The Becoming: Redemption (The Becoming Series Book 5)

by Jessica Meigs

  “Where are we going?” Brandt asked the last time she descended the stairs to the first level, carrying a backpack that was slightly too heavy.

  “Back to that house we were at when I let you out of the trunk,” she told him. “Jacob is supposed to meet us there with Ethan. Then we can figure out how to find my sister.”

  “I am totally behind this plan,” Brandt said. He waited for her to unlock the doors, and he slid into the passenger seat. Lindsey joined him, slipping into the driver’s seat and starting the car. It was chilly in the vehicle, so she cranked the heat up for a few minutes to warm the interior, then backed out of the space and navigated to the street.

  “Do you think Ethan will be able to help us?” she asked Brandt. “The last time I saw him, it was almost three years ago. Back then, he didn’t seem like the kind of person who could survive something like this. He wasn’t very…aggressive, at least compared to most guys that I knew.”

  “People grow fast when they have the real-world equivalent of zombies trying to kill them,” Brandt said. “Ethan is one of the strongest people I know. There’s a reason he’s been the leader of our merry little band of survivors since this shit all started.”

  “I wasn’t aware he’d come that far,” Lindsey admitted. “Hell, I wasn’t aware he was still alive until Jacob called me and said he was at the facility. I figured…well, I guess I figured he’d be dead by now, to be honest. The Ethan I knew wouldn’t have been able to survive all of this.”

  “He probably wouldn’t have if it hadn’t been for Cade,” Brandt said. “He was a mess those first few weeks, just stumbling along. I think his wife’s death landed a whammy on him. She died the first day the outbreak started in Memphis, and Ethan couldn’t rest until he was sure, so he left us for a while to verify that she was dead before he tracked us back down.” Lindsey glanced at him. He was staring out the side window, his expression sad. “He’s lost a lot more than most of us have,” he said. “And his losses have been very, very hard on him.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Lindsey said, and she was. She hated that anyone would have to go through everything that Brandt suggested Ethan to having been through. However, that brought up another question, spurred by something Jacob had said on the phone when he’d called her with the news of a second Michaluk-positive person at the Eden Facility. “How did Ethan get infected?” she asked. “Better yet, how did he get infected without showing any symptoms of infection other than a positive test?”

  Lindsey looked at him again, long enough to judge his reaction to his question. Brandt opened his mouth like he was about to say something, then hesitated, looking out the side window again and heaving a sigh.

  “Brandt?”

  “He got bitten,” Brandt said. “We ended up in Atlanta, and we got cornered. He stayed behind to delay the infected and got bitten. Before he turned, he was taken to the CDC doctor that we’ve been protecting for the past several months. That doctor was able to prevent him from turning, and after that, he was able to sort of cure him. He still tests as infected, but he’s not. At least, as I understand it.”

  “I feel like there’s more to the story than that,” Lindsey said, though she didn’t press Brandt for more details. It didn’t feel like the right time for that, and besides, she could always ask Ethan for details once she saw him again. For now, she’d hold her questions and hope she got answers to them eventually.

  A few minutes later, she eased her car off the highway and onto the gravel road that led to the secluded, abandoned house she and Jacob liked to rendezvous at when they wanted some privacy from any potential eyes watching. It was an excellent place for privacy. It was nearly a dead spot for cell phones because the signal wasn’t good enough to do much more than a voice call, there were no security cameras anywhere near, and best of all, there were no neighbors. It was the first place that had popped in her head for a meeting place when she and Jacob had decided to get Ethan out of the Eden Facility. She steered up the driveway until she reached the now-ramshackle house, swung the car around so it faced the exit, and put the vehicle into park.

  “Stay on the alert,” Brandt ordered, and his tone was one that made Lindsey wonder if Ethan had really been the one in charge over the past couple of years. “If there’s a hole in the wall, there’s a good chance that at least some of the infected have gotten through, and the last thing we need is to be inattentive and get attacked by one of them.”

  “Believe me, I’m aware,” Lindsey said. “We’ve had a few near-misses in the labs with some of our test subjects, and it’s not a fun experience.” She nodded toward the windshield. “Should we get out of the car?”

  “Nah, let’s stay in the car a little longer,” Brandt suggested. “I’m not going to lie, I’m basking in the whole artificial heating going on in here.” He tilted his head toward her. “You have no idea the things you take for granted until you don’t have constant access to them.”

  “I can’t imagine,” Lindsey said. “I’m not sure I even want to.”

  “You’ll get to live it when we go across that wall,” Brandt warned her. “No need to try to imagine it.”

  The crunch of tires on gravel interrupted any conversation that might have followed. Lindsey leaned forward in her seat to search for the approaching car, and headlights washed across the windshield. She wrapped her fingers around the grip of the pistol she’d tucked into the console between the seats, in case it was someone that had no business showing up there. She relaxed when she recognized Jacob’s car pulling up the long gravel drive, let go of the pistol, and reached for the door handle. “It’s Jacob,” she told Brandt. She opened the door and clambered out. She remained standing in the open doorway, the door acting as a shield between her and the approaching vehicle, which slowed to a stop a few feet away from her car. The headlights cut out, and Jacob emerged from the driver’s seat, a smile on his face.

  “We made it!” he announced. The passenger and rear doors opened; a blonde woman slid out of the back seat, and the familiar face of Ethan Bennett appeared. He climbed out of the front passenger seat.

  “Holy shit, you weren’t kidding,” Lindsey said to Jacob. She skirted around the open driver’s door and rushed toward Ethan, impacting with him so hard that she almost knocked him to the ground and throwing her arms around him in a tight hug. Ethan stumbled backward but kept his feet, and he wrapped his arms around her, returning her hug with enthusiasm.

  “You have no idea how great it is to see a familiar face,” Ethan said, grasping her by her biceps and nudging her back so he could look at her. “It is so good to see you. How in the hell did you end up here?”

  “My doctorate,” Lindsey explained. “Who knew a degree in microbiology would come in handy in the apocalypse?”

  “I can see how it would,” Ethan acknowledged. He released her, taking a step back to put some distance between them, and looked her over again. “Jeez, you look good,” he commented. “Healthy. I’m glad.”

  “We haven’t exactly had it as hard as you guys have,” Lindsey remarked. “Some shortages on certain materials that were manufactured in the southeast initially. Once those were overcome, we haven’t had much in the way of problems.”

  “Lucky you,” Brandt muttered, his tone bitter.

  “We should get out of here,” the blonde woman who’d arrived with Jacob and Ethan said, and Lindsey turned her attention to her. The woman stood near the rear of the car, covered in cobwebs, dust, and dirt, wearing rumpled and filthy scrubs, her blonde hair tangled. She wasn’t the most attractive woman Lindsey had ever seen, especially not with the mess that she currently was, but she was pretty, with wide eyes, a good bone structure, and a fair complexion that made Lindsey a bit jealous. Judging by the way he turned to give the woman his full attention, Ethan hadn’t failed to notice her prettiness either. Lindsey wondered again what had happened over the past two years that Ethan would appear to have forgotten about Anna—a woman he’d been so devoted and dedicated to bef
ore the outbreak—in favor of this unknown woman.

  “We’re too close to the Wall for my comfort,” the woman was saying when Lindsey snapped back into reality and out of the past. “With the infected getting in, it’s only a matter of time before they reach us. It’ll be a horde. We don’t have the supplies necessary to deal with a horde.”

  “We’ve never had the supplies necessary to deal with a horde,” Ethan said. “Kimberly’s right, though. We should get out of here.”

  “Where are we going to go?” Jacob spoke up. “If we wait much longer, no place will be safe.”

  “I’m going south,” Brandt said. Everyone present, save for Lindsey, turned surprised gazes onto the former Marine. “I’ve got to track down my wife. I’m not leaving her to fend for herself, regardless of whether or not she’s capable of it.”

  “I’m going with him,” Lindsey said. “If I have a chance to find my sister, I’m going to take it. I don’t care about the risks.”

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Jacob asked, his tone hesitant and worried.

  “What makes you think it’s not?” Lindsey retorted, already knowing the answer, fully aware that anything he had to say would involve the words “the infected” and “the Michaluk Virus.” She shook her head and put a hand up to stop him before he could say anything. “Don’t answer that. I already know what you’re going to say. Whatever you have to say isn’t going to change my mind in the slightest.”

  “I’ll help you,” Ethan offered. He’d taken a few steps back towards the car he’d arrived in, to stand closer to the blonde woman that Lindsey still hadn’t been introduced to. “As soon as we find some place safe for Kimberly to go—”

  “No,” Kimberly cut in, shaking her head vehemently. “You’re not leaving me behind.”

  “Kim,” Ethan said, his tone pleading. He took her by the elbow and led her several feet away, where the rest of them couldn’t hear their conversation. Lindsey watched them argue for a moment, then looked to Brandt with a raised eyebrow.

  “Are those two…?” she asked, trailing off her question meaningfully.

  “If not yet, then probably soon,” Brandt commented. “They’ve been dancing around each other for months now. It’s getting absurd.”

  Ethan turned away from Kimberly and approached them again; Kimberly followed, a scowl on her face. “We’re both going with you to help,” he reported when he reached them. “We have experience dealing with the infected, and we’ll be more help going with you than staying here.”

  A smile spread across Lindsey’s face. “I knew you’d get it worked out,” she said with ill-concealed confidence. “Now we need to figure out the best way to get on the other side of the Wall without any of us getting killed.”

  Chapter 51

  Cade awoke to the first blushes of dawn against the sky and the faint but constant sound of gunfire in the distance. She rubbed at her right eye and sat up straight, pushing a strand of dark hair out of her face, trying to remember where she was. It came back in a quick rush of memory: Dominic’s death, Remy going crazy, the explosion, and the mad clamber to the roof. She bit back a groan and shoved herself to her feet with only minimal awkwardness, stretching the kinks out of her back before she approached Keith. He sat on the edge of the roof, his legs dangling off into space, Sadie’s shotgun resting across his lap.

  “You didn’t wake me up to take watch,” Cade commented, sitting on the roof beside him.

  Keith shrugged. “I wasn’t tired,” he replied, “didn’t think I could sleep, so I let you have some extra rest.”

  “Thank you,” Cade acknowledged, “but don’t you need rest too?”

  “I’ll be fine,” Keith said. “I’ve gone without sleep more often than I’ve had it over the past three or four years.”

  “Insomnia issues?” Cade asked sympathetically.

  “Off and on since I finished college,” Keith said. “I’ve learned to deal with it.”

  Cade stared at the chaos in the distance, at the infected teeming around the break in the wall, all trying to shove themselves through the gap to the other side. She imagined that the world on the other side of the wall was a veritable smorgasbord for them. Tendrils of smoke curled skyward from the detonation that Remy had set off to open the gap, and if she squinted, Cade could see the outline of figures moving around on top of the wall, aiming rifles into the mass of infected and firing into them. Uselessly, she knew.

  “There’s no way they have enough ammunition to deal with all of that,” she said out loud.

  “Man, that looks like it’s going to be hell to get through,” Keith acknowledged. “Any ideas how we’re going to do it?”

  “I haven’t the foggiest,” Cade said. “Getting out of here will be hard enough. Getting over there? Probably impossible. The only thing that comes to mind is shooting our way through.”

  “Do we have enough ammunition for that?” Keith asked.

  “Probably not,” Cade acknowledged. “But we have to try.”

  “What about Olivia?” Keith asked hesitantly.

  A pang of regret and sadness arced through Cade, and she closed her eyes, trying to push the feeling aside. She couldn’t think about her child, not right now, not with everything going on right there in front of them. “I’m doing this for her,” she said. “I can’t… right now, the world is more important, because if we don’t do something about that,” she pointed toward the wall, “then there won’t be a safe world left for her to live in.”

  “The rest of us could do all that,” Keith said. “You could go back to be with her…”

  “I can’t,” Cade said. “I could never live with myself if I left you guys to clean this up without me.” She looked out at the mess beyond and added, “Besides, my husband is out there somewhere. I can’t go home without bringing him with me, can I?”

  “I guess not,” Keith said, and his voice sounded begrudging, like he didn’t want to give her that concession. “But how the hell are we going to do this? We need to come up with a plan that will get you out of this alive, because while you couldn’t live with yourself if you bailed on us, I couldn’t live with myself if you got killed in the process.”

  “Thank you for your concern, Keith,” Cade said. She grasped his wrist and squeezed it briefly. “Trust me, though, I can take care of myself. I’ve done so under worse circumstances.” She leaned forward from her perch to examine the ground below. “Hey, look at that,” she said, pointing down the street. “The infected are thinning out.”

  “You think this first wave is trickling to a stop?” Keith asked.

  “First wave is a good description,” Cade said, “and yeah, I’m thinking it is. Maybe another hour and we might get a chance to get the hell out of here and see what we can do to help.”

  “You sure you want to do this?” Keith asked.

  “I’m more concerned if the other two are willing,” Cade said. “They’re so young, barely eighteen. They shouldn’t be involved in this.”

  “They have as much stake in this as we do,” Keith said. “It’s their world too, you know? They want to fight for it. Hell, they’re more than capable of it. Have you seen Sadie fight? It’s insane.”

  “She reminds me of a much saner Remy,” Cade agreed. “I don’t know that I’m willing to put them in the line of fire, though.” She nodded toward the wall. “You saw what those people did to Dominic. A shot like that, it takes a serious expert marksman to hit a target that small all the way from that wall. That shot had to be, hell, two hundred yards. I don’t hold any illusions that they won’t try the same to us on approach.”

  “We need a distraction,” Keith suggested.

  “Or maybe something so out there that they won’t shoot us on sight,” Cade said. “Something that will make them realize that we’re on their side and that we’re not sick.”

  “You look like you have an idea tickling around in your head.”

  “Yes, I think I do,” Cade said. She stood and dusted off h
er jeans. “We need to find two vehicles, conspicuous ones if this is going to work the way I’m thinking.”

  Chapter 52

  “You want me to find a what?” Sadie asked, raising her eyebrows in surprise at Cade’s latest request. Cade stood in front of her with an impatient expression on her face, her fingers hooked behind the strap that held her rifle on her shoulder. Keith stood beyond her, his own expression unchanging at Cade’s orders. Jude looked completely nonplussed.

  “An ambulance,” Cade said. “Or if you can’t find one of those, maybe a fire truck or a couple of police cars.”

  “You’re kidding, right?” Sadie asked. “Where the hell am I going to find something like that around here?” She waved her hand vaguely, indicating the semi-destroyed ruins of the buildings around them.

  “You’re smart,” Cade replied. “Get creative.”

  “I’m not going to find one,” Sadie shot back. She pointed at the wall in the distance. “It looks like those guys cleared everything useful out. Everything.” She repeated the word emphatically. “Then they practically razed the place. It’s not happening. Whatever you’re thinking, you need a new plan.”

  “You’re not going to do it?” Cade asked, her tone disappointed.

  “No, I’m not going to do it, and neither is Jude, so don’t bother asking him,” Sadie said. “Besides which, don’t you think a vehicle like that would draw their attention away from the wall and onto us?”

  “That was the idea,” Cade said. “You got a better one?”

  “Why don’t we do the most obvious thing?” Sadie suggested. She pointed toward the east, in the direction that ran parallel to the wall. “We go that way until we’re clear of all this mess, then find a way to climb over the wall and go from there.”