“And you would trust me with it?” Cade asked cautiously. She picked up another sidearm and tried to affect a manner of nonchalance. Brandt saw right through the act, and a small smile quirked at the corner of his lip. He stomped it down quickly.
“Yeah, of course. I mean, shit, you’re one of the only people here who knows what you’re doing. I mean, really knows what you’re doing,” he emphasized. “The others are good, but with the exception of maybe Ethan, they’ve survived by sheer luck or total insanity. I know that’s not the case with you. If you’re with me, I don’t have to worry about those bastards sneaking up on me and taking me out. And I know that if I get Michaluk, you won’t hesitate to put me down, just like you promised.”
Cade nodded. A soft smile graced her lips, and she stared down at the weapon in her hands. “I would,” she agreed quietly, busying herself with the gun once more.
Chapter 7
“I can’t believe you’re willing to go along with that woman’s idiotic idea,” Ethan bit out. He paced across the creaky floorboards in his dim bedroom. The cold wood bit into the soles of his bare feet, and the chilly air made his bare chest and arms prickle with goose bumps. But he disregarded the chill, so intent was he on his ranting. “I mean, really, it’s a fucking moronic idea, and the woman is a fucking … I don’t even know a good word to describe her. I don’t think there is one that covers how hopelessly stupid her idea is.”
Remy Angellette perched on top of the bed’s rumpled covers, her bare legs tucked underneath her. She wore Ethan’s shirt, earlier discarded, and it hung loosely over her small frame. The partially unbuttoned garment slid off her shoulder to reveal the curve of her neck, but her long hair obscured Ethan’s view of her skin. Thank the Lord for that, because if he’d been able to see it, it would have derailed his train of thought, and he’d never have gotten it back on track.
Remy didn’t look up at Ethan while he vented. Instead, she kept her eyes on the long bolo knife in her hand, polishing it with a soft, clean cloth, rubbing down the blade in slow, sure strokes. Ethan was still baffled that she brought the thing with her when she snuck into his room three hours earlier. He couldn’t imagine what she might possibly need it for, not with the two sidearms he always kept by the bed. It wasn’t like they expected an invasion. Unless she planned to kill him in his sleep. The thought was unsettling.
Regardless of her plans, Remy didn’t seem interested in anything Ethan had to say. That only made him crankier.
“Are you even listening to me?” Ethan demanded.
“Mmhm,” Remy hummed. She shook the cloth out, using the edge of it to clean the line where blade met hilt. “Asinine, idiotic, stupid woman, bad idea, even worse to consider it, blah, blah, blah,” she said mildly.
Ethan stopped pacing and glared at Remy, the urge to throttle her rising. He crossed his arms to stop himself. It was infuriating how nonchalantly she treated the whole situation. “You really don’t see the problem here, do you?”
“What, that Avi’s idea is suicide?” Remy asked. She looked up from the long knife, staring at Ethan steadily. The hard look in her eyes surprised him, and his urge to throttle started to recede. She would probably kick his ass if he tried to lay a hand on her—not that he actually would. “I’m aware of it,” she said. “I’ve heard all the stories about Atlanta and how bad it is. I know the dangers.” She smoothed the cloth over the blade again, more slowly, almost reflexively. “I’m going anyway. Regardless of what you think.”
“But why?” Ethan demanded. In his frustration, he threw his arms into the air and let them flop to his sides again.
“You look like Gray when you do that,” Remy commented in amusement, returning her eyes to the knife.
Ethan gave her a dirty look and rolled his eyes. “Don’t you even compare me to that bastard,” he muttered.
“Gray’s not a bastard,” Remy countered. She set the blade on the mattress beside her, tossing the dirty cloth onto the floor. She reclined back on her hands, shifting to stretch out her bare legs, letting them hang off the edge of the bed. “He’s just very strong willed. Kind of like you, hey?”
Ethan paused in mid-step and gave Remy an odd look, raising an eyebrow. He appreciated the nice view of her long legs, but he couldn’t deny the niggling worry that poked at the back of his brain with a sharp stick. “You’re not sleeping with him too, are you?”
Remy’s eyes widened, and her mouth dropped open. She gave him a dirty look to rival the one he’d given her. “You seriously didn’t just ask me that.”
Ethan sighed in exasperation and tugged up his too-big jeans as they threatened to slip off his hips. “No, no, never mind. Stupid-ass question, and I wouldn’t want to know the answer anyway.” He rubbed both hands over his face. “You’re deflecting from the argument.” The urge to throttle started to come back, and he dropped his hands, shoving them into his pockets. “Answer the question,” he ordered. “Why are you so eager to go on what even you know is a total suicide mission?”
Remy still obviously rankled over Ethan’s earlier question, but she answered anyway. “Maybe because I want to do something meaningful with my life.” She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, and Ethan’s hands itched to twist the curls around his fingers again. She wrapped his shirt around her more closely and pulled her knees to her chest. The position made her look innocent and lost, like she had no idea what she was doing or why she was doing it. Ethan’s heart hurt for her. But his surprise at her words overrode his urge to take her into his arms and hold her tightly.
“Helping us dig people out of trouble isn’t meaningful enough for you?” Ethan asked gently. This was news to him. On the group’s prior missions, the young woman threw herself into the act of helping people with as much enthusiasm and focus as the rest of them. And on the previous nights when they were together, Remy never mentioned any dissatisfaction with her lot in life, outside of the norm for any of them.
“It’s fine, Ethan. It’s just … I think my parents would have wanted me to help Avi,” Remy said softly. She looked down at her hands, a faint quaver in her voice. “I feel like none of us has a future. That we’re all just living on borrowed time, you know? It’s only a matter of time before the infected get us all. And if not that, we’ll run out of ammunition one day, or maybe food or water or something else really important, and then what? What’s going to happen when there are no more supplies left to gather? If we hit that point, we’re dead. And I don’t want to go out like that without having done something I would be proud of, something my parents would be proud of.” She paused and swallowed hard, running a hand over her eyes. “I just … I don’t want to be forgotten the minute I’m dead, like everybody else who’s passed on. If I do something really, truly meaningful, if I help what’s left of humanity in some big way, maybe that won’t happen.”
Ethan looked at Remy, his eyes wide and his jaw hanging slightly open. He snapped his mouth shut and flopped into the overstuffed chair in the corner of the room, slouching ungracefully, his head leaning back against the chair. He ran his hand through his hair and tried to process what Remy had said.
Ethan had no idea that the woman felt that way; he hadn’t known that she viewed the world they lived in as hopeless. He’d always maintained hope that the Michaluk Virus would be defeated, that humanity would bounce back as it had from countless other decimations and diseases. Even if not for him—he readily acknowledged there wouldn’t be much left for him if life ever resembled normal again—then for the others. He constantly fought to instill that hope in the rest of the group. He didn’t like that Remy thought that way. The woman was so young; she had so much to live for and a drive to survive unlike that of anyone Ethan had ever seen. Even if she did do stupidly risky shit from time to time.
“You really feel that way?” Ethan asked. He dropped his hand to the arm of the chair and watched the brunette who sat nearly motionless at the end of his bed. She bit her bottom lip and stared at the floor, her back straight and h
er shoulders squared. The sad expression she wore reminded Ethan of one he’d seen on Cade’s face the year before, when the two of them hid in the basement of Cade’s house on the night Memphis began its fall. The sight made his heart hurt all over again. “You really think all of this is hopeless?” He waved his hand to indicate the world at large. “That we’re just buying time until we all bite it?”
“Isn’t that what everyone is doing?” Remy asked. “Trying to barter for one more year, one more day? Even before Michaluk ruined us all, we did that.” She traced her finger along the edge of the blankets beneath her and spoke to the floor. “We’d get ourselves into trouble or receive some bad news, and we’d say, ‘Please God, just let me live through this. Just let me see another day.’”
“That’s human nature, Remy,” Ethan said. “It’s just human nature to wish and hope and pray for things we might not get.”
Remy nodded and sucked in a deep breath. “I keep thinking to myself, if I could have one wish, what would I wish for? And I know I’m supposed to choose something selfless, like maybe the Michaluk Virus just going away or never having happened or whatever. But all I can think about when I try to answer is my baby sister. I’d give anything to have Madeline back.”
“And I would give anything and everything in the world for Anna,” Ethan admitted quietly. “But I know that’s not going to happen. So instead, I go out of my way to make sure other people don’t have to suffer any more of the same losses they already have, so that maybe they can have a chance at a little happiness in this shitty world we’ve got now.”
Remy sat up straighter and finally looked at Ethan. He met her dark eyes; they were oddly shiny, as if she suppressed tears. The sight sent a slight pang of sympathy through Ethan’s stomach. “Ethan, that is exactly why I need to help Avi,” Remy said. “If we can do something about this, find out where this virus came from and why, maybe someone can do something with the information and come up with a vaccine or a cure. Maybe we can save everybody left from the fear of contracting the virus. Maybe we can keep some little girl out there from losing her daddy or some woman from losing her husband.”
Ethan didn’t know how to deny that appeal, not from Remy. Her words hit him like a sledgehammer, going to the root of his feelings on the situation, pressing every button on the way. It was the very essence of what he tried to do—save people from going through the pain he dealt with every day. Ethan ran his hands through his hair again and broke his gaze from Remy’s face. He couldn’t look at her anymore. It hurt too much. “Remy,” he started.
“Say you’re in this with me, Ethan,” Remy pleaded. She slid off the bed, her slender body moving with a catlike grace, and slunk over to him. She knelt on the floor so she could look him in the face, her hands resting lightly on his knees, a position of total supplication. “Tell me you’re going to help, even if just by giving me and Avi supplies so we can try to put this thing to rest.”
Ethan swallowed hard and forced his eyes to Remy’s once more. Hers were wide and dark, and he felt like he was falling as he stared deeply into them. She bit her lip again, her eyes still wet and pleading, and Ethan nearly leaned forward to kiss her; he’d have done anything to get rid of the look on her face. He shifted his eyes to the space above her head. For the first time since Avi Geller’s arrival, Ethan seriously considered the woman’s proposal and his participation in the attempt. If Remy was going into Atlanta, she would need help. Ethan cared too much about her to allow Avi Geller to be Remy’s sole protection on the dangerous route to the city.
Ethan swallowed again. Remy still begged him with her wide brown eyes. He couldn’t stand the look on her face, the look he couldn’t say no to. It was the same look that put him in the position he was in, hiding important things from his best friend. He blew out a soft breath and tugged gently at Remy’s upper arms. “Come here,” he said quietly. And once Remy was in his lap, Ethan wrapped his arms around her and held her close, his forehead resting on her shoulder. She ran her fingers through his hair, and he lifted his head to kiss her softly. Ethan knew that, deep in his heart, he had already silently agreed to her proposal. All he had left to do was say it out loud.
“Okay,” Ethan mumbled against her mouth once the kiss broke. “Okay, Remy. I’ll help you, okay?”
Chapter 8
The following morning found the eight people clustered around the large dining table, watching Nikola slowly turn the pages in Ethan’s book of road maps. Remy hadn’t seen the battered paperback in almost three months. Before the world went to shit, Remy had been a religious user of all things Google for her directions. She wasn’t sure she knew more than the basics of map reading without some guidance.
“We are … here,” Nikola announced. She used a red marker to draw a blood-colored dot on the Alabama map, not far from the capitol, Montgomery. Remy leaned over Nikola’s shoulder and read the small black-lettered label beside the dot. It said, simply, “Maplesville.”
“So we’re on the border of the middle of nowhere,” Cade clarified. She unsheathed a knife from her belt and snatched the map book from Nikola’s grasp, using the edge of the blade to pry up the staples in the middle of the book. Nikola gave Cade a dirty look that made Remy laugh, but Cade ignored it and pulled the map free. She flipped farther back to the G section as the conversation continued.
“Yeah, basically,” Nikola said. She grabbed the Alabama map, waiting until Cade pried the state of Georgia out and passed it to her before she laid both maps out side by side. Nikola smoothed them out and hunched over them, grabbing a scrap of paper and starting to do what appeared to be complicated measurements and calculations with her fingers. After a few minutes of silence, during which Remy watched attentively and impatiently, hoping to actually pick up something useful from Nikola’s messy scrawl, the teenager straightened and announced, “It’s about two hundred miles from here to Atlanta.”
“That’s a long way,” Remy said. She rested her hands on the edge of the table and squinted at the maps. Her eyes darted over the papers as she tried to decipher all the different routes and options laid out before them. The map was a colorful, tangled mess, and Remy had no idea where to start. “We’ll be traveling to Atlanta on our bikes, right? How long will that take?”
“I’m not sure,” Nikola admitted, looking to Cade, Brandt, and Ethan in turn for guidance. Remy shook her head and snagged Nikola’s paper to figure out the problem, but Brandt spoke up before she could put pencil to paper.
“About twenty hours, maybe,” Brandt said, his tone subdued. He sat on the edge of the table, plucking the knife from Cade’s hands and beginning to tap the flat of the blade rhythmically against his knuckles. He didn’t look at the rest of them. “That assumes we’ll ride nonstop, which we can’t physically do. And it would keep us out on the road longer than I’m comfortable with.”
Remy shook her head again, slowly and thoughtfully. Even as Brandt spoke, she mentally put the pieces together. “We need another way to travel,” she theorized. “There is no way I, for one, can handle riding two hundred miles on a fucking bike.”
“Bikes,” Avi repeated. Remy looked up at the blonde across from her and raised an eyebrow. She’d figured the woman was an airhead, but she never guessed that Avi was deaf too. “You mean, like, motorcycles? Or …?”
“No, I mean bikes. You know, like, the kind you pedal,” Remy corrected. She smirked and looked away from Avi, back to the maps. It was a smart-assed answer, but Remy didn’t care; Avi’s question had been incredibly stupid, in her opinion. She was starting to agree with Ethan’s assessment of Avi’s mental state. Remy traced her finger along one of the interstates running east from Alabama to Georgia and hummed thoughtfully. The map began to look clearer, not quite the page full of scribbles it was before. Remy could see specific roads and highways and all the possibilities open to them.
“So what do you suggest?” Ethan asked. He sank into a chair and pulled a thin notebook and pencil out of the bag hanging on the back o
f it. He jotted notes into the notebook as he waited on Remy’s response, not looking at her.
“We should take a truck or something,” Remy said slowly. She twisted a lock of her hair around her fingers and snuck a peek at Ethan. She remembered the night before, when she went to him, when she tried to convince him to go with her and Avi, and when things escalated into physicality. Yet again. Her breath caught in her throat; she swallowed the sensation down and beat the thoughts back into their dark little corner. It wasn’t time to dwell on Ethan and the way he’d touched her. She cleared her throat. “We could put two or three of us in the truck and the rest following in another vehicle,” Remy suggested. “The bikes we can load up into the back of the truck for when we have to ditch the vehicles. At the very least, we can cut out a chunk of travel time before we have to resort to the bikes.”
“But what route should we take?” Cade spoke up. She leaned against Remy to look at the map. Remy casually slung an arm around the other woman’s shoulder and gave her a friendly squeeze. Cade rewarded her with a smile and continued. “If we take I-65/85, it’s going to take us right through Montgomery. Last I heard, that city is overrun. But if we go for I-20/59, that goes close to Birmingham. It isn’t any better than Montgomery. Might even be worse, considering it was a secondary outbreak point.”
“We’ll want to stick with roads off the beaten path, if we can manage,” Brandt agreed. He slid off the table and sank into a chair with a heavy sigh. “But that will add to our travel time too, and to the amount of supplies we need to carry with us.”
The Becoming: Ground Zero Page 6