Remy stretched out on her stomach and adjusted her pack so it rested more comfortably against her back. Then she took up where Brandt left off, searching for any sign of movement whatsoever on the ground level. As Remy squinted at the street below, her hand shielding her eyes from the sunlight, a movement between cars caught her attention. She leaned forward, trying to make out what caused it, even as Brandt took in a sharp gasp of air.
“Somebody’s coming down the street,” he told her, his voice hushed and urgent. “At a dead run. They’re headed in this direction.”
“And I think that’s an infected guy heading their way,” Remy said as she realized what she was looking at. Man or woman, she couldn’t tell at that distance. She grabbed Brandt’s arm and pointed out the infected. Brandt followed her arm with his binoculars, and his jaw clenched.
“The infected is going to intercept whoever it is that’s come out of that building,” he said. “It’s a black male, already injured, but I can’t make out much else.” He grabbed his rifle and backpack. “You any good with a rifle?”
“Not from very far away,” Remy admitted sheepishly.
Brandt thrust the rifle and binoculars at her and slung his pack onto his back, rising to his feet. “Cover me anyway. Just don’t shoot me. I’m going down to get that guy out of the line of fire.”
And then Brandt darted away from her, disappearing through the roof access door. Moments later, Remy heard a door open below and the sound of Brandt’s boots striking metal as he clambered down the fire-escape staircase attached to the side of the building. Remy quickly refocused her attention on the street, setting the rifle on the roof and putting the binoculars to her eyes. The world looked strange through the lenses, and it took her a moment to figure out what she was looking at and to adjust her line of sight accordingly.
The man below ran down the street with all the strength he possessed, looking over his shoulder periodically at the building he’d left. Remy took a second to follow his gaze, but there was nothing in sight, much to her disappointment. The infected was closing in on the man fast, though. Remy put the binoculars down and grabbed the rifle, resting it against the ledge and seeking the man out in the rifle’s scope. Once she’d found him, she sought out the infected coming at him from the side. To her horror, Remy realized the fleeing man had yet to notice there was an infected person even close to him. It seemed like the two were going to collide right there in the street.
Remy lifted her head away from the scope and checked to make sure a round was already chambered. She quickly relocated the infected man through the scope. She shifted the rifle just a fraction, settling the crosshairs onto the man’s torso. She thought maybe if she shot the infected man, the one who was uninfected would notice his presence and take appropriate measures. There was no way she’d manage a headshot from this distance. Before she could squeeze the trigger, Brandt burst into her line of vision, and she quickly slipped her finger out of the trigger mechanism so she wouldn’t shoot him. He leapt on top of a car and then off it, diving behind the vehicle and tackling the infected man to the pavement. There was a scuffle, and a knife flashed in Brandt’s hand, reflecting the sunlight as it came up and down several times.
Then Brandt was on his feet again, staggering up and grabbing the injured black man, tugging him in the direction of the building he and Remy occupied. He pointed, and the man seemed to understand and started to run more directly for the building, Brandt following close behind. Remy traced their path with the rifle, searching alongside and behind them for more infected, knowing that where there was one, typically there were far more. Much to her relief, Remy didn’t see anything further. She slowly sat back from the edge of the roof as she heard two sets of feet on the metal fire escape. Her shoulders ached, and she forced them to relax. She hadn’t realized she’d tensed up. She rolled them slowly and gingerly, massaging first one and then the other, as she tried to work the soreness out of them.
The door behind Remy swung open, and she started to turn as she spoke. “Man, Brandt, I am so glad I didn’t have to shoot this thing. It’s scary as shit.” The words had barely left her mouth before her eyes settled on the black man entering the roof just behind Brandt. She stiffened and rose to her feet so quickly it sent a dizzy spell through her head. She pushed it aside and lifted the rifle, pointing it at the man’s chest as he put a hand up defensively. “You.”
The man’s eyes went wide at the sight of Remy pointing the rifle at him, and he nodded his head slightly, almost imperceptibly. “Yeah, me,” he confirmed. Remy looked him over and noticed that his right arm was in a sling. She smirked, remembering how she’d plugged a bullet into his shoulder at the safe house.
“Dominic, isn’t it?” Remy prompted. She nodded toward him with a jerk of her chin. “How’s the shoulder? Painful, I hope.”
“Fairly so, yes,” Dominic admitted.
“Wait, do you two know each other?” Brandt asked, clearly baffled, as he broke into the tension between Remy and Dominic.
“We’ve made each other’s acquaintance before,” Remy said through clenched teeth. “He’s one of the bastards who broke into the safe house and took Cade.” She tightened her grip on the rifle, and Dominic stiffened.
Brandt turned on the man and took a step toward him. “You were involved in that?” he demanded. “You took my … you took Cade and forced her to go with you to God knows where? All because, what, you’re deluded into thinking you can get a cure out of me?” He took another step toward Dominic. “Newsflash, asshole. I don’t have one.”
“It’s not like that,” Dominic protested. He shook his head and took a step back. “It’s not like that at all! I was just following orders!”
“Yeah, that’s what the fucking Nazis said!” Brandt snapped.
“And your stupid orders almost got me killed!” Remy added vehemently. She adjusted her grip on the rifle and leveled the barrel on Dominic’s head. “Give me one damn good reason why I shouldn’t do the same to you!”
“Because I have information on a massive outbreak happening right now inside the Westin,” Dominic said promptly. Remy narrowed her eyes and lowered the rifle, though she kept it gripped tightly in both hands.
“How massive?” she asked. She struggled to keep her voice from betraying the shock and adrenaline running through her. Her hands trembled, and she clenched them around the rifle as she tried desperately to steady her nerves, even as they felt like they were attempting to rattle right out through her skin.
“Probably the biggest single-location outbreak since the Michaluk virus’s initial waves last year,” Dominic said.
“You’re lying,” Remy immediately and bluntly accused.
“No the hell I’m not,” Dominic protested. “It’s bad. It’s really fucking bad.” Something in the man’s voice clued Remy in that the man might actually be telling the truth. Didn’t mean she hated him any less, though.
Brandt moved between Remy and Dominic, much to Remy’s disappointment. “How bad? What is going on in there?” he asked, keeping his voice quiet and level. Despite that, Remy could hear the urgency in his tone.
“She had fucking infected hidden in the hotel. People who were living there who had gone missing over the past nine months, people who were infected and whose medications gave out on them,” Dominic said. Remy heard tears in his voice. “She let them loose, and they’re attacking everybody. Those who aren’t turned will be soon. And those who weren’t infected aren’t going to last much longer in there, if they’re not already dead.” He shook his head and gasped out, “It’s a death trap. The way she set that thing up? It’s going to herd the fucking infected right into the uninfected, and they’re all going to die. That tower is going to be the biggest biological hazard this world has seen in a year.”
“Jesus,” Remy whispered. “Are you serious? You’re telling me Alicia Day has intentionally created a major outbreak inside the Westin for the sole purpose of … what?”
“It’s a punishm
ent,” Dominic said. He squeezed his eyes closed and shook his head. “She’s punishing them for escaping.”
“Stop being so fucking vague!” Brandt snapped. “Punishing who?”
“Last night, we had three people escape from the Westin,” Dominic explained, his eyes still closed as he pressed his fingers against his temples. “A doctor, his assistant, and a man who was on lockdown on the eighteenth floor. The man was infected with Michaluk, and he knew entirely too much about what was going on in the Westin. Alicia was still trying to decide what to do about him when Dr. Rivers and Kim Geller sprung him and got him out of there.”
“Why was this prisoner so important?” Brandt asked. “What’s so special about this prisoner that she would want to keep him locked up anyway?”
“Like I said, he’s infected,” Dominic said. “I don’t know the details. I might have been her handler, but she sure as hell wasn’t willing to divulge everything to me. I just know he was important. I don’t know why. But I also suspect he lost his importance about the same time Alicia tracked down where you guys were, and that’s why she had him locked up.”
“Us guys?” Brandt repeated, raising an eyebrow. Neither of them had offered Dominic any introductions.
“I’m not an idiot,” Dominic said. “I’ve seen your picture and read your file enough to know beyond a shadow of a doubt who you are.”
“And yet, while you have the advantage of knowing who we are, you have yet to explain who the fuck you are,” Brandt snarled. “And, for that matter, who the fuck Alicia Day is. Because contrary to everything she said last year, I never once believed, for one single second, that she was actually a member of the Marines or an MP. So what is she? FBI? CIA? DOJ? What?” When Dominic hesitated, Brandt added, “Explain. Now.”
When Dominic finally spoke, his voice was hushed, low and steady. “DIA,” he said simply.
Brandt took a slight step back in apparent surprise, seemingly knowing what in the world the DIA was. Remy wasn’t so lucky. She frowned and shook her head, gripping the rifle tighter. “What the hell is the DIA?”
Brandt cleared his throat and ran a hand through his hair. “I wasn’t aware it was that serious,” he said before glancing to Remy and answering her question. “The DIA is sort of like the CIA, but it investigates potential threats to military personnel and installations. They also infiltrate foreign militaries in some cases, in order to learn about their training methods and, ideally, their objectives. Among other things. That’s the best way I think I can explain it without confusing the hell out of you.” He turned back to Dominic and asked, “And what’s your relationship with Alicia? What’s her position in the DIA got to do with you?”
“I’m her handler,” Dominic said. “Or I was. I don’t think the DIA technically exists anymore, but considering Alicia’s current state of health and her participation in the testing of the initial pathogen, I’ve continued my work accordingly.”
“And what, exactly, was the DIA’s interest in Michaluk?” Remy spoke up, moving a few steps closer to the two men.
“The same as the military’s interest in the pathogen,” Dominic said. “Enhancement. That’s it. Alicia volunteered and was inserted into the program under the guise of an MP in order to receive the same testing the actual Marines were receiving.” His eyes flickered toward the looming tower behind Remy.
Brandt suddenly switched gears in his questioning, opting to bring it around to the original conversation. “So if everybody in the Westin is infected or will be soon, how did you get out? Are you infected?”
“No, I’m not infected,” Dominic answered. “You can look me over for evidence of that if you so desire. It’s nothing I haven’t been through before.” His dark eyes were serious and tired. “As for how I got out of there, she let me go. She gave me a chance to get out, and I took it. So I took the same route Kim, Derek, and Ethan took when they skipped out last night.”
Remy’s attention was piqued by the names Dominic rattled off. “Ethan?” she repeated, intrigued.
“Yeah, Ethan Bennett,” Dominic said with a short nod. “I’m sure you’re familiar with him.”
Remy sucked in a sharp breath of shock before she staggered over to sit against an air conditioning unit. “Oh my God,” she breathed. “Ethan is alive? But … but that’s not possible.”
“How is it not possible?” Dominic challenged. “I’ve been in contact with him at least once a day for the past month. Believe me, he’s alive.”
“But I heard him die!” Remy protested. “I heard him die while we were escaping. I heard …” She dropped the rifle on the roof carelessly and buried her face in her hands. She dug the heels of her hands against her forehead and fought desperately to breathe. “He’s supposed to be dead. He’s not … he can’t be like that. Not like the infected.”
“He’s not,” Dominic told her in a sympathetic, reassuring tone. “Well, he’s infected, but he’s not like that. He doesn’t try to kill people. He’s more like … more like Alicia, I think. He’s got the Michaluk virus, but the doctor he’s with is probably the only expert on this virus left alive in the entire world. He’s the one who’s come up with the medications the infected people take to keep from going homicidal.”
“So he’s alive?” Remy asked again, her voice even more incredulous. She couldn’t wrap her mind around it. Her throat felt like it was closing up, her lungs burning with effort as tears sprang to her eyes. She tried to suck in a desperate breath, but she couldn’t manage anything more than a faint whimper.
And then Brandt knelt in front of her and wiggled his hand underneath her pack so he could rub her back gently. “Remy, you’re hyperventilating,” he said in a low, soothing voice. “I need you to breathe, okay? Just close your eyes, relax, and breathe. In and out.”
Remy focused on the sound of Brandt’s voice, forcing herself to relax, forcing air into and out of her lungs as he murmured the instructions, until her lungs loosened and allowed her to breathe freely. Her hand found Brandt’s free one, and she clutched it tightly, digging her nails in as she buried her face against his chest and sobbed in a mixture of shock and relief.
Chapter 46
Cade rubbed at her eyes as she crouched in the back of one of the multitude of Army trucks parked around the city, chewing idly on a granola bar Isaac had given her. She hadn’t gotten as much sleep as she’d have liked the night before; over half of it had been spent painstakingly attempting to assemble a rather small bomb out of the odds and ends scavenged for her by Isaac’s people. In the end, she’d thrown a screwdriver across the room in frustration, and the bomb remained unconstructed. It was something that would have taken Brandt’s expertise to accomplish, and in that, they were sorely lacking.
Ethan took a knee on the tailgate beside her and scanned the quiet street. “What are you doing?” he asked.
“Keeping watch,” Cade replied through a bite of granola. She finished chewing and swallowed. “You know, the stuff we’re supposed to do so none of us gets killed.”
Ethan frowned and settled back on the tailgate, watching as she finished off her granola bar and checked over her weapons for the fifth time that morning. She had a lot of them stashed away on her person now, courtesy of Isaac taking up a collection of knives and guns and spare ammunition magazines for her use. As she worked, Cade felt his eyes watching her every move and, quite frankly, it bothered her.
“What is it?” Cade asked. She managed to keep the irritation out of her voice as she pulled the Glock from its holster. The Beretta still had no holster, so she’d taken to keeping it in her waistband. It wasn’t the ideal place to keep a gun, but it’d have to do.
“Are you genuinely not bothered by the idea of killing someone?” Ethan asked. He glanced at Isaac and Kimberly, who talked quietly, and Derek, who pored over papers and scribbled in a battered notebook. “You talk so casually about the possibility of having to kill Alicia. Like you couldn’t care less.”
Cade slapped the magazine back into t
he Glock and shook her head. “The way I see it, Ethan, she’s just another one of the fucking infected,” she said. Even she hated the coldness in her voice. “It’s just an added bonus that she’s the bitch who set the world on the path it’s on today.”
“It’s not too late to get the world off that path,” Ethan said. He looked across the street at the cars piled up there.
“I think I’d rather pull a Brandt and just blow the path up,” Cade muttered.
“Since when have you become so bloodthirsty?” Ethan asked, raising an eyebrow. Cade merely pulled the slide back on the Glock to chamber a round and then popped the magazine back out to add a bullet to it.
“Since that bitch killed Remy,” Cade bit out. “Since she threatened me and my baby and the life of my baby’s father.” She slammed the magazine back into the gun and grimaced. “That is why I want her dead.”
“This isn’t like you, though,” Ethan protested. “This isn’t the Cade Alton I know.”
“And what the hell would the Cade Alton you know do differently?” Cade asked, sliding the Glock into its holster. “What would she have done that I haven’t? Or what would she not have done that I have?”
“She certainly wouldn’t have gone out with the singular purpose of hunting down and murdering another human being,” Ethan replied.
Cade slammed her bag onto the tailgate. “Yes the fuck she would have,” she said harshly. “And she has before. What the hell kind of work do you think a sniper does? Sit on a box with a gun in her hand and look pretty? There might be a lot of jokes about ‘IDF babes’ and all that shit, but that doesn’t mean we’re fucking lawn ornaments or pin-up girls! We had jobs, and we did them above and beyond expectations, because we had something to prove. I took every assignment I was given without question, and I did a damn fine job of all eighteen of them. Not once did I miss a fucking target. And not once did I get caught. I was fucking good at it. So don’t tell me that the Cade Alton you knew wouldn’t have killed anybody, because she fucking damn well did!”
The Becoming: Revelations Page 25