The Becoming: Redemption (The Becoming Series Book 5)

by Jessica Meigs

  “Up is better than being eaten,” Keith replied. “Come on, what do you say we take what’s probably the only option available at the moment? We can get a good look at everything around us and see what other choices are available.”

  Cade glanced between the windows and the cracked ceiling above. “Fine,” she sighed.

  “I can find us a route up,” Sadie said from her spot across the room. “Shouldn’t be too hard to find one that we can all navigate.”

  “Go,” Cade ordered. Sadie scampered off, going down a short hall and disappearing out a window that Cade would have sworn was too small for Sadie to fit through. Once Sadie was gone, Cade turned back to Keith. “We’re still looking for Brandt.”

  “Believe me, I had no doubts about that,” Keith said. “We still have two problems. Where is he and how the hell are we going to get out of here?”

  “For the where, I’m hopeful he’s in this Eden place,” Cade said. “As for the how? I don’t know.”

  “I do,” Sadie said, sliding agilely through the window with a smile on her face. “I just found us a way out of here.”

  Chapter 46

  Kimberly knew an explosion when she heard one. Lord knew she had heard enough grenades going off while she’d lived under Alicia Day’s roof. When the explosion ripped through the Eden Facility while Kimberly was searching through a drawer looking for a tool to bust Ethan out of his cell, her heart leaped into her throat. Cheap particleboard tiles plummeted from the ceiling, and Kimberly threw herself against the cabinets on the far side of the lab, huddling there with her arms over her head, trying to avoid getting struck by debris.

  The floor bucked upward, throwing her backward, and her already abused and aching head banged against the cabinets behind her. There was a sharp pain on her scalp, but she ignored it and curled up tighter into a fetal position, hoping that nothing heavier fell on her.

  A microscope toppled from the counter and crashed to the floor right beside her, and then the room went pitch black.

  “Ethan,” Kimberly whispered, not daring to speak louder. Even if she could have been heard over the rumble of the ceiling caving in, there was the question of the scientist in the lab with both of them. She was terrified he would hear her and then both she and Ethan would get shot. She was there to save Ethan, not to get them both killed.

  By the time the dust settled and objects stopped falling from the ceiling, Kimberly was half buried underneath broken ceiling tiles, covered in dust, dirt, and cobwebs. She grimaced and pushed her hair out of her face, raking cobwebs out of the strands and shaking them onto the floor. She didn’t get up right away. She stayed where she was, waiting to see what was going to happen next, hoping that Dr. Jacob Howser had been knocked unconscious by some random chunk of debris.

  A flashlight flicked on halfway across the room, and Kimberly heard Ethan and Jacob exchanging words. Jacob got up and left the lab, taking the flashlight with him and plunging the room into darkness once more.

  A long moment later, another flashlight blinked on, and Kimberly caught a glimpse of Ethan through the darkness, his blond hair catching the light enough to make the strands glow. He slung a lab coat on and called her name. She opened her mouth to reply, but her teeth were coated with dust, and she choked. She hacked dirty saliva onto the floor and tried again.

  “Eth! Here!”

  The flashlight swung around and pointed in her general direction. She shoved a few pieces of tile off herself and sat up. Ethan rushed to her, his tennis shoes crunching over the ceiling tiles and kicking away debris that littered the floor. He skidded to a halt beside her, dropping to his knees and taking her face in his hands. His flashlight thunked to the floor between them.

  “Oh God, tell me you’re okay,” he said, his eyes wide and intense in the light from the flashlight. “Are you hurt?” In the same breath, he said, “Oh fuck, you’re bleeding.”

  “I am?” Kimberly asked. She touched her head. With his words, the ache in her skull came to her attention with a vengeance. When she pressed her fingers against the back of her head where she’d struck it on the cabinets, her fingertips came back stained with blood. “Crap.”

  “We need to find something to bandage it,” Ethan said. He stepped away from her to rummage through drawers, practically tearing them out of the counters in his search for first aid supplies. He found a white plastic box with a bold red cross on it, brought it over, and popped it open, kneeling beside her to tend to the wound on her head. Once he had it bandaged enough to get the bleeding to stop, he smiled cautiously. “How’s that feel?”

  “Like I’ve been smacked in the head and bandaged up,” Kimberly said with a tiny smile. She held a hand up to him. “Help me stand up?”

  Ethan grasped her hand and tugged, kicking away a few shattered tiles, pulling her to her feet. She nearly slipped when she stood, but he looped an arm around her waist to steady her.

  “What’s the game plan?” Kimberly asked. “I’m sure step one involves getting the hell out of here. What about after that?”

  “I’m not sure,” Ethan said. “I’m tempted to wait for that doctor guy to come back. He knows Brandt.”

  “I overheard him making a phone call before I found you,” Kimberly told him. “He was talking to someone, and he told them your name and sounded surprised that it was someone who already knew you. He asked how many of that person’s friends were going to be dragged in here.” She licked her lips as Ethan stewed over what she had told him. “I think there’s someone here who knows you, and I think they know Brandt. I also think that Brandt was here and they somehow got him out of here.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Ethan said, his confusion obvious. “Brandt was in Woodside when we left. How would he have ended up here?”

  “We’ve been gone from Woodside for a week, Eth,” Kimberly reminded him. “There’s no telling what’s happened in the meantime.”

  “There was that bomb…”

  “I know, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t get out,” she said. “They were planning an evac, remember? Maybe some of them got out. And maybe somehow, Brandt ended up here.”

  “Where he happened to run into someone that knows him, that knows both of us, who then got him out of here?” Ethan asked. “Hell, that sounds ridiculous even to my ears.”

  Kimberly shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “I’m shooting in the dark here as much as you are. I have—”

  Something crashed somewhere in the lab. Kimberly clamped her mouth shut and whirled in the direction the sound had come from; it sounded like it had come from somewhere in the neighborhood of the cells that Ethan had been in earlier.

  “Oh God, what was that?” she asked.

  “There were infected in cells to either side of me,” Ethan said. “Maybe they got out in the explosion.” He fumbled at the pocket of the dirty white lab coat he was wearing and pulled free a pistol. “Stay here.”

  “To hell with that,” Kimberly said. “I’m coming with you.”

  “Kim—”

  “Don’t argue,” she said. She picked up one of the metal stools littering the room, holding it in a two-handed grasp by its legs. “I’m armed and ready,” she said confidently, “but I’ll let you take the lead, if it makes you feel better.”

  “How gracious of you.”

  He started in the direction of the sound, sweeping the beam of his flashlight across the room, searching for the source of the noise. Kimberly stuck close to him, holding the stool in a position where she was ready to swing it at anything that moved threateningly toward either of them. It wasn’t necessary, because Ethan looked like he could handle almost anything.

  The source of the sound was apparent soon enough; one of the infected from a cell beside Ethan’s had gotten loose and was stumbling its way out of the debris on the far side of the lab, trying to follow the sounds of their voices. Ethan put his hand out, indicating for her to stop where she was. The infected man caught sight of them and started to move more q
uickly toward them, extending his arms in a classic zombie movie style. Ethan advanced, slow and steady, the pistol in his right hand extended toward the infected man, the flashlight held in his left hand near his shoulder, tucked in close so he didn’t lose it.

  There was a crack somewhere to their left, and both she and Ethan whipped their heads in that direction, eyes wide. Jacob Howser stumbled back into the lab, accompanied by entirely too much noise. Kimberly tensed, raising her stool higher, like she was going to smack the doctor with it. He froze when he spotted first her, and then the infected man across the room, and he gasped in alarm.

  “Quiet!” Ethan barked at him. He advanced toward the infected man and fired the pistol. A neat bullet hole appeared in the infected man’s forehead, and his body toppled to the ground with a crunch of ceiling tiles and a crack of skull against the utilitarian tiled floor. The body had barely finished falling before Ethan was turning, shifting the aim of the pistol from the infected man to the scientist. “Don’t move,” he ordered, and Jacob put his hands up defensively, dropping his flashlight on the floor.

  “Ethan,” Kimberly said warningly. He didn’t pay any attention to her.

  “How did you get out of your cell?” Jacob asked, directing the question to Kimberly.

  “Ceiling,” she replied simply, pointing at the ceiling in question. Jacob raised an eyebrow.

  “Look, you can put the gun away, okay?” Jacob said, this time aiming his words at Ethan. “I’m on your side here.”

  “Yeah? Prove it,” Ethan said. “Because right now, the only person on my side that I actually believe is on my side is her.” He bobbed his head toward Kimberly. “Give me a reason why I shouldn’t just shoot you and haul ass out of here.”

  “Because Lindsey Alton asked me to get you out of here myself,” Jacob said.

  Ethan’s eyebrows shot up, and the grip on his pistol wavered. “How do you know Lindsey Alton?” he asked, and his pistol steadied once more.

  “She’s my lab partner here at the facility,” Jacob said. “I’ve been working with her for a while now, ever since the outbreak began and the government decided to establish this place for research.”

  “Lab partner?” Ethan repeated.

  “Yeah, microbiologist, remember?” Jacob said. “She knows you’re here. She’s trying to get back here so she can get you and, I’m assuming, Ms. Geller out of here. She’s already stashed Brandt somewhere, so I’m assuming you’re next.”

  “So Brandt is here?” Ethan asked. “How did that happen?”

  “It’s a long story, and I’m sure he’ll be more than happy to tell you all about it,” Jacob said. “In the meantime, we need to get you two somewhere where she can get you out of here. There’s been an explosion, and the facility has been compromised.”

  “Compromised how?” Kimberly asked.

  “Somebody blew up the main gates,” he explained. “It’s totally destroyed. The facility’s administration is currently making plans to evacuate the place, but that’s delaying the inevitable. The gates being compromised exposes everyone north of the Wall to the possibility of infection.”

  “And we can’t have that, now, can we?” Ethan muttered sourly.

  “No, we can’t,” Kimberly said. “Just because these people fucked up and left us all to suffer doesn’t mean everyone else in the general population should suffer.”

  “You’re right,” Ethan said contritely. “I’m being shitty. I’m sorry.” He lowered the pistol to his side, though he didn’t put it away. “So, Jacob, how can we trust you?”

  “There’s absolutely nothing I can say to make you trust me,” Jacob said. “You don’t know me, so you have no reason to believe anything that comes out of my mouth. And I understand that. I’m not going to ask you to trust me. What I will ask is that you come with me and let me take you to the rendezvous spot with Lindsey so she can get you out of here. You trust her, don’t you?”

  “I don’t even know who her is,” Kimberly spoke up. She looked to Ethan and asked, “Who is this woman that you apparently know?”

  “Cade’s younger sister,” Ethan explained. “The one that lives—lived—in Israel. How the hell did she end up over here working in this place?”

  “I’ll leave her to tell you that story,” Jacob said. “For now, we need to get you…” He trailed off and twisted around, looking back toward the laboratory’s entry door. “Someone’s coming,” he said, and a new urgency seeped into his voice. “You need to hide.”

  Kimberly whipped her head around, searching for somewhere to stuff herself, but Ethan grabbed her arm and shoved her toward the wall that divided the office from the lab proper. The bottom half of the wall was concrete, leaving only the top half of the wall exposed to view from the office and the hallway. “Get down,” he said, shoving her to the floor. She dropped down, hunkering against the wall, and Ethan joined her.

  Jacob waved his hand at Ethan frantically. “Give me the gun,” he said, his voice low and hushed.

  “Why?” Ethan hissed back, looking like he was prepared to shoot the scientist before he handed him the only weapon he had.

  “So they’ll believe me when I told them I shot that infected guy back there,” Jacob said.

  “Eth, give him the fucking gun,” Kimberly said.

  Ethan handed the gun to Jacob, though it was obvious he didn’t want to do it. To keep him from rebelling, she fumbled for and grasped his now-empty hand, holding it tightly in hers, squeezing it too hard. The look on his face was strained as he tried to smile at her, and he switched the flashlight off, plunging them into darkness.

  Chapter 47

  Brandt’s nerves were on edge when he and Lindsey arrived at her apartment building twenty minutes after she’d hung up her burner phone and revealed to him that Ethan Bennett had somehow found his way into the Eden Facility and was being held in a manner similar to how he’d been held. He was so strung out and worked up that his hands were shaking. He clenched them tightly around the steering wheel in an effort to hide his jitters and followed Lindsey’s instructions as she guided him into the building’s parking lot and to her designated space. Only when the car was parked and the engine turned off did he speak.

  “Now that we’re here, what’s the plan to get Ethan out of that hellhole?” he asked, unbuckling his seatbelt. His mind was already spinning, whirling, searching for the plan that would get his friend out of the hock he’d landed in.

  “Here’s what I’m thinking,” Lindsey said, mirroring his actions. The seatbelt snapped out of her hand and she whipped it off her shoulder, the buckle smacking into the window with a loud clack. She opened her door, sliding out so she could lead the way inside.

  A rumble rattled the air, seconds before the sound coalesced into a roar that made Brandt’s ears want to fold in on themselves. He recognized the sound instantly for what it was. Without hesitation, he fell back into the car, the gearshift digging painfully into his side, and stretched across to the still-opened passenger door. He grabbed Lindsey by one of her belt loops and dragged her back into the car, pulling her down so she would be shielded from any falling debris, since in his haste, he hadn’t bothered to check to see where the explosion had come from. Lindsey tumbled into the car with him, her hands clapped over her ears to muffle the sound. She hooked her foot in the storage compartment on the bottom half of the door and yanked the door shut; Brandt did the same, hoping it would help dampen the sound. It did, minimally, but it was enough that they could sit up to look out the windows.

  There was a fire in the south near where the Wall stood. In the fading light of evening, Brandt saw a shower of stone and shrapnel raining down in the distance, like a great hand had slid underneath the Wall and jerked sharply upward, sending pieces of it flying into the air. Beside him, Lindsey gasped and pressed a hand against her lips.

  “Holy shit,” she said, her voice muffled against her fingers. “Holy shit, what is happening?”

  “Looks like someone might have blown up the Wa
ll or something near it,” Brandt said. “Though I’d put my bets on the Wall itself being the victim.”

  “Who the hell would do something like that?” Lindsey cried. “The Wall is the only thing that protects the people who live north of it from the infected!”

  “I’m aware of that,” Brandt said. A thick column of smoke began to rise from the vicinity of the explosion.

  “The Wall is probably compromised,” Lindsey said, her voice hushed. She was obviously processing what had happened; Brandt could practically see her brain’s gears chugging. “That means the infected on the other side will be on this side, soon if they’re not already. I’m not going anywhere until I’m loaded for bear, and I suggest you do the same.”

  “I figured that part was a given,” Brandt said. “I feel naked without my fucking guns.” He opened his door and climbed out again, waiting for her to do the same. “After we get ourselves armed, then what?”

  “Well, I guess that depends,” Lindsey said. Her voice still shook from the initial shock of the explosion, but she soldiered on nonetheless. “What are your plans?”

  “Does it require stating?” Brandt asked. “I’m going to get Ethan out of that cesspit, and then I’m going after my wife.”

  “I thought as much, and I’m going with you.” She started walking toward the building’s entrance, and Brandt scrambled to follow.

  “Are you sure about that?” he asked after they walked inside and stepped through a door into a stairwell made of concrete and steel and more concrete. “I’m not sure you have a real comprehension of what’s on the other side of that wall.”

  “Oh, I have more than a little comprehension,” Lindsey replied. “I work with these things in the lab at the Eden Facility all the time. There is a team of soldiers that captures them and brings them in for my and Jacob’s examinations and experiments. It’s how we get our test subjects.”