The Becoming: Redemption (The Becoming Series Book 5) (12 page)

“No shit,” Remy said. Dominic glanced at her
long enough to give her a glare before continuing.

“Needless to say, it’s probably one of the
more dangerous areas of downtown Atlanta, outside of anywhere near
the college campuses, hospitals, clinics, or the CDC itself.”

“Sounds like the whole damn town is a barrel
full of fucking monkeys,” Sadie mumbled.

“So what’s our next step?” Keith asked.

“Well, we need to actually get there first,”
Dominic said. “Once we’re closer, we need to figure out which route
would be the safest to take, though once we get within a certain
perimeter of, say, Baker Street, we’re going to be fucked no matter
which way we go or how we go about it, unless a miracle happens
between now and then.”

“This trip sounds more and more exciting,”
Remy quipped. “When’re we gonna get there?”

“Nine or so hours from now, assuming we don’t
stop for anything,” Cade said. “If my mapping skills haven’t failed
me, that is.”

“I’m going to take a nap,” Remy announced.
“Maybe those of us who aren’t driving right now should do the same.
That way we’ll all be awake and alert by the time we get to
Atlanta.”

“Cade, I can take over driving in a few hours
if you’d like so you can rest,” Dominic offered.

“I’ll be fine.”

“Cade—”

“I
said
I’ll be fine.” There was fire
in her eyes and in her voice, enough that Dominic sat back in his
seat again and gave her the briefest of nods.

“Fair enough,” he said. “Let me know if you
change your mind.” As he said that, he had a feeling that nothing
he said or did would make Cade change her mind about anything. She
was on a mission to find her husband. She was probably going to
work herself to death before all was said and done, and there was
nothing he would be able to do about it.

Ethan
mentally prepared for the coming scuffle, adrenaline flooding his
veins. The thought of incapacitating three soldiers was ridiculous.
They were professionally trained men who were geared toward a
shoot-first mentality, and he was a former police officer who,
while trained to do what was necessary, had promised the woman he
liked that he wouldn’t kill them.

But he’d be damned if he stood by while they
killed him or, worse yet, Kimberly.

“Stay here,” he said to Kimberly, his voice
low. “Keep behind this tree unless one of them gets too close to
you. Then I want you to run. Don’t put yourself in danger. Just go
where I can find you again once this is all taken care of.”

Kimberly nodded and grasped his hand for the
barest of moments. “Be careful, okay?”

“Of course.” Ethan wanted kiss her in case
something awful happened and he never had the opportunity to do so
again. He shoved the urge aside. There wasn’t time for
sentimentalities like that. He shrugged his backpack off his
shoulder and handed it to her, then picked up a large stick from
the underbrush. He bounced it against his palm a few times, testing
the weight and balance of it, then ducked out from behind the tree,
stepping into the soldiers’ lines of sight. All three of them
skidded to a halt and raised their weapons to aim at him.

“Lookin’ for me?” he called, making sure
their attentions stayed on the possible danger in front of them and
not on the fact that there should have been two people in their
sights and not just one. Then he started to run, moving parallel to
the soldiers and further away from Kimberly.

He darted from tree to tree, ducking behind
them for shelter, while bullets peppered the trees and shrubbery
around him. He waited for them to run out of ammunition, and when
there was a lull in the shooting, Ethan decided that was his cue to
move. He raced out from behind the tree he’d sheltered behind,
straight at the closest of the three figures. He brought the limb
up and swung it with all the force he could muster. The hefty stick
bashed into the man’s visor and gas mask, slamming both into his
face and sending him staggering backwards off balance. He sprawled
onto the ground, knocked out cold.

Ethan turned his attention to the other two
that were still standing, lifting his branch again and starting
toward them. Both were reloading their weapons with an air of
franticness that betrayed their calm personas as they stood their
ground. The soldier closest to him managed to get his weapon
reloaded first, and he raised his rifle, though not in time to
prevent Ethan from slamming the thick end of the branch into the
man’s stomach, and when the man doubled over with the force of the
blow, he jerked the branch upward underneath the man’s gas mask and
into his jaw. With one last swing, he smacked the soldier on the
side of the head and watched as he tumbled to the ground.

There was one soldier left, and he’d managed
to finish loading his rifle. Ethan started toward him as the man
chambered a round and lifted his weapon. Realizing he wasn’t going
to make it to the soldier in time, Ethan dropped the limb and drew
his Glock faster than a human should have been able to, lifting it
up to point it at the man’s head.

“Drop the rifle, or I’ll ventilate your
skull,” he ordered. The soldier hesitated, and Ethan barked out, “I
said
drop it
.” The soldier lowered the rifle, kneeling to
set it on the ground. “Now take two steps back from it.” He obeyed
Ethan’s order with deliberateness, and it was then that Kimberly
came running up.

“Can you get any more cliché with the lines?”
she asked, stopping beside the felled soldiers and divesting them
of their weapons.

“Sorry,” Ethan said. “Sometimes I say the
first thing that pops into my head. I can’t help it if it sounds
ridiculous.” He jerked his chin toward the soldier. “Take your mask
off,” he told him. The man shook his head, and Ethan repeated,
“Take your mask off,
now
.”

“I can’t!” the soldier said, his voice
muffled by the gas mask. “If I do, they’ll kill me!”

“That doesn’t matter, because you won’t be
going back to them,” Ethan said. “Take it off.”

Reluctantly, the soldier reached up and
grasped the gas mask, unfastening the straps and pulling it off his
face. Ethan raised an eyebrow in surprise when he got a look at the
face underneath the mask. The soldier was much younger than he’d
expected, around nineteen or twenty, about as green as military
guys came. He looked to be of mixed race, maybe Hispanic and
Caucasian, dark haired and dark eyed, his face flushed from the
heat generated from the limited air circulation underneath the gas
mask. He held the mask in his right hand, letting it hang at his
side.

“What do you want with me?” the man asked,
sounding wary. Ethan could see the terror in his eyes, and he
wondered what in the hell the military had told him that would have
him so scared to take his mask off.

“Information,” Ethan said. “And your
help.”

“Why should I help you?”

“Because right now, you’ve got nothing to
lose for doing so,” Ethan said. “You’ve said yourself that they’ll
kill you for taking your mask off. By helping us, you’ll have a
shot at staying alive.”

The man looked at him warily. “How so?”

Ethan paused, trying to decide the wisdom of
telling the man what he and Kimberly were doing out in the middle
of nowhere, but he didn’t see where it would hurt. This man was at
the disadvantage here, not him. So he sighed and explained, “We’re
trying to find the CDC.”

“The CDC is gone,” the soldier said.

“There are probably other medical facilities,
right?” Ethan said. “
Somebody
out there has to be
operational and working on this virus.”

“Maybe,” the soldier said. “If they were,
what would you want with them? If they’ve got a vaccine, they’re
not going to give it to you.”

“
We
have a vaccine,” Ethan said. The
soldier’s eyes widened in shock. “It’s been tested, and it works.
We just need to get it into the hands of someone who can actually
do something with it.”

“How…how did you get this?” the man asked.
“We searched the main CDC offices in Atlanta, and there was no sign
of a cure, a vaccine, an antidote…nothing.”

“We’ve had the good fortune to work directly
with a CDC doctor for the past seven or so months,” Ethan
explained. “He’s been working nonstop on a cure since the outbreak
started.”

“What do you want me to do?” the man
asked.

“There are probably other medical facilities
that are still operational, right?” Ethan said. “You guys are
obviously up and running, so
somebody
has to be working on
this virus. I need you to take me to them.”

The soldier’s shoulders sagged at Ethan’s
words, as if he were suddenly weary, resigned to answering his
questions. “The CDC is bust,” he told them. “There’s nothing in the
southeast that is functioning. I do know of a research facility
that’s up and running and doing research on the virus to try to
create a cure. Maybe they can help you.”

“Where is this facility located?”

“Eden, North Carolina.”

Brandt
mounted the stairs on the other side of the exit door, feeling like
his heart was going to beat right out of his chest from sheer
nervousness. A cool breeze assaulted him when he reached the top,
and he paused to enjoy it, closing his eyes, letting the breeze
ruffle his hair. One of the soldiers nudged him in the back, and he
took a few steps forward to make room for the others to get on the
platform. Then he looked over his surroundings curiously.

Wherever they were, it was somewhere elevated
off the ground. He stood on a metal catwalk-like walkway that ran
off into the distance, with an intersection of walkways not far in
front of him. When he looked down, he found himself staring at a
beehive of activity, dozens upon dozens of people bustling about
doing all manner of activities that were incomprehensible to
Brandt. He glanced behind him, checking to see if the others were
there, and he felt reassured when he saw the beautiful woman who
resembled Cade standing at the back of the group. He took a deep
breath and let the soldiers goad him forward toward the
intersection, where he was directed to the left.

Moments later, he stood at the top of a
massive wall, looking into a vast expanse of blackness. The wall
had to have been at least fifty feet tall, high enough that the
wind felt like it was blowing too hard where he stood. At the foot
of the wall, he saw a strip of cleared ground roughly two hundred
yards wide, not a tree or other sign of life anywhere in it. Beyond
that stood large piles of rubble, like all the buildings had been
demolished to create a makeshift outer wall. The wall he stood on
ran in either direction for as far as his eyes could see,
disappearing into the darkness. Spotlights shone over the strip of
cleared ground, occasionally panning over to the rubble-wall as if
searching for potential attacks. About fifty yards to his right was
a massive gate built into the wall, large enough to march half an
army through. The sight of it was enough to unsettle him.

“What…what is this?” Brandt asked, mentally
grimacing at the faint tremor in his voice.

“What you’re looking at is the ruins that are
the remains of the southeastern United States,” Bradford said,
moving up to stand beside him. “Hundreds upon hundreds of square
miles of wasteland, infection, and death.”

“And plenty of life too,” Brandt commented.
“So, what, you’ve built a fortress to keep out the infected?
Granted, it’s the biggest one I’ve ever seen, but who cares? There
are probably miniature fortresses all over the U.S.”

Bradford stared at him for a long moment, and
Brandt stared back, daring him to contradict him as the beginnings
of a sinking, nauseous feeling stirred in his gut. Finally,
Bradford let out a heavy breath through his nose and shook his head
sorrowfully. “Lieutenant Evans, there’s a lot you’re unaware of in
this new world,” he said. He beckoned to Brandt and the soldiers.
“Follow me, please.”

Despite Brandt’s resistance toward doing
anything the man asked him to do, he was compelled to follow.

The major led him across the catwalk back to
the intersection, then kept going straight, heading toward what
Brandt presumed was the other side of the wall. As they approached
it, he heard an odd mishmash of sounds that he hadn’t heard in
almost two years radiating from somewhere ahead of him, like car
horns honking and traffic rumbling. There was a glow on the
horizon, one he hadn’t noticed before when he’d been distracted
looking at his immediate surroundings, and his mouth drew down in a
frown.

“What is this?” Brandt asked. Then he caught
a glimpse of the world on the other side of the wall, and his heart
felt like it stuttered to a stop. He gripped the metal railing in
front of him, his knees weak, his breath catching in his throat at
the awe-inspiring sight in front of him.

A small city was spread out before him, its
streets brilliantly lit by street lamps, its buildings’ windows
glowing with the familiar yellow light of civilization that he
hadn’t seen in two years. Cars trundled down the road, and if he
squinted, he could make out the silhouettes of people on sidewalks,
moving in and out of several buildings, laughing and conversing
among themselves. Though there were military personnel everywhere,
the city, wherever it was, was the very picture of tranquility,
like its inhabitants were unfazed by the infectious menace
rampaging through their world.

The sinking feeling in Brandt’s gut spiked.
He turned away from the sight and faced Bradford, his face feeling
tight as anger surged to the surface. “What the hell is this?” he
demanded, jabbing a hand at the sight before him as best he could,
considering his hands were still cuffed together.

“This is Eden, North Carolina,” Bradford
said, absurdly calm in the face of Brandt’s anger.