The Becoming: Redemption (The Becoming Series Book 5) (8 page)

“I’ll come back when you’re done,” Dominic
promised, and he dropped one more kiss onto her wrist and headed to
the door. He slipped past Derek, who gave him a hard look, and the
doctor stepped in and shut the door behind him. Derek stood there,
staring at her, his arms folded over his chest. For once, he’d
tossed the customary lab coats he’d worn like a shield for as long
as she’d known him, though he had probably left them all behind in
the inferno of Woodside. He was wearing jeans, a t-shirt, and what
looked like combat boots, an outfit so out of the norm for him
that, if it had been any other situation, Remy would have done a
double take or maybe cracked a joke about it. When he spoke, his
voice was hoarse, low, and firm.

“Why?”

Remy shifted uncomfortably on the bed and
picked up her bolo knife’s sheath, sliding the blade into it. “Why
what?” she asked, hoping to buy herself some time to figure out how
to explain.

“Why didn’t you come to me?”

Remy looked at him, eyes wide. “I…I d-don’t
know,” she stammered. “I thought you wouldn’t help me. I asked for
the cure over and over and over. I
begged
for it, and you
wouldn’t give it to me.” Her voice cracked, and she looked away
from him, staring out the window at the night again. “I thought I
was going to die.”

Derek walked across the room, his boots
thumping against the hardwood floor, and the bed beside her sank
down when he sat on the edge of it. Remy studiously kept her eyes
on the window, not daring to look at him.

“I was wrong,” he said. “I screwed up when I
delayed giving you the treatment without any explanation. I should
have explained. I should have told you about how it worried me. I
should have told you about the side effects Ethan was experiencing
so you would understand why I was delaying giving it to you.”

Remy still didn’t look at him. “What sort of
side effects?”

“I don’t know for sure,” Derek said.
“Uncontrollable hunger, anger issues, that sort of thing. I didn’t
get the opportunity to explore it more in depth before Ethan…had to
leave.”

“That’s a polite euphemism for ‘ran away,’”
Remy muttered.

“These side effects are worrisome enough that
I wasn’t willing to throw everything behind it all the way,” Derek
went on, ignoring her. “It’s not a cure anyway.”

That was enough to bring her around with a
gasp. “What?”

“It’s a vaccine,” Derek said. “Sort of. If
you’re already infected when you’re given it, then you stay
infected. It just replaces one type of infection with a stronger
version of it.”

“So I’m still infected?”

“Yeah, and you always will be,” Derek
answered. “It’s just a question of whether you’d be contagious or
not, and if Ethan’s status is any indicator, the answer is no.”

“I can hear the ‘but’ in your voice,” Remy
said.

“
But
I’m concerned that things may be
different with you,” Derek said.

“Different how?” Remy asked. She was thinking
back on what had happened at Woodside, when she’d walked right into
a horde of infected and none of them had laid a hand on her. She
put a hand up to stop Derek before he could say anything. “Wait,
never mind. I’m not sure I want to know,” she said. “It won’t make
a difference for me to know, especially since I’m leaving with Cade
and you’re staying here with the baby.”

Derek gave her an uncertain look. “You
sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Remy said with a confidence
she didn’t feel. “Like I said, it won’t make much difference when
I’m out on the road.” She tucked a stray lock of hair behind her
ear and sighed. “I wish we could all go. I don’t like the idea of
any of us being left behind. We’ve lost too many people
already…”

Derek caught her hand in his and squeezed it.
“I know, Remy,” he said. “We’ve all had our share of losses, some
many more than others. And even after those losses, it never gets
easier.”

There was a heavy vein of sadness in the
doctor’s voice, one that drew Remy toward him like a moth to a
candle’s flame. It was the sense of a kindred spirit, of a fellow
survivor with a darkness that, like hers, was buried so deeply in
his soul that he didn’t have a hope of digging it out. He was
broken inside, and she wondered if he was aware of it. She didn’t
say her thoughts out loud, though. It would probably only lead to
trouble. Instead, she said, “No, it never does.”

Silence fell between them. Derek seemed lost
in his thoughts and was staring at the wall across the room. When
he spoke, his voice was hushed. “I’m a coward.”

Remy raised an eyebrow. “What? No you’re
not.”

“Yes, I am. I should be going with you guys.
You’ve got the more dangerous task ahead of you, and you’re the
more likely of the two groups to need medical help. Yet the moment
the opportunity arose, I jumped at the chance to stay here, where
it’s
safer
.” He curled his lip like he was disgusted with
himself.

“Just because you’re not actively traveling
doesn’t mean you’re safer,” Remy pointed out. “There won’t be as
many of you here to guard the house and the baby, only you and
Isaac. That means your resources and your ability to watch for
danger are going to be really limited. Personally, I’d rather go
out on the road, cause I think you’ve got the worst of the jobs,
protecting Olivia while trying to keep the three of you alive.”

Derek snorted. “Nice try, Remy,” he said.
“I’m afraid that just sounds like a load of horseshit.”

Remy fought to not crack a grin, and she
shrugged with one shoulder. “Can’t fault a girl for trying, can
you?”

Derek chuckled. “No, I don’t suppose I
can.”

The
following week passed in a flurry of activity, more than Cade had
participated in in months. She’d bent to the task without
complaint, despite the pain she felt in her back, hips, and legs.
She pushed on past the ache, making lists of supplies and gathering
what she could. On the eve of their departure, she stood in the
master bedroom, packing what little she had left. The pile of
personal objects on her bed was smaller than it had ever been, most
of what she’d started out with long gone, and she thought wistfully
on the closet and dresser full of clothes she’d had back home
before everything had fallen apart. With a sigh, she started
rolling and stuffing her few articles of clothing into her
backpack. All of it fit inside with plenty of room to spare.

“At least I’ll have room for extra ammo,” she
muttered, turning her attention to the equally sparse weaponry on
the scratched dresser near the bed. The lack of guns and ammunition
there was enough to make her heart sink to her knees. How was she
going to track Brandt down, charge into wherever he was being held,
and save him from an entire, well-equipped military unit with one
pistol, a knife, and her rifle?

“We are so fucked,” she said. It was a
struggle to keep despair from settling over her at the admission,
and she swallowed the lump trying to rise in her throat. Her throat
felt raw from grief and worry, and she looked around for a bottle
of water to soothe the ache, even as the despondency settled
further over her, trying to push her into a downward spiral she
wouldn’t be able to pull out of.

“What’s the point in this?” she murmured.
Giving up her search for a bottle of water, she stepped away from
the bed to look out the window. The sun was starting to break over
the horizon, spilling the faintest blue light over the few houses
nearby and pouring like liquid over the pavement, running toward
the house they were bunked in. The ambulance they’d used to escape
the impending inferno that was to engulf Woodside was parked at the
curb, the windows glazed over with nighttime condensation. Cade
pressed a hand against the glass, which was cool from the air of
early fall, and closed her eyes.

“The world is too big,” she whispered. “I
don’t even know where to start looking for you.”

Brandt, of course, didn’t answer. Cade’s
heart broke in the silence.

Olivia made a soft whimpering sound, and Cade
turned away from the window to tend to her. She spotted a dark form
in her bedroom doorway, and she stopped short, sucking in a
startled breath. Her fingers twitched toward her hip to grab for a
pistol that wasn’t there. She caught the movement and curled her
hand into a fist, ready to go on the attack. “Who’s there?” she
snarled.

“Just me,” Dominic said. Cade’s shoulders
sagged in relief, and she loosened her stance, uncurling her
fingers from her tight fist. “I thought I’d come check in on you,
see if you needed anything.”

“You could have knocked,” Cade said, trying
her best to keep the annoyance out of her voice. She headed for the
bed to tend to Olivia.

“I didn’t want to wake you up if you were
asleep,” Dominic said. “Sorry.” He stepped into the bedroom,
halting inside the door.

Cade picked up Olivia, cradling her to her
chest and rubbing her back soothingly, and one of the infant’s tiny
fists curled against Cade’s collarbone. Dominic took another step
and set a canister and a bottle of water onto the bed.

“I brought up another can of formula,” he
said. “There’s quite a few more downstairs. I scavenged all that I
could over the past several months.”

Cade couldn’t muster a smile of gratitude.
“Thanks.” She started to pace the floor, attempting to soothe
Olivia’s whimpers. It was like the infant could sense that Cade was
getting ready to leave and that she was leaving her behind.

“I heard what you said,” Dominic said, his
voice hesitant. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but…”

“It was nothing,” Cade replied. “Don’t worry
about it.”

Dominic sighed and came into the bedroom,
sinking down onto the edge of the bed and rubbing the palms of his
hands over his knees while Cade paced the room with Olivia. Cade
could tell he wanted to say something but was reluctant to do so,
and she gritted her teeth. She smoothed her hand over Olivia’s
back, adjusting the onesie the baby wore.

“Spit it out, Dominic,” she snapped. “I’m not
in the mood to watch you dance around shit.”

Dominic scrubbed his hands over his face. “I
know you’re not okay,” he said. Cade opened her mouth to argue, and
he put up a hand to stop her. “And don’t try to tell me you are,
because I’m not going to believe it. I don’t think there’s a soul
on this planet who would be okay after all the shit you’ve been put
through these past two years.” He paused long enough for Cade to
wander to the window to check on the progress of the dawn. “I also
overheard you a minute ago. I know you’re scared and hurting—”

“I’m not scared,” Cade interrupted. “I’m
pissed
. I want to track down those bastards who took Brandt
and tear them apart. I want to burn the motherfuckers down and
scatter their ashes across the fucking planet. I want to make every
single one of them pay for taking Brandt away from me and killing
all of our people.”

“You need to find out where he is,” Dominic
said. “That’s something I might be able to help you with.”

Hope, that forbidden emotion she’d been
trying to avoid, welled up in Cade despite her best efforts, and
she turned away from the window to look at him. Cade knew that
Dominic could see the hope in her eyes, but she didn’t care. She
had to know what he was going to say.

Dominic produced a large map from his back
pocket. He unfolded it, spreading it out to its full size on the
wrinkled comforter. “I took the liberty of trying to figure out the
potential radius of where they could have taken Brandt.”

Cade leaned over the map to get a look,
though she couldn’t see much in the dim light. Dominic took a
flashlight out of his pocket, mashing the button on the end to turn
it on and shining it over the map. He’d drawn large, concentric
circles over the map that rippled out from the approximate location
of Woodside.

“There are a lot of unknown variables,” he
said. “The range of one of those helicopters is about six hundred
miles. We have several possibilities.” He pointed to the smallest
of the circles. “This is about three hundred miles out from
Woodside in every direction. They could be anywhere in this circle
if
they flew straight from their starting point to Woodside
and back.” He pointed to another circle, this one much larger.
“This is six hundred miles out from Woodside. If they flew from a
starting point six hundred miles out straight to Woodside, they’d
have to refuel in Woodside to make it back to their starting point.
Of course, they couldn’t do that, because Woodside had no refueling
capabilities. They’d have to find somewhere that did. I’m thinking
there’s a possibility they had a refueling point roughly halfway
along the route and that they flew from their starting point to the
refueling post, gassed up there, and then flew the rest of the way
to Woodside. This would have left them enough fuel to get back to
the refueling point so they could go back to wherever they came
from.
Or
they could have gone three hundred more miles past
that.” He pointed to the largest circle on the page, which
encompassed both of the smaller ones. “If they refueled at their
original starting point and flew out from there, then there’s no
way we can even begin to know where they went.”

“So we’re practically right back where we
started,” Cade said. She slumped onto the end of the bed and leaned
against one of the bedposts. “With no real idea of where to look,
except
maybe
inside one of these circles.”

“It’s like trying to find a needle in a
haystack when you have no idea which haystack you’re supposed to be
looking in,” Dominic said. “Which is why I think your plan might be
the most sound. We’ve got to figure out exactly where he is, and
that means we need better intel. The Tabernacle is the only place I
know of in easy traveling distance that might have more
information. Going there is a start, and I think it’s a wise idea,
regardless of what anyone else says.” Cade looked up at him, her
heart right there on her sleeve, and he gave her a smile. “I’ve got
your back on this, Cade. I promise.”