The Becoming: Redemption (The Becoming Series Book 5)

by Jessica Meigs

  Beside him, Chris flinched, like he had been about to get out of his chair to rise and salute a superior officer. But one of the guards behind Chris clamped a hand onto his shoulder, pinning him down into his chair and aborting Chris’s movement.

  “Well, what do we have here?” Bradford asked, setting the stack of notebooks on his desk and dropping into his chair. He rocked back in his seat, staring at the three of them for a long moment, long enough that Ethan started to feel unnerved by the intensity of the man’s gaze. Then Bradford nonchalantly said, “My men tell me that this,” he tapped a finger against the stack of research, “has the baseline of a cure for the Michaluk Virus in it.”

  “It’s a vaccine, not a cure,” Kimberly spoke up. “It won’t do much for those who have been infected for an extended period of time. If they’re already wasting away or if they’re already dead, they’re gone, and there’s nothing we can do for them.”

  “Did I ask you to speak?” Bradford replied.

  “Well, no, but—”

  “Then shut up.” He sat back in his chair and examined each of them in turn. “Which one of you is the leader of your merry little band?”

  Ethan hesitated, briefly exchanging glances with Kimberly and Chris. “I suppose that would be me.”

  “Then you speak,” Bradford ordered.

  Ethan heaved a slow sigh and started talking, his voice almost a monotone, like he was reciting a long-rehearsed and memorized script. “We’ve been living in a small community in South Carolina for eight months or so with a scientist that used to work for the CDC.”

  “Got a name?” Bradford asked, picking up a pen.

  “Derek Rivers,” Ethan answered, and the major wrote the name down. “He’s been doing hands-on research on the virus and its effects, and he thinks he might have found a vaccine for it. Being out in the middle of nowhere with no appropriate facilities, he hasn’t been able to do anything with it. Kimberly and I volunteered to take the research and some samples out of the community and track down someone who could double-check his research, run tests on the vaccine, and maybe figure out production and distribution for those who have survived all this shit.” He glanced around the office. “It appears that some are doing a hell of a lot better than we’ve been doing.”

  “Who did you plan to give this…research to?” Bradford asked, dragging a thumb over the stack of papers and ruffling the edges of the pages.

  “Anyone we found who appeared to not only be reputable but who might have had the ability to do something with it,” Ethan answered. “We have no interest in withholding it from anyone who may need it. Neither do we have a desire to turn it over to someone who would.”

  “How did you end up in the company of this one?” Bradford asked, nodding his head toward Chris.

  “We met him on the road when his squad attacked us,” Ethan said. “We had to get out of there, and we took him with us. His mask had gotten pulled off in the fight, so he had a motivation to avoid contact with other people due to your apparent policy of shooting anyone who comes into direct contact with what you’ve decided are the infected.”

  “Speaking of,” Bradford said, and his gaze dropped from Ethan’s face to a point lower. Ethan looked down and realized what hadn’t clicked before: the scrubs he’d been given to wear were short sleeved, and the scars from his attack the year before were clearly visible. “Our medical team reported that you appeared to have been bitten multiple times at some point in the past. Considering you weren’t showing any signs of active infection, they figured you’d been attacked by someone uninfected, so they let the matter rest. However, they took a blood sample, and the test results should be on my desk within…” he checked his watch, “two minutes. So if you have something you’re hiding, you better talk fast before that report arrives.”

  “We ran into the squad that brought us in on the highway quite a few miles south of here,” Ethan said, an empty pit opening in his gut. “I’m not sure exactly where we were when that happened, but they were willing to listen to us when we told them we had samples and a vaccine, and so now here we are, freezing to death in your office.”

  “Does this vaccine actually work?” Bradford asked. His tone was a mixture of hope and resignation, and Ethan realized that the man had probably been brought up high on other hopes for cures only to be crashed right back down when they didn’t pan out.

  “We haven’t had the opportunity to—”

  “We’ve only had limited chances to test it,” Kimberly cut in. “As far as we were able to tell, it works.” She ignored the look of ire Bradford gave her.

  “She’s more qualified to talk about this than I am,” Ethan told Bradford. “She’s been working with Dr. Rivers since day one, trying to find a cure for all this shit.”

  The side door that Bradford had come through earlier opened, and a thin woman with dark hair pulled back into a severe bun stepped inside, a folder tucked under her arm. She set the slim file onto the corner of Bradford’s desk and stepped away, exiting the room without uttering a word. Ethan eyed the folder, his stomach fluttering with nervousness.

  “Side effects?” Bradford asked, and this time he addressed Kimberly instead of Ethan.

  “We don’t know yet,” Kimberly said. “We haven’t been given the opportunity to test it extensively. Some other events kept us from being able to run tests to try to determine the side effects, if any.”

  Bradford casually flipped open the folder and scanned the page inside. When Kimberly finished speaking, he slammed the folder closed, making Ethan, Kimberly, and Chris startle at the loud bang it produced. “You’re lying to me,” he declared. “You’re both lying.”

  “No,” Kimberly countered. “No, we’re not.”

  “You’re here to kill me, aren’t you?” Bradford said. “That’s why you brought him here.” He jabbed his finger at Ethan.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Kimberly said.

  Bradford jabbed his finger at Ethan again. “He is infected! His tests came back positive!” He shoved the paper from the folder toward them, and Ethan recoiled, his heart skipping a beat. The jig was up. “You three came in here with every intention of deceiving me, and I will not stand for it!” He barked to the guards lined up behind the three of them, “Get the quarantine guards in here. I want these two taken to the quarantine cells.” He pointed to Kimberly and Chris. “This one,” he added another jab toward Ethan, “goes to the lab. See if Alton or Howser want to use him for testing. If so, give them forty-eight hours to do whatever they want with him, then take him out back and shoot him.”

  “What?” Kimberly exploded, rising out of her chair. “You can’t do that!”

  One of the soldiers clamped a gloved hand down on her shoulder and shoved her into her chair hard enough that her teeth clacked together. “Stay in your seat,” the man ordered, his voice oddly hollow through his mask.

  Bradford flicked a hand, signaling to the men behind Ethan. Two of them wrapped their hands around his biceps and hauled him out of his chair to his feet and dragging him around the chair before he was able to find his balance. Kimberly had twisted around in her chair, and she watched with wide, horrified eyes as he was dragged out of Major Bradford’s office.

  The last thing he saw before the door swung shut to block his view was Kimberly trying to rise from her chair again and then falling into an unconscious heap when one of the soldiers slammed his rifle into the back of her head.

  Chapter 39

  The rage that Remy felt was like nothing she had ever experienced before. It was all powerful, all consuming, washing through her like a wildfire through a dry forest. She could practically feel her veins and tendons snapping and crackling in the blaze of her pure hatred. By the time she and Cade had returned to the group’s hiding spot, one person short, her tears had dried up in the heat of her fury, and she had felt hollow and empty. Now, as she sat on the roof again, where she’d retreated to get away from the others and Cade’s explanation t
o them of what had happened, she felt nothing but her anger.

  How dare they? How dare they take away one of her best friends and then kill the man she’d begun to fall in love with? How dare they quarantine them, take away any chance of a normal life they might have lived, wall them away in the hell they’d endured for the last two years, while they lived in comfort behind their concrete walls?

  Remy’s eyes narrowed as the thought of the rest of the world’s creature comforts crossed her mind. She was going to take away everything those people held dear, just like they’d done to her.

  Her mind went back to the coffee cans and other materials she’d collected and then abandoned on the sidewalk below when Cade had hauled her back into their hiding place. She would need those, which meant she would have to go back down to the street.

  She pulled herself to her feet and grabbed her backpack, then went to the fire escape ladder and scurried down it, beginning to rethink the plan she’d formulated earlier. She’d initially thought to use the coffee cans as part of an insurance policy. She no longer had insurance policies on her mind. All she could think of was vengeance.

  It took her only minutes to make the bombs out of the coffee cans, the C-4, and the detonators she’d found in Atlanta. Scavenged nails, marbles, and chips of concrete added to the cans made for excellent shrapnel. Once she had carefully sealed the cans, she packed them into her backpack and stood up in time to spot the small squad of soldiers slowly approaching the area where she and her friends were hiding. They looked like aliens in their biohazard suits and their gas masks, and they all carried rifles in two-handed grips. A quick count of them revealed only six. They were clearly intended as a mop-up group to clean up what their superiors probably thought were only two infected people in the area.

  “Hell yes,” Remy said, surge of adrenaline and excitement rushing through her, mixing with the cold anger already filling her veins. Someone had to pay, and she might as well start with these six.

  She set her bomb-filled backpack on the ground beside the car she and Cade had hidden behind and reached for the bolo knife on her hip with her right hand, her left hand easing to the holstered pistol. After a moment’s hesitation, she chose the pistol, leaving the knife in its sheath for now. She abruptly straightened, lifted her pistol in a two-handed grip, and fired three shots in quick succession.

  Remy had never been the world’s best marksman. In fact, she’d only learned how to shoot after the Michaluk Virus had broken out, when she’d been forced to shoot her infected mother in the face with a revolver. Today, her lack of expert shooting skills didn’t matter; all three bullets found their marks. One of the soldiers let out a yelp of pain and collapsed, grasping at his stomach, his rifle clattering to the ground. The other two dropped and didn’t move or make another sound.

  The three remaining soldiers shouted in alarm and started to fan out, raising their rifles to aim them in Remy’s direction. She dropped to her knees, huddling behind the car as the soldiers opened fire. Bullets peppered the other side of the car, clanging loudly against the vehicle’s metal in the otherwise quiet air. She hunched up on herself, covering her head with her arms to protect her face as bits of shattered safety glass sprayed over her.

  The moment the firing stopped, Remy dropped her pistol and scrambled along the length of the car, heading toward the tail end of it. She peered around the trunk to assess the situation beyond.

  One of the soldiers still stood in the middle of the street, his rifle up, aiming it at the car she’d taken shelter behind. Another one was circling around the front of the car, clearly looking to see if they’d managed to hit her. The third uninjured one was tending to their still-living injured companion.

  The soldier in the street was focused on the soldier near the front of the vehicle. Now was Remy’s chance.

  She rushed from behind the vehicle, running full speed at the man, and grabbed him around the waist, nearly tackling him to the ground. He grunted and planted one of his feet, keeping himself upright, and she grabbed at his rifle, trying to wrest it from his grip.

  The other soldier had noticed the activity, and he’d begun to turn toward them. Remy caught the movement in the corner of her eye, and letting go of the rifle, she grabbed the soldier again and spun him around to face his companion, taking cover behind him as the man opened fire. Bullets smacked into the man’s body, making him jolt with the impacts. Three of them broke through and embedded in Remy’s body, one tearing into her left shoulder and two puncturing her abdomen.

  The pain from the bullet wounds tearing into her registered in her brain, and Remy’s vision went red. Something flooded through her veins, taking control of her limbs, grabbing hold of her brain. With an animalistic snarl of anger, she picked the dead man she still gripped up from the ground and flung him at his companion. Both of them toppled to the ground, and she whirled on the one that had been tending to the injured soldier. With another growl, she lunged toward him, grabbed his gas mask and hood, and tore them completely off his head. He let out a shout of alarm, and she shoved his head back and sank her teeth into his throat. With one sharp jerk of her head, she ripped it out and spat it onto the ground.

  Her face splattered with the blood of her enemy, Remy turned her attention onto the remaining soldier. He’d just recovered from having his fellow soldier’s dead body thrown at him, and his face drained of all color, going pale and grayish at the sight of her. She gave him a slow smile, drew her bolo knife, and rushed him.

  Thirty seconds later, it was done. The entire squad of soldiers lay dead around her, bled out and dismembered. Her shirt and jacket were soaked with blood, theirs and hers, and her face and hands were stained with the viscous red fluid. The bullet wounds she’d received from the soldiers’ guns didn’t even hurt. She felt alive, more alive than she had since she’d been infected months before. She felt like dancing, like twirling around in circles in the middle of the street. She refrained, because there were more important things to attend to.

  Cade and the others were watching her from inside the building. She couldn’t see them, though she could sense them, huddled around broken windows, peering out at the carnage on the street beyond. She didn’t go to them. Why would she? There was nothing they could do to help her in her mission. They’d be in the way.

  Besides, she felt something in her bones, humming in her marrow, like a bell ringing inside her. She turned to look down the street, her back to the wall, and she knew, she just knew, what was in the distance.

  A horde of infected was coming her way, lured by the sound of gunshots, which must have carried quite some distance. Where the sight of one of these hordes used to stir hatred and disgust in her chest, this time, Remy smiled as the leading edge of them came into view at the far end of the street.

  This was going to factor into her plan wonderfully.

  She looked away from the horde and saw Cade standing in the doorway, a look of concern and fear on her face. Remy stared back at her, then shouted, “Get back inside!”

  She started walking toward the horde, intending to join it and direct its movements. A door slammed somewhere behind her, and then Cade was jogging toward her.

  “What the hell have you done?” she asked breathlessly, trying to keep up with Remy. “Look at me, damn it!”

  Remy grabbed Cade’s arm and shoved her away. “Get back inside, Cade. I don’t want you caught in the middle of this.”

  “In the middle of what?” Cade asked. “Remy, what are you doing?” She caught Remy’s bicep and tried to make her turn around, but Remy wrenched herself free and lifted her pistol, pointing it right at Cade’s face. Cade stumbled backwards, her eyes wide. “You’ve lost it, haven’t you?” she asked. “You’ve finally fucking lost it.”

  “Get. Back. Inside,” Remy ordered, her voice hard and steady. “Now.” Cade looked at the oncoming horde then fled back into the building. The door slammed shut behind her, and even where she stood, Remy heard Cade barricading it against the masses c
oming their way. She hated that she’d had to resort to such drastic measures to get Cade to listen to her. In all honestly, she was amazed that the woman had been willing to approach her, considering her current physical condition. She slid the pistol back into its holster and stopped in the middle of the street, waiting for the horde’s arrival.

  It took two more minutes for the first of them to arrive, sweeping past her in a flood of stinking bodies and limbs, flowing around her like she was a rock in the middle of a river. She let them pass, watching as they flooded toward the massive concrete wall, trampling over the remains of the soldiers. They all, however, obeyed her will and swept around Dominic’s body, leaving it untouched. Once a sufficient number of them had passed her, she started to walk with them, letting them carry her forward toward the wall.

  The soldiers lining the top of the wall were shouting to each other and, as soon as the horde crossed from crumbled pavement to scraped dirt, they took aim and opened fire. Bullets peppered the leading edge of the infected, several of them dropping to the ground as the bullets found their marks in heads. The rows behind them simply stumbled over their bodies and kept going, mindless in their advance on the uninfected soldiers manning the wall. Remy encouraged them on, pushing them to keep going, faster and faster, hastening their charge to her intended target. As she drew closer and closer to the massive wall and the gate set into it, she unslung her backpack from her shoulder and unzipped it, ready to take her homemade bombs out at a moment’s notice.