When she came back to herself, Lindsey was surprised to discover that only five minutes had passed since she’d broken down. It had felt like an eternity that she’d sat there, crying into Brandt’s arms, the gearshift digging painfully into her side. Brandt’s hand was rubbing soothing circles against her back, and when she pulled away from him to mop her face with her sleeve, she could read the worry in his eyes.
“I’m okay,” Lindsey tried to assure him. The worry in his eyes turned to doubt.
“No, you’re not,” Brandt contradicted, shaking his head. “You’re a hot mess. I’m not sure that you should be behind the wheel. Let me drive.”
“You don’t know where you’re going,” Lindsey protested. Her voice sounded rough, tired, and weak. She grimaced and wiped at her face again.
“You can give me directions,” Brandt said. “Come on, swap off. You’re in no condition to drive.”
Lindsey sighed, wanting to argue but at the same time not feeling up to it. It would all end the same way anyway, with him behind the wheel and her in the passenger seat. “Fine,” she muttered. She unbuckled her seatbelt and got out of the car, and they made quick work of the switch then got on the road again.
Her brain still fuzzy with grief, Lindsey collapsed into the passenger seat, sagging back against the leather with the bonelessness reserved for the terminally exhausted. It took everything in her to not slip into sleep. Brandt needed her to give him directions. She couldn’t do that if she was unconscious.
“How are you feeling?” Brandt asked. Lindsey pointed him to the right.
“How do you think I feel?” she asked after he made the turn. “I found out for certain that my daughter is dead after spending two years praying for the contrary, and my sister might as well be, for all the distance between us.” He flinched when she mentioned Cade, and the look in his eyes shifted from concerned to sad. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I forget that you’re grieving too.”
“I’m not grieving,” Brandt said, grinding his hands against the steering wheel. “Because she’s not dead.”
“How can you be so sure of that?”
“Because I’m her husband,” Brandt said. “I think if she were dead, I would have sensed it. I know I would have. She’s not dead.”
His confidence that Cade was alive was buoying, and Lindsey sat up straighter. “We need a game plan,” she said. “I can handle everything on this side of the Wall, but I’ve never been on the southern side. I’m going to need your help.”
Brandt wasn’t paying attention to her. He was staring out the windshield with narrowed eyes, turning his head to follow a sign on the side of the road. “I thought you said we were in Bowling Green, Kentucky,” he said, his tone accusatory.
Lindsey raised an eyebrow. “When did I tell you that?”
“The day they brought me in,” Brandt said. “When I was captured and brought in. You told me then that we were near Bowling Green, Kentucky.”
Lindsey drew in a slow breath as realization hit her, and she recalled the events of the night that Brandt had been brought into the Eden Facility. “Oh hell, I forgot about that,” she said ruefully, wrinkling her nose. “That was Bradford’s doing. We were told to not tell you where you really were so if in the off-chance you escaped, you wouldn’t know where to go.”
“And you thought it was acceptable to not mention it to me at some point over the past day?” Brandt asked. He jabbed his finger at the windshield. “That said North Carolina. When were you planning to tell me that I wasn’t even in the same state you told me I was in?”
“Brandt, it was a mistake, okay?” she said. “An oversight. Ever heard of those? I’ve had a lot of shit on my mind, including figuring out how to get you out of the facility.” She flopped back in her seat, folding her arms over her chest, scowling. “Would a thank you hurt?”
“No, but you’re not getting one until you get me back where I belong,” Brandt said. “Which would be on the other side of that fucking wall.”
“I’ll get you there,” Lindsey promised. “Only if you take me with you.”
Brandt didn’t respond until he made the next turn that Lindsey signaled for him to take. He extended his hand into the passenger side of the vehicle, and she grasped it tightly in her own. “Deal,” he agreed.
Lindsey grinned hesitantly and shook his hand firmly, but before she could say, “Deal,” the prepaid, disposable cell phone she kept hidden in her glove box started to ring.
Chapter 44
Ethan had almost drifted off half a dozen times since he’d been stuffed into his clear-walled cell, but every time he slid so precariously close to sleep, one or both of the infected on either side of him would slam themselves against the glass hard enough to startle him back awake. They never let up from their hyper-vigilant pursuit, something that Ethan didn’t understand. The last time he’d encountered infected up close and personal, they hadn’t reacted to him like these two were. If anything, the last ones he’d run into had seen him like he was one of them. These weren’t reacting in the same way, and he couldn’t figure out why.
He could take his time to come up with all sorts of theories, and he could even bounce them off that scientist who’d visited him earlier. To hell with that. He’d be damned if he gave the man anything more than any bare essentials. He wouldn’t spend the last two days of his life trying to help these assholes.
He slid down the wall, stretching out flat on his back on the floor. His spine popped and cracked, his back muscles seized, and he groaned out loud at the pain that thrummed through him. He draped one of his arms across his forehead and stared at the half-rotten infected man in the cell beside his. The man was mashing his face against the glass, leaving smears of old blood and who knew what else on the pane. Ethan curled his lip in disgust and closed his eyes, shifting his arm to shade his eyes from the fluorescent glare above.
A soft thud from somewhere nearby caught his attention, and he slid his arm off his eyes a fraction, lifting his head slightly. The hall outside his cell was still empty. He was tempted to get up and check out the source of the sound, but he figured it came from one of the two people on either side of him, so he shrugged and dropped his head back down on the floor.
There was a clang that sounded like it had come from the lab. Ethan ignored it, figuring it was the scientist returning to the lab to grill him a little more. He stayed where he was, breathing steadily, forcing himself to look relaxed, hoping that he would fool the man into thinking that he was asleep and leaving him alone.
A rapid tapping on the plastic-glass door of his cell made him fully uncover his eyes. It was a frantic, rhythmic tapping, one that was designed to catch his attention while making minimal noise. He lolled his head to the side, trying to not stir up the infected to either side of him any more than necessary, and his eyes widened when he saw Kimberly kneeling on the cold tiles outside his cell.
She was filthy, her pale blue scrubs and her shoulder-length blonde hair covered in streaks and stains—and were those cobwebs all over her clothes? He scrambled off his back and slid across the floor to the door, pressing his palms against the glass.
“Jesus, Kim, where have you been?” Ethan asked, raising his voice as loud as he dared so she could hear him through the glass. “Are you okay? They didn’t hurt you, did they?” The sight of the dried blood crusted in her hair made his long-dormant anger surge up in him again.
“I’m fine,” Kimberly said. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
“How did you find me?” Ethan asked, bewildered.
She pointed up, and he glanced at the ceiling. “I crawled through the ceiling,” she said. “It wasn’t the most pleasant experience.” She shuddered, then shook it off. “I’m here to bust out you out, damsel in distress.”
“I could argue about which of us qualifies as a damsel, but right now, I’ll be happy if you just get me the hell out of here,” Ethan admitted.
“I will as soon as I figure out how…” She trailed off, exami
ning the door’s lock closely, a look of intense concentration on her face. “Key?”
“I haven’t seen one,” Ethan said. “I think either one of Bradford’s men has it, or the scientist has it.”
“Scientist?” Kimberly repeated. “You mean Dr. Howser?”
“I don’t know what the hell the man’s name is, and I really don’t care,” Ethan said. “Just get me out of here.”
Kimberly examined the lock closer and nodded to herself. “I’ll be right back.” She crawled away, scurrying back in the direction of the lab, a look of determination on her face. Ethan’s heart crammed itself into his throat, and he slid back from the door a few inches.
He tilted his head back to look at the ceiling above him, wondering why the thought of escaping through the ceiling hadn’t occurred to him. The ceiling was solid sheetrock, though, so any escape attempt from his cell would have been a moot point anyway. He had to give Kimberly credit for her ingenuity. He wasn’t sure he’d have thought about crawling through the ceiling to bust out of this place.
He was still waiting for Kimberly to return when the scientist came back from wherever he’d gone, swathed once again in his biohazard suit. Ethan did his best to not look past the man in a search for Kimberly; he wanted to avoid alerting Dr. Howser that there was anything going on out of the ordinary.
“I apologize for earlier,” the scientist said. “Your presence caught me by surprise, and I didn’t take the time to make proper introductions. I’m Dr. Jacob Howser. I’m an epidemiologist here at the Eden Facility that has been tasked with helping to find a cure for the Michaluk Virus.”
“Yeah, good luck with that,” Ethan grumbled.
“Your file tells me that your name is Ethan Christopher Bennett.”
“So you can read,” Ethan said. “Good for you.”
“The file tells me quite a few other things about you,” Jacob said. “Like the fact your blood type is A-positive, you are forty-one years old, and you’ve been bitten twelve times by at least one infected, probably more.”
Ethan raised an eyebrow, waiting for him to continue.
“It also tells me that you test positive for the Michaluk Virus,” Jacob said. “Which, I assume, you contracted via those twelve bites you’ve sustained at some point in the past couple of years.” Despite himself, Ethan nodded, a single bob of the head in acknowledgment of the doctor’s supposition. “What the file doesn’t tell me is how you ended up here and why.”
“Well, it certainly wasn’t because this was the hottest vacation destination in the southeast,” Ethan said. He made to shove his hands into his pockets before realizing that the scrub pants didn’t have pockets. He scowled again and folded his arms across his chest, leaning against the wall across from Jacob.
Jacob shifted uncomfortably and glanced toward his labs. “I should get you out of your cell and do a full physical workup.” He flipped the clasp on his clipboard up and pulled free a key. “If I let you out of there, are you planning to attack me? Because if you’re going to make this hard, I can easily leave you in there.”
“I’m not going to attack you,” Ethan said. There was no way he was going to do anything this man could construe as antagonizing if he was going to get him out of that cell, and he was especially not going to do anything when he wasn’t sure where Kimberly was.
The doctor stared at Ethan like he was trying to assess how truthful he was being. Then he slid the key into the lock and turned it, and the door swung open.
The temptation to rush out of the room and make a break for it was overwhelming, but Ethan refrained, stepping out of the cell at a sedate pace. Jacob closed the door, clipped the key back onto his clipboard, and led him toward the labs. The moment they entered the room full of stainless steel tables and lab equipment, Ethan immediately started scanning the room, searching for both Kimberly and for an escape route other than the door to the office beyond the lab. There had to be an emergency exit somewhere in there, didn’t there? It was a lab; they worked with caustic chemicals all the time and needed an escape route in case something blew up in their faces.
Ethan saw neither an escape route nor Kimberly, and his heart sank a little.
The doctor had stopped halfway through the lab, setting his clipboard on one of the tables. He looked at Ethan, the expression on his face serious. “Lieutenant Michael Brandt Evans.”
Ethan’s heart leaped in his throat, and he guessed that that showed in his expression, because a knowing smile crept across Jacob’s face.
“So you do know him.”
“Of course I know him!” Ethan said. “He’s one of my closest friends. My question is how the hell you know him!”
A tremor rumbled through the floor. For the barest of seconds, the thought that he was actually experiencing an earthquake crossed Ethan’s mind. Then the floor heaved itself up toward the sky and threw him and Jacob to their knees. Ceiling tiles rained from above, and Ethan put his arms up to shield his head, scrambling underneath one of the stainless steel tables. The fluorescent lights flickered, flashing off and on several times and plunging the lab into total darkness.
Ethan crammed himself further under the table beneath which he’d sheltered, panting from the fight-or-flight rush of adrenaline. He cupped a hand over his nose and mouth against the dust filtering down while the upheaval ground to a halt. It left behind the sounds of shifting stones, falling tiles, and gushing water from an unseen burst pipe.
“What the hell happened?” Ethan called.
There was a pause, during which Ethan heard Jacob coughing, and then the scientist answered. “I have no idea. Whatever it is can’t possibly be good.” His voice was hoarse from breathing in dust.
There was a clank and the sound of a drawer sliding open. Seconds later, a bright light flicked on and swept the lab until it found him. Jacob wielded a large black metal flashlight similar to the heavy one Ethan had used as a police officer; dust danced in the halogen beam between them.
“You hurt?” Jacob asked, and Ethan took a quick assessment of himself. Other than a scrape on his right forearm, he was free of injury. He shook his head. “Good,” Jacob said. “I’m going to find out what happened. Wait here. I’ll be back in a minute.” He hurried out the door, leaving Ethan alone in the dark with no idea how to get out of there.
“Kimberly!” Ethan hissed, raising his voice to be heard over the distant spew of water. “Kim!” The only response was the sound of some debris crashing to the floor.
“Fuck this,” Ethan muttered. He crawled out from under the table and felt around for drawers, for storage closets, for anything that might have had something useful in it.
In the third drawer he searched, Ethan found what he was looking for: a chunky MagLite flashlight and, to his surprise, a .22-caliber pistol. It looked like it had been made with a woman’s smaller hands in mind, but Ethan wasn’t going to turn his nose up at it. He palmed it and dug further into the drawer, finding a leather zipper bag inside which were three more magazines for the pistol.
“Jackpot,” Ethan murmured. He scanned the rest of the immediate area and spotted a lab coat draped across a stool. He snagged it, shrugged it on, and dropped the magazines in the left pocket, the pistol in the right. Now that he felt sufficiently armed to get out of the immediate vicinity, he rose to his feet and shined the light around the ruins of the lab, searching for Kimberly with his heart in his throat.
Chapter 45
Cade cowered in a corner of the room, fear vibrating through her bones, shivering through her entire frame as first one, then another, explosion rocked the building in which she and her friends had taken shelter. Her breath came short in her throat, in hyperventilating gasps, and her eyes were moist with tears. The building shifted under the shockwaves from the explosions, and a thin trickle of dust and plaster rained from the ceiling.
Cade couldn’t get the sight of Remy out of her head. Remy, beautiful Remy, her face, her hands, her clothes, all splattered and soaked with blood. The th
ought of how that blood had gotten there to begin with haunted her.
The building creaked again, more ominously than before, and the distinctive sounds of massive numbers of infected outside reached her ears. The stamp of their feet, their low moans, groans, and snarls echoed in the room, adding to the instability of the building. A surge of bile rose in her throat, but she masterfully forced it back down. Now was definitely not the time to get sick.
Keith broke away from the corner to her right, where he had been shielding Jude and Sadie from the possibility of falling debris. He slunk along the wall until he reached her, grasping her hand in his and leaning close to murmur in her ear.
“What the hell is going on out there?” Keith asked, and Cade realized with a sinking feeling that he hadn’t seen anything that had happened and that she would have to explain it to him.
“Remy,” Cade said, and to her disgust, she discovered that her voice was shaking as much as her body was. “I think she’s finally lost it. I think—”
“Are you telling me that Remy did all of this?” Keith asked.
“I don’t know how, but yes, she did,” Cade said.
“Where did she get the explosives?”
“What does it matter where she got the explosives?” Cade asked loudly. “She had them, and she used them, and now we’re up shit creek.”
“In a building that’s acting like it wants to drop on our heads,” Keith said with another cautious glance at the ceiling. “We should get out of here.”
“Where the hell are we going to go?” Cade demanded. She jabbed her finger at the windows, covered by thin particleboard scavenged from desks to shield the view of the building’s interior. “The street is full of infected, and even if we go up, there’s not many other places to go from there, because the buildings around here aren’t in fantastic shape to begin with.”
The Becoming: Redemption (The Becoming Series Book 5) Page 27