The Becoming: Redemption (The Becoming Series Book 5) (20 page)

“I think that’s all I can tell you,” Chris
said. “The little I know is piecemeal. Which is probably still more
than what conscripts know.”

“Conscript?” Kimberly repeated.

“Yeah, the draft is back in force,” he said.
“They made us all register for it, good and proper, alongside the
other guys who registered in the past. Except this time, they made
the women register too. Unless you have religious, physical, or
mental reasons for not being able to be drafted,
everyone
gets to participate in the big clean up.” He shook his head.
“Things are definitely not the way they were when I was growing up.
I guess the threat of a total zombie apocalypse will do that to the
world.”

“How did the rest of the world fare in all of
this?” Ethan asked. “We’ve always thought that everybody was
involved, that the whole world was affected by the virus, and we’re
only just now learning that that apparently wasn’t true.”

“The southeastern United States was
definitely the solitary passenger on the good ship
SS
Shitstorm
,” Chris said. “There were very, very minor outbreaks,
mostly around airports and some universities, and those got put
down quickly. The world learned from what happened here. I think
the key words now are ‘constant vigilance.’”

“What about civilian life?” Kimberly asked.
“Is that still the same?”

“As can be expected, considering the
changes,” Chris said. “I told you about the blood tests, but for
the most part, everyone goes about their business. They spend time
with friends, they go to the movies, they eat out at restaurants,
all the stuff that typical life is like. It’s just that more of
them do it while armed.”

“Sounds positively idyllic,” Ethan grumbled,
thinking back on the trials and tribulations he and everyone he
knew had been through for two years. The constant fear, the
running, the hiding, the foraging, everything felt like it had been
unnecessary. He shoved the bitterness aside. There was no point in
dwelling on it right this second.

Kimberly tapped his arm to get his attention,
and he slogged out of the bitter thoughts he’d been wallowing in to
look at her. “I think I see a diesel truck up ahead,” she said,
pointing down the road toward one of the many vehicles shoved along
the shoulder.

“Can you tell how badly it’s banged up?”

“Not from this far away,” she said. “We’d
have to get closer to check things out.”

Ethan looked at Chris. “You want to take the
lead?” he asked, remembering what he’d promised Kimberly about
including the man and not treating him so much like a prisoner.

“Sure,” Chris said. He held his hand out
toward Ethan. “Can I have my rifle back?”

Ethan stared at him, trying to gauge the
wisdom of handing Chris’s weapon back to him. Finally, he took the
rifle off his shoulder, holding it in a two-handed grip across his
torso. “Rules,” he said. “Number one, and the most important, if
you see something, don’t automatically shoot it. At least give us
the chance to check things out and see what it is and whether or
not it actually deserves shooting.”

“Agreed,” Chris said. “No jumpy trigger
fingers.”

“Number two, don’t shoot either one of us,”
Ethan said. “Don’t shoot yourself, either.”

“What makes you think I would shoot myself?”
Chris asked.

“You would be very surprised at what some
people would feel themselves driven to at the sight of what we’ll
probably face at multiple points on this trip,” Ethan said.
“Shooting targets on a rifle range is a hell of a lot different
from shooting people. And they
are
people. Never make the
mistake of thinking of them as monsters. They aren’t. They’re just
people,
sick
people, through no fault of their own. They
should be pitied, not hated.”

Chris hesitated, and Ethan could understand
why. It was hard to deal with being told something that ran counter
to one’s training, just like it was hard to deal with learning that
the world was far different than what he’d thought for two years,
that the world had moved on without the southeast. The soldier
nodded, slowly, as if he were coming to some sort of
understanding.

Ethan extended his arms, holding out the
rifle. Chris took it, running his hands along it caressingly. “What
do you say we team up and try to save the world?”

Remy
remembered the way Brandt had gotten them into the Tabernacle the
year before, their mad, awkward scramble up and over the dumpster
with Cade’s mostly unconscious body and the sheer relief she felt
once they’d made it inside the darkened building. They’d taken the
same path into the building this time, though she didn’t feel the
relief that she’d felt before. This time she felt sheer terror and
fear.

Dominic was still out there, and he had no
idea how to get
in
here with them. What if he got killed
trying to find the entrance? What if he never actually made it to
the Tabernacle? Remy didn’t know if she could handle that. The
thought made her want to vomit.

“Can I
please
go out and look for
them?” she asked, her voice echoing in the cavernous main room
filled with folding tables and chairs and scattered papers. They’d
already searched the premises for impending danger, and once they’d
discovered they were safe, Cade had dropped to the floor to start
gathering the papers that had been left on the hardwood. That was
where she was now, snatching up papers and stacking them
haphazardly in a pile nearby, Jude and Keith doing the same on the
other side of the room.

“Remy, I need you here,” Cade answered, her
words directed towards the floor.

“What
for
?” Remy demanded. “It’s not
like I’m doing anything.”

“Then get
busy
doing something,” Cade
snapped back.

“This is so fucked up,” Remy grumbled. She
snatched up a token sheet of paper and slammed it onto one of the
folding tables. The slap of her palm against the tabletop echoed
throughout the room. “You’re just going to leave them out
there?”

“No, I’m not,” Cade said. “Dominic is a very
capable man. They’ll be fine and—”

Remy slammed her hand against the table
again. “You don’t
know
that,” she said. “They might need our
help! Ask Jude how he feels about this. His sister is out
there!”

“What do you care?” Cade shot back. “You’ve
never cared about anybody but yourself!”

“That’s not true!”

“That most certainly
is
true,” Cade
said, rising from the floor to face Remy head on. “Why are you even
here
? It’s not like you give a shit about Brandt!”

“What the fuck, Cade?” Remy demanded.

Keith approached, stepping between the two
women before either one of them could resort to blows.

“Ladies, cut it out,” he ordered. “You too,
Cade,” he added when she opened her mouth to say something. “We’ve
got more important shit going on. Stop bitching at each other.
Cade, why don’t you let Remy go outside and wait on top of the
dumpster? She’s not being of any use in here, and we could probably
use a lookout.” Remy glared at him, and he held his hands up
defensively. “What? I’m on your side here!”

Remy spun on her heel, snatched her backpack
up from where she’d left it on the floor nearby, and stormed toward
the exit they’d come in through with every intention of doing
exactly what Keith had suggested.

“I’m sorry. I’m just so on edge,” Cade said
to Keith.

Remy paused outside the door to draw in a
deep breath of the shockingly clean air, trying to steady herself.
Cade wasn’t the only one on edge. She made her way to the dumpster
they’d climbed to get inside the fence that surrounded the
building. She settled down on the dumpster’s cold steel lid,
tucking her feet underneath her and leaning back against the
fencepost, staring at the street beyond the Tabernacle.

The circular tower of the Westin loomed over
everything like a behemoth. It looked so dark, so threatening, even
in the daylight that reflected off its remaining windows. It was in
that building that her life had so irrevocably changed, that she’d
felt the pain of teeth sinking into her arm and the jab of needles
when Ethan had dosed her with the medication to prevent her from
turning. It was in that building that Ethan himself had turned and
attacked her, destroying in that one instant any love and positive
feeling she’d had for him.

Perhaps she hadn’t
truly
loved him if
her feelings could be changed so easily?

The thought was a revelation, hitting her
with the ferocity of a lightning bolt to the chest. She
hadn’t
ever loved him, at least not like that. Sure, she’d
loved him like a friend, and she’d even been attracted to him. Who
wouldn’t be drawn to his vivid green eyes, dark blond hair, and the
sardonic way he smiled at the world? But, as multiple women’s
magazines would have told anybody who’d picked them up before the
world fell apart, physical attraction didn’t equal love.

Remy tried to shake loose from those
depressing thoughts and focus instead on what was in front of her,
watching for Sadie and Dominic. When the mental image of Dominic
crossed her mind, her attention turned fully onto him instead of
her job.

Now
that
was an attractive man. Remy
hadn’t seen it before, not when they’d first met, when Dominic had
been part of Alicia’s crew and had broken into their safe house and
kidnapped Cade. She’d shot him then, a near-perfect bullet plugged
right into his shoulder. Unfortunately, it hadn’t been where she’d
actually aimed at—she’d been aiming for his head—but that had
worked out in the end. He turned out to be a damn good ally despite
that and despite the near constant animosity he’d gotten from the
survivors from Atlanta that they’d gathered in Woodside. Remy had
to admit that he was a better person than she was; she didn’t know
that she would have been able to tolerate the looks of hatred and
bitterness lobbed at him daily. She would have left long before all
that had started.

Not that she’d had a choice in whether or not
to leave. Derek had refused to give her the cure like he’d given
Ethan. He’d kept putting it off, giving her excuse after excuse,
until she hadn’t been able to take it anymore.

She looked down at her hands resting against
her thighs and flexed them, curling and uncurling her fingers. She
still didn’t understand what had happened to her, why she appeared
to be invincible to the infected. It terrified and enthralled her
at the same time, and she itched to test her limits with them, to
see how far she could go before they tried to kill her.

As if on cue, a single infected woman
stumbled out from behind one of the Army Humvees abandoned in the
parking lot beside the Tabernacle. Remy sat up straighter, looking
her over with naked curiosity. She looked like she was in her early
twenties, dark haired, wearing a thin tank top and jeans that were
tattered with wear and tear, a variety of tattoos covering her
visible skin. Her earlobes had been stretched, and one of them had
a large black plug in it. The other was ripped through, like
someone had tried to fight her off and had snagged the piece of
jewelry and torn it out. There was a small piercing in her eyebrow
too, and another tiny jewel in her nose. She looked like she’d been
at a concert when the virus had claimed her, and Remy imagined the
chaos that had ensued at venues like that, when the virus had
broken out in the general admission, standing room only places and
torn through the mosh pits like a knife through tissue paper. She
shuddered, glad that she hadn’t been at a concert herself when the
virus had gotten to New Orleans.

No, you were just in jail is all,
her
brain reminded her, and she mentally ran from the thought as
quickly as she could. She shoved herself into a standing position
on the dumpster and walked to the edge closest to the parking lot,
leaving the gate behind her open so she could get away from the
infected woman quickly if it came to that. It was about time she
started testing her limits. In the middle of a fight wouldn’t be
the ideal time to find out that her apparent power and control over
the infected petered out the more there were around her.

The infected barely noticed Remy as she moved
to the edge of the dumpster and stood there, staring down at the
dirty, tattered woman. On impulse, Remy reached for her sheathed
bolo knife, but she stopped herself as her fingers brushed the
hilt. She didn’t need the knife, she reminded herself. She was, by
all appearances, immune.

Remy took a deep breath and sat on the edge
of the dumpster, then slid to the ground. Her tennis shoes barely
made a sound when they met the pavement. The infected woman
immediately drew to attention, stumbling around to look at her,
shuffling with the weariness of someone who’d walked long, hard
miles and was exhausted. Remy could sympathize.

The woman staggered toward her, a look of
obvious hunger on her face, then stopped short when she got within
arm’s reach of Remy, a note of confusion creeping over her face.
She reached out, her arm wavering in the air between them, and Remy
fought the urge to take a step back as old impulses fought for
control. She wrinkled her nose at the smell coming off of her,
invading her senses.

The woman
stank
. There was no other
word for it. The odor coming off her was of unwashed bodies, sweat,
dried blood, vomit, feces, and urine, all mixed into a perfect
perfume that could probably be called Eau de Disgusting. On closer
inspection, she looked like she had two years’ worth of rankness
collected on her skin, clothes, and in her hair. It was enough to
make the strongest stomach yak.

Remy pressed her wrist against her nose to
block the smell and breathed through her mouth. She took a cautious
step toward the infected woman, her curiosity overcoming her normal
aversion to the infected. The woman stared at her as she moved
closer, and she lifted her dirty, desiccated hand again. This time,
Remy didn’t back away and the woman’s fingers brushed against her
shirt. She managed to stay still for almost twenty seconds while
the sick woman edged closer and closer to her, and then she
backpedaled away from her, her instincts taking over. Controlled by
her animal brain, Remy drew her bolo knife and raised it in a sharp
swing, embedding it into her neck. The blade ate through the thin
neck, cleaving into the muscle and veins and tearing down to the
spine, where the edge of the blade stopped, unable to go any
further. She wrenched the blade free. Blood splattered on the
pavement and down the front of the woman’s shirt, and Remy felt an
unexpected pang of regret at what she’d done.