The Becoming: Redemption (The Becoming Series Book 5) (17 page)

One of Brandt’s hands darted from his side
and clasped her wrist. He held it, not tightly, just firmly enough
that she wouldn’t be able to pull away without effort. Lindsey
squeaked involuntarily, muffling it at the last second, casting a
quick glance to the door before returning her eyes to Brandt’s
face. His dark brown eyes had fluttered open a crack, enough for
her to tell that he was awake. She wondered if he’d been faking the
unconsciousness and for how long he’d been doing it.

She leaned closer, the cup of the stethoscope
still against his chest, and whispered, “Lieutenant Evans, I don’t
know if you remember me or—”

“Lindsey,” he interrupted, his voice
hoarse.

“Yeah, I’m Lindsey,” she confirmed. “Lindsey
Alton.”

“Cade’s sister,” Brandt said.

“You know Cade?” Lindsey asked. “Cade
Alton?”

Brandt nodded and shifted on the cot, as if
he were uncomfortable and trying to ease sore muscles.

“Cade Evans now,” he mumbled, and Lindsey’s
heart leaped at the revelation. “We got married…oh hell, three
months ago?” His eyes brightened with the thought of her, then
clouded over with resignation and sadness.

“She’s not…she isn’t dead, is she?” Lindsey
asked, scared to hear the answer.

“I don’t know,” Brandt answered. “She was in
Woodside. I don’t know if she made it out before they dropped that
bomb you said they dropped. She’s very, very pregnant. I don’t know
how far she could have gotten with the baby to contend with.”

“Oh hell,” Lindsey breathed, shocked to find
out that her sister, a woman who’d been adamant that she’d never
get married or have children of her own, was not only married, but
pregnant as well.

“I’ve got to get out of here,” Brandt
replied. “I’ve got to find her. I can’t stay here not knowing
whether or not she’s alive.” He let out a soft snort and muttered,
“Now I guess I know how Ethan felt after his wife died in
Memphis.”

“Who’s Ethan?” Lindsey asked, dropping the
stethoscope into her medical bag and digging inside it. She had no
idea what she was looking for; she was just wasting time until the
soldiers said her time with the prisoner was up.

“He’s… I guess he’s my best friend after
Cade,” Brandt said. “He and Cade are the two I’ve been surviving
with the longest, almost since day one.”

Lindsey dug her blood pressure cuff from her
bag and wrapped it around his bicep. It was pleasantly muscular,
like he’d taken pains to keep himself toned and strong. “What about
Josephine?” she asked, scared of the answer but desperate to know
regardless.

Brandt shifted again, his hand catching hers
and squeezing gently. “I’m sorry,” he said. “As far as I
understand, she didn’t make it.” Lindsey’s heart sank and tears
sprang to her eyes. “Cade won’t talk about it,” he said. “I met her
two days after Memphis fell, and Josephine wasn’t with her then.
She never did tell me what happened.”

Lindsey mashed the button on the blood
pressure machine to inflate the cuff, struggling to keep her tears
at bay. It wouldn’t do for her to come out of his cell crying; word
would certainly get back to Bradford, and he’d jump hoops to make
sure she didn’t have contact with Evans again. She’d have to save
her tears for when she got home after her shift, when she could
fully process the news and try to cope with it. For now, she had to
reassure herself with the news that, despite her worst fears coming
true, her sister was out there, and she still had hope of reuniting
with
someone
from her family. “Thank you,” she said, “for
helping Cade at least make it this far.”

“She’s more than capable of taking care of
herself,” Brandt said, “though that doesn’t stop me from trying to
do the best I can to help her.”

“So she’s still as stubborn as always?”
Lindsey asked, unable to help the small smile that tried to surface
to her lips.

“Is she ever
not
stubborn?” Brandt
replied, and Lindsey stifled a laugh that turned into a sob. He
squeezed her hand again and let go.

“Look, will you do me a favor?” Lindsey
asked. When he nodded almost imperceptibly, she continued. “Keep
your head down, and try your best to do whatever they ask you to
do. Stay as healthy as you can.”

“What for?” Brandt asked, sounding like he
really wanted to ask,
What’s the point?

“Because I’m going to do my damnedest to
break you out of here,” Lindsey said fervently.

Their
encounter with the escaped lions was long past them. However, that
didn’t change the fact that Dominic was more tense than he’d ever
been before, his eyes constantly scanning their surroundings for
oncoming dangers, not trusting anyone else to not miss something
and end up getting him killed at the hands of the infected. Or a
lion. Or a tiger. Or a gorilla.

That would be his luck, to get his face
ripped off by the elusive western lowland gorilla in downtown
Atlanta, a la
Congo
.

“You okay?” Remy asked. She was looking at
him with something bordering on curiosity and worry.

“I’m not going to lie, those lions shook me
up,” Dominic admitted. “Not something you expect to run into when
you’re out and about in Atlanta, of all places.” For what felt like
the millionth time, he twisted his head around to look back into
his blind spot. “Makes me worry about what
else
we might run
into in the city.”

“Maybe we’ll see some capuchin monkeys,” she
replied. “I’ve always thought those things were adorable.”

“Yeah, adorable until they attack you en
masse,” he retorted.

“You sound like you have some experience with
that,” Remy commented, and he snorted.

“No, not personally. There was a CIA agent
once who got himself in trouble in that manner,” he said. “Granted,
they were
trained
monkeys, but still.”

“That is quite possibly one of the weirdest
stories you’ve referenced to me yet,” Remy said. “I’m not sure if I
should feel sorry for the guy or just amused.”

“Neither,” he said. “He’s probably dead.”

“Good point,” Remy agreed. She smiled
brightly and asked, “So what are your plans after all of this is
over and done with?”

“All of what?” Dominic asked. She motioned to
the road ahead, indicating their current mission, and he sighed. “I
don’t know. Help Cade get Brandt back, for sure. After that? I
haven’t decided yet. Maybe I’ll stick around. Maybe I won’t.” He
shrugged and rested a hand against his holstered pistol. “I’ll have
to play it by ear once we get further into this mess.” He raised
his voice and called, “Somebody tell me where we’re at!”

“Coming up on Hill Street!” Cade called
back.

“Not much further,” Dominic commented to
Remy. “Maybe half an hour of walking, give or take a little.”

“Sounds great,” Remy said. “Think we’ll run
into trouble anytime soon?”

“What, the lions weren’t enough for you?”
Dominic asked incredulously.

“Oh, they were plenty,” Remy answered. “I
just have all this excess energy and I’m itching to burn it
off.”

“Excess energy?” Dominic repeated. “You
should count yourself lucky. I don’t feel like I have a crumb to
spare.”

Remy held out her hand. “Here, I’ll share
mine with you through osmosis,” she offered, a tiny smile on her
face. Dominic glanced at her hand. A smile of his own cracked
across his lips, and he slipped his hand into hers. The fact that
she was taking that step, that she was actually offering him that
small gesture, was enough to make his hopes soar.

“Does it work that way?” he asked.

“I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?”

Dominic’s smile disappeared as she drew to a
halt, her eyes widening at whatever was ahead, her fingers
tightening around his. He mentally cursed his momentary lapse of
focus and shifted his eyes to the scene ahead.

The road had begun to narrow halfway down the
block before it became almost a tunnel, buttressed by the brick and
concrete walls that had been built into the embankments rising on
either side of them. Above those were an abundance of overgrown
trees and bushes that sagged over the wall, shading it from the
sun. The concrete walls rose higher and higher until they met a
dark tunnel that passed underneath a large complex of railroad
tracks, supplying a road for those trying to get to the other side
without holding up traffic for trains to pass. During the attempted
evacuations of Atlanta’s citizens, many of the cars that had come
this way appeared to have plowed right into the concrete walls on
either side of the road, further narrowing and partially blocking
the path. Ahead, close to the mouth of the tunnel, was a horde of
infected that swarmed out of the darkness, climbing over each other
and trying to scramble over vehicles in their haste to get to their
prey.

“Oh my God,” Dominic said, taking a step
backward. “We’ve got to get the hell out of here!”

“Not happening,” Keith said, coming up behind
him, breathless and sounding resigned, like he’d already reached
his quota of freaked out for the day. “There’s a bunch behind us
too. Shooting the lion was a bad idea.”

“No kidding,” Dominic said. He looked around,
taking in their surroundings.

Cade pointed to their right and started in
that direction. “There! That way!” she called to them, choosing
what looked to be the point of least resistance. She hurried toward
the waist-high chain-link fence that lined the road before the
concrete wall began and scrambled over it into the shade of the
trees and bushes on the other side. “Come on!”

No one hesitated to obey her suggestion,
since it seemed like the easiest and most plausible escape route.
Cade stood guard, rifle in hand, as first Remy, then Sadie climbed
the fence, followed by Dominic and Jude. Keith was the last person
to clear the fence and without a moment to spare. When his feet met
the soft earth on the other side, the first of the infected reached
the fence, the swarm slamming into it with enough force to take it
down to the ground.

“Holy shit!” Keith yelped, stumbling, and
Jude ducked back to grab his arm and haul him to his feet.

“Move, move, move!” Dominic shouted, waving
them out ahead of him. He spun to face the infected, lifted his
pistol, and scrambled backwards at the same time, trying to cover
their retreat. A hand closed around his backpack and pulled him
backwards, and Remy yelled in his ear.

“No time for that shit! They’re coming from
the east too!” she shouted, yanking him around to run with her. “Go
ahead of me! If anybody can hold them off, it’s me!”

“You don’t know for sure if they’ll ignore
you while they’re in a frenzy like this!” Dominic protested.

Remy hesitated, looking between him and the
infected with rapid glances. “You’re right, and I don’t feel like
chancing dying today. Let’s go!”

They started running, scrambling up the
embankment’s steep incline, their eyes on the backs of the others
ahead of them. The space underneath the trees was far more shaded
than the street, almost too dark to be running in, Dominic realized
as he nearly ran right into one of the overgrown saplings that
jutted from the ground. There was a building to their right that
served as an excellent break for the infected coming from that
direction, funneling them and the ones behind them into a
bottleneck that slowed their progress.

The group burst into the sunlight again when
they reached the edge of six sets of railroad tracks. Dominic
caught up with Cade, who was breathing heavily, and they looked in
either direction.

“Clear?” Cade asked.

“Yeah,” Dominic confirmed.

The group started across the tracks,
stumbling and tripping over railroad ties and rails, trying to
outrun the approaching horde. When they were safely across, they
ducked underneath the shadow of an overpass that held more tracks,
skidding down another steep embankment littered with trees.

Dominic was never so glad as he was then for
his feet to meet the reassuring concrete of a sidewalk. He looked
back, making sure the others were still with him. They all looked
tired and winded, though he didn’t dare let them stop, not until
they’d shaken the crowd behind them.

“Which way?” Cade yelled.

They were approaching an intersection.
Dominic squinted, trying to make out the street sign ahead as he
ran. Was that…? Did that say…?

Yes, it did.
Decatur.

“Left! Turn left!” he shouted, making a wide
turn and bolting across the street, dodging crashed vehicles and
debris. Most of the sidewalks down Decatur were clear, and he tried
to keep everyone on them so they wouldn’t expend unnecessary energy
trying not to run into things. They were quickly running out of
sidewalk. There was an overpass up ahead, choked with vehicles that
blocked the path in several places.

Much to Dominic’s surprise, they got halfway
across the overpass without any difficulty. When they were dropping
into a clearing near the halfway point that would let them run at
least twenty yards before having to scramble over more vehicles
again, someone behind Dominic shrieked.

He shouted to Cade, “Keep running straight!
This will turn into Marietta. Turn right on Spring and then left on
Luckie!” He spun around to see who’d screamed.

It was Sadie. She was sprawled on her stomach
across the hood of a car, several infected grabbing at her, trying
to drag her back over the vehicle and into their waiting hands.

“Keep going!” he ordered Remy when she too
stopped and made as if to go back to help. “I got this. Stay with
Cade!”

He drew his machete and ran back the way he’d
come.

There was a
sharp pain in Cade’s side, and her chest hurt from her struggle to
breathe, but she didn’t hesitate to obey Dominic’s orders to keep
running. Remy was beside her, pacing herself to Cade’s stride,
though Cade knew for a fact that Remy could run faster than she
could. She pressed a hand to her side, massaging at the ache there,
and glanced behind her long enough to make sure that Keith and Jude
were still with her and Remy. They were, though Keith had his hand
clasped around Jude’s wrist, and Jude looked like he was trying to
resist their forward progress. He probably wanted to go back to
help his sister, and Keith was preventing it.