The sounds of a scuffle near the side of the house drew Cade’s attention, and she held up a hand to hush Isaac. She swung both her pistol and a flashlight around to point it in the direction of the noise. The beam lit onto two men fighting in the dirt, one clad in filthy jeans and a t-shirt, the other in head-to-toe camouflage. The men were throwing punches, slamming each other to the ground, rolling into bushes, and crushing plants and grass.
Remy let out a cry of alarm and vaulted over the porch railing, diving into the fight before anyone else could move, her dark hair flying out behind her. Cade watched, wide-eyed, as Remy shoved the dirty man—Dominic, she realized, as he fell backwards onto the grass—out of the way and practically pounced on the camouflaged man. She grabbed him by the front of his gas mask and started slamming his head into the ground over and over. Then she grabbed the hood, tore it off, and ripped free his mask, dropping it onto the grass.
“No!” the soldier cried out, scrambling for the mask. Remy kicked it away and grabbed the man, hauling him to his feet with only one hand. Then, before any of them could react, she grasped the man’s head in her hands and gave it a sharp twist. There was a snap, and then the man sagged and fell to the ground like a boneless rag doll, his neck bent at an unnatural angle.
“Jesus, Remy!” Cade cried. “We could have interrogated him!”
“We don’t have time for that,” Remy replied. “We have to get out of here!” She turned to Dominic and asked, “Where is Brandt?”
“He’s gone,” Dominic said.
“What?” Cade said, starting down the porch steps. It felt like she’d been punched in the gut, and she fought to not throw up. “Brandt’s dead?”
“No, no, no,” Dominic rushed to add. “He’s gone. They took him. The military took him into custody.”
“What for?”
Dominic lifted his hands to his sides in an exaggerated shrug. “Does it look like I know? Either way, we’ve got a shit storm coming down on our heads, and we need to move!”
“To where?” Isaac asked.
“Get to my house,” Dominic said. “There’s a way out through the wall next to it. Remy knows the way. We should split into two groups to make us less noticeable.”
“What about everybody else?” Cade asked, looking back toward the house, as if she could see through it to the others beyond. “We need to help them, don’t we?”
Even as she asked that, the sounds of gunfire and screaming met their ears, and Cade clapped a hand over her mouth. Sadie looked like she was about to throw up, Jude looked horrified, and Derek, Isaac, and Dominic just looked pissed. Remy, though, she looked blank, like she was completely impassive to what was going on in the rest of the community, and the expression on her face—or lack thereof—disturbed Cade almost as much as the apparent slaughter going on elsewhere.
Dominic cleared his throat and spoke up then, breaking her out of her thoughts. “I think…I think it might be too late for the rest of the community.”
Chapter 41
It hadn’t taken long to split them into two groups, Cade, Isaac, Remy, and Sadie in one group and Dominic, Keith, and Jude in the other. Jude wasn’t sure he liked the arrangement—he never liked being separated from his sister, since she was the only person he knew who could interpret for him and act as his mouthpiece.
He understood what Dominic had been doing when he’d divided them up the way he had—he’d put the strongest or most skilled with Cade, since she was not only pregnant but in labor—but just because he understood the logic didn’t mean he agreed with it.
At least he had Keith with him in his group. He had gotten to know the man a little bit when they’d chatted on the watch platform and in the darkened living room. While he hadn’t known him long, Jude still considered him a friend.
The other group was long out of sight, and in an effort to keep them additionally safe, Dominic had opted to lead them on a different route to his house. The others had headed for the back of the community furthest from the gates, taking the darker, less likely to be noticed route, and Dominic had led them toward the front of the community, where the vast majority of the action was taking place. Jude felt it was a suicide mission.
The wall loomed high above their heads as they crept, single file, through its shadow. Dominic led the way, and Keith brought up the rear. Bodies lay everywhere, mostly of the infected variety, though Jude recognized a few faces very vaguely from the group that had been gathered at the gates when he and Sadie had arrived. He didn’t know those people, but he still couldn’t deny the pang of sadness in his chest at their deaths, even as he wondered how they’d lost their lives. They still clutched weapons in their hands, mostly of the melee variety, and their faces wore wide-eyed expressions of shock and pain. He looked past the bodies, out into the community proper, and watched as a squad of soldiers kicked the door in on one of the houses and rushed inside. Moments later, screams erupted, and he could just make out the bright flash of guns firing through the open doorway and the small cracks between the boards over the windows.
Jude turned away from the sight, sick to his stomach by what he’d just witnessed. He didn’t even realize he had tears running down his face until Dominic brought them to a halt, crouching behind a low hedge to assess the path ahead. “Are you okay?” Dominic asked him in a low, almost frantic tone. “You’re not hurt, are you?”
Jude shook his head and touched his chest, then pointed toward the houses beyond them. Dominic followed his gaze and then nodded in understanding. “Yeah, it hurts for me too, kid,” he acknowledged, then signaled to them both to lean closer. “Listen, this is the hard part,” he said in a voice that barely carried. “Not only will we be heading out into the open while we’re crossing the street, but we’ll have infected coming in on one side and soldiers on the other.”
Jude wanted to ask him why he’d brought them this way if it was so damned dangerous, but he couldn’t. So instead, he listened closely, hoping the man had a plan for the next few minutes. Lord knew he wasn’t exactly the world’s best strategist; he usually left a lot of that up to his sister, who was much better at critical thinking.
“We’re going to take this one at a time,” Dominic continued. “I’ll go first and cover you two, since I have more experience at this sort of thing.” He pointed to where the hedge broke at the edge of the street and continued again across the street. “We’re aiming for that spot right there,” he said. “Once you’re in the street, for the love of God, don’t stop for anything. Understood?”
Jude nodded and gave him a salute, and he heard Keith breathe out a, “Yeah, got it.”
“Good. Let’s go.” Then Dominic was off and moving, ducking low to minimize his profile. He held his pistol in a two-handed grip. That was when Jude realized it: this man was former military. He could tell by the way he moved, the fluid way he half-ran in a crouch, his head turning from one side to the other, as if he were constantly monitoring his surroundings. Jude could never hope to replicate the man’s moves so easily; he’d probably fall on his face if he tried.
Then it was his turn to move, and despite his awkwardness, he attempted to jog across the street in his own half-crouch, trying to move as smoothly as Dominic had, but he kept tripping over the dead bodies that littered the street and over his own feet. His breath rasped painfully in his throat, making his perpetually sore throat hurt even worse. He focused on the path ahead of him.
Suddenly, a soldier was coming at him, pistol raised and aimed right at his head. All Jude had in his hand was his aluminum baseball bat, and he had only a second to curse himself for not having his gun out of its holster. He raised the bat and swung it hard. The bat connected with the man’s gloved hands hard enough to let out a crack, knocking his pistol to the ground. Jude lunged for the gun the man had dropped, but before he got to it, the report of a rifle rang out, and blood exploded from the side of the man’s neck.
“Holy shit,” Jude mouthed, stumbling back a step from the corpse and tripping
over another one. He fell backward, sprawling in the street, and grimaced as he felt blood soak into his shirt. Then Keith was there, hauling him to his feet and shoving him toward the other side of the street.
“Come on, Jude, move,” he ordered, nudging him forward again.
But rather than go in the direction Keith indicated, Jude lunged toward the soldier’s corpse. He scooped up the man’s pistol and pulled the spare magazines on the man’s belt free. Then he scrambled for the man’s knives, rifle, and rifle magazines.
“Jude!” Keith said.
Jude ignored him and stuffed the newly acquired weapons into his backpack, put the rifle on his shoulder, and then straightened. He was about to motion for Keith to follow him when he noticed the radio on the man’s belt. He snatched it, unhooked the earpiece from it, turned it off, and clipped it to his own hip before he nodded to Keith. He raced across the street, feeling more confident after he’d stripped the soldier of everything useful. When he reached the curb and practically skipped into the hedge, Dominic clapped him on the shoulder.
“Nice job, kid,” he said.
And Jude wondered for just a second if the man was being sarcastic, but when he looked up at him, all he saw was admiration in his eyes.
“That was a gutsier move than a lot of kids your age would have made.”
Jude gave him a one-shouldered shrug and motioned for him to lead the way. Dominic nodded, and they started back on their journey toward the exit. Jude glanced back to make sure Keith was still bringing up the rear of their trio before he followed the larger man, feeling more confident than ever before.
Now all he had to do was find his sister before anything happened to either of them.
Chapter 42
As Jude, Keith, and Dominic made their way toward Dominic’s house, Sadie and the other three had already arrived without incident. They marveled when Remy showed them the exit that Dominic had constructed. Now, they stood in a clearing, not far from the woods, waiting for the other three. Cade panted as she struggled through another contraction. But Sadie didn’t care anything about that. No, all she cared about was her brother, who hadn’t made it to the woods yet, and could have been, for all she knew, dying inside those damnable walls without her there to help him.
“Please tell me again why you people thought it would be a good idea to put Jude with the other group?” Sadie asked, not bothering to turn and look at the others who had gathered around Cade.
“We had to split the group up,” Remy said from somewhere behind her. “And that meant some people were going to be in the other group that we might not like being separated from.”
“Yeah, but if I’m not there with him, then please explain how anyone is going to know what Jude is saying!” Sadie burst out. “Seriously, none of you knows ASL, do you? Because if you don’t, then that means that if my brother is in trouble or needs anything, he has no way to even ask for it if I’m here and he’s there.” She jabbed her hand emphatically toward Woodside’s wall, a dim shadow in the darkness under the trees.
There was a crunch of feet against underbrush, and then Remy was at her elbow, her dark eyes narrowed in anger. “What, you think we did it on purpose? It’s just the way shit fell, okay? He’ll be fine. He’s with Dominic, and if anybody can watch out for him and keep him from getting killed, it’s Dom. Besides, you two seem like you handle yourselves around the infected just fine, from what I’ve seen.”
“That’s totally beside the point,” Sadie argued. “I need him here. Okay? I can’t do this without him. I don’t even want to imagine trying to do this without him. He is literally all I have left in this world, and I don’t want to even think about having to sludge through this shit of a world without him. If he gets dead because of you people, you’re all dead, because I’ll kill you. And then, after I kill you, I’ll kill myself because there’d be no point in continuing on after that. Got it?”
“What, you think none of us has someone like that?” Remy retorted. “Mine is in that group too! I’m sure Keith means something to someone out there! And God, don’t even get me started on what Cade’s going through! She’s popping out a kid, and her husband has, by all appearances, been taken captive by the fucking military! So stop playing like you’re the only person here who risks losing something or someone you love, okay? You are not in any way more special than the rest of us.”
“I never said I was more special than anyone else!” Sadie protested. “I just—”
“You just think your needs and worries are more important than anyone else’s,” Remy said, but this time her voice didn’t have the same angry irritation that it had had before. There was a moment of silence between them, and then Remy added, “It’s okay. Really. I’m being a bitch. Hell, I should be applauding the fact you’ve managed to hang onto your sibling like you have. There are way too many brothers and sisters who have lost their brothers and sisters, and it’s…such a rarity to find someone who hasn’t. The last two I knew, one of them died to save Cade while the other one died trying to save me.”
It was then that Sadie realized what was underneath Remy’s voice, why she was so angry at Sadie’s protestations about them being separated. It was guilt. The woman felt guilty because of those brothers she’d mentioned dying and her involvement in it. Before she could say anything reassuring or even remotely comforting, there was a rustling in the underbrush behind them, and Sadie whirled around, drawing her pistol and her machete simultaneously, aiming the pistol into the trees as she squinted, looking for the oncoming danger.
Sadie nearly let out a sob of relief when she saw three familiar figures slipping through the trees, Dominic in the lead with her brother just behind him. She returned her machete to its sheath and ran toward him, holstering her pistol as she ran, and threw her arms around him in a tight hug. “Oh God, I was so scared they were going to come out of that community and tell me you’d gotten eaten by something or shot by someone,” she said, her voice muffled as she buried her face against his neck and squeezed him more tightly. “Are you okay? Please tell me I didn’t miss the memo that you got eaten by something or shot by someone.”
Someone touched her shoulder, and she turned to see Keith standing behind her. “I don’t think he can tell you anything with his hands mashed between you like they are,” he said, his voice gentle, even as he smiled at her.
Sadie pulled back from her hug with Jude and looked him over, checking for visible injuries. Her heart nearly stopped when she saw blood soaking the back of his t-shirt and Kevlar vest. She reached out as if to touch it.
He noticed her looking and signed, “I’m okay. It’s not my blood.”
“Thank God,” Sadie muttered. She raised her eyebrows and saw the combat rifle on his shoulder. “Where the hell did you get that?”
“Off the soldier I hit with a baseball bat and Dominic shot.”
“Ah, I see.” She studied him even closer then and spotted the radio on his belt. “Is that what I think it is?” she asked, even as she snatched it off his side to examine it. He tried to snatch it back, but she twisted to keep it out of his grasp and turned the power switch to “on.” Immediately, the sound of military chatter flooded out of the speaker, sounding so loud that she imagined that every creature in the woods in a fifty-mile radius could hear it. She fumbled for the switch, intending to turn it off again, but Dominic grabbed the radio out of her hand, adjusted the volume down, and then put it near his ear. He listened closely. Everyone watched him, the tension in the air thick enough to cut, waiting for him to report on what he was hearing. Somewhere in the background, Cade let out a low, pained groan that was almost immediately drowned out by the chop-chop-chop of helicopter rotors above.
“They’re moving all the soldiers out,” Dominic finally said, raising his voice to be heard over the helicopter. Then his eyes widened, and in a stricken voice, he added, “They’re using the word ‘MOAB.’”
“Did you say MOAB?” Cade asked, her own voice rising.
“
Yeah, MOAB,” Dominic confirmed. “We’ve got to get moving fast. We don’t have long.” He started toward Cade and grabbed her arm, draping it over his shoulder and helping her along as he moved through the trees. “There’s an ambulance pulled over on the road somewhere up here through the trees,” he explained. “I’ve been stashing spare medical supplies in it for the past few months. We can use it to get as far away from here as we can manage.”
“What’s a MOAB?” Sadie asked, hurrying as everyone started to follow Dominic.
“A bomb,” he explained, calling over his shoulder without looking back.
Sadie felt her heart drop.
“We’ve got to get out of the blast radius,” Dominic said.
“How big is that?” Sadie asked.
“About a mile,” Cade answered.
Sadie could see Cade digging her fingers into Dominic’s shoulder as she hobbled alongside him.
“So we should aim for two miles,” Cade panted.
“Tell me where this ambulance is, and I’ll go ahead of us and make sure it’s still secure,” Keith offered.
Dominic motioned him forward, talking to him in a low voice that Sadie couldn’t hear. Keith nodded and turned to wave. To Sadie’s surprise, Jude returned the gesture, and then Keith started jogging into the trees, disappearing rapidly from sight.
“You two got something going on there?” Sadie asked Jude as she continued to follow the rest of the group. It wasn’t exactly a proper time to be bringing up something like that, but she needed a distraction from the looming reality that a bomb might drop on her head at any moment.
“Is it really a good time for this?” Jude signed to her, and even the movement of his hands conveyed his exasperation.
“Probably not, but I need to think about something other than our impending doom,” Sadie replied.
Jude rolled his eyes. “How defeatist of you,” he signed.
The Becoming (Book 4): Under Siege Page 26