The Becoming: Redemption (The Becoming Series Book 5) (22 page)

Brandt finished off the sandwich and milk on
the tray, then put it by the door and flopped back onto his bed,
starting in on the apple. He ate it slowly, staring at the steel
cell door, contemplating how to get through it without getting
himself killed. Meal time was a weakness if they were going to make
it a habit to come into the cell with only one guard standing by.
He’d have to watch more carefully during the next meal time to see
if the same held true, and if it did, he was going to figure out
how to slip the information to Lindsey so she could use it. Maybe
meal delivery would be a good time for her to bust him out of
here.

Half an hour after he’d finished the apple
and returned the core to the tray, the door unlocked and creaked
open again, and Bayer leaned inside to pick up the tray. Brandt
peered out the door as discreetly as he could, and once again, the
only person visible was Hutcherson. Brandt cleared his throat to
get the soldier’s attention and when Bayer looked at him, he said,
“I think I’m ready to talk.”

Bayer straightened, and Brandt saw excitement
coming into the man’s eyes. “I’ll go get Major Bradford.”

“No,” Brandt replied before the man could
leave. “I won’t talk to him. I like that bastard about as much as I
like head lice. I want to talk to Dr. Alton.”

“I don’t…I don’t know if I can do that,”
Private Bayer said, his tone wary.

“I’m not talking to anyone but Dr. Alton. If
you can’t get me Dr. Alton, then I’m not talking at all.”

Bayer stared at him for a long moment, and
then he nodded. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said. He backed out of
the cell and shut the door behind him with a clang.

A slow smile spread across Brandt’s face. His
plan was now officially in motion.

Within an
hour after Dominic and Sadie arrived at the Tabernacle, they’d
finished helping Cade gather all the paperwork scattered across
tables and the floor, and she, Jude, and Keith were sitting on the
stage sorting through it all in search for information on where
Brandt might have been taken. Dominic kept looking at Remy when she
wasn’t looking at him, watching her scoop up sheets of paper and
stack them together without looking at them. His brain was muddled,
confused over what had happened out on the street when he and Sadie
had arrived, when Remy had looked at him with such wholehearted
relief and had thrown herself on him. He wanted to know what it
meant, what she’d been thinking, why she’d been so relieved that
he’d come back.

He hoped it meant what his instincts thought
it meant. Because if it didn’t, he was going to be crushed.

Dominic looked at the stage. Cade was rooting
through the papers with a look of intense concentration on her
face. Sadie wandered up, leaning against the stage and talking to
Cade in a low voice. Dominic tore his eyes away, scanning the room,
accounting for everyone. The only person left was Remy, and she
wasn’t in the room with them. He frowned, wondering which way she
went, and decided to go look for her.

He headed toward the back of the theater
area, weaving between tables and chairs and passing the bar at the
back to step out of the general admission area. The large,
door-less frame led out into a lobby area with stairs that went up
on either side, leading to the balcony. Nearby, there was a flight
of stairs that went to a darkened basement area where, if Dominic
recalled correctly, band merchandise sales used to take place. He
aimed his flashlight beam down the staircase, and when he didn’t
see anything, he decided to check upstairs in the balcony
first.

After a quick debate, he took the stairs on
the right and started to climb. The old wooden stairs creaked
underfoot as he ascended to the landing, pausing at the short bar
there before continuing on to the balcony level. He stepped through
the door near the top of the stairs, looking at the rows of seats
that lined the balcony, which curved around the lower floor general
admission area in a semi-circle. He could see Cade and the others
on the stage below, talking and sorting through papers. He angled
his flashlight toward the seats, trailing the beam along the rows
until it landed on a figure sitting in the back closest to the
balcony’s bar. The figure didn’t move as the light played over it,
and he angled the beam away and started in that direction.

He slid into the cushioned seat next to Remy.
She lifted the glass bottle of vodka she had and took a swig out of
it, not looking at him. She held the bottle loosely in her right
hand, which she draped over the leg she had propped against the
back of the seat in front of her.

“Enjoying the view?” he asked, shifting in
his seat to mimic her pose, propping his feet up onto the seat in
front of him.

Remy shrugged and took another swig from the
bottle. The clear fluid sloshed as she lowered it. “What’s the
point in all this?” she asked, staring toward the floor below. “If
there isn’t any information in those papers, what’s Cade planning
to do? Start wandering around the entire fucking world until she
stumbles across Brandt?”

“You know as well as I do that if that’s what
it takes, that’s what she’ll do,” Dominic said. “However, something
tells me that’s not why you’re hiding up here drinking…” He took
the bottle away from her to look at the label, “…some surprisingly
expensive vodka. What’s wrong?”

Remy sighed and reached out like she was
going to take the bottle back from him, but her hand dropped to the
armrest between them. “There’s nothing exactly
wrong
,” she
said and shook her head. “I take that back.
Everything
is
wrong.”

“Want to talk about it?”

“I don’t know,” she said. She sighed, tucking
a lock of hair behind her ear. “I’ve been thinking too much, I
guess.”

Dominic offered the bottle back to her. She
took it, though she didn’t drink from it. “If you want to talk, I’m
here.”

Remy smiled tightly before looking away
again. “I know you are. But it’s hard to talk to you about my
problems when you
are
my problem.”

Dominic looked at her with wide-eyed
confusion. “Did I do something wrong? If I did, please tell me, and
I’ll try to fix it.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Remy said,
studying the vodka bottle like it was the most fascinating thing
she’d ever seen. “It’s me. I’m all mixed up in here.” She tapped
the side of her head with a fingertip, and Dominic caught her hand
in his and gave it a squeeze. “I’m confused over a lot of stuff.
Like…” she glanced at him like she was embarrassed, “…like
you.”

Dominic’s mind dredged up the way she’d
leaped on him when he reached the Tabernacle. His skin tingled at
the memory, and he shifted in his cushioned seat with discomfort.
“Does this have to do with what happened outside on the
street?”

Remy sighed and set the vodka bottle on the
floor by her feet. She twisted in her seat, shifting to sit closer
to him, so close that her shoulder rested against his. She looked
at him with wide eyes shadowed in the near total darkness of the
balcony. “I’m scared,” she said. “Not just of what you’d think. I’m
scared about what’s going on with me physically, but honestly? I’m
absolutely fucking
terrified
of what’s going on in my head,
at least in regards to you.”

Dominic’s heart leaped in his chest, and hope
swelled. “Why are you scared of me?”

Remy tucked a leg underneath her so she could
face him. “Do you remember when we left Woodside, before we found
Sadie and Jude?” He nodded. “Do you remember what you said to me in
the woods, that you wanted to kiss me but you couldn’t?”

“Yeah, I remember that,” Dominic said. He set
the flashlight on the floor, the beam aiming toward the ceiling
above them so it bounced off and lit the area with a faint
glow.

“Were you serious, or were you just saying
that to make me feel better at the time?”

Dominic smiled and caught a stray lock of her
hair that had fallen out from behind her ear. “I don’t say things
that I don’t mean,” he said, “especially when it comes to stuff
like that.”

She pressed her lips together and looked away
from him, her eyes shiny. “Do you, you know,
still
feel like
that? Because I wouldn’t mind…if it was safe.”

Dominic traced his fingers along her jawline
and leaned closer to her. “I’m willing to risk it if you are,” he
murmured, remembering how Derek had told Ethan that while he was
infected
, he wasn’t
infectious
. He was banking on
Remy being the same way. He tugged her closer and pressed his lips
to hers in a soft kiss.

The kiss was everything he’d hoped it would
be since the moment it had occurred to him that kissing her was
something he wanted to do. She let out the faintest of whimpers and
returned the kiss, practically crawling over the armrest to get
closer to him. He looped an arm around her waist and dragged her
into his lap, holding her close, cupping her face in his hands, and
kissed her again and again. When they pulled back from each other,
they were breathless, and her hair was disheveled from where he’d
been running his hands through it.

“That was… awesome,” Remy said with a smile,
staring down at him.

“More than fucking awesome,” Dominic replied.
He dropped another kiss on her lips, this one light and chaste, and
her smile widened. He rested his forehead against hers, and her
eyes slid closed as she sighed. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“This scares the hell out of me,” she
admitted. “After Ethan…” She shook her head.

Dominic smoothed his hand against her hair
again. “What exactly happened in that hotel with Ethan?” he asked.
“I’ve gathered a little, but you never told me the full story.”

Remy was silent for a long moment, staring at
the wall behind him, before she answered. “He tried to kill me. He
saved my life, and then he tried to kill me.” She blew out a
breath. “Geez, I’m not making any sense, am I?”

“Enough sense that, considering what I’ve
heard from others, I can gather what happened,” Dominic said. He
brushed her hair back from her face and kissed her again, sweetly,
and she returned the kiss with equal enthusiasm. Before they could
consider taking it any further, a yelp of excitement sounded from
the ground floor, and Cade’s voice rose in a joyous shout.

“I found it! I think I found it!” she said,
her voice echoing off the ceiling above. Dominic sat up straighter
and looked past Remy, who was twisting around to follow his gaze
toward the stage below. Cade held up a page torn from a binder that
was open on her lap with a triumphant grin on her face. “I think I
know where they might have taken Brandt!”

“
Might
have,” Remy muttered, and
Dominic squeezed her hand.

“It’s better than nothing,” he told her.
“Come on, let’s go check out what she’s found.”

Remy slid off his lap, and he immediately
regretted the lack of her weight on him. She leaned down to pick up
the vodka bottle and held her free hand out to him. “Shall we?” she
asked, and he slipped his hand into hers, pushing himself to his
feet. When they walked past the bar, she set the bottle on it and
walked with him to the stairs. “Can I make a confession?” she asked
as they started down the first few steps.

“Of course,” Dominic replied, a feeling of
nervousness stirring in his stomach.

“You make this whole trip a hell of a lot
more tolerable,” Remy said. A warm smile spread across her face,
and Dominic returned it. He caught her around the waist and backed
her up against the wall, pressing another kiss to her mouth as she
laughed softly against his lips.

“Only tolerable?” he asked.

“Yeah, only tolerable,” she said with another
laugh.

“If we had more time, I’d show you exactly
why I’m more than just ‘tolerable,’” Dominic murmured in her ear,
and he let go of her and tugged at her hand. “We don’t have enough
time, so maybe later.”

Remy started down the stairs, her hips
swishing. Dominic had to force his eyes away as they stepped into
the general admission area again. Cade had moved to the edge of the
stage and sat on it, her legs hanging off.

“What you got, Cade?” Dominic called when he
got to within earshot of her.

“I think I know where they took Brandt,” Cade
said, waving the paper again. “There’s an evacuation plan here for
the military personnel that were here.” When he reached her, she
passed him the paper, and he started to read over it.

“Eden, North Carolina?” he read out loud. The
name tickled his brain, and he tried to dredge up why it sounded so
familiar.

“Does that mean something to you?” Cade
asked.

“It might,” Dominic said. “I’m not sure. It’s
ringing some bells, but I’m not coming up with anything. It will
hit me eventually.”

“As soon as it does, I want to know what you
know,” Cade said. She slid off the edge of the stage, her boots
thudding as she landed on the hardwood floor below. “In the
meantime, we now know where we’re going, at least to start with.
Let’s get some rest, because as soon as the sun comes up, I want to
get on the road to Eden.”

The rumble of
the diesel engine of the truck Kimberly and her companions had
commandeered was loud enough that she was worried it would attract
unwanted attention. Ethan seemed unconcerned; he was to her left,
his head resting against the passenger window, asleep. Chris drove
the truck at a glacial pace, swerving around debris in the street,
muttering swears under his breath, his knuckles white as he hung
onto the steering wheel. He looked tired, and Kimberly could
sympathize. She had a burning need to crawl into a soft bed
somewhere and pass out for at least twelve hours.

That wasn’t going to happen anytime soon,
though, not if the backpack of research and samples had anything to
say about it. She couldn’t risk wasting time with sleep and
increasing the chance of the samples going bad before they found
the right hands to put them into. She bit back a yawn and rubbed at
her face as she tried to stay awake.