“You ever seen one of the infected that could talk?” Kimberly asked. “I’ve spent the past two years fighting and killing the things, and I’ve yet to find one that uttered a single word to me, even when I was cutting its head off.” She was grateful that Ethan was wearing a long-sleeved t-shirt. She didn’t think the scars that covered his arms from his attack in Atlanta would lend her argument any support.
“The ones that talk are carriers,” Chris shot back.
Kimberly looked at him incredulously. “You can’t possibly be serious.”
“I don’t think Kim is asking the right questions,” Ethan said before she could continue questioning Chris’s intelligence, not out loud, at least. “I have a few of my own, not least of which is why you talk like this is all confined to the southeastern U.S.” He paused, and a note of uncertainty had crept into his voice when he asked, “It did go worldwide, right?”
Chris’s face dawned with realization, and his expression became overwhelmingly pitying. It made Kimberly want to punch him. She held her fist in check as he said, almost delicately, “No, not exactly.”
“What the hell does that mean, ‘not exactly’?” Kimberly demanded. She realized she was clenching her fists only when Ethan’s long fingers wrapped around her right wrist and gently squeezed. She forced her fingers to relax and loosen, enough so that Ethan was able to slip his fingers between hers. They stood that way, clinging to each other like they were the other’s lifelines while they waited for Chris to answer the question. When he did, Kimberly got lightheaded and her blood pressure skyrocketed.
Chris looked like he felt a little sick at being the one to tell them his news. He chose his words with the utmost care, hesitating again before saying, “When the virus broke out…well, things weren’t good. They tried to quarantine the CDC, then the Emory University campus, then downtown Atlanta, and then the entire state of Georgia. When it looked like the Georgia quarantine was going to fail, the military and the Army Corps of Engineers drew up maps and plans and mobilized, and every single person who could get to the location who could do heavy lifting came out and built the Wall.”
“The Wall?” Kimberly repeated, tasting the words on her tongue, measuring the distinctiveness of the capitalized “W” that had been evident in Chris’s voice.
“Yeah, the Wall,” Chris said. “It’s this massive thing, runs for hundreds and hundreds of miles, from the coast all the way across to the Mississippi River and then south to the Gulf of Mexico. They built a temporary wall around all of it, just some mobile units that were used in Operation Iraqi Freedom and other places, and then they built up the Wall right behind it. No one goes in, not unless they’re in MOPP4 suits, and unless you have clearance to do so and your suit hasn’t been compromised, no one goes out of here.”
“So, what, they’ve abandoned us?” Ethan asked. His voice was low enough that the wind rustling through the trees almost drowned it out. “They decided to hell with us and let us rot?”
“Not exactly,” Chris said.
Kimberly made an exasperated noise. “There he goes again with the ‘not exactly.’” Ethan squeezed her hand in his.
Chris looked away from her, staring down at the forest floor with a chagrined look on his face. “Look, we’ve got a presidential campaign going on right now,” he said, his upper lip curling like he realized how terrible that sounded. “The Republican and Democratic candidates are tearing each other up over what to do about the southeast, and the dumbass who’s in the White House right now thought it’d be a good idea to try to make himself look tough and in charge so he can get re-elected easier.”
“So he decided to send you guys in to check things out?” Kimberly asked.
“No, he decided to send us in to wipe things out,” Chris said. “He sent in crews to do clean up on the highways and interstates to make way for any ground troops that are going to come through. They’ve got drones doing gridded flyovers of the area to pinpoint settlements of survivors, and they’re sending in helicopters and more drones and fighter jets with ordnance to bomb whatever they find. They told us that everyone on this side of the Wall that has been exposed is subject to extermination, and everyone we come across is to be shot on sight.”
“Oh dear God, you’re kidding me,” Kimberly murmured.
“Look, I don’t like doing it, okay?” Chris said. “I think it’s a terrible order, and I’m not the only one. There are a lot of us who think we should be airlifting survivors out of here and taking them to the other side of the Wall. Without new fuel for the virus’s fire, it’d die out after a while, and then we could look into making the place habitable again. We’ve already taken back Louisiana doing it that way. We walled it off on its own with the portable walls, and we kept shifting them inward until we’d killed everything infected we could find. That was early on, and the monetary costs were high, even though we didn’t lose many soldiers doing it, so the politicians sitting pretty in Washington keeping their hands clean don’t think it’s worth the money to try to save whoever happens to be left on this side of the Wall. You’re all expendable.” He spat the last word out, as if it tasted foul.
“What about the rest of the U.S.?” Kimberly asked. “The outbreak spread fast here. How could you keep it contained here?”
“We didn’t, not at first,” Chris said. “There were some isolated outbreaks around major airports. We were prepared for them that time, and we managed to quarantine and clean it up. The entire air industry is shut down, per the FAA. There hasn’t been a plane in the sky since the outbreak started, save for military flights. No air travel is allowed for civilians, and travel by car is strictly limited. People are constantly being tested for signs of the virus, and they’re required to report in to the special clinics at least once a week for testing. They’re working toward creating a way to test every day, but they haven’t figured that out yet. They’re doing this all in the name of preventing another outbreak.” Chris’s upper lip curled again. “To say personal liberties and freedoms have been limited in the past two years is probably the understatement of the decade.”
“Wait, back up,” Kimberly said. “Testing? They have a way to test for the virus?”
“Yeah, just takes a drop of blood on a slide and a few minutes for the lab techs to work whatever magic it is they do to test for it,” Chris explained.
“Son of a bitch,” Kimberly muttered. “Do you know how badly we could use something like that here? We’ve had so many instances—at least, when we were in the Westin, where we had to isolate people because we weren’t sure if they were lying about being infected.” She motioned toward Ethan without thinking, “Hell, after he—” She cut herself off and looked away, shaking her head.
“What about him?” Chris asked, and his eyes took on a cast of suspicion. “Are you infected?”
“That’s none of your—” Kimberly said.
“Get moving, Meiner,” Ethan ordered. “We don’t have all night.”
“Not until you tell me what she’s talking about,” Chris snapped back.
Ethan’s eyes narrowed, and he lifted his Glock, pointing it right at Chris’s face. “I said, get moving.”
Chris hesitated, and Ethan jabbed the gun in his direction, snapping, “Now.” With a shake of his head, Chris consulted his map and his compass and turned his back to Ethan, heading off through the trees again. Once he was moving, Ethan started to follow, lowering the pistol and tugging Kimberly along with him.
“Don’t discuss that again,” he told her. “Especially not around people like him. Not unless you want to end up dead, because he doesn’t seem like the type to be willing to talk things through.”
Kimberly clutched Ethan’s hand tighter. The soldier walked ahead of them and she hoped, once again, that Ethan was right and the man wasn’t leading them to their deaths.
Chapter 18
A search of the vehicles in their immediate vicinity for useful, portable supplies hadn’t taken long, and now they waited, lurking in
the shadows of the concrete barricade, for the morning sun to rise and light their way. Remy crouched on the roof of a car, her eyes constantly scanning and examining their surroundings for any infected. They wouldn’t hurt her, she knew, though the thought still gave her the creeps, but that didn’t mean the others weren’t in danger. And while she didn’t truly give a shit about most of them, she refused to allow anything to happen to Cade and Dominic.
As the man’s name crossed her mind, a little flutter of something stirred in her chest. Remy sucked a slight breath in and pressed her fingers against her left collarbone. What was that? she wondered as the flutter quelled itself, only to return when she glanced to her right at Dominic, who stood nearby, looking over a map and consulting with Cade and Keith. Was this what she thought it was? That dreaded “L” word? No, it couldn’t be, especially not over him. After all they’d been through, the opposite sides they’d fought on, even if for a short period of time, she couldn’t possibly be in love with Dominic Jackson. It didn’t feel like what she’d felt for Ethan, not in the slightest.
No, what stirred in her chest whenever she thought about or looked at Dominic made her feel more alive than that.
Maybe because what you felt for Ethan wasn’t really love, a wicked voice taunted in the back of her head.
Remy scowled and shifted on the car’s roof, sitting down on her backside and tucking her legs underneath her.
Don’t be ridiculous, she mentally snapped at the mean little voice in her head. How could what she’d had with Ethan been anything but love? How many times had they made love in that safe house in Maplesville? How often had they just laid there, fully dressed, enjoying the other’s company and talking, sharing their deepest wishes and darkest fears? How often had she confessed her worst deeds to him, telling him stories about her life before the outbreak, her misdeeds and run-ins with the New Orleans Police Department? If she hadn’t cared for him, she’d have never gone to his room for the first time on the night after her twenty-first birthday.
Caring for a person isn’t the same as being in love with them, that wicked voice in her head said, laughing.
“Oh, shut the fuck up,” Remy muttered out loud. She dug her fingers into the knee of her jeans.
“Everything okay?” a voice to her left asked. Remy tore her gaze away from the middle distance she’d been staring into and onto the figure alongside the car she sat on. It was Sadie, and she was looking up at her with a confused look on her face. “I thought you said something.”
“I was talking to myself,” Remy said. “Nothing to worry about.”
“I don’t know about that,” Sadie commented. “We’re in Atlanta. I think there’s plenty of stuff to be worried about.”
“I’m not worried,” Remy said. “I’ve been in Atlanta before. Twice. And I came out alive both times.”
“Not unscathed though,” Dominic said from her other side. She twisted to see him approaching the vehicle she was perched on. Her heart skipped another beat. Fucking traitor heart. “Atlanta has a way of damaging people,” he continued, “and I freely admit I’m one of them. So was Alicia. And so, I suspect, are you, Brandt, Cade, and Keith. It makes you do things you never dreamed you were capable of or willing to do.”
“Yeah, right,” Remy muttered.
“Yeah, I’m right,” Dominic shot back. “You think Alicia set out with the intention to be a domineering, dictator-like bitch? No, she didn’t. She set out with the best of intentions, wanting to get as many people as she could together because she saw a situation where there was safety in numbers and she had the appropriate skills to help protect those people. I went with her and agreed to help her because I thought the same.”
“But you got out,” Remy said.
“You think I didn’t do bad shit when I was in it?” Dominic shook his head. “If you even knew…” He looked away from her. “So. We have a plan.” He shook out the map he held and spread it out on the hood of the car. As if that were the signal, everyone gathered around the vehicle, and Remy’s introspective moment was broken up by the presence of people. “We’re on Ralph David Abernathy Freeway, otherwise known as I-20,” he announced, pointing the freeway out to the others. “I know we said we would avoid the interstates, but we didn’t have a lot of choice getting here. I didn’t know this side of Atlanta well enough to get us here without getting on I-20, which we did about an hour ago.” He motioned off into the distance. “Technically, we’re in East Atlanta. Glenwood Avenue is that way, though I don’t think that means anything to any of you who’ve never been here or aren’t familiar with the city. It barely means anything to me.”
“Why are you telling us this?” Remy asked impatiently.
“In case you need to know it, that’s why,” Dominic said. “We might get separated, and you’ll need to know which way we’re traveling so you’ll be able to catch up with us.” He cleared his throat and consulted the map again. “Cade, Keith, and I debated the merits of getting off the freeway and taking side streets or following Abernathy into the city. We chose the former option, if only because of the risk of infected hiding between the cars in the freeway congestion. We’ll take Glenwood through Grant Park to Cherokee. Then take Cherokee north to Memorial Drive, follow it to Hill, and go left onto Decatur. Decatur will take you into Marietta, and then stay on Marietta until you run into Centennial Olympic Park Drive. Go right on Centennial and follow it around to the corner of Centennial and Luckie. The Tabernacle should be on the corner of those two streets. Large brick building, stained glass windows, you can’t miss it.”
“How long will it take for us to get there?” Sadie asked.
“It’s a little over four miles. Maybe an hour and a half, barring any trouble on the way.”
“Sounds too easy,” Remy commented. “What’s the catch?”
“We’ll be traveling in the vicinity of several tourist attractions, which means we’ll be potentially walking through a hell of a lot of infected,” Keith spoke up. “To say it won’t be an easy trip is probably an understatement.”
“Nothing worth fighting for is ever easy,” Cade remarked.
“Well put,” Keith said.
Dominic continued like neither of them had spoken. “What do you say we get our shit together and get moving?” He folded the map and tucked it into his back pocket. While the others started gathering their bags and preparing for the four-mile walk ahead of them, Dominic leaned against the car Remy was perched on. “Hey, you mind walking with me once we get going?” he asked.
That obnoxious little flutter in her chest stirred up again, and Remy almost told him no, just to be contrary. She could walk with Cade and maybe, in the process, avoid whatever Dominic might be inspired to talk to her about during the journey. But that nagging voice piped up again, pushing her in a whole different direction. What will it hurt? the voice asked. It’s just Dominic. Maybe he’ll say or do something that will get rid of that nasty feeling in your chest, and then you can slap the shit out of him for it.
Yeah, that sounded like a perfectly workable plan to her.
She slid down the windshield and hopped off the hood to the ground, dusting her pants off and giving him a casual, nonchalant shrug. “Sure, but if we run into anything nasty, I get to take the lead.”
“Fair enough,” Dominic agreed.
Much to Remy’s surprise, once they’d gotten off the freeway and onto Glenwood Avenue, Dominic barely spoke a word. None of them did. They walked in silence, save for the occasional murmured question or comment about their surroundings.
Glenwood Avenue hadn’t escaped the ravages of the contagion, not by far. The road was jam packed with vehicles of all types, motorcycles, sedans, and transfer trucks. Considering the road’s vicinity to the freeway, Remy figured they’d either tried to get on the freeway in their mad dash for safety, or they’d gotten off the freeway trying to get around the roadblocks. Some of the cars’ doors stood open, like their previous occupants hadn’t bothered to close them when they�
��d fled their vehicles, and frequently, Remy and her companions had to stop and ease doors closed to clear the narrow paths between the rows of vehicles.
Dominic stayed behind her on their journey down their chosen row of vehicles, and the one time she’d glanced at him, wondering why he hadn’t spoken to her like she’d expected, she saw that he had his weapons drawn, a pistol in one hand and a machete in the other, his dark eyes scanning their surroundings.
The group was approaching Cherokee Avenue when Sadie broke the silence. She cleared her throat and called out, “Hey, guys? Jude thinks he saw something.”
“Something like what?” Remy asked. “I see a lot of somethings.”
“Something important, obviously, or I wouldn’t bring it up,” Sadie shot back. “He’s not sure what it was, just that it was slinking through the trees over there.” She pointed to a grove of overgrown trees and bushes off to the right.
“Slinking?” Dominic repeated. “What does he mean by slinking?”
There was something in Dominic’s voice that alarmed Remy, though she couldn’t put her finger on what it was. Jude was signing frantically to his sister, his hands flying and his eyes wide. He kept glancing back in the direction he claimed to have seen something moving.
Sadie said, “Stalking. That’s the word he’s trying to use. Something is stalking us.”
“Infected?” Cade questioned.
Sadie shook her head. “Not a person,” she said. “Something the size of a large dog. Maybe bigger.”
Dominic looked more worried at that, if that were possible. “Four legs or two?”
Sadie conferred with Jude and reported, “Four.”
“What could it be?” Remy asked, her imagination running wild. Her brain shuffled through every four-legged animal it could think of in rapid succession. Before it would settle on any one option, Keith spoke up, his voice shaking.
The Becoming: Redemption (The Becoming Series Book 5) Page 11