Dominic. That was something to be broached after they ate, she decided. The last thing she wanted was to spoil dinner with talk of death, especially since he seemed to be reaching out to someone—finally—after all his time in Woodside.
Remy remained quiet for as long as she could while she and Dominic ate their meals by the light of his LED lantern. The stew ended up being very good by Remy’s estimation; she’d had no idea Dominic knew how to cook. When her spoon scraped against the bottom of the bowl, she rested it against the side and pushed it away from her. “That was pretty damned good. Where did you learn to cook like that?”
“I had five siblings and an absent dad,” Dominic said. He scooped another spoonful into his mouth before adding, “It was a necessity, because my mom had to work all the time. I was the oldest, so I had to take care of everyone else. The usual sad story.”
“These the same siblings you wanted to find in Philadelphia a few months ago?” she asked.
“Yeah, but I don’t see that happening anytime soon,” he admitted. “And it was halfway an excuse to get out of Woodside. People here, they don’t like me, and I don’t like them. I’d be better off out of here.” He dropped his spoon into his bowl and muttered, “They’re probably all dead, anyway, and it doesn’t matter with the infected out there. We’re not getting out of here now.”
Remy wasn’t sure what to say to that, so she looked at the table, sliding her fingers into her pocket again and hooking them around the vial. She slipped it out and held it under the edge of the table. “If I ask you to do something for me, can I trust you to do it?”
Dominic must have heard the seriousness in her voice, because he set his spoon down again and studied her closely in the lantern’s light. “Depends on what it is, I think.”
Remy ran her left hand through her hair before she set the vial onto the table between their bowls. The red fluid inside it shined dully in the light from the lantern. Dominic leaned forward to get a better look, and his eyes widened.
“Is that what I think it is?” he asked and then, without waiting for an answer, “Where did you get it?”
“I stole it,” she admitted. “Right out of Derek’s coat pocket.”
Dominic picked up the vial and shook his head, half rising out of his chair. “You need to return this,” he said. “This is important. Doc needs this.”
“No, I need it,” Remy said, rising with him and reaching for the vial. Dominic held it out of her reach. “Derek talked to me, okay? And I wasn’t happy with what I heard.”
“No big surprise. I knew you wouldn’t be,” Dominic said. “It’s a hard thing to swallow. But Doc knows what he’s doing. And he’ll do what he’s got to do.”
“Yeah, I know the whole bullshit story he’s got about running out of medicine and me building up immunity to the little we have left,” she said. “And I know that he thinks he’s got to get me off the medicine and let me turn before he gives me whatever that stuff in that vial is. But you know what? I don’t have to stand for it. I still have a fucking say in my own damned body, don’t I?”
“Not when it potentially puts people in danger, you don’t.”
“Oh, bullshit,” Remy snapped. She circled the table and snatched the vial out of his hands, holding it tightly so he couldn’t take it back. “I am not going to allow myself to become one of those things,” she continued. She pulled her gun from its holster, holding it by the barrel as she thrust the weapon toward him. “And if you insist on not helping me, then you can fucking go ahead and shoot me now.”
The two glared at each other. Remy’s heart hammered in her chest and fear raced in her veins as she tried to gauge what he was going to do. He reached out and took the pistol from her, and her hammering heart leaped, but instead of pointing it at her, he merely turned it over in his hands before setting it on the table. Then he took a step toward her. “What exactly are you proposing we do?”
Despite herself, Remy felt a slow smile spread across her lips, and she held the vial up so he could see it again. “I want you to shoot me up with this shit so I can get better. And I want you to do it before I turn, not after.” Dominic studied her for a minute more, as if trying to guess how serious she was, and as the silence between them ticked on, Remy’s nerves grew more frayed, until she exploded with, “Dominic, please. I wouldn’t ask anybody else to do this.”
Dominic blew out a breath and looked away from her. “And why exactly did you ask me? As I recall, you don’t particularly like me.”
“Maybe that’s why I asked you,” Remy said, looking toward the gun he’d set on the dining table. “Because I know you’re the only person here who will do what’s necessary if this doesn’t work.”
“And to you, what qualifies as necessary?” Dominic asked.
Remy looked him in the eyes. “A bullet in the skull. It’s the only thing I’d ask for. I wouldn’t want to stay like that.”
“I know you wouldn’t,” Dominic said. His voice was as hushed as hers, and he didn’t look at her. Instead, he stared across the room, not at anything in particular, as if recollecting things that had happened in the past, perhaps his involvement with Alicia Day. She couldn’t imagine what her request was doing to him. Maybe she didn’t particularly care. It wasn’t like Dominic truly cared about her, not like he obviously had for the deceased Alicia.
Dominic blew out a breath and shook his head. For a moment, Remy
feared that he wouldn’t be willing to help her. But she couldn’t do this alone, and she couldn’t wait, not with the infected beating against the figurative door. She opened her mouth to plead with him again, but he interrupted.
“I’ll try to help you. But Remy, I don’t…what do you want me to do? How do you want me to do this?” He huffed out another breath and added, “I’m not sure I even have a syringe in my first aid kit yet.”
Remy’s heart sank; she hadn’t thought of that. But then she remembered the small medical bag she’d shoved into her backpack. She retrieved the pack from where she’d left it by the kitchen door and set it on the table, unzipping it and digging inside. She found the small black bag and ripped it open, sliding a small syringe from one of the pockets inside. She pawed inside another zippered pocket for the twenty-gauge needle. She remembered when Derek had instructed her on how to put the syringe together, telling her it was just in case she ever tried to use an auto-injector that didn’t work. “Do you think you can work with this?” she asked, handing him the two sealed tools.
Dominic took the two packages and studied them closely, then tore them open. He attached the needle to the end of the syringe, twisting it into place. Then he hesitated and glanced toward the front entryway. “Does anyone else know you’re here? That you’re going to do this?”
“No,” Remy admitted. “I didn’t tell anybody any of this.”
Dominic took the vial from her and then, with a shaking hand, slid the needle in through the valve on top. He drew the fluid into the syringe, emptying the vial. He tapped the side of the syringe with a fingernail and more expertise than Remy expected. “Hold this,” he ordered, passing her the syringe. He dug into her medical kit, found the latex tourniquet, and lashed it around her bicep, just above her elbow. She watched as the veins in her arm popped out, like thick blue lines drawn on her skin, bulging outward. Then Dominic took the syringe from her, chose a vein, and rested the tip of the needle against it.
The Becoming (Book 4): Under Siege Page 12