The Becoming: Redemption (The Becoming Series Book 5) (4 page)

Keith was propped against the wall beside the
dresser, his foot braced on the wall, knee bent, his head bowed as
he wrote on a notepad with a stub of a pencil. Every few words,
he’d pause and squint at the ceiling as if he were thinking, and
then he’d return to the notepad and start writing again. Dominic
assumed he was making a list of something—supplies, perhaps—for the
trip that some of them would be taking in the near future.

Derek and Isaac were the last two in the
room. Both men stood near Cade’s bed on the opposite side from
Dominic, Isaac looking at Cade intently and Derek looking annoyed.
Dominic wondered who he was annoyed at, and he figured the likely
culprit was Cade. She was stubborn enough to inspire annoyance in
virtually anyone who crossed her path.

The room was quiet enough to hear a pin drop,
the only sound everyone’s steady breathing, and no one seemed
willing to break the silence. They all appeared content to stare at
each other or the floor. Dominic figured if anyone was going to get
the meeting started, it would have to be him.

He cleared his throat. “So…”

That broke the tension and silence in the
room, as he’d hoped. Cade sat up straighter and adjusted her grip
on the infant in her arms, her blue eyes scanning across every
person in the room.

“I’m going to start this off by stating the
obvious,” she said. “I’ll keep it short and sweet, because I’m not
in the mood for anything else.” She paused for as long as it took
her to draw in a deep breath and let it out, and she said, “I’m
going after my husband.”

“We were expecting that,” Dominic said. Cade
ignored him and continued talking like he hadn’t spoken.

“The only problem we have to figure out is
who’s going with me and who’s staying here, because not everyone
can go.”

“Why not?” Remy asked.

“I thought that would have been obvious,
Rem,” Dominic said. “We can’t take the baby in a potential
battlefield with us.”

“Oh, right,” Remy said. She tossed the knife
and caught it again. “Well, you know I’m going. No way am I letting
you wander around by yourself so something can spring out of the
bushes and eat you.”

“I think if anybody here should be voted
least likely to be eaten by the infected, it’s Cade,” Isaac spoke
up, a smile on his face.

Cade ignored him too, so focused was she on
her more immediate goal. “We’ve already decided that Derek will
stay,” she said, “so he can keep an eye on Olivia. But he can’t
stay alone, so I think at least two of you should stay behind with
him.”

“We’ve already established that Remy is
going,” Derek spoke up. “I don’t think she’d have it any other way.
That said, I’d like to put in my opinion that Jude and Dominic
should stay here with me and the rest of you go with Cade.”

“No,” Dominic and Sadie said at the same
time. Dominic waved a hand for Sadie to continue.

“I’m not going anywhere without my brother,”
Sadie stated, “and I’m not staying here. We’ve already talked about
it, and we’re both going with Cade.”

“And I’m going with Remy,” Dominic said. “So
don’t think I’m staying here.”

“We can’t
all
go,” Derek said.

“I’ll stay,” Isaac said. “Dominic can go in
my place. I’d rather be here helping protect Olivia anyway.”

Cade sighed. “Keith?”

“I’m going with you,” Keith said, and Dominic
caught him glancing at Jude before returning his gaze to Cade. “I’m
sorry. I know you’d probably rather me stay here with Olivia, but I
just…I have to go.”

“I’m sure you have your reasons,” Dominic
said, “but—”

“In the interest of not prolonging a
potential argument over this,” Derek interrupted, “I think Isaac
and I will be enough. We’re running on potentially borrowed time,
at least on Brandt’s part, because we don’t know what they’re going
to do to him, if anything.”

“And considering how roughly they treated him
when they came into the rec center, I doubt it’s anything good,”
Dominic said. He sighed and shoved his hands into his pockets.
“Let’s plan for two staying and six going. What do we need to do to
prepare?”

“We need infant formula,” Cade said. “As much
as we can find. And we need to clean up and stock the downstairs.
I’ve been told it’s not in the greatest condition. We should
fortify the place and make it as safe and secure as possible. At
the same time, we’ve got to plan for the six who are going. We’ll
need supplies for us and for the house.”

“Be easier if we knew
where
we were
going,” Remy said. “We need to be able to plan
how much
we’ll need. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to end up
stuck in the middle of Bumfuck, Tennessee, with no supplies and no
idea where to get them.”

“She has a point,” Dominic agreed. “Brandt
could be
anywhere
, especially if that helicopter took him
somewhere where he could be transferred to a different
vehicle.”

“That’s where I’m going to need
your
expertise,” Cade said. “I figure if we put our heads together, we
can narrow it down. However, I think we need something more solid
to go on, which is why I’m proposing we go back into Atlanta and
see what we can find.”

“Atlanta?” Remy repeated. “
Atlanta?
You actually think we’re going to be willing to go back to that
hellhole? We almost
died
there, Cade!”

“While I’m aware of that, please, hear me
out,” Cade protested. “I was thinking maybe we could go back to the
Tabernacle. Brandt told us the military was using it as a staging
area during the outbreak, and I thought we could see if there’s any
information there that we could use, perhaps stuff that involves
military personnel evacuation. I was mostly unconscious when we
were there and don’t remember much, but Remy, you weren’t. Weren’t
there papers all over the place? Stuff the military left
behind?”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to go all the
way to Atlanta just to dig through those papers,” Remy said.

“You thought it was a perfectly fine idea to
go all the way to Atlanta just to dig through some papers the first
time,” Cade pointed out.

“That was different.”

“How so?” Cade countered.

“That time, I didn’t comprehend the danger in
Atlanta,” Remy said. “And that was before Nikola, Theo, Avi, and
Gray died, and Ethan and I got infected in that damned city.
And
before you got kidnapped by that crazy-as-fuck lady and
her cronies.” She looked at Dominic and added, “No offense.”

“None taken,” Dominic replied. “Cade has a
point though. Our best bet is to get to a military installation
that would be most likely to have the type of information that
she’s hoping for. We could drastically narrow our search corridors
if we can get our hands on intel like that, and that means we could
find Brandt’s location that much faster.”

“That doesn’t even take into account trying
to figure out how to get him out of wherever they have him,” Keith
said.

“That’s a stone we’ll have to step on when we
get to it,” Dominic said. “Needless to say, it won’t be easy, and
we’ll have to negotiate it carefully. This trip is going to take a
lot
of planning if we expect to pull it off.” He skimmed
over everyone again, trying to gauge how serious they were taking
this—very, not that he’d expected otherwise—and he asked, “When are
we leaving?”

“One week,” Cade said, and every eye in the
room turned to her.

“
One week?
” Keith repeated. “You’re
kidding, right?”

“No, I’m not kidding,” she said. “The sooner
we get moving, the quicker we can narrow the lead they have on us.
The longer we wait, the more screwed we are.”

There was silence in the room again while
everyone processed this. Dominic rubbed his thumb and middle finger
over his eyes and sighed. “Let’s all break and go get some rest.
Start thinking about what you believe we’ll need on the trip, and
write it all down. We’ll compare notes later.” He locked eyes with
Derek, even as he moved to Remy and leaned over, murmuring so only
she could hear, “You go get some sleep. I’ll join you shortly.”

She nodded and scooted off the bed, slipping
her knife into its sheath on her belt and moving toward the door.
Her movement was the spark needed for everyone else to head for
their own rooms. Sadie pushed away from the dresser and said a few
words to Jude before walking out, and Jude followed her with Keith
on his heels. Isaac wasn’t long behind them, and then it was just
Dominic, Cade, and Derek left in the bedroom.

“Doc, I’ve got to talk to you,” Dominic said
before he could leave. “Both of you,” he added, deciding to include
Cade in the conversation. “I don’t think either of you is going to
like what I have to say.”

“Oh no,” Derek said. “This doesn’t sound
promising at all. What does it have to do with?”

“Remy,” Dominic said. He motioned to the edge
of the bed. “Maybe it’s a good idea if you sit down.”

Jude’s head hurt
from lack of sleep. The little he’d gotten hadn’t been enough. He
shunted the ache aside and headed back downstairs after the meeting
with Cade and the others. He wasn’t happy about any of it, but he
didn’t have a choice. Sadie’s determination to go with Cade had
taken the choice away from him, and he was less than appreciative
about it.

Jude reached the bottom of the stairs and
made a beeline for the living room couch, where he’d spent most of
his time that day. Keith was already sitting on the end of the
couch, his legs crossed, reclining against the cushions like he
didn’t have a care in the world. He looked him over before he
dropped onto the opposite end of the couch. He propped his elbows
against his knees and rested his head in his hands, letting out a
slow sigh.

“You okay?” Keith asked. The couch cushions
shifted, and Jude assumed that Keith had scooted closer to him. He
shrugged with one shoulder and sat back, digging in his pocket for
his pad and pencil.

I’m tired,
Jude wrote,
and more
than a little worried. I’m not sure I want to go on this
trip.

“Then why not stay here?” Keith asked.

Because Sadie is going, and I can’t let
her go by herself,
he wrote.

“She’s not going by herself,” Keith pointed
out. Jude wrinkled his nose at his words. That wasn’t the sort of
statement he’d been hoping for, though he wasn’t sure
what
he’d been hoping for. “She’s going with Cade and Dominic and
Remy.”

You know what I mean,
Jude scribbled
before flashing the notepad at him.

Keith smiled. “Yeah, I know what you mean,”
he acknowledged. “I understand the need to protect your siblings. I
never had any brothers or sisters myself, but it doesn’t take an
idiot to know that a brother’s going to want to follow his sister
into any trouble she might be getting into. I assume it’s doubly so
with twins.” He paused, then asked, “Have you ever been in
Atlanta?”

We went in once not long after the
outbreak,
Jude wrote.
After that, Sadie and I avoided it at
all costs.

“For good reason,” Keith said. “It’s the
definition of ‘hellhole.’ When we were left alone, it wasn’t that
bad. Then, when the infected got stirred up, or when some gang of
uninfected humans came along and decided they wanted our territory
or our supplies… things tended to get really bad. People ended up
dead or infected, and we’d have to pack up and move everyone again.
Alicia wasn’t a good person, and she needed to be dealt with one
way or another. At the same time, she was something of a
stabilizing force for all those people who harassed other
survivors. I don’t know what it’s going to be like in Atlanta now
that she’s gone.”

Jude nodded in understanding and wrote at the
bottom of the page,
That’s why I have to go with her—the
unknown.

“And that’s why I’m going with you guys,”
Keith said. “I figure you might need a hand keeping an eye on that
sister of yours. I don’t know her well, but she seems like the kind
of person who’d run off to help someone in distress, regardless of
the consequences to herself.”

She is. Remind me to one day tell you about
what she did to save me when the outbreak started. It’s a pretty
wild story.

“Duly noted,” Keith said. “So, what now?”

Jude shrugged and chewed on the end of his
pencil, thinking it over. Then he scrawled,
Trip prep?
on a
fresh page in his notepad.

Keith grinned. “Yeah, that sounds like a plan
to me. I know of some guns that need cleaning. Medical supplies
weren’t the
only
things that Dominic had stuffed into that
ambulance, and we haven’t had the chance to go through any of it
yet.”

Sounds like fun,
Jude scribbled, and
he pushed himself off the couch. He showed Keith the notepad and
offered him his hand. Keith took it, and Jude hauled him to his
feet, a wide smile on his face. He tucked his notepad into his back
pocket and followed Keith to the front door, watching as he
unbolted it and pulled it open. Keith had his pistol out and aimed
before Jude realized he’d drawn it, and he mimicked his move,
sliding his own pistol out of its thigh holster and lifting it in a
two-handed grip. Keith slunk out of the house first, cutting toward
the right of the door, and Jude followed him, sidestepping to the
left.

Jude scanned the porch and the yard, sweeping
his pistol along his line of sight, searching for dangers. When
nothing presented itself, he lowered his pistol to his side and
glanced at Keith. Keith smiled reassuringly and lowered his own
gun, then beckoned to him with his free hand.

“Come on, let’s get to the ambulance,” Keith
said. “Most of the stuff is still in there. We haven’t had time to
move any of it yet, what with your sister being unconscious and
Cade giving birth. All we took inside were those MREs we’ve been
eating and some medical supplies.”