The Becoming: Redemption (The Becoming Series Book 5)

by Jessica Meigs

  The infected were falling all around her, their blood spattering on her clothes, but not one bullet touched her as she approached the gate. The bullet wounds already in her body had long ceased to ache or even bleed, save for a thick, sluggish ooze that was well on its way to ceasing altogether. When the infected woman immediately to Remy’s right fell to the ground with the force of a bullet that slammed into her chest, Remy squeezed her eyes shut for a long moment, listening to the slow, sluggish thump of her heart.

  It beat three more times, and then it stopped.

  When she opened her eyes again, Remy Angellette was no longer Remy Angellette.

  The thing that had once been Remy Angellette continued forward with the rest of the mob, until it smashed directly against the gates. She ordered the mob to part, exerting her control over them effortlessly, creating a narrow path for her to slip through. Once she was at the gate, she took the makeshift bombs out of her backpack and stuffed the coffee cans against the gate near the center and the hinges. All the while, bullets pinged off the ground around her and embedded into the other infected. Still, none of them met their marks.

  Once the coffee cans were positioned where she wanted them, the woman who had formerly been Remy stepped away from the gate and began walking in the opposite direction, tugging free a grenade from her backpack—the same grenade her host body had taken off a dead soldier in Atlanta. Working efficiently, she pulled the pin from the grenade, released the lever, and tossed it against the largest of the coffee cans.

  “Protect me,” she ordered the infected surrounding her, even as she sped up, moving further away from the gates. “Shield me.”

  The infected scrambled to obey, surging around her, swarming her and piling over her, shielding her with their bodies.

  The ensuing explosion ripped through bodies and concrete, tearing off limbs and sending shrapnel soaring outward, flinging bodies away from the blast’s epicenter. The gate tore free from its steel tracks, twisting and breaking apart under the force of the explosion, and one of the guard towers alongside the gate toppled, leaning outward before crashing down onto the teeming horde below.

  The debris had barely stopped falling when the woman who had once been Remy Angellette ordered her undead shields off of her. She rose from underneath the mob, ignoring the dust settling over everything, and tilted her head back to shout at the top of her lungs.

  “Go!” she yelled. “Show them the meaning of the words ‘Hell on Earth!’”

  Chapter 40

  When Kimberly stirred into consciousness, her head spinning, it took everything in her to not throw up. She opened her eyes then squeezed them closed again, pressing her fingers to her temples, trying to figure out where she was.

  She lay on an overly hard mattress that was so thin she could feel the metal slats underneath it. The blanket was a scratchy wool that would make her itch for hours. Once she felt steady enough to sit up, she braced her hands underneath her and pushed upright, then slowly opened her eyes again.

  She was in a small room, a cell really, with off-white cinderblock walls. The floor was a sterile gray concrete, and the room was unadorned beyond the metal-framed bed she lay on and the corner with a prison-style toilet and sink. There were no windows. She was the only person in the room; Chris was nowhere to be seen.

  Kimberly swung her feet to the side to rest them against the floor, sending up a silent thank you that she still had her tennis shoes on. The rest of her was swathed in the light blue scrubs that the Eden Facility’s people had dressed her in. Disturbingly, there was a spot of blood on the shoulder of the top, and she touched it lightly then moved her fingers to the side of her head. There was a cut on her head, presumably where something had struck her, and she scrunched her eyes shut as she tried to remember exactly what had happened.

  It came back to her relatively quickly. She recalled the meeting with Major Bradford, during which he’d treated her like a second-class citizen, presumably because she was female, and directed all his questions to Ethan. When he’d gotten the paperwork showing Ethan as infected and had gone off his rocker, accusing them of conspiring to assassinate him with one of the infected, and then he’d given the order to have her and Chris quarantined, and Ethan…

  “Oh God,” Kimberly whispered.

  How long had she been unconscious? Was Ethan already dead? Was she already too late?

  She pushed herself off the bed, standing still for long enough to ensure she wasn’t going to immediately fall over as her orientation changed. She went to the door, examining it for any weaknesses. It was a heavy steel door, solidly constructed, and the hinges were apparently affixed to the outside, since she couldn’t see them from where she stood. There was a narrow window set into the steel door, about a foot long, running vertically up the door above the handle. Thin black wires crisscrossed inside the glass, preventing it from being broken. She peered out the narrow window into a pristine white, empty hallway. Cupping her hands to either side of her head to cut out additional light, she looked in either direction, searching for signs of light. When she didn’t see anything, she tried calling out.

  “Hello?” she said, raising her voice as loud as she dared. “Is anybody out there?”

  A long pause, followed by no answer.

  “Hello?”

  When there was still no answer, Kimberly growled under her breath in frustration, lifted a fist, and started pounding on the door.

  She’d just established a decent rhythm that wouldn’t wear her out when three figures appeared on the other side of the door. One of them leaned down to peer into her room, a soldier wearing a gas mask and some type of biohazard suit, which made her roll her eyes. What did they think she was going to do, eat their faces off? Spit in their eyes? She was far more professional than that.

  “Hey!” Kimberly yelled, hoping they’d hear her through the glass. “Hey, when the fuck are you letting me out of here?” It probably wasn’t the greatest question to lead with, but her internal filter was on the fritz after the blow to the head she’d taken.

  The soldier retreated from view, and Kimberly slapped her hand against the door again. “Hey!” she yelled, ignoring the pain in her head. “Come back here! I’m not done talking to you!”

  Another man appeared in the glass. This one was obviously a scientist; he wasn’t wearing a blatantly military-issued biohazard suit. He had one that was meant for high-containment laboratory settings. He made a shooing motion toward her to indicate for her to back up, and she took two steps back. He kept making the motion, so she stepped back again, and they kept going like this until she bumped against the wall across from the door. He motioned for her to put her hands up, so she obediently raised them, palms out, alongside her head. She heard the distinctive sound of the lock unfastening and the creak of the door when one of the soldiers pulled it open.

  The scientist stepped into the room, pausing inside the door to study her with a curious expression that she could barely make out through the plastic-y face shield built into his hood. “What is your name?” he asked, raising his voice to be heard through the hood. His tone suggested he already knew who she was but was testing her to see if she knew.

  “Kimberly Geller,” she answered. “Where am I?”

  “You’re at the Eden Facil—”

  Kimberly interrupted him with a frustrated growl. “I know that, you jackass,” she snapped. “I mean where am I?” She waved her hand around, indicating the room she stood in, and a look of clarity dawned on the man’s face.

  “Oh!” he said brightly, like he were getting the opportunity to teach a young girl something new. “You’re in one of the Eden Facility’s quarantine rooms. Major Bradford ordered that you and your friend Chris be isolated here until we determine that you’re clean. It’s for our safety as well as yours.”

  Kimberly rolled her eyes. “Oh, spare me the bullshit. Where’s Chris?”

  “Chris is in a quarantine room similar to this one,” the man replied. “No need to w
orry about him. He is as safe as you are.”

  Kimberly didn’t find that reassuring in the slightest.

  “What about Ethan Bennett?” she asked, getting to the real point of her questioning. “Where is he?”

  The man looked confused for a split second before his expression smoothed into one of neutrality. “He’s in another quarantine room, the same as you and Chris. He’s in good hands.”

  Kimberly didn’t believe a word of it.

  “Who are you?” she asked. “You seem to know who I am, but you don’t appear willing to share in kind.”

  The man sighed and motioned for her to lower her arms; she obeyed, though she stayed exactly where she stood. “My name is Dr. Jacob Howser,” he answered. “I’m a pathologist here at the Eden Facility that has been tasked with finding a cure for the Michaluk Virus.”

  “Your facility’s solution to having someone with intimate knowledge of the virus walk in through the front door is to knock her out and imprison her and her companions?”

  Jacob stared at her before asking, “How much knowledge do you have about Michaluk?”

  “I’ve worked directly with the disease alongside a former CDC doctor who was on the team that developed the pathogen that later became the Michaluk Virus,” Kimberly said. “We were able to develop something that appears to be a vaccine. It’s worked on one person, and we were preparing to test it on a second when we were forced to leave our safe house because the infected had found us and were about to attack.”

  Jacob stared at her for another long moment, as if he couldn’t believe what she was saying. “You’re telling me you’ve developed a vaccine?” he repeated. “Jesus. Why wasn’t I told about this?”

  “Because obviously someone didn’t want you to know that one of your quarantined prisoners was actually valuable,” Kimberly snapped.

  Despite Jacob’s confusion, resolve entered his eyes. “Sit tight, Ms. Geller. I’m going to get to the bottom of this. As soon as I know something, I’ll come back here, get you cleared to leave quarantine, and maybe we can discuss your potential usefulness in the lab. To say we need all the help we can get is an understatement.”

  Kimberly wanted to ask what he thought she could do about anything. As far as she was concerned, her personal involvement in the creation of the vaccine was over and done with. She didn’t give a shit what he thought of her potential to “help” them, especially after the shitty treatment they’d dumped on her and her friends when they’d been trying to help and had even brought along the walking, talking, definitive proof that the vaccine worked, at least on some level.

  The scientist turned around and strode out of the room. The two soldiers that had accompanied him waited until he was in the hallway before they backed out of the room, one by one, keeping their eyes on her the entire time.

  Kimberly didn’t move until the heavy metal door clanged shut. Then she pushed off the wall and strode to the door, slapping both her palms against it and yelling, “Let me out of here, damn it! I wasn’t done talking to you!” When she didn’t get an answer to her yelling, she gave up, giving the door a solid, parting kick that made her entire foot ache.

  Kimberly scowled and hobbled to the bed, dropping onto the edge of it and massaging her foot through her tennis shoe. She had a fleeting concern that it was broken, but after stripping off her shoe and sock, she assured herself that the bones were all intact. The last thing she needed was a busted foot to prevent her from getting the hell out of there.

  Jacob’s visit had told her a few things that would probably come in handy. First, that the people at this facility were paranoid enough about her that they wouldn’t come in the room without the requisite protective gear. Second, Jacob brought two soldiers with him as a protective detail, and she figured maybe if she played her cards right, she might have a shot against them. Third, the cell door swung outward into the hall.

  That last one felt like it was the most important of the three.

  Kimberly settled back on the bed, twisting so she could watch the door, folding her feet underneath her. She was a patient person. She had no problem waiting for the most opportune moment to present itself before she made her move. Even if it took all day to arise.

  She was going to get out of there. Then she was going to track down Ethan and, yes, even Chris and get them out too. She would be damned if she helped these people anymore, especially after the treatment they’d received.

  She just had to figure out the best way to do it.

  Chapter 41

  To say that Ethan was pensive about his future would be an understatement. He was forcibly marched down the hallway toward his unknown destination, shivering with cold, his muscles trembling as the cold air cut through the thin excuse for scrubs that he wore and chilling him to the bone. Two soldiers had his biceps in tight, vice-like grips, and he could practically feel bruises forming under the strength of their grasps. A quick twist of his upper body revealed a third soldier directly behind him, a rifle pointed at his head.

  There’s no getting out of this one, Bennett.

  The guards steered him around several hallway corners, thoroughly confusing him in the facility’s dizzying maze.

  What the hell have you gotten yourself into?

  Ethan still couldn’t figure out how he’d gotten where he was right then, being shoved down a long hall toward an unknown fate, the thought of which made him queasy. He tried to keep track of the twists and turns on the off chance he’d have the opportunity to escape. There was a fat chance of that happening, but he’d stay on the alert regardless. However, the facility was built with no clear pattern to its hallways, and he quickly lost his bearings. That was until the four of them arrived at a large door flanked by glass walls. A sign that read “Laboratory” was attached to the door.

  One of the soldiers holding Ethan’s arms pushed the door open and shoved him through it. They stopped him in the middle of the room, and he assessed his surroundings. He stood in an office space outside the actual labs. There were two desks in the room, one to the far right and another against the wall to the right of the door. Both of the desks’ tops were nearly bare and as immaculate as he’d ever seen a desk. Directly across from him was a room that divided the office area from a lab. There were nozzles on the walls inside it, and he assumed it was a decontamination chamber. The lab itself was spotless, all stainless steel counters and tons of lab equipment, half of which he could actually identify, thanks to the forensics and criminal investigative classes he’d taken. Several computers were on a desk near the far wall. To the left side of the lab, down a short hallway with clear walls, there looked to be something that resembled cells or maybe cages. He squinted at them, but without his glasses, he couldn’t say anything for sure.

  When Ethan had come out of his months’ long coma, as he liked to call it—there was something horribly uncomfortable about admitting he’d lived as one of the infected for several months—his eyesight had gotten noticeably worse. That wasn’t something he’d divulged to anyone yet, not even Kimberly. It wasn’t like anyone could do anything about it. Optometrists had once been a dime a dozen, but now he could say that finding one in a post-Michaluk world would be impossible. And getting a new glasses prescription filled was even more impossible than finding the person who could write it.

  Right now, though, glasses were the last things on his mind. While he’d been examining the room, the soldiers had been taking turns guarding him and checking the security of each other’s biohazard suits. Once they were done with this, they shoved him forward, steering him toward the entrance to the decontamination chambers. They didn’t stop in there, though; they continued on through them into the lab. Once they were inside the colder room, they took a sharp left and shoved him toward the clear-walled hallway. As they drew closer, Ethan saw that cells lined the walls, and inside several of them were infected. Though he knew they couldn’t hurt him, Ethan’s instincts caused him to freeze up. He tensed and dug his heels into the tile, trying
to prevent them from taking him any further. The two men who were holding on to his biceps nearly picked him up off the floor to keep him moving.

  They shoved him into one of the cells, between two other infected, one of which looked like a live one and another that was half rotted. The cell’s walls and door were clear plastic glass, and Ethan met one face to face as he was shoved against the one furthest from the door.

  “Move from this spot before we’re out of the cell, and I’ll put a bullet in the back of your head,” one of the soldiers said. Ethan nodded, and the man let go of him and backed away.

  Ethan waited until the cell’s door thudded shut before he pushed away from the wall and whirled around, glaring at the three suited men on the other side of the hazy glass. “Let me out of here!” he shouted, slapping his hand against the glass. The bang of his palm drew the attention of the infected in the cells to either side of him, and they plastered themselves against the clear walls that separated his cell from theirs.

  There was a small slot on the door barely wide enough to squeeze his fingers through. One of the soldiers slid the small door over it aside and called through it, “Major Bradford’s orders. You’re not going anywhere.” He slid the door shut and walked away, leading the two other soldiers with him through the lab and into the decontamination showers.

  At any other time, Ethan might have watched them go through the decontamination process, if only because he was curious about how they handled the decontamination of their rifles. Right now, he was too angry to care. He focused on trying to find a way out of the glass box, trying to ignore the infected that were plastered against the glass, attempting to get to him through the impenetrable barrier between them.

  Ethan paced the cage, searching for gaps, seams, a way out of the too-small space he’d been stuffed in, but the only option he had was the door, and that wasn’t much of an option. The edge of the door overlapped with the wall alongside it, a narrow lip on the door that prevented him from wedging his fingers in any gaps that might have been there otherwise. He swore and slapped his hand against the door, frustrated at his lack of success.