The Becoming: Revelations
Author: Jessica Meigs
Date: 2013-01-02 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Zombies; Horror; Post Apocalyptic; Survival; Fiction; Dystopia; Science Fiction; Apocalyptic
Description: Brandt Evans is floundering. Leadership of their dysfunctional group wasn’t something he asked for or wanted. Their problems are Remy Angellette is grief-stricken and suicidal, Gray Carter is distant and reclusive, and Cade Alton is near death. And things only get worse. While Brandt and Gray are on the hunt for supplies, a still-recovering Cade is kidnapped by a militant group of survivors. On Brandt’s return, he’s told of a conspiracy involving test subjects, pathogens, and CDC doctors. Brandt’s race to save Cade takes him back to the dangerous streets of Atlanta, where not all is as it seem
Publisher: Permuted Press

The Becoming: Revelations (The Becoming Book 3)

- Title Page
- Prologue:
- Chapter 1
- Chapter 2
- Chapter 3
- Chapter 4
- Chapter 5
- Chapter 6
- Chapter 7
- Chapter 8
- Chapter 9
- Chapter 10
- Chapter 11
- Chapter 12
- Chapter 13
- Chapter 14
- Chapter 15
- Chapter 16
- Chapter 17
- Chapter 18
- Chapter 19
- Chapter 20
- Chapter 21
- Chapter 22
- Chapter 23
- Chapter 24
- Chapter 25
- Chapter 26
- Chapter 27
- Chapter 28
- Chapter 29
- Chapter 30
- Chapter 31
- Chapter 32
- Chapter 33
- Chapter 34
- Chapter 35
- Chapter 36
- Chapter 37
- Chapter 38
- Chapter 39
- Chapter 40
- Chapter 41
- Chapter 42
- Chapter 43
- Chapter 44
- Chapter 45
- Chapter 46
- Chapter 47
- Chapter 48
- Chapter 49
- Chapter 50
- Chapter 51
- Chapter 52
- Chapter 53
- Chapter 54
- Chapter 55
- Chapter 56
- Chapter 57
- Chapter 58
- Chapter 59
- Chapter 60
- Chapter 61
- Chapter 62
- Chapter 63
- Epilogue
- About the Author

A PERMUTED PRESS book
published at Smashwords.

ISBN (trade paperback): 978-1-61868-040-2

ISBN (eBook): 978-1-61868-041-9

The Becoming: Revelations copyright © 2013
by Jessica Meigs.

All Rights Reserved.

This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

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Prologue

From the Journal of Ethan Bennett

March 21, 2010

My name is Ethan Bennett, and I am a dead man.

I officially died a month ago at the hands of a group of homicidal people infected with the Michaluk virus. I suffered serious injuries and contracted the virus while attempting to delay their pursuit of my friends. I was saved from succumbing to the virus by sheer luck—and with the help of a medication cocktail that holds the virus at bay. For now, I only have a low risk of becoming like those who killed me.

For now.

I’m with a group led by a woman named Alicia Day. She’s former Marine Security Forces, and the people here hold her in very high regard. She leads roughly one hundred and fifty men, women, and children at the Westin. Through their hard work, they’ve turned this hotel into a small village. Almost thirty of those people are infected with the virus in a manner similar to me. It’s only through the miraculous chance of having a CDC doctor here that I’m able to write this, that the infected living here are able to continue with their lives, such as they are. Despite the daily medication regimen, they’ve eked out a reasonably productive existence in the hopes that something more permanent can one day be discovered. They live for that hope, though there’s always the chance their bodies will hit the point where the medications are no longer effective.

Alicia tells me it is imperative we find Brandt Evans. He was one of my companions before I became infected, and I don’t know where he is. I can’t remember where any of my friends were to go after Atlanta. And honestly? That terrifies me. Because if what Alicia tells me about Brandt is even remotely true, then my best friend Cade and my lover Remy and hell, even Gray (as much as I dislike the bastard)—they’re all in danger. If Brandt is infected, he poses a major risk not only to Cade, Gray, and Remy, but to the entire world.

But Brandt Evans is also a hope. A possibility of a key to the cure for the Michaluk virus. And that is a chance we can’t afford to let pass.

Our bodies have begun to adjust to the medications. I’m fine for now, but there are many who aren’t. The drugs are losing their effectiveness for many; there have already been four people to spontaneously fall ill this week alone. Four people Alicia took away from the others and put down, as she felt it was her responsibility to do.

We can’t keep losing numbers like this. We need a cure, and we need it fast.

And we’re hoping Brandt Evans can give us one.

Chapter 1

Remy Angellette’s nights had become filled with entirely too much coffee. That wasn’t a good thing. The liquid—however dark and rich and deliciously bitter it was—kept her awake far more than she’d already been before the group’s flight from Maplesville over a month before. Her nerves jittered at the thought of them running out of the sparse supply of coffee grounds to which they’d already been reduced. But the sleeplessness caused by the caffeinated drink and her own willpower was far better than the nightmares that plagued her every time she closed her eyes.

Remy wasn’t sure if Brandt had caught on that she wasn’t sleeping, but Gray definitely had. Oddly enough, he hadn’t said anything to her about it. Instead, he’d often join her on the roof of their newest safe house late at night, and together they’d sit in companionable silence, watching the stars and dwelling on their thoughts, their hopes, their dreams, or their lack thereof.

In the weeks since the terrible events in Atlanta, Remy had dwelled incessantly on Ethan, on Theo, on Nikola, and on Avi—especially on Avi. Every time Remy’s thoughts lit on the woman, she was bothered by the suspicion there was something more to the story. Avi had hidden something important from them—her mannerisms, the way she’d avoided directly answering questions, her flowery speeches, and her flat-out helplessness when facing down infected all made that glaringly obvious—but what that “something” was, Remy had no way to find out. The other woman was dead and therefore impervious to Remy’s questions and accusations, no matter how loudly she made them in her head. Remy hadn’t been affected by the woman’s death, beyond the initial shock of it—after all, she’d only known the woman for a few days—but the one who’d fallen only minutes after her …

A sob threatened to well up in her throat as Ethan’s face appeared in her mind’s eye, but Remy quickly tamped it down. She couldn’t stop the tears that stirred in her gut, though. Ethan had fallen, had met a terrible death at the hands of the infected while trying to save the rest of them. While trying to save her. And Remy had fought, had tried to get to him before it was too late, but Brandt hadn’t allowed it. He’d held her down, pinned her to a rooftop, while on the ground below, Ethan died.

Remy wasn’t sure she’d ever forgive Brandt for that.

Boots scraped on the roof behind her, shuffling and bumping as their owner climbed through the second-story window to join her. Remy pulled her knees to her chest and set her bolo knife beside her, lovingly tracing her fingertips over its wooden hilt before wrapping her arms around her knees. The owner of the boots approached.

“Hey,” a quiet voice greeted her. Brandt. Of course. Her chest constricted at the sound of his voice, and she couldn’t help but think on the words he’d said to her when he broke the news of Ethan’s sacrifice: He stayed behind to give the rest of us a chance.

But Remy hadn’t wanted that chance. She just wanted Ethan.

“Hey, Brandt,” Remy replied. She suppressed a sigh as her hope for peace and quiet was dashed. She could just ask Brandt to leave her be, and he’d likely do it. But, despite the lurking bitterness she felt toward him, Remy still wanted his company, any company. So she kept her mouth shut and pressed her lips together as the tall man settled onto the shingles beside her.

“I thought it was Gray’s turn to keep watch,” Brandt said. He rested an arm against his bent knee and glanced at Remy. “What are you doing up here?”

Remy shrugged and kept her eyes locked onto the darkness. She couldn’t see it, but if she strained her ears, she could make out the faint sounds of the Atlantic Ocean, its dark gray waters breaking on the beaches a mere two blocks away. Remy had seen it only once, when they first arrived in the tiny coastal South Carolinian town near Hollywood. She’d immediately disliked it. It was a far cry from the beautiful blue waters and sugar-white sands of the Gulf of Mexico near which she’d grown up. Compared to that paradise, the coastline in the distance looked like something out of Dante’s Inferno.

“Couldn’t sleep,” Remy admitted after the silence stretched too long. “Figured I’d let Gray get some rest since I’m awake anyway.”

Brandt gave Remy a sad smile that she just barely saw in the moonlight. “Thinking too much?” he asked gently, understandingly.

Remy didn’t want his understanding. “You don’t even know the half of it,” she muttered. Her voice revealed how disgusted she was. At whom, though, she wasn’t sure.

“You could try me?” Brandt offered. His own voice was tinged with a fair amount of the concern that did a fantastic job of pissing Remy off. She didn’t want Brandt to waste his time being concerned over her. There wasn’t anything to be concerned about.

Remy glanced at Brandt, ready to offer a blunt refusal, maybe an excuse for why she didn’t want to talk to him. But as she opened her mouth, Remy caught a glimpse of the darkness in Brandt’s eyes and quickly shut it again. It was a haunted, disturbed look—the look of a man who’d stared into the pits of Hell for far too long, had seen things that couldn’t be unseen. The expression unsettled Remy. Maybe Brandt wanted an excuse to talk about some things. Maybe his concern over Remy’s problems was a pretense for examining his own.

“Are you okay?” Remy ventured. She tucked her feet beneath her and settled onto her boots to cushion her seat against the roof. She locked her eyes onto Brandt’s, trying to force the man to look at her. He glanced at her fleetingly before his eyes darted back to their surroundings.

“What do you think I’m asking you?” Brandt replied. He ran his hands through his dark hair. The gesture reminded Remy, painfully, of Ethan. “You’re not sleeping,” he continued. “You’re getting, what, two or three hours every couple of nights? That’s not healthy.”

“You’re not my father,” Remy muttered. “Not even Eth—” The name caught in her throat, and she drew a deep breath. Her eyes welled with tears, despite her best efforts to prevent their appearance. “Not even he could get away with ordering me around like that.”

Brandt didn’t reply right away, though he did finally look at Remy, studying her closely in the moonlight. She looked back at him through tears threatening to spill. Memories flooded her brain, hammered at her skull, trying to force the tears from her eyes against her will. Brandt gave her a sad smile and squeezed her shoulder. “Yeah, I miss him too,” he admitted.

That was all it took for the tears to stream down her face. Remy bit her bottom lip, but the pain from her teeth did nothing to quell the sobs that clawed up from the empty hole Ethan’s death had left inside her.

The next thing she knew, Remy was in Brandt’s arms with her face pressed against his chest as painful, gut-wrenching sobs she’d fought for a month to restrain broke free. She grieved for all her lost friends, for Nikola and Avi and Theo and especially Ethan. But she also cried for the four survivors, the ones left behind to cope with the losses they’d sustained in such rapid succession and the difficulties they now faced in surviving without the man to whom they’d looked as their figurehead for the past year.

“Why did he have to do that?” Remy managed. “Why did he have to play the motherfucking martyr? Couldn’t he see that we need him? That I need him?”

“Of course, Remy,” Brandt said. He rubbed her back in slow, soothing circles. “Of course he could see that. Of course he knew we needed him. That’s why he did what he did. He cared enough—he loved all of us enough—to give up his own life so we’d have a chance at ours.” Remy looked at him again. The dark, haunted expression was back in his eyes. “If he hadn’t done that, the infected would have circled the building and swarmed us when we came out the front doors. And then we all would have died. Ethan would never have found that acceptable.”

Remy let out a shaky breath and lay against Brandt, her eyes closed, listening to his heartbeat and his steady breathing. It was the closest she’d ever felt to him, like being comforted by an older brother she’d never had. The thought made the bitterness inside her subside, made a fleeting smile brush against her lips. Brandt ran his fingers over her hair and kissed the center of her forehead. Then he dug a tissue from his pocket and pressed it into her hand.

“Thanks,” Remy murmured, wiping at her eyes. She squeezed them shut and fought to gain control of herself. It felt like everything inside her was displaced, like her stomach was squished into the middle of her back and her heart was down by her liver. “God, what is wrong with me?” she asked. “I’m not acting like me at all.” She gave Brandt a tight smile that barely masked the tears still threatening. “Fuck. I’m okay, I promise.”

Brandt rubbed Remy’s back again and looked across the yard with a vacant expression. “You lost someone you love,” he said. “I can’t imagine how hard that is. I haven’t dealt with that in a long time.” He glanced to the window behind them. “I hope I never do, either.”

Remy pulled away from him and glanced at the window. “Speaking of which, how’s Cade today? Any improvement?”

Brandt brightened. “I think her fever finally broke,” he said with enthusiasm. “She’s noticeably cooler than she was yesterday.”

Remy gave Brandt a happy smile as relief coursed through her. They’d been crazy with worry over Cade; Brandt had almost gone insane with the stress he’d experienced over the woman’s briefly worsened condition.

The infection—thankfully not one of the Michaluk variety—brought on by the gunshot wound to Cade’s side had raged through her body for three weeks, and they’d fought a desperate war against it. They’d pumped Cade full of what few antibiotics they had, given the woman as many fluids as they could work down her throat, constantly bathed her with cool cloths as her fever skyrocketed and her body sweated and shivered. They hadn’t been sure they’d treated the infection properly, but they’d taken what Gray knew and run with it. They’d clearly done something right, because Cade’s fever breaking was a very good sign.

“Got scary for a bit there, didn’t it?” Brandt asked. His voice was thick with an emotion Remy recognized immediately.

“You love her, don’t you?” she murmured. With the way he constantly glanced at the window, it was clear where he wanted to be—and it was not on the roof with Remy. Not that she blamed him.

Brandt didn’t look surprised by Remy’s question. He shifted his eyes to hers and nodded. “Yeah, of course,” he said, as if it were obvious.

Remy traced a circle over the knee of her jeans, picking threads out of a hole in the fabric. She dabbed the tissue at her eyes again. “Would you marry her? If you could?”

Brandt looked at the shingles, considering Remy’s question. “I think if it were an option, I would,” he admitted. “But I don’t think it is. Hell knows the world’s so bad off, the chances of finding a priest in this cesspool are slim to none.”

“Oh, you’re a traditionalist,” Remy mused. She patted him on the arm and smiled. “You know what I think? In this world, you don’t need a priest to be married in the eyes of God, so long as you’re both faithful. I think in circumstances like these, God would understand if you just said you were married.”

Brandt looked at the night sky. “I don’t know. Maybe I want something more than just us saying, ‘Oh hey, we’re married.’” He made a few overly dramatic hand gestures, and Remy laughed. “I can’t explain it. Besides, I don’t even have a ring for her.”

“I don’t think Cade cares about all that,” Remy admonished him. “She’s never struck me as being into the whole flowers and romance and rings and churches thing.” She clapped her hands. “But I’ll tell you what. I’ll talk to Gray. He’s still—”

“No, don’t do that,” Brandt protested. Remy swatted his arm to stop him.

“Shush, man,” she ordered. “I’ll talk to Gray. He’s still got his family’s Bible. He might not be ordained, but I don’t think that matters. Next time you and Gray go on supply, you can hunt down a couple of wedding bands. I bet Gray would marry you guys sometime after you got back. When you’re ready for that, of course.”

Brandt hesitated. The dark look in his eyes had been replaced by a hopeful expression. “You think it’s a good idea?” he asked. “I mean, is it something Cade would even be interested in?”

“Don’t worry about it so much,” Remy said. “Take your time with it, okay? Talk to her about it when she wakes up, see what she thinks.”

Brandt nodded, raking his hands through his hair and staring into the darkness. As he reclined back to gaze at the stars above their heads, Remy saw a little of the something Cade likely saw in the man: the softness in his eyes, the way his hair fell in his face, even the dreamy quality about the way he looked at the sky. This was a man who, despite his military background and what Remy called his general “badassery,” was a dreamer through and through—and obviously a romantic. If Cade were smart, Remy thought, she’d dig her claws into this man and hang on to him for dear life, because she’d never find another one like him. Remy wasn’t certain men like Brandt even existed anymore.

Remy glanced at the window again and cleared her throat to get Brandt’s attention. He shifted his eyes to her and raised an eyebrow. “I think I’m actually getting tired,” she said. “Do you mind …?” She motioned vaguely to the rooftop around them.

“Yeah, sure. Of course,” Brandt said. “You don’t even have to ask. Go get some rest, Rem.”

Remy smiled at the nickname and stood, her boots scraping on the shingles as she gained her feet. “Thanks. I’ll come get you as soon as I wake up.” She climbed a few steps up the roof’s slope before pausing behind him and dropping a kiss on top of his head. It was impulsive, but it felt like the right thing to do. Then, without another word, she crawled up to the window and slipped through it into the darkness beyond.

Chapter 2

“I need to get out of here.”

Ethan’s breath fogged the frigid pane of glass in front of him. He stared from the eighteenth floor, over the darkened city of Atlanta. It looked strangely alien, so large and yet so quiet. The infected weren’t visible from his vantage point as the sun dropped below the horizon and threw the city into terrifying darkness. If it weren’t for the lack of streetlights and traffic lights, he’d have thought the city looked almost normal.

Ethan had been at the Westin in downtown Atlanta for roughly a month; he couldn’t be sure exactly how long, because he had no idea what date he’d met his fate in the city. He worked in approximates now: approximately how long he’d been there, approximately how long the search for Brandt had been going on, approximately how long he had left to live. They were approximates he hated. But right now, the approximate he wanted to narrow down was approximately how much longer he’d have to wait until he was allowed to go anywhere.

“You’re more than welcome to go anywhere in the hotel you want to,” Alicia Day said. “Nothing is stopping you.”

Ethan slammed his fist against the window. “I mean out there,” he said. “Not in the fucking hotel.” He forced his hand away from the glass and clenched his fists at his sides, struggling to control himself. “I should be helping search for Brandt.”

The scuff of boots on carpet met his ears, and pale, slender arms looped around his waist. Alicia’s reflection hovered, ghostlike, in the glass over his right shoulder. She studied his face as she rubbed her hands slowly over his sides. Despite the anger still rattling through his veins, no matter how much he fought it, Ethan was pulled helplessly toward relaxation. Alicia just had that effect on him, similar to the effect Remy always had. Thank God for that, because he angered so much more easily now …

“You still don’t remember where you and Brandt planned to take the others after Atlanta?” Alicia asked. Her hands traced over his ribs, almost distracting him from his anger. Almost. He swallowed and shook his head slowly.

The Michaluk virus had done a number on his brain, eradicating random portions of his memory, much to his frustration. Alicia had gotten to him quickly enough to prevent the virus’s worst effects, but she hadn’t been able to do anything about the memory loss—a symptom she’d admittedly never seen before. It drove him insane. There were things he was supposed to know, but every time he tried to drag those things from the depths of his mind, they eluded him.

Ethan must have tensed again, because Alicia’s arms tightened around him, and her translucent reflection shook its head. “Calm down. Breathe. Don’t force it. It’ll come to you eventually. Pushing it will only make it harder for you to remember.”

“I need to be out there,” Ethan said again. His anger slid away from him. He thumped the glass with his fist, though not as violently as before. “I’m tired of this place. I’m tired of feeling like I’m trapped. I need to find my friends. I need to help them.”

“I know, but Ethan … you can’t leave yet,” Alicia said. “There’s the problem with adjusting your meds. And your wounds aren’t fully healed. You still move too slowly, and that’s a fast way to die out there. I’m not willing to risk you, not just yet.”

Ethan closed his eyes and sagged against her, digging his blunt fingernails into his palms. A surge of guilt ran through him. All she wanted was to keep him safe, to keep him from getting killed. “Fuck, I’m sorry,” he muttered. “I didn’t think of it that way. You’re right. Of course.”

“You’re not the only person who’s wanted to jump the gun and run while still dealing with the aftereffects of getting infected,” Alicia admitted. She gave Ethan another squeeze and took a half-step back. She still stood so close that Ethan felt the warmth of her body near his. “Speaking of which, it’s about time we changed your bandages. I want to see how your wounds are healing.”

Ethan sighed, giving in to the inevitable. He hated having his bandages changed. The tape went out of its way to hurt as much as possible when peeling away from his skin. Despite his reluctance, however, Ethan went to the plush king-sized bed, sinking down onto the end of it and leaning forward obediently. He eased his white wife-beater off, wincing as the medical tape pulled harshly at his torn skin. Then he rested his arms against his thighs, exposing his back for Alicia’s perusal.

The redhead moved the camping lantern from the dresser to the table by the bed and retrieved the first-aid supplies before she climbed onto the bed beside him. She kicked her boots off and sat on her knees behind him, smoothing her hands gently over his back; Ethan suppressed a shiver—barely—as her fingers ghosted along his skin. She slipped a fingernail beneath the edge of the tape and peeled it up. An ache immediately coursed through Ethan’s veins, pulsing through his wounds. He sucked in a breath and dug his nails into the knees of his pants, closing his eyes and relaxing as much as the pain allowed.

“Talk to me,” Alicia requested. She pulled away the first strip of tape, folded it on itself, and set it on the bed.

“What am I supposed to talk about?”

“I don’t know. Anything.” She stripped the next piece of tape off, and Ethan flinched as it pulled at the wound nearest it. “Tell me about your friends. Which ones are you closest to?”

Ethan bit his lip as the tape ripped away from his skin. Alicia set it and a square of gauze on the bed. Ethan frowned as he noticed specks of blood on it. “I don’t know anymore,” he admitted. “It used to be Cade, but I’m not sure how close we are anymore. Over the months before Avi showed up, we’d started to drift apart, I think because I was spending more time with Remy.”

“And Remy was your … girlfriend?” Alicia asked. She started on the next square of gauze. Ethan tried to not cringe at the question. Instead, he studied the carpet intently and gripped his knees tighter.

“Honestly? I have no idea what we were,” Ethan said. “Things got heated with us only in the last three months. Even then, it started by accident. We didn’t plan any of the shit.”

“What did you plan?” Alicia leaned close to study the bandage hooked over his left shoulder. She followed the tape to its end against his chest and tugged at it. It peeled away easily. Ethan felt her breath against his neck and closed his eyes with a shrug.

“I don’t know. Definitely not a relationship,” Ethan said. “We were attracted to each other. She’s way outside my age range, so I don’t know why I became so attached to her. Just … one thing led to another, and it spiraled out of control. The rest of the group had no idea, and she wanted it kept that way.”

“Think it was proximity?” Alicia suggested.

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

“Did you love her?” Alicia asked. She tugged the last of the gauze from Ethan’s back. A scab peeled away from the wound, and he gritted his teeth and hissed, tensing. Alicia hummed softly and rubbed the back of his neck in apology.

“I don’t know,” Ethan said after the initial sting of pain subsided. “I didn’t get in too deep. Or at least I tried not to. I don’t know how she felt.”

“I’m not asking how she felt,” Alicia murmured. Her fingers brushed Ethan’s blond hair aside, and her lips pressed against the nape of his neck. Ethan closed his eyes and suppressed another shiver. He wasn’t used to Alicia’s forwardness; he supposed the conditions in which they lived caused many—including Alicia and even, to some extent, himself—to do things they might not have done if uninfected. Everything moved almost too quickly for him to handle. “I’m asking how you felt,” she persisted. She moved on to his arms to unwrap the gauze looped around them.

A trickle of something wet and warm dripped down between his shoulder blades. The sensation was disturbing. “I don’t know how I felt,” he said. He was reluctant to admit anything so personal to Alicia. They’d shared a bed, they shared common ground and a fear of the future, and yet Ethan still couldn’t share his feelings about Remy with her. He usually avoided discussions about his and Remy’s relationship—not to mention his marriage to Anna. Ethan was sure Alicia knew about them anyway; she knew more about him than he knew about him.

“I guess I loved her,” Ethan confessed after a silence filled only by the sound of tearing tape. He consciously downplayed his feelings, not willing to give Alicia more than necessary. “Enough to matter, anyway, considering we did what we could to not fall in love.”

“Do you still feel that way?” Alicia asked. She turned his right arm over and peeled at the tape on the underside of his forearm. Her eyes were intent on the gauze, her hair falling into her face. Ethan wanted to brush it out of her eyes, but he couldn’t with the grip she still had on his arm. “Do you still feel like you’re not supposed to be with anyone?”

“More so than ever,” Ethan said. The fervency in his voice surprised him. “I’ve got Michaluk. I’m living on borrowed time. There’s no way I’d subject someone I loved to this.”

“Same here,” Alicia agreed. She added the gauze to the growing pile. “It’s not worth falling in love when it won’t be long before we all die.” Ethan took her hand, lacing his fingers with hers and squeezing it. Alicia sighed and continued. “I shouldn’t be so morbid,” she said. She cracked open the first-aid kit, taking out the tapes and gauzes and wound cleansers she’d use. She followed with a small pair of scissors and tweezers. Ethan tensed at the sight. This was going to hurt. “I should think positively. I should tell myself we’re going to find Evans and be able to convince him to help us.”

Alicia started cleaning the wound on his right forearm. Ethan dug his nails into his knees again. “Do you think he’ll cooperate?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Alicia admitted. She dabbed a stray streak of blood from his skin. “That’s something you can answer a hell of a lot better than I can.” She tore strips of medical tape from the roll and stuck one end of each to the edge of the kit’s box in a neat row. “Do you think he’ll help us?”

Ethan hesitated as he thought over the little he knew about the man. Brandt had never been open about his past; he clung to it, kept it close where no one could use it against him. Ethan had always harbored the suspicion that Brandt was hiding something from the rest of them, and Alicia had confirmed that a month prior. As for how Brandt would react to what Alicia needed him for …

“I’m not sure,” Ethan said. “I think so. I hope so. But I’m not sure I know much about him. I don’t know if he’ll do it.”

Alicia began to wrap fresh gauze around Ethan’s arm. “I hope he will. Not for my sake or your sake, but for the sake of the children here. We fucked up this world. We messed around with things we had no business messing with. The children shouldn’t have to suffer because of our mistakes.”

Chapter 3

By the time Remy took his place on watch shortly before sunrise, Brandt was exhausted. His head felt like it was packed with cotton, and his eyes were dry and scratchy. To say he was ready to crawl into bed and not move until after lunch was an understatement. It was with that thought in mind that Brandt climbed through the second-story window. He rubbed his eyes and shuffled to the master bedroom, where he’d stayed since their arrival at the safe house.

The room brightened with the first hints of sunrise, but Brandt still couldn’t see well as he collapsed into the armchair by the bed. He slouched weakly for a long moment before leaning down to take his boots off. He managed to unlace his left boot, and he’d begun the process of untying the right one when a shift of movement from the king-sized bed caught his attention.

Brandt tensed and straightened. His eyes locked onto the dark form in the bed. Brandt was well aware that it was Cade. After all, he’d spent the past three weeks sleeping in the very chair in which he now sat, constantly on alert for changes in her condition, for better or worse. It was with a fair amount of anxiety that he abandoned his boots and knelt on the floor beside the bed. He brushed his fingertips over Cade’s blessedly cool forehead. The woman stared at him in the hazy gloom filtering through the curtains. The sight of her eyes, open and clear with recognition and relative alertness, made Brandt draw in a slow breath of relief.

“Hey, welcome back,” he said in a hushed tone.

“Hi,” Cade whispered back. Her voice was faint and cracked, but she sounded as coherent as her eyes suggested. Brandt moved his fingers to her cheeks, feeling her damp skin for fever.

“You’ve been out for a while,” Brandt said. “How do you feel?”

“Like shit,” Cade mumbled. She attempted to clear her throat and failed miserably. “Where are we?”

“Dinky little town near the Atlantic coast,” Brandt answered. He stood and grabbed a shopping bag, digging through it for an unopened bottle of water. “We’re somewhere outside Charleston. It’s in the same little town Ethan and I planned to bring all of you to if we didn’t get the help we needed in Atlanta. He had the maps when … well, when he stayed behind. So I had to work off my memory on which blocks we’d planned to check for a safe house. Did the best I could with the little I remembered.”

As Brandt turned back to her with a freshly opened bottle of water, he caught a glimpse of apprehension in Cade’s eyes. He eased onto the edge of the bed and helped her sit up, waiting until he’d helped her drink from the bottle before he prompted, “What’s on your mind?”

Cade hesitated and ran her fingers lightly over the outside of the bottle. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

Brandt pressed his lips together and nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, he is,” he confirmed. “I’m so sorry, babe.”

Cade looked away from Brandt and closed her eyes. “I just had this weird feeling, like maybe it was part of a bad dream. I wanted to be sure.” When her eyes opened and met his again, they were surprisingly calm. The thought of her suppressing her grief over Ethan like she’d done for her niece and boyfriend disturbed Brandt. He’d always believed the dead should be mourned, and Cade was refusing to do so. That could lead to nothing but trouble. Cade cleared her throat and took another slow sip of water. “How bad is it?”

Brandt removed his boots before he replied. He spent the time evaluating Cade’s question, debating different answers, trying to settle on the best way to report the group’s situation. There was no good way to do it, he acknowledged. All the news Brandt had to offer was bad. But in the end, all he could do was give it; attempting to sanitize his report would earn him an epic ass-kicking from Cade at the soonest available opportunity.

“We thought you weren’t going to make it,” Brandt started. He kept his voice almost monotonous in an effort to keep his emotions in check. “You were so fucking sick, and we just … we weren’t sure if we even dealt with it correctly. We muddled our way through it, and Gray did everything he remembered Theo telling him about wound care. But you kept getting sicker and sicker. Gray and I went out on a couple of supply runs, but we stopped when I got nervous about your condition. I didn’t want to not be here if you weren’t going to pull through.” Brandt didn’t look at Cade as he said this, feeling vulnerable at the admission.

When Brandt did look at Cade again, he was surprised to see a smile on her face. She sipped again from her water bottle and twisted the cap back on. “Well, as you can see, I did pull through. You’re stuck with me, Brandt. Get used to it.”

Brandt chuckled and examined Cade again. She looked weak and skinny, pale and exhausted, despite the long rest she’d had over the past three weeks. Regardless, Brandt gave her a smile and said, though he didn’t believe a word of it, “Well, I can see you’ll pop right back to your old self pretty quick.” He glanced at the open bedroom door, debating going to find Gray, in case the other man needed to do anything health-related to her. Then he shook his head and slid closer to Cade. He didn’t think Gray’s presence was necessary right now. “Do you need anything?” he offered. “I can get whatever you want.”

“Yeah, I need to know how everybody is,” Cade said. She twisted her fingers into the sheets draped over her. “How is Remy? Is she okay? What about Gray? How are they handling all this shit?”

A flash of Remy’s tearful near-collapse on the roof flitted through Brandt’s mind. “Honestly, they’re not,” he admitted. He chose not to mention specifics. It felt too personal, something to keep between him and Remy. But Brandt couldn’t deny that she wasn’t doing well. He slowly shook his head, a motion that earned him a curious look from Cade. “Remy … she pretty much lives on the roof. She says she’s keeping watch, but I think it’s more that she doesn’t want to be around the rest of us. And then there’s Gray. He’s … well, he’s Gray. Keeps to himself, only leaves his room for watch or to change your bandages. We don’t see him very often otherwise.”

Cade glanced at the sheets as if she could see the wound in her side through the layers of fabric. “Gray’s been handling this?” she asked in surprise.

“Well, I helped,” Brandt said lamely. Cade laughed, though she grimaced halfway through. Brandt touched her shoulder, concerned. “Hey, are you okay?”

Cade sucked in a slow, steadying breath. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just sore is all. Wasn’t really expecting that to hurt.”

Brandt rested his hand loosely on top of Cade’s, tracing his thumb over the soft skin covering her knuckles as he let out a wide yawn. He rubbed his eyes, squinting myopically at her, and she grinned at him. “I hate to ask, but I’ve been sleeping in a chair for about three weeks, and—”

“A chair?” Cade repeated. “Your poor back.”

“Exactly.” Brandt hesitated and glanced to the open door again, more out of an abundance of nervousness than anything else, and wondered if he should get up to close it. “Do you mind if I sleep up here tonight? I don’t want to accidentally smack you in the side or whatever, but I really can’t take another night in that chair.”

Cade’s grin widened, and she shuffled sideways to make room for him. “You know, you didn’t have to ask,” she pointed out after she’d settled against the pillows once more.

“I know, but with my luck, you’d wake up in the middle of the night and freak out and punch me,” Brandt said with a chuckle. He eased back onto the bed with a low groan, feeling his tired muscles relaxing painfully.

“With your luck? I still might.”

Chapter 4

Alicia stepped into the dim hallway and let the door fall closed behind her with a soft click. She smoothed both hands over her wrinkled clothes and tried to finger-comb her tangled hair before giving up and moving to the stairwell door. Dominic Jackson would be waiting for her just inside the stairwell. She always met him there after her lengthy interrogation sessions with Ethan Bennett.

And once again, Dominic didn’t disappoint. As Alicia pushed the door open and stepped onto the landing, the tall black man stood from his spot on the stairs leading to the seventeenth floor, switching on a flashlight and shining it in her direction, careful not to shine it directly in her face. She eased the door shut behind her, and he gave her a questioning look. “So, how’d it go?”

“Like normal,” Alicia reported. A wry smile crossed her face. “He still doesn’t remember where the group was headed.” She shoved both hands into her pockets. “I just don’t get it. Out of all the infected people we’ve dealt with, why is he the only one we’ve seen with memory loss?”

“Do you think he’s lying?” Dominic suggested. They began to descend the stairs together, walking in stride with each other out of unconscious habit.

“I don’t think so,” Alicia admitted. “He genuinely doesn’t remember. You can tell by how frustrated he gets. He knows they made plans, but he doesn’t remember what those plans were.” She walked with Dominic down another couple of flights before she added, “I learned more about this Cade woman he referenced last week.”

Dominic looked intrigued. “And what did you find out?”

“She’s of Israeli descent, former IDF,” Alicia said. She contemplated the information she’d learned. “She’s a sniper.”

“A sniper,” Dominic repeated. “She could be useful. Not many of those around anymore. Is she any good?”

“One of the best, as far as I understand,” Alicia said. “Ethan’s description of her skills was impressive, even taking bias into consideration.” She ran a hand through her knotted hair and added, “There’s some question as to whether she’s still alive, though. Remember how, last month, Daniels followed the other four as far as the Tabernacle and said that one of them was carried most of the way?”

Dominic nodded. “Yeah, I remember. What happened to her?”

Alicia looked at Dominic, her expression grim in the bluish light from the flashlight. “Ethan says she was shot.”

“Shot? But Kyle’s orders were to only take down Avi,” he said.

“No, Kyle’s orders were to take down Avi and leave Evans unharmed. I didn’t care what he did about the others,” Alicia corrected. “I didn’t understand their potential value at the time. Regardless, Ethan says she won’t join us, not willingly.”

“What makes him say that?” Dominic asked. A hint of curiosity tinged his words.

“Ethan says Cade is absolutely loyal and devoted to the other members of the group and that as long as they need her, she won’t leave them,” Alicia explained. She stopped on the eighth-floor landing and caught Dominic’s arm, forcing him to a halt, her expression serious. “Also, Ethan says she and Evans are lovers.”

“Lovers?” Dominic’s curiosity gave way to incredulousness. “How is that even …? I mean, he’s infected!”

“I know,” Alicia said. “It’s all there in black and white in Dr. Rivers’s files. But they’re definitely lovers. Ethan is absolutely certain of it.”

“And she’s not infected? At all?”

Alicia shook her head. “She’s not,” she confirmed. “I think if she’d shown symptoms, it would have been significant enough for Ethan to mention.”

Dominic dislodged his arm and started down the next flight of stairs. Alicia moved to join him. “Maybe you should just ask him,” he suggested.

“And risk ruining the illusion?” Alicia smirked. “Please. He’s not even aware he’s being interrogated. I want to keep it that way. It makes him trust me, and that makes him more likely to tell me things I might not get out of him in a straight-up grilling.”

Dominic opened the door to the sixth floor, motioning for her to step into the hallway beyond with a grand sweep of his arm. “I just never knew so much deviousness could hide behind such a pretty face.”

Alicia laughed. “The pretty ones are usually the most devious,” she pointed out. As she stepped into the hallway that led toward the sixth-floor lobby and the Overlook beyond it, a young woman approached them at a run. She clutched a large, crumpled paper, and her short blond hair flopped into her face.

“Alicia, we’ve got it!” she said breathlessly. She jammed the paper into Alicia’s hands, crushing it in her palms. Alicia raised an eyebrow and looked at the paper the woman had given her.

“What is this, Kimberly?” Alicia asked. She tried in vain to smooth the paper out as Dominic looked over her shoulder. It was a map of Georgia, she realized, scribbled over with multiple handwritings that made it difficult to read. At the edge of the map was a sliver of South Carolina, with a small town circled and several blocks of it shaded in.

“You remember when you guys brought Mr. Bennett in and he had that bag with all the blood on it with him?” Kimberly said. “We’ve spent the past three weeks sterilizing the bag to hell and back just so we could find out what he was carrying at the time of the attack.”

Alicia didn’t need to ask why they’d had to sterilize the bag: Dr. Rivers and his assistant Kimberly—the very woman who stood before her—were uninfected. They were also the most important people in the building, because they were tasked with developing a cure for the Michaluk virus. As such, they couldn’t risk getting infected.

“We’ve found all kinds of stuff in his bag, but this? This is a goldmine of information,” Kimberly explained. “It’s a map of Georgia and part of South Carolina.”

“Yeah, I gathered that.”

“With Mr. Bennett’s group’s routes marked out on it,” Kimberly continued. “Including,” she tapped her finger dramatically on the map Alicia still grasped in her hands, “their alternate plan for what to do if they couldn’t get help in Atlanta. Which, if I recall, is something you guys were interested in knowing.”

Alicia slowly raised her head to look at Kimberly before she shifted her eyes to Dominic. He looked back at her, his dark eyes wide with surprise. “So this means …?”

“It means we know where Evans is,” Dominic said, his voice just as stunned as hers.

Chapter 5

The scent of scrambled eggs was the most appealing thing Gray had smelled in three days, he reflected as he came down the stairs near lunchtime. His stomach rumbled its agreement, even as his brain considered whether it was a good thing that the powdered eggs were finally being used. Regardless, they still smelled okay, so Gray headed for the kitchen.

Gray was surprised to find Brandt at the portable camp stove on the kitchen counter. The older man swore under his breath and jabbed a fork at the watery mound of yellow fluff in the pan. Gray skirted past the man to retrieve a bottle of water from the kitchen table.

“Actually making some hot food, huh?” Gray observed. He motioned to the camp stove with his water bottle and leaned against the counter to watch. He figured Brandt cooking would provide plenty of entertainment—the last time the Marine tried to cook, the camp stove had gotten the better of him and ended up halfway across the kitchen. “Dare I ask the occasion?”

“What, a guy has to have an occasion to cook fucking breakfast?” Brandt grumbled. He poked at the eggs again and grimaced. “Maybe I just wanted to be nice and cook some real food.”

“No way am I going to believe that,” Gray said. “If you were cooking real food, you’d be using real eggs.”

“Wish we had some of those. At least they’d scramble like they’re supposed to,” Brandt muttered.

Gray grinned and put his bottle on the counter, wiggling his fingers at Brandt. “Come on, give me the fork. I’ll finish that before you burn something. Like maybe the house, all around our heads.” Brandt made an obnoxious face at Gray and passed the fork over before retreating. Gray turned to the eggs on the stove, picked up the pan, and drained some liquid off. “For starters, you put way too much water in them. You trying to make egg soup?”

“Okay, Iron Chef,” Brandt said. He grabbed his own bottle of water. “I don’t need a cooking lesson. I need some fucking eggs on a plate so I can take them upstairs to Cade.”

“Why would Cade need eggs?” Gray asked. “She’s practically …” He trailed off, stiffened, and looked at Brandt in surprise. “Wait, Cade’s awake?”

“Woke up at about four this morning,” Brandt said nonchalantly. He leaned against the dining table and took a swig of water. “No fever, thank God. Her side is sore, but otherwise, she’s doing okay. She complained about being hungry when I woke up, so I said I’d see what I could do.”

“And apparently, it’s not much,” Gray joked. He grabbed a plate and started spooning cooked egg onto it. “You don’t have to tell her I finished these. It can be our little secret, okay?”

“Hey, she already knows I can’t cook for shit,” Brandt pointed out. He took the plate and searched for a clean fork. “She’s probably upstairs saying the Lord’s Prayer in the hope it’ll prevent her from dying after she eats this.”

Gray laughed and grabbed two more plates. “Remy eat yet?” he asked, offering one to Brandt. The man waved it off.

“I’m not hungry. And I haven’t seen Remy since this morning.” Brandt glanced at the ceiling. “I think she’s still on the roof.”

Gray scraped the eggs from one of the plates into a bowl instead and scooped up a fresh bottle of water. “I’ll take her some food, then. Let me know when Cade’s done eating, okay? I want to take a look at her side.”

Brandt caught Gray by the shoulder as he passed. “Remy isn’t doing too great,” he warned. “She broke down pretty bad last night. I think she’s still hurting over Ethan’s death.”

Gray frowned and followed Brandt’s gaze to the ceiling, even as a pang of jealousy raced through him. He pushed the feeling aside. “Aren’t we all?” he replied. “Too much shit happened too fast. I don’t think my brain’s caught up yet.” He shifted his eyes to the floor and shrugged. “I still get this weird feeling that Theo’s going to come around the corner any minute and start bitching at us about how shitty we’re eating.” He sighed and shook his head. “I’ll see what I can do for her, okay? I’m not the world’s greatest at this kind of thing. Knowing me, I’m going to say the wrong thing, and she’s going to punch me.”

“You’ll be fine,” Brandt assured him. He clapped Gray’s shoulder one more time, nearly jarring the bowl of eggs out of his hands. Then he scooped up Cade’s plate and headed for the stairs. “Speaking of eating right,” he said as Gray followed, “we’re going to head out on a supply run within the next day or so. Those eggs and a few boxes of cereal are all we’ve got left.”

“When should we go?”

“I don’t know. Maybe late tomorrow morning? We should check out the downtown area,” Brandt suggested. “We didn’t go that way last time. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find something useful there. Now that Cade’s awake, I feel more comfortable leaving her with Remy,” he admitted. “Remy’s so … I don’t know, flighty lately. She’s just not all there. It makes me nervous.”

Gray started to reply, but hesitated. “You don’t think she’s … suicidal or anything, do you?”

“Honestly, I’m not sure,” Brandt said. “I just know I don’t want her alone on that roof right now.”

Gray split off from Brandt at the top of the stairs and slipped out onto the roof. The process was awkward with the bowl and bottle of water in his hands, but he managed nonetheless. Once he found his footing, Gray started toward the corner of the roof, where he could see Remy’s small form. She stared out across the overcast scenery, her knees drawn to her chest. Gray approached cautiously.

“Hey,” he greeted her. He settled onto the roof a few feet from Remy and stretched out his legs. He set the water down beside her and offered her the bowl. “Brought you some eggs.”

“Are they that powdered shit?” she asked. She kept her dark eyes locked onto the street below them, as if he weren’t there. Gray frowned and nodded, setting the bowl beside her water.

“Of course,” he said. “But there isn’t much. Brandt’s talking about going out on supply tomorrow.”

“That’s nice.”

Gray stared at the woman, confused and a little hurt at her uncaring attitude. But instead of addressing it, Gray remained silent and cast his gaze onto the street alongside hers. Everything was still, no threats in their immediate vicinity. Gray glanced once more at Remy’s silent figure. She’d picked up the bowl of eggs and started to eat, slowly and mechanically, the fork tapping softly against the glass bowl as her hands shook noticeably from too much caffeine.

“I’m, uh, I’m sorry, Remy,” Gray said.

“What are you apologizing for? The eggs aren’t that bad,” she replied. Her words were muffled by the bowl as she leaned closer to it in an effort to keep the eggs on her trembling fork.

“No, not for the eggs,” Gray said in exasperation. “For last month. For being a shit. You know, out on the road.” His cheeks heated as he said the words. “When I found out about you and Ethan.”

Remy waved her fork at Gray. “Old news. Ancient history. I’m not even worried about it anymore,” she said. She swallowed the egg in her mouth and scooped in another forkful. “Doesn’t matter anymore anyway.” Even past the food in her mouth, Gray heard the bitterness in her voice. He shifted awkwardly on the roof, leaned back against his hands, and tried to decide what to say next.

“I finally went through Theo’s stuff,” Gray said. He stared at the brick house across the street. It sat in the center of a sea of waist-high grass. “Well, what’s left of it, anyway. He didn’t have much personal stuff in his bag.”

“At least you have some of his things,” Remy said. “Ethan had all his stuff on him when he went. I don’t even have anything …” Her voice cracked, and she blinked rapidly and looked away. She set the nearly empty bowl on the shingles beside her. Gray loosely wrapped his hand around her wrist and squeezed, leaving his hand there for a moment before forcing himself to let go. Silence hovered between them. Gray simply sat and watched Remy out of the corner of his eye, trying to dredge up a way to continue the conversation.

“Theo had stuff in his bag with names on it,” Gray said. “Yours was on something.”

“Really? What kind of stuff was it?” Remy asked. She discreetly wiped her eyes with her jacket’s cuff.

“Things he wanted us to have if we outlived him,” Gray said. “Sort of like a will, I guess.” He stood and headed for the window again. “Wait right here. I’ll get yours.”

Gray ducked back through the window and went to his room. He dug all the way to the bottom of Theo’s bag and pulled out a small box with the word “Remy” written on three sides in his brother’s familiar messy handwriting. Gray’s chest constricted at the sight, but he shook the sensation off and tucked the box under his arm. He hurried back to the roof, hoping Remy hadn’t had the brilliant idea to leave and make him hunt for her. Thankfully, she was right where he’d left her. When he rejoined her, he set the box beside her hand and settled onto the roof once more.

Remy picked the box up, intrigued, and traced her fingertips over Theo’s handwriting before opening the box. Once she pulled the top free, a smile spread across her face. She lifted a small gun from the box and studied it in the overcast afternoon light. “What is this?” she asked, resting the gun flat in her hand.

“It’s a Ruger LCP,” Gray said. “I asked Theo to help me find one back in October, because I wanted to give you one for your birthday. We never did find it, but I guess he stumbled across this one and held on to it, maybe for this year instead. It’s good for a backup piece that you can hide on you. It holds six bullets, plus one chambered.”

“It’s awesome,” Remy said. She set the gun back into the box and wrapped her arms around him. Gray returned the hug, closing his eyes as he held her close. She dropped a kiss onto his cheek and pulled away to examine the gun again. “It’s a cute little gun. I love it.” She retrieved a bullet from the box and squinted at it. A genuine smile spread across her face, something Gray hadn’t seen in what felt like ages.

“Just don’t use it unless you absolutely have to,” Gray warned. “There are only seven bullets in the box, and I don’t know if Cade has anything left that’ll fit it. And be careful with it. The manual says it has a long-pull trigger, so there’s no safety. I don’t want to have to deal with another gunshot wound, okay? Cade’s was hell as it was.”

“The only safety that matters is the one between your ears,” Remy said sagely.

“You’ve been talking to Cade about guns too much,” Gray observed with a soft laugh. “I’ve heard her say that a million times.”

“It’s true, though. If you’re too stupid to handle a gun safely, then all the safeties in the world won’t keep you from getting your stupid ass shot,” Remy pointed out. She stood and brushed her jeans off, stretched, and picked up the box with the bullets in it. She tucked the box into her jacket pocket and gathered the bowl and water from the roof. “Let’s get inside. I’m tired, and I want your company. Inside.”

“Don’t we need somebody to keep watch?” Gray asked, though he was intrigued at the suggestion underlying Remy’s words. He stood to join her as she made her way to the window.

“Fuck the watch. I haven’t seen anybody in two weeks, maybe more than that. And that includes the infected. I think we’ll be okay for a few hours. Besides, I think you need my company as much as I need yours,” Remy said confidently. She ducked into the window—narrowly avoiding striking her head on the frame in the process—and looked at Gray with a raised eyebrow. “You coming?”

Gray glanced at the street behind him, wrinkling his forehead in a frown as he looked to Remy once more. She winked and offered her hand to him. It was no contest, really. He took her hand, climbing through the window and into the house again. “Hell, why not?” he said. “I doubt anything’s going to come after us here, right?”

Chapter 6

A fist beating on the door broke the otherwise peaceful silence of Ethan’s room. Ethan tore himself from his nap and sat up straight. His gaze skittered frantically about the room. His heart raced in his chest, adrenaline rushing into him at the sudden rude awakening. Ethan rose from the bed and, after stopping long enough only to slip his shoes back on, headed straight for the door. He’d just reached it when it flew open, nearly hitting him in the face. A familiar redheaded figure stumbled inside and shut the door behind her.

Ethan caught Alicia’s shoulder and made the woman face him. “What the hell is going on?” he demanded. “I know you didn’t come up here beating on my fucking door like that just to see me.”

“The infected,” Alicia said. She pulled a spare gun from the waistband of her jeans and pressed it into his hand. Ethan recognized the familiar look and feel of his Glock 17. He’d thought it was long gone after his fight in the alley the month before. “They’re attacking en masse, trying to get into the building,” she continued. “I don’t think they’ve succeeded yet, but we’ve got to put them down long before they get that far.”

Ethan turned his focus from the weapon to Alicia’s pale face. “How many are out there?” he asked.

“Twenty, maybe thirty,” she said. “Could be more by now. We need everyone who has experience fighting the infected.”

Ethan blew out a breath and checked to make sure the pistol was loaded. “Where do you need me, then?”

“I want you with me,” Alicia replied. She wrenched the door open and led the way into the hall. Ethan followed her obediently, almost unthinkingly. “I want to see how well you handle that weapon. That’ll help me decide when it’s a good idea to let you roll out on supply trips with the rest of us.”

Ethan’s mood lifted, despite the presence of infected on the street far below them. The possibility, the very idea, of getting out of the hotel was too amazing to contemplate. He’d begun to feel like a prisoner, and the suggestion that he actually was one niggled at the back of his mind. He shook the suspicion aside and caught up to Alicia.

“Let’s go,” Ethan said, his mood uplifted by the chance to shoot something. “I’m sick of sitting around doing nothing. I’m ready for some action.”

“So I see,” Alicia said in amusement. She led the way to the stairwell, pulling a flashlight from her pocket and turning it on as she stepped through the door. Ethan blinked rapidly as the darkness was broken. Far below them, gunshots echoed. “I personally hope there isn’t more than a quick mop-up left when we get there. I don’t want to risk the infected getting inside.”

Ethan nodded understandingly, and they began a quick descent of the stairs. She pushed the stairwell door open on the fourth floor. The short hallway beyond was a beehive of activity. People Ethan had never seen before rushed about with pistols in their hands or shotguns and rifles strapped to their backs, looking harried and overworked. Tables were shoved against the walls between conference room doors. Ethan glanced at one table as he passed and spotted a map of Atlanta taped securely to half of the table’s surface. A wrinkled map of Georgia was similarly fastened beside it. On the city map, the metro area had been gridded off, and several of the squares were colored in. It seemed the suppliers for this small community were systematically searching for the necessary supplies to keep the building’s occupants alive. Ethan found the level of organization impressive.

As Ethan contemplated the state map, trying to decide why it looked so familiar, a blond woman brushed past him with a hunting rifle gripped in her hands. Alicia caught the woman’s upper arm to stop her and demanded, “Where’s Dominic?”

“He went to the street level,” the woman told Alicia. “He said something about checking the reinforcements in the parking garage to make sure the infected couldn’t get past the gates.” The woman’s eyes flicked past Alicia to Ethan, blatantly looking him up and down. Ethan nearly fidgeted under the woman’s scrutiny.

“Is there any risk of that happening?” Alicia demanded. Her voice brought the woman’s attention back to her. “Any sign of the infected getting in through there whatsoever?”

“Not that I’m aware of, but—”

“Get down there and get aware,” Alicia ordered. She jabbed her thumb over her shoulder, indicating the lobby behind her and the escalators leading down to the parking garage. “And let me know as soon as possible.”

The woman nodded and pressed past them to head for the escalators. Ethan gave Alicia a questioning look that she ignored and followed her farther down the cluttered hallway toward the lobby.

“Where’s the emergency?” he asked as he pulled even with her and leaned close enough for her to hear him in the noisy hallway.

“Outside,” Alicia said shortly. Ethan glanced at her and imagined he could see adrenaline pumping under her skin. “We are going in here,” she added. She pushed open a conference room door and motioned for Ethan to enter ahead of her. “This is mine,” she said, pushing the door shut. The conference room was sparsely decorated, with only a bed and table shoved into a corner. The room’s long table had been moved aside, and it was lined with row upon row of handguns, rifles, knives, and even a few grenades. Alicia walked briskly across the room to the wall of windows, pushing the heavy curtains aside to reveal that two of the windows had already been broken out; large wooden boards were secured over the voids. She moved the wood aside from a window and leaned out to look at the ground below. “And that is the infected,” she said, seemingly to herself, as she squinted at the ground.

Ethan joined her and chose his own window, wrestling the wood board aside with some difficulty. The infected were smashed against the glass and stone of the building, clawing at the sides as they tried to get in. He started counting and lost track at twenty-four. More steadily made their way down Andrew Young Boulevard. “What happens if they get in?”

“We seal off the parking garage and pray they go away soon,” Alicia said. She raised her voice over the wind blowing into the conference room. She slid her pistol from its holster and leaned out enough to aim into the mass below, hanging on to the window frame. “If they take the garage, there’s no way we can get out for supplies. Once the food runs out after that, we’d be, in a word, fucked.”

Ethan mimicked her position, holding the window frame tightly with his right hand and aiming his Glock with his left. He picked his target and squeezed the trigger without hesitation. The weapon kicked back in his hand, but he kept his grip on it as his mind settled into the familiar feeling he’d get when qualifying at the shooting range, back when his life actually meant something. Unfortunately, the infected man for which he’d aimed didn’t go down. Ethan gritted his teeth and adjusted his aim, firing several shots even as he realized the distance between him and the infected was too great for his pistol to cover.

“Are they fucking multiplying?” Alicia asked in frustration.

Ethan didn’t bother responding. Instead, he lowered the sidearm, grimacing as he watched the crowd that kept growing, kept surging against the hotel in an attempt to break its defenses. He eyed the movement below them, watching as the infected began to flood around the corner of the building. “It’s not holding,” he warned Alicia. “There are too many. How many people do you have in the parking garage?”

“There isn’t supposed to be anybody in the parking garage,” Alicia said. “I know Dominic is down there, but he’s supposed to be hauling ass out of there and—wait, where are you going?”

As Alicia spoke, Ethan started for the door, his steps brisk. “If you think for one second I’m leaving Dominic down there to tough it out alone, you’ve got another thing coming,” he said. He jerked the door open and stepped into the hallway. Several people watched him, but Ethan ignored them and started across the lobby toward the escalators separating him from whatever danger lay below.

“I can’t believe you’re doing this,” Alicia said, hurrying after him. Her expression was a perfect mixture of anger, irritation, and apprehension. “You’re going to get killed.”

“So you decide to follow me and, what, witness my inevitable demise?” Ethan retorted. He rolled his eyes and focused on climbing down the escalators. Alicia lunged forward and grabbed the back of his jacket, hauling him back and nearly toppling him to the metal steps. He righted himself and turned on her. “I’m already a dead man, Alicia!” he pointed out. “The least you can do is let me do what I can to fucking help before I bite it.”

“You see, this is what I have a problem with,” Alicia snapped. “You’re so damned defeatist. It’s going to get you killed.”

“Do you really think I care?” Ethan asked. He pulled away from her and started down the escalator again, stepping onto the tiled hallway floor leading to the parking garage. He ran down the short hallway and burst through the glass doors at the end, emerging into the garage just as the infected managed to pull the parking garage’s gate high enough to break the chain holding it closed. They swarmed the garage with single-minded intent.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” Ethan groaned. He lifted his Glock and aimed for the infected man leading the pack. It took two shots, but he brought the man down with a clean bullet to the forehead. The man fell back to the concrete, knocking two of his fellow infected down with him. Ethan fired twice more into the mass as they rushed toward him, his shots erratic and misplaced, striking limbs and torsos. He swore at the wasted ammunition and scanned the garage, spotting Dominic nearby. The man had a rifle to his shoulder, and he fired repeatedly into the cluster of infected coming toward him, his shots mechanical and rhythmic as he plugged one bullet after another into the infected, his aim unerring.

Ethan didn’t concern himself with the other man any further once he’d ascertained he was still alive and fighting. Instead, he eyed the blond woman he’d seen on the fourth floor. She’d taken up position on the other side of the garage to Ethan’s left, sheltering behind a dusty sedan and joining her rifle fire with Dominic’s. Ethan shook free from his rapid observations and squeezed the trigger of his own weapon, shooting an infected woman drawing too close to the blond woman’s position for his personal comfort.

“We’ve got to get that gate closed,” Alicia suddenly said to his right. Ethan glanced at her and found that she’d joined him, her weapon raised. But she didn’t fire any shots into the mass. Instead, her eyes focused, laser-like, on the opened gate. The chain that had held it shut had been strained to the breaking point; its snapped ends dangled from the bottom of the gate. “If we can keep more from getting in, we can pick off what’s left and then work on the others outside.”

“Cut them off from the source,” Ethan said, seeing the wisdom in Alicia’s suggestion.

An infected girl no older than sixteen, her face littered with piercings, snagged Ethan’s arm. Ethan put the barrel of his gun against her forehead and squeezed the trigger. She fell back, sprawled limply on the concrete, and didn’t move again. He gritted his teeth and forced his focus to the mess in front of him once again.

“So how do you propose we get to the gate through these bastards?” Ethan called over the gunfire echoing through the garage.

Alicia hesitated, looking between Ethan and the gate uncertainly. An Asian man in a dirty business suit got uncomfortably close to them, and Ethan put a bullet in the man’s skull. Uncertainty was a look that didn’t suit Alicia’s normally confident features, Ethan reflected as he calmly grabbed an infected man by the arm and dragged him to the floor before shooting him in the face. They were on a battlefield; it wasn’t the time or place for Alicia’s indecisiveness. Anger and irritation at Alicia rose from his gut in a massive wave.

“Oh, fuck it,” Ethan snarled. He spared the woman a dirty look before turning on his heel and bolting in the direction of the gate. He ran right into the thickest part of the mass of infected trying to invade the Westin.

Alicia shouted as the stinking bodies of the infected closed in around him, but Ethan couldn’t make out her words. Nor did he care to. He had a more important task at hand, one entailing saving all their asses, since the ones in charge seemed too helpless to do it themselves.

It was a stupid idea, though, Ethan reflected as he jammed his Glock underneath a waitress’s chin and squeezed the trigger before moving on to the next infected obstacle blocking his path. Alicia had all the ammunition; she hadn’t bothered to give him so much as a spare magazine. It wouldn’t be long before he ran out of what he had. And then he’d be right back where he’d been just over a month before.

Ethan couldn’t spare time to think on that. Not right now. Not when he had a job to do. He plowed on, shoving and kicking and shooting his way through the infected, struggling past them toward the gate. Through its links, he saw the forms of more infected approaching the building. He had to put a stop to this before any more gained entry, or the building would never be secured again. And there was no way they could evacuate over one hundred people safely.

Ethan shoved his foot against the stomach of a large man grasping for him. The infected man was a behemoth, massively muscled and standing at least six inches taller than he. His stomach felt like it was made of solid stone. Despite that, the impact of Ethan’s foot managed to force him back several feet into the mass of other infected. This bought Ethan enough time to lift his Glock again and plug a bullet into the large man’s skull. The man tumbled to the floor in a heap.

The slide of Ethan’s gun locked back. Ethan grimaced and jammed the weapon into the waistband of his jeans. Only one more infected man stood directly between him and the gate, though more still surrounded him on each side. Ethan waded through the infected grasping at him and reached the man in three long strides. He grabbed the man’s shoulder and rammed the heel of his right hand against the man’s nose. The cartilage shattered, driving into the man’s brain, and he sagged against the gate and fell to the concrete.

With the last of the immediate obstacles out of the way, Ethan threw himself at the gate, grasping it and slamming it to the floor. A hand caught between the gate and the concrete, its owner an elderly woman with two visibly broken legs, who clawed at Ethan’s ankle. Ethan gritted his teeth and grasped the gate more firmly, slamming it against her hand with all the strength in his body. Bones snapped, and with another strike, the appendage ripped free. Then the gate fell fully shut.

“Where the fuck’s my backup?” Ethan shouted over the din of infected echoing through the garage. A thud against the gate pushed it an inch inward, jolting Ethan forward. He braced his heels on the concrete and pushed back, grasping the gate tightly and nearly hanging off it to keep it closed. A snap of gunfire rang out to his left, and then Dominic was beside him, two thick lengths of chain in one hand and his rifle in the other. He slung the rifle’s strap over his shoulder and slid the chains in place, wrapping them around and over and under the gate and then attaching them to anything that would hold them—including the large, thick pipes that ran along either side of the gate’s entryway—before slapping padlocks into place. Then, still without speaking, he handed Ethan a fresh magazine of ammunition and moved away, raising his rifle again and firing into the remaining infected.

The mop-up that followed was quick and brutal. Working methodically, the four of them swept the infected, goading them into corners of the garage or shoving them to the floor and firing bullets into their brains. Ethan felt robotic, almost mechanical, as he shot one after another, trying to shut down the part of his brain that screamed at his actions. It could have easily been him. The horror of the idea was too terrible to comprehend. Ethan buried it and set about his disgusting work.

It was only after Ethan fired the last bullet into the last of the infected before him that he realized he was out of ammunition again. He lowered the weapon, his eyes locked onto the man spread-eagled on the concrete at his feet, and waved a hand at Alicia as the woman approached. “Give me a new magazine,” he demanded.

A last sporadic burst of gunfire punctuated the silence after Ethan’s words. “We’re done, Ethan. There aren’t any more. We got them all,” Alicia said. She stood silent for a moment and then lashed out, punching Ethan’s shoulder. Ethan flinched and sidestepped away from her. “What the fuck were you thinking, running into the fuckers like that? Huh? You could have gotten yourself killed!”

Ethan jammed the gun back into his jeans’ waistband, striding across the garage to the door leading into the hotel proper. He skirted a few people emerging through the door as Alicia said something to Dominic. Then she hurried after him, still berating him as he shoved the door open.

“You’re fucking insane, you know that? Absolutely crazy. You’re going to get one of us killed, and—”

“Shut the fuck up, Alicia,” Ethan snapped. He pulled the Glock from his jeans and turned on her. Her cheek twitched as she tried to not flinch at his sudden movement. He shoved the sidearm toward her chest. “Here, take the fucking thing.”

Alicia took it and ran her fingers along the slide before ejecting the magazine, reloading it with bullets from her pocket as methodically as she’d shot the infected in the parking garage. Then she slapped the magazine back into the gun, chambered a round, and handed it back to Ethan grip first, much to his surprise.

“I think you’ve earned the right to carry this,” Alicia said solemnly. She pushed past him and stalked down the hall, quickly disappearing into the darkness.

Chapter 7

Brandt was torn from sleep by the sound of the fire alarm blaring through his room. Thankfully, his reaction was only to open his eyes and look around in bewilderment; it wasn’t like the movies, where people suddenly sat up, gasping and panting, when they were woken by something unexpected.

That was how the end of Brandt’s world began: with him simply opening his eyes.

Brandt pushed himself to a sitting position. He scrunched his eyes in the bright lights that flickered on, covering his ears as the screeching alarm echoed in his skull, rattling his brain. His head swam with the movement, and his stomach churned with nausea as he tried to figure out what was going on.

The fluorescent lights flickered as the power surged. Their brightness was further aided by the pulsing light from the fire alarm system mounted above the door. Brandt grimaced and slid out of bed to search for pants. He didn’t smell smoke, but he wanted to be prepared in case something had happened that required the evacuation of the CDC. He dragged a pair of sweatpants from the dresser by the bed and pulled them on as he glanced at the door. It was likely a false alarm. If that was the case, he was going to be pissed.

The shriek of the fire alarm’s siren shut off. The silence was oddly loud to his ears, and he shook his head as if he could shake the lack of sound loose. The alarm’s strobe lights continued to flash against the white walls of the “guest” room he’d called home for the past month; the effect was dampened only by the lights that accompanied their awakening. Brandt glanced at the door once more before stumbling to the bathroom and fumbling for the watch he’d left on the sink the night before. His fingers closed around it, and he squinted at the digital numbers. 5:58 a.m.

“Well, ain’t that some shit?” Brandt said out loud. “Two more minutes was too much to ask for, huh?”

Brandt looked at the shower stall thoughtfully before he shook his head and picked up his toothbrush. He figured he’d forego the shower he normally took in the mornings; he hadn’t done anything to work up a sweat in the past twelve hours anyway. Maybe he could go back to sleep until his doctor dropped in for his morning visit.

Brandt spat the toothpaste out and rinsed before he looked at his arm. He smoothed a wrinkle out of the medical tape holding the heparin lock in place on the inside of his elbow. Not for the first time, Brandt wondered if he was doing the right thing. It felt like the right thing. The idea of helping others, even at the potential sacrifice of his health, was a noble one. At least he hoped it was. It was something he’d done every day during active duty, so he didn’t see what was so different about this. It wasn’t like he had anything else going for him anymore.

He liked to think his sister would be proud of his efforts to do something with his life, to help other people—even though he wasn’t even able to tell her what he was doing.

Brandt was shaving his face when the sound of a loud bang echoed down the hall outside his quarters. He startled, the disposable razor blade nicking his jaw. The bang was followed by a scream and the distinctive chatter of gunfire. Brandt slowly straightened, drying his face. His instincts shrieked at him, but he forced them to be quiet as another burst of gunfire broke out in the hall. The noise was accompanied by booted footsteps running past the door.

“What the hell?” Brandt muttered. He wiped at the blood on his jaw and dabbed at the water that dripped onto his bare chest. He pushed away from the sink, tucking his watch into the pocket of his sweatpants. He slowly approached the door that led to the hallway, his eyes flicking to the narrow window set into the door. Several dark figures darted by, their footsteps sounding in time with the shadows. Brandt instinctively ducked to stand beside the door, pressed against the wall so he wouldn’t be seen from the hallway. His mind spun as he tried to figure out what was going on.

Brandt contemplated going into the hall to find out, but he didn’t want to do it without a weapon in his hand. He scanned the room, but he knew the search would be useless; the CDC’s doctors had already combed through all the rooms and his belongings, removing anything that could have been used to injure himself or others, just in case his medical regimen caused suicidal or homicidal tendencies. Brandt spotted a ballpoint pen on the desk, possibly left by his doctor the evening before. He snatched it up, gripping his shitty weapon tightly in his fist and resuming his study of the door. Sporadic gunfire from the other side was the only sound to punctuate the flashing light in the room.

Brandt was hardly prepared when the door flew open, but he still managed a step forward. He raised the pen defensively, ready to strike out at the danger coming through the door.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Michael! Stop!” a voice shouted. A hand closed around Brandt’s wrist, stopping his arm’s forward momentum. Brandt stumbled and yanked his arm away from the figure entering the room.

“Fuck, Doc, you trying to get yourself killed?” Brandt asked. He lowered his arm and glared, even as Derek Rivers slammed the door closed and locked it behind him. But before Brandt could voice the question on the tip of his tongue—“What the hell is going on out there?”—Derek shoved him away from the door and across the room before dumping an armload of clothing into his hands.

“No time for questions,” Derek said urgently. He pushed the clothes more firmly into Brandt’s arms and added a pair of combat boots to the pile. “Get dressed. Fast. We’ve got to get you out of here.”

“What’s going on?” Brandt persisted. He set the clothes on the desk and found the shirt in the pile. He started to change as Derek tried to explain.

“The pathogen. The one we’ve been testing on all of you,” Derek said. He pulled a pair of scissors from his lab coat pocket and snagged Brandt’s wrist, snipping the medical bracelet from it. “It’s gotten out, Michael. And it’s bad.”

Brandt was instantly alert. “How bad?”

“All over the city bad,” Derek said. “It’s mutated. It’s spreading like mad and making people go insane. People are killing people everywhere. It started three days ago.”

“My sister?” Brandt asked. “Where is my sister? Is she okay?”

“I don’t … I don’t think so,” Derek admitted. “Emory is gone. It was sealed off by the military two days ago in an attempt to contain the spread. Everyone on campus … they’re gone.”

“Jesus.” Brandt sank down onto the bed, feeling like the wind had been knocked from his lungs. Olivia, gone? He couldn’t wrap his mind around it. He stared emptily at the wall for a long moment before drawing in a breath and asking, “So what does this have to do with me?” He put the boots on as he spoke. They fit well, he noticed as he laced them up. He wiggled his feet inside and discovered that the boots were perfectly snug and comfortable.

“It’s got everything to do with you,” Derek said. “The government has ordered a stop to the testing. They want it shut down.”

“Okay, so shut it down,” Brandt said.

“We can’t just ‘shut it down,’ Michael. You don’t understand.” Derek closed his eyes. “It’s not that easy. All of you pose a significant danger to everyone else out there. You have potentially unstable versions of the pathogen in your systems. No one knows what will happen if you’re exposed to the mutated version out there. You’re not supposed to be allowed to leave.” He blew out a breath. “Shutting the program down is a euphemism. They’re killing them all. They’re killing us all.”

Brandt’s head jerked up, seemingly of its own accord. He looked at the doctor, who stood before him with his shoulders slumped in defeat. “All of us?” he repeated. “Even …”

“Doctors, nurses, scientists, lab techs, everyone who has been potentially exposed to the original pathogens,” Derek explained. He grabbed Brandt’s arm again and removed the heparin lock from the inside of his elbow with a smoothness born of many years of practice. A speck of blood dotted Brandt’s forearm, and Derek wiped it away with the edge of his coat. “But we’re not going to let them take everyone. We’ve got to get you out of here.”

“Why me?” Brandt asked. “Why not the others too?”

“Because by the time we finish in here, they’ll all likely be dead,” Derek said. He shook his head slowly. “What a waste.” He dipped his hand into his lab coat pocket again and pulled out a Beretta M9, handing it and a sheathed KA-BAR knife to Brandt. “Take these. You’ll need them. First opportunity you get, you grab whatever additional weapons you can find. Now get out of here.”

“What about you?” Brandt persisted.

“I’ll be fine. Go.” Derek shoved Brandt toward the door and moved to unlock it. “Oh, and Michael? Don’t get killed, okay? You might be needed one day.”

Brandt’s eyes snapped open.

Chapter 8

Cade woke to the sound of Brandt vomiting. This wasn’t anything new; she’d been awakened by the sound at least three times in the three days she’d been awake after her long illness. It was worrisome, and the first time, she’d gone to the bathroom door to make sure he was okay and had gotten it slammed in her face for her troubles. After that, Cade didn’t bother getting out of bed.

He’d be fine, she assured herself as she shifted onto her back. The healing wound in her side let out a pang of protest at the movement. She squinted at the watch on her wrist, just barely deciphering the hour hand pointing to the three, and pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes with a soft groan.

Cade hoped this would be the last time she’d be woken up by Brandt being ill. She was worried about him, sure. But she was also tired of being woken so early. She still hadn’t caught up on the rest she so desperately needed. She felt near tears with the urgent need and total inability to go back to sleep.

Cade looked to the closed bathroom door and debated checking on him this time. That involved getting out of bed—which was still painful no matter how she did it—and slogging her way to the door. It wasn’t an appealing thought. She heaved a tired sigh and sat up, grabbed the nearest thing resembling a blanket—Brandt’s jacket, draped over the arm of the chair by the bed—and slung it over her shoulders before working her way out of bed with the ease and grace of an old woman.

It’d been slightly over a month since their flight from Atlanta, and the event was still hazy. All Cade remembered were chaotic images and noises flashing through her mind: a flicker of Brandt’s tired, strained face; the sound of squealing tires; gunshots ringing out above her head; and Brandt’s voice, saying over and over, nearly chanting, “Stay with me, Cade. For the love of God, stay with me.” And the pain, unceasing and pulsing in her side, the sticky feeling of blood trickling down to stain the waistband of her jeans. She remembered the wind in her hair, the sound of Remy sobbing, and the scent of the ocean as they reached their destination: a house near the coastline just inside South Carolina. And now, a month after their arrival, Cade was on the mend and conscious enough to worry about Brandt.

Cade was halfway across the bedroom, her toes freezing on the cold floorboards, when she heard a couple of thuds in the bathroom. The sound was accompanied by Brandt spitting toothpaste out before the bathroom door eased open. His face was wet and flushed, his eyes bloodshot, and his hair damp. But he looked far better than he had when he’d first woken her by flinging himself out of bed.

Cade took a few steps toward him, wrapping the jacket tighter around her shoulders. “You okay?” she asked.

“Shit, Cade, what are you doing out of bed?” he asked, avoiding her question. He took her elbow and led her back to the large bed. “You shouldn’t be up and around like this. Your side—”

“Is just fine,” she interrupted. “I’ll survive. I promise. Are you okay?”

Brandt sighed and let go of her elbow, flipping the bedsheets back and motioning for her to climb in. He waited until she was in the bed again before he slid underneath the sheets himself. Cade could see his muscles shift under his skin, even through the thin t-shirt he wore. He ran his hand through his dark hair and flopped back against his pillows before answering her. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just had a bad dream is all.”

“And that made you puke?” Cade asked doubtfully.

Brandt shrugged. “I don’t know. It could happen, I suppose.” He rolled onto his side, his dark eyes searching her face in the early-morning haze as she wiggled out of his jacket and tossed it back onto the chair. “Sorry I woke you up again. How’s your side?”

Cade shrugged halfheartedly and prodded gently at the wound, working her fingers over the skin around the bandage before she huffed out a breath. “It’s sore, but it’s not like it was when we first got here. It’ll probably be another two weeks or so before it gets anywhere close to healed enough for anything strenuous.”

Brandt tugged at the white tank top she wore. “Let me see,” he requested, his voice demanding. Cade raised an eyebrow and smirked.

“Is this just a ploy to get me naked, Mr. Evans?” Cade joked with a laugh. She wiggled out of the tank top, easing it slowly over her head so she wouldn’t hurt herself further.

“Cade, I guarantee you, sex is the last thing on my mind right now,” Brandt said. He set her shirt aside and began picking at the tape holding the gauze over her wound. It took him only a few moments to peel it away, and when the row of messy stitches was exposed, he leaned closer to study it in the darkness. Cade felt his warm breath against her skin, and she suppressed a shiver.

“That’s a relief,” Cade said with a smirk. Brandt prodded at her wound, and a dull stab of pain darted through her side. “I really don’t think I could manage anything right now anyway, even if I actually was in the mood. Which I’m not.”

Brandt gave Cade a smile and crawled up the bed. He pressed a soft kiss to her lips, his fingers twisting into her dark hair. “Not even for that?” he asked. He smirked and rubbed his hand over her bare, uninjured side. Cade raised an eyebrow suspiciously and wiggled from underneath him, somehow managing to not hurt herself in the process.

“You, sir, are getting a little too forward,” she warned. A nervous flutter stirred in her stomach. She avoided the disappointed look in the man’s eyes and reached for the first-aid kit on the bedside table. “You’re supposed to be bandaging my side back up.”

Brandt hesitated before nodding and sitting up. He grabbed the kit from her and dumped it out onto the bed. “Yeah, okay,” he said. He picked the gauze and medical tape from the small pile. “The last person I heard use that term was my grandmother. Forward?” he asked casually. Despite his light tone, Cade could tell he was deeply hurt. She bit her lip and took his hand, squeezing it gently.

“I’m sorry. I’m just … I’m not sure I’m comfortable with … all this yet,” Cade said. She waved her hand around in the space between them. “It’s just … I don’t know. Too fast.”

Brandt set the gauze on Cade’s stomach, not meeting her eyes. “So what was last month?” he asked, picking up the wound cleanser and applying it to Cade’s side. “Just a fling? Something stupid that seemed like a good idea at the time but in reality wasn’t?”

“It was … it was nice,” Cade said lamely. She didn’t look directly at him. “But I was scared, and you were there. And I just … I really do like you, Brandt. I’m just not sure I’m ready for any of this. Not in the circumstances we live in.”

Brandt was silent as he taped the gauze to her side with more roughness than was strictly necessary. A jab of pain ran through her side at the treatment, and she winced. When he was done, Brandt repacked the kit and set it heavily onto the table. Then, not looking at Cade, he asked, “So when is shit not going to be too soon? Or will it always be, ‘Not yet, Brandt’?” The frustration was thick in his voice; Cade felt guilty as she diverted her eyes from him.

“I don’t know,” she confessed.

Brandt pressed his lips together and nodded again, lying down beside her once more. “Fine. Whatever,” he muttered. “I don’t have time for this. Gray and I are going out for supplies in the morning. I’ve got to get some sleep.”

Cade swallowed hard and opened her mouth to speak, but before she could manage to put together any words, Brandt rolled over and put his back to her, very pointedly indicating that the conversation was over.

Chapter 9

Ethan stood at the foot of his bed, his arms crossed over his chest, watching Alicia sort through a pile of objects suitable for travel that were spread out on the bed. He clenched his teeth and dug his blunt nails into the soft skin on the underside of his arms as she rolled up two t-shirts and stuffed them into her black backpack. Alicia was going on some sort of excursion, and so far, she’d refused to tell him anything about it. He wanted to go. He was dying to go, dying to get out of this damned hotel and do something, anything other than pace in his room and occasionally go down to the eighth floor for food. To say he was going stir-crazy was an understatement.

“Let me go with you,” Ethan said. His eyes followed Alicia as she moved to the dresser and picked up a holstered sidearm. She began to pull her belt from its loops to put the holster on it as she replied.

“You can’t go. You’re not ready yet.” Her voice was mild, but Ethan detected a latticework of steel underneath her words. That didn’t stop him from voicing his own protest.

“The hell I’m not,” Ethan bit out. “I’ve been ready for days now.”

“You might be ready physically, but that doesn’t mean you’re ready emotionally,” Alicia said. “I don’t want you out there. I think you need a little more time before I even consider letting you come out with us.”

Ethan growled under his breath. “You’re going after him, aren’t you?” he accused. “You’re going to try to find Brandt.”

Alicia hesitated. That moment’s hesitation told Ethan his answer before the woman even spoke.

“We’re going to try,” she said. This time, instead of hearing steel under her words, Ethan heard evasiveness. He narrowed his eyes and took a slow step toward her.

“You’re hiding something from me,” Ethan accused. Alicia averted her eyes, refusing to look at him. Ethan gritted his teeth and took another step toward her. “Aren’t you?”

“No, I’m not.”

Ethan stopped in front of her and watched her more intently. As she continued to avoid his gaze, he grabbed her upper arms and backed her against the wall, nearly slamming her against the sheetrock. A gasp escaped Alicia’s mouth, and her eyes finally met his. When Ethan spoke, even he thought his voice sounded harsh and threatening.

“I don’t think I need to tell you what the fuck will happen if you’re lying to me,” Ethan spat out. He tightened his grip on Alicia’s arms to emphasize his point. “Do you know where they are?”

“Ethan, you’re hurting me,” Alicia said. Her voice was surprisingly calm, despite the threat looming directly in front of her.

“You know where they are.”

“And you’re letting Michaluk control you again.”

Ethan stared at Alicia for a moment longer, slowly loosening his bruising grip on her arms until he let go of her completely. He simply stood before her, his eyes closed, breathing in deeply and attempting to gain control of the anger threatening to possess him. “I’m not sorry,” he said after the moment and his anger had passed.

“I know you’re not,” Alicia replied. “I don’t expect you to be.”

Ethan started to open his eyes and take a step back from her, but her cold hand pressed gently against his cheek. He paused, unconsciously leaning into the touch. “I still want to go with you. Your team. Whatever.”

“I know, but I have a much more important job I need you to do.” Her fingers traced his jaw before withdrawing. “The man I usually leave in charge when I go out—”

“Dominic,” Ethan said impulsively.

“Yes. Dominic. He’s taking this trip with me. We’ll be gone for approximately four days.” Alicia paused again. The silence prompted Ethan to give her a curious look. “I don’t want my people leaderless while I’m out. It’s too long for them to manage themselves.” She slid from between him and the wall, picking up her knife from the dresser and adding it to her belt as she added, “I want you to fill in for me while I’m gone.”

Ethan’s eyes widened, and his back straightened. “What? Me? You want me in charge?”

Alicia’s eyes were hard and serious. “Yes, you. I know of no one else here who’s remotely capable of it. You’ve got the experience—”

“Leading six people—half of whom I got killed—is hardly effective leadership,” Ethan protested. “And it’s nowhere near the same as leading over a hundred people!”

“Ethan, I wouldn’t ask you if I thought you couldn’t handle it,” Alicia said. “You’re a capable leader. People here respect you, enough of them that they’d accept your leadership without question or protest.”

Ethan pressed his lips together, looking at the door uncertainly. “Alicia, I don’t know …”

“Ethan, please,” Alicia persisted. “We need you to do this. I need you to do this. There isn’t much choice in the matter. I don’t think I trust anyone else enough to do it.”

Ethan and Alicia watched each other for a long moment. Finally, Ethan crossed his arms again and let out a heavy sigh.

“What do you need me to do?”

Chapter 10

Despite Brandt’s insistence that he and Gray set out on a supply search the morning after he’d realized it was prudent to do so, it wasn’t until nearly a week after Cade’s fever broke that they could even get into a position where it was feasible. The past two days had been full of heavy tension between him and Cade; it was two days during which he spent a lot of time on watch and two nights during which he dozed on the couch downstairs—against every rule he’d issued about spending time on the first floor at night. As a result, when Remy made an announcement as the four of them settled down for breakfast on the morning of Brandt and Gray’s departure, Brandt was tired, cranky, and ready for a fight, not a good combination for what Remy had in mind to discuss.

“I saw lights while I was on watch last night,” Remy said as she flopped into her seat, joining the other three late into their breakfasts. As her words fell onto the otherwise silent room, Brandt’s eyes darted from his plate. His elbow jerked reflexively and knocked over the glass of water someone had so thoughtfully placed by his arm. Water sloshed from the glass in a wave, spreading across the table and running off the edge, right into Gray’s lap. Gray let out an irritated grunt of protest and moved out of the way, even as he reached for a towel. Brandt barely noticed as he focused on the young woman who’d sat at the table directly across from him.

“You saw what?” Brandt demanded. He dropped his fork onto his plate with a clatter.

Remy didn’t look at Brandt. Instead, she kept her eyes glued to the plate in front of her, focused solely on the powdered eggs. “Lights,” she repeated. She prodded at the food with her fork and nearly snarled at it before grabbing the pepper shaker from the center of the table and applying the spice liberally. “Out near the horizon. I don’t suppose we have any hot sauce, do we?”

Brandt ignored the question and gripped the edge of the dining table as a jolt of panic surged through him. His fingernails scratched into the wood, and he struggled desperately to maintain control of himself. “What kind of lights?” he demanded. “Headlights? Taillights? Plane lights? Helicopter lights? Aurora fucking borealis?”

“Brandt, chill,” Remy muttered. She shoved a forkful of the newly peppered egg into her mouth. “I think it was just some headlights, okay? They were close to the ground, out on the horizon a good bit away from us.” She shrugged and took another bite of egg, then swallowed it and added, “It must be other survivors. Maybe we should figure out a way to contact them.”

Brandt stared at her, his fingertips turning white with the force of his grip on the table. His mind raced as he tried to guess at who could have been near their safe house, who might have been looking for them, if someone was looking for them. He shook his head. “No,” he said as firmly as he could. “No, I don’t think so.”

“What?” Remy raised an eyebrow, setting her fork down deliberately on the table. Cade and Gray watched both of them as she continued. “Why not? I mean, we spent most of the past year going out of our way to help people, and—”

“And we’re not going to this year,” Brandt interrupted. “I’m more focused on ensuring our survival, not the survival of a bunch of strangers. Now drop it.”

Remy fell silent and stared at her plate without making a move to pick up her fork. She took a slow sip of water as Brandt ventured a glance at Cade. The Israeli woman sat completely motionless in her chair, her eyes the only things moving, flitting back and forth between Brandt and Remy. Brandt tried to dredge up something to say to her, maybe asking her opinion on this situation. But before he could speak, Gray piped up.

“So, how ‘bout that Crimson Tide, huh?” he said, attempting to break the tension in the room. Remy seemed to take that as her cue to protest again.

“I just don’t see why—”

A surge of anger welled up inside Brandt. He slammed both fists against the tabletop. Dishes rattled, and all three of his companions startled. “Damn it, Remy!” he snapped. “Because I fucking said so, that’s why!”

There was a pause as Cade, Gray, and Remy exchanged glances that Brandt couldn’t read. They seemed to be having a silent conversation among themselves, which only served to irritate him further. Then Gray said cautiously, “Brandt, don’t you think maybe you’re being a little, ah, paranoid?”

Brandt stiffened and squared his shoulders. “Paranoid?” he repeated. “Paranoid? So I’m fucking paranoid for wanting to keep the three of you alive longer than I managed for Nikola and Theo and Ethan? If that’s paranoid, then I’m fucking happy to be paranoid.”

“I just think we shouldn’t lose sight of our mission—” Remy started. Brandt interrupted.

“Our mission is to stay alive. Everything else after that’s just fucking fluff,” Brandt bit out. “There’s too much shit going on out there, and there are dangers from things other than the infected. Do I have to remind you that Avi wasn’t killed by the infected? That she got shot by an uninfected person specifically targeting us?” He shook his head again. “I can’t risk it, okay? There are too many people out there who’d love to get a piece of me, and—”

It was Cade’s turn to interrupt. “Why would anyone out there want a piece of you?” she asked quietly.

An uncomfortable silence descended over them. Brandt had let his anger get the better of him, and he’d tipped his hand far earlier than he’d intended to. He pressed his lips together and mentally scrambled to come up with an answer to Cade’s question.

He finally settled on, “Because I know a lot more about what happened in Atlanta than most people do, that’s all. Now that’s enough. We’re going to fucking eat, and then Gray and I are going to get our shit together, because we don’t have time for this kind of garbage.”

Chapter 11

It had only been forty-eight hours since Alicia had left with her group of four men on their mission, and Ethan was already going stir-crazy. He’d had to deal with one problem after the other, everything from fights to food ration distribution to a sick child—and he was still struggling to learn people’s names so he could communicate with them properly. He’d spent most of his time on the fourth floor, which seemed to have been established as a base of operations for all of the hotel’s day-to-day activities. And there were a lot of day-to-day activities.

And that fourth floor was where he found himself, sitting with his head in his hands, listening to an older black woman tell him exactly what she thought of him—none of it flattering. He struggled to maintain his cool, inches away from going off on the woman and giving her a piece of his mind, as she continued listing every insult she could muster. He let the woman go on for a moment longer before he lifted his head, put his hands up, and interrupted her.

“Miss Washington,” he began.

“Missus,” the old woman corrected. “I wasn’t married for forty years to start getting called miss again just because the mister got eaten.”

Ethan blinked but quickly got his mind back on track. “Mrs. Washington,” he started again with emphasis. “The fact of the matter is we can’t increase your food rations. Believe me, I would if I could, but there just isn’t enough to go around increasing everyone’s. The sick and the young get priority, and everyone else comes after them. End of argument.”

Mrs. Washington deflated at Ethan’s words, her shoulders slumping. Ethan sighed and looked at the papers on the table in front of him, studying the figures listed on them and trying to see if there was anything he could do. Finally, he said, “Look, I’ll take a glance over it a bit later, okay? Maybe I can work something out. But I can’t make any guarantees.”

The woman was reasonably satisfied with the promise. She nodded shortly and stood, her face still grim but not as angry as she’d initially been. After she’d disappeared down the hallway to the stairwell to return to her own rooms on the twentieth floor, Ethan groaned and dropped his head onto the table, rolling it from side to side as he tried to relax, just for a moment.

“Long day?” a woman’s voice asked above him. Ethan raised his head to see a woman with short blond hair standing beside his table, her hands clutching a manila folder. It took him a few seconds to recognize her—it was the woman who’d helped him and Dominic and Alicia with their mop-up in the parking garage earlier in the week, during the attempted invasion by the infected.

“You don’t even know the half of it,” Ethan said tiredly. “Does Alicia put up with this kind of shit every day?”

The woman sat down in the chair beside him and shrugged. “For the most part. Some days are a lot better than others.” She paused and offered her hand to Ethan. “I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced. I’m Kimberly Geller.”

Ethan shook the woman’s hand and gave her a curious look. “Geller?” he repeated. “As in …?”

“Avi Geller?” Kimberly nodded. “Yeah, she was my younger sister.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Ethan said sincerely. “She was a good woman.” Kimberly waved her hand at him dismissively, as if she didn’t want to hear his condolences, so he continued. “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Kimberly. I’m Ethan Bennett. But I’m pretty sure you knew that already.”

Kimberly gave him a winning smile that he found very attractive. “Yes, I did know that already,” she confirmed. “Just about everyone here knows who you are. Those who don’t have basically been living under a rock.”

Ethan raised his eyebrows. “Really? Am I that well known?”

“You have no idea,” Kimberly said with a small laugh. She shook her short blond hair out of her eyes. “There are a lot of people here that you and your friends have saved over the past year. They got our radio broadcasts and made their way here after you pulled them out of whatever sticky situations they were in, and after that, word just started to spread. It’s surprising how fast news travels under these kinds of circumstances.”

Ethan perked up and turned in his seat to face Kimberly more fully. “Radio broadcasts?” he repeated, intrigued. “What do you mean by broadcasts?”

“Broadcasts,” Kimberly repeated, as if Ethan should have known what she meant. “You know, on the radio?” When Ethan continued to give her an odd look, Kimberly stood and motioned for Ethan to do the same. “You obviously don’t know anything of what’s going on. Come on. I’ll enlighten you.”

Ethan stood obediently, curiosity eating at his insides, and followed Kimberly as she wove among the tables and chairs and the bustle and movement of the several other people in the short hallway. As he passed another table, his eyes brushed over the map of Georgia, and he wondered yet again why it looked so familiar. His hesitation over the map distracted him long enough that he nearly lost sight of Kimberly, and he raced to catch up with her. She waited for him by the stairwell door, looking surprisingly not irritated by his lag.

“See something interesting back there?” she teased. She waved for him to enter the stairwell. He stepped onto the landing, and she followed him, letting the door fall shut behind her before flicking on her flashlight.

“Maybe,” Ethan admitted. “There’s a map. It looks really familiar, but I can’t figure out where I’ve seen it before. It’s not the first time I’ve seen it either.”

“Oh, that’s the map we found in your stuff,” Kimberly said almost flippantly.

Ethan stopped and caught Kimberly’s arm, bringing her to a halt. “My stuff? You have my stuff? My bag?” he asked, his voice urgent.

Kimberly looked confused. “Yeah, we finished cleaning and sterilizing it earlier this week. I gave it to Alicia to give to you.”

Ethan’s eyes narrowed as suspicion filled his gut. He glanced at the fourth-floor doorway as they climbed toward the fifth floor. He felt the sneaking suspicion that something was being kept from him, that he was missing some important information that he desperately needed to know. “Where’s my bag now?” he asked Kimberly’s back.

Kimberly glanced at him. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “Like I said, I gave it to Alicia. She was supposed to pass it to you. If she didn’t, then I have no idea what she did with it.”

Ethan’s jaw tightened as his mind lingered on the personal effects in the bag. Among the sundries packed away in its confines was his wife’s locket, which he’d recovered the year before in Memphis. He wanted that necklace. It was all he had left of Anna. They could burn everything else in the bag for all he cared, but he wanted that piece of jewelry.

“I’ll ask her about it when she gets back from wherever her group went,” Ethan vowed out loud.

Kimberly stopped halfway up the stairs, turning to look at Ethan again with a concerned look on her face. “Ethan … how close are you to Alicia?” she asked. Her eyes were wide and worried. She twisted her fingers into the hem of the thin black t-shirt she wore. She looked awkward as she stood under his scrutiny.

Ethan was puzzled by Kimberly’s question. He raised an eyebrow and leaned against the railing to observe her for a moment before answering. “We’re okay, I guess. I mean, we get along reasonably well.” He smirked in amusement as he fleetingly thought of the day before Alicia left, when he’d slammed the woman against the wall and very subtly threatened to kill her. There was certainly no love lost there. His eyes met Kimberly’s, and he noticed the curious look she gave him. “We’re definitely not close,” he confirmed. “Well, except physically. And I don’t think you need or want to know about that.” Kimberly didn’t look the slightest bit amused. Ethan cleared his throat. “Why do you ask?”

“It’s just …” Kimberly paused, looking as if she were sorting things out in her head. Ethan knew the expression well; he’d seen it on Remy’s face countless times in the past year. He forced thoughts of the young woman away. Thinking about her made him think about the others—and about how much he missed all of them and the camaraderie they’d offered over the year before. There was nothing resembling that here. Kimberly sucked in a breath and said in a rush, “You shouldn’t trust Alicia. Or her people.”

Ethan blinked at the unexpected declaration. “What makes you say that?”

“They’re in it for all the wrong reasons,” Kimberly tried to explain. “We’re just trying to find the cure to help people. They want to use it to control people.”

Ethan’s eyebrows rose. “We?” he repeated, studying Kimberly’s face and body language for any signs of deception. There was none, as far as he could tell. For not the first time, Ethan wished for Remy and her people-reading skills. “Who is ‘we’?”

Kimberly motioned to the dark stairwell above her head. “The sixth floor,” she said almost cryptically. Ethan frowned, his forehead wrinkling in confusion.

“The hospital floor?”

“There’s far more to the sixth floor than just the hospital,” Kimberly said. She motioned for him to follow and began to climb the stairs again. “Come on. It’s about time you learned what goes on behind those doors.”

Chapter 12

Cade watched Brandt closely as he stared into his backpack, carefully inventorying its contents, checking to make sure he had everything he’d need. She wanted to approach him, to talk to him, but he still wore the sour look he’d had on his face after their discussion two nights before—a discussion Cade regretted even having. Cade hated the direction the talk had taken, she hated what she’d said, and she hated how it had created the awful tension between them. It was a tension she knew Remy and Gray felt, because her two younger companions had been unusually quiet, talking only to each other, spending all their time together behind closed doors.

More than any of that, though, Cade hated the blatant lie she’d told Brandt when she’d said she wasn’t comfortable with the idea of a relationship between them.

Cade heaved a sigh and took a step toward him, loathing how cautiously she felt the impulse to move. Brandt didn’t look up as she stopped beside him, and she shoved her hands into her pockets awkwardly. The stitches in her side pulled slightly at her skin with the movement. She tried to figure out something to say to the tall man, discarding several options before finally settling on, “Got everything you need?”

“Maybe,” Brandt said evasively. He didn’t raise his voice or his head.

Cade scuffed her boot against the floor and watched as he dug deeper into the bag. She bit her lip and struggled to dredge up something else to say. “Could you do me a favor? Maybe see what you can scrounge up for weapons?” she requested after another heartbeat had passed between them. “We’re running really low on, well, everything.”

“Guns might be a problem, but I’ll see what I can do about ammo,” Brandt said gruffly. He slung his pack onto his back and adjusted it to sit close to his body. He picked up his rifle and started checking it over, topping off the ammunition. He still didn’t look at her.

Cade cleared her throat. “Brandt, ah, look. Be careful out there, okay?” she requested. She put her hand gently on his forearm, and his motions stilled. He slowly lifted his head to look at her. His eyes were veiled, as if he were trying to hide whatever he was thinking from her. “I mean it. I don’t want to see Gray walk back in here alone.”

“Yeah, okay. I’ll be careful,” Brandt said.

“Promise?”

“Of course.” Brandt resumed loading his rifle, cutting his eyes quickly away from her.

“I don’t want to have to lead this group by myself,” Cade admitted. “Or what’s left of it.”

“You’d make a fantastic leader if it came to it,” Brandt argued.

“But that’s the point. I don’t want it to come to that.”

“I get it, I get it,” Brandt said. “I’ll come back. And I’ll even come back in one piece.”

“Good.” Cade nodded in satisfaction and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “And when you get back, we need to talk.”

Brandt pulled something from his bag and palmed it. “You do realize those are the words no guy likes to hear, right?” he said. “We need to talk. Ugh. Every time I hear those words, it’s always something bad.”

“Well, maybe this time it’ll be something good, yeah?” Cade suggested with the barest of smiles.

“Yeah, maybe,” Brandt said. He glanced at her, and she saw uncertainty in his eyes. It was an expression Cade didn’t like seeing on the normally confident man. She swallowed hard, squeezing his arm before forcing herself to let go.

“So what’s the plan, then?” Cade asked casually. She rocked on her heels and watched him intently. He twisted a chain around his fingers and pressed his lips together before answering.

“We’re going to try the downtown area,” Brandt answered. “Mostly looking for food, but I’ll see if I can track down some ammo for you, like you asked. And we’ll grab whatever else we find that’s useful.” He paused and looked to Gray; the younger man stood by the front door, waiting for Brandt with visible impatience. Brandt sighed and slung his rifle’s strap over his head, settling it against his chest in a ready position. He glanced at Cade out of the corner of his eye and then held his hand out to her suddenly. “Will you keep this for me?” he asked. Cade looked down in surprise at the dog tags resting in his palm. “Just while I’m gone, you know? I’ll be back for them.”

A smile spread across Cade’s face, and she took the tags from him. “Yeah, okay. I can do that,” she agreed. She twisted the chain around her own fingers and palmed the tags, squeezing them tightly, and nodded toward the door. “Gray looks like he’s about to haul you out by your ears. Maybe you should get moving.”

Brandt caught a glimpse of the impatient look on Gray’s face and chuckled, but his attention didn’t remain on the man for long. He turned his eyes back to Cade and took a step closer to her before hesitating, looking undecided. “I’ll see you in two or three days,” he finally said. “If we’re not back in four, then we’re not coming back.”

“Brandt—” Cade started to protest. He held his hand up to stop her.

“In that case, I want you two to get the hell out of here,” Brandt continued. “If we don’t come back, then that means the infected are closer than I’d be comfortable with, and I don’t want either of you to stay here if they are.”

Cade hesitated before slowly nodding her agreement. She took his hand and gave it a tight squeeze. “Okay, then. We’ll do that,” she said. “But if we have to get out of here, we’ll leave a note to let you know where we’re headed, just in case one or both of you gets back late. But I don’t see that happening. Two or three days from now, you’re both going to stroll through that door, loaded down with supplies, and we’ll be able to set up more comfortably than we already are.”

Brandt lightly clapped Cade’s shoulder and squeezed it before adding, “Sounds like a plan to me. See you in a few days.” He brushed past her without looking at her again and headed to the front door. Gray gave her a little wave and sent a smile in Remy’s direction before he stepped out behind Brandt. The two men disappeared through the door and headed down the street to begin their search for the group’s much-needed supplies.

“Well, I guess that’s it,” Remy said cheerfully. She pushed the door shut and locked it securely. “What do you say we find something entertaining to do, huh?”

“Think they’re going to come back?” Cade asked. She slid the dog tags into her pocket and watched Remy as she tested the front door’s security.

“Of course they’re coming back. When do they not?” Remy replied. “Hell, while you were sick and all out of it and shit, they left and came back twice. They’ll be fine.”

“If you say so,” Cade said doubtfully, her frown deepening. Remy turned away from the door and raised her eyebrow at Cade.

“Yes, I say so. Because I know so,” Remy replied. “Quit being so gloomy. I’m going on watch. You can join me if you want, but I think there are some guns that need cleaning in the living room, if you’d rather do that. It’s a lot less boring than sitting on the roof, anyway.”

Chapter 13

Ethan had been on the sixth floor with Alicia only a few times, mainly when she picked up medications for Ethan and herself. She’d always made him wait by the stairwell door while she went out onto the floor to get the medications. As a result, Ethan knew next to nothing about the sixth floor, so anything Kimberly showed him would be completely new.

Kimberly paused outside the sixth floor’s stairwell door and faced Ethan. “I can’t begin to tell you just how important it is that you not tell Alicia I’ve brought you here,” she started. “She’d absolutely shit a brick if she found out.”

Ethan cringed, even as he suppressed a laugh. “That sounds … fairly painful, actually,” he acknowledged. He stepped up onto the landing and grasped the door’s handle, pulling the door open and making a sweeping gesture with his hand. “After you?” he offered politely.

A smile split Kimberly’s face, and she stepped into the carpeted hall beyond. “Why, thank you, sir,” she said playfully. Her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes, though, Ethan noticed. Whatever she was about to show him on the sixth floor was something serious indeed.

“So what’s this you’ve got to show me?” Ethan asked after he’d followed her from the stairwell.

“It’s actually a who,” Kimberly clarified. She led the way down the short hall and into a lobby area, heading for the opposite side of the floor, her pace brisk and determined. She looked like a woman on a mission—and in essence, she was. Ethan just had no idea what that mission was. “I’m going to be introducing you to the mastermind behind it all.”

“I’m not sure I’m comfortable with your use of the word mastermind,” Ethan admitted. “Especially if it’s something medically related. I’m pretty sure the last time the word mastermind was used in conjunction with the medical industry, the world went to hell.”

Kimberly stopped outside of the Overlook Ballroom, much to Ethan’s surprise. She looked at him thoughtfully and rested her hand against the door’s handle lightly. “Oddly, this particular mastermind is trying to pull the world back from the hell it’s burning in,” she said. She didn’t wait on Ethan’s reply. Instead, she tapped her knuckles against the door a few times before pushing it open and stepping into the room beyond.

Ethan wasn’t sure what he’d expected as he followed Kimberly into the ballroom. He found himself entering a surprisingly brightly lit room full of round dining tables butted against each other in straight, uniform rows. Equipment—most of which Ethan had never seen before—lined several tables, and binders and spiral notebooks were stacked in organized towers on a single table to his right. Despite the numerous tables, there were only two chairs in evidence; a bed was shoved into a corner beside a grand piano almost as an afterthought. There was no one in sight, and Ethan looked to Kimberly uncertainly. She smiled and waved his concerned look off before calling out.

“Derek! I know you’re in here! You never leave!”

Ethan bit back a laugh, but the sound dropped off as a tall, slender black man emerged from the short hallway leading to the bathrooms. He rolled up his sleeves as he looked at the two of them curiously. Ethan returned the look. His eyes took in the man’s dirty trousers, his rumpled dress shirt, the wire-framed glasses perched on the bridge of his hawkish nose. Ethan had never met the infamous Dr. Derek Rivers, but he’d certainly heard of him. And he wasn’t sure if the scrawny man before him lived up to the mental image he’d cultivated.

“I should’ve known it was you, Kimberly,” Derek said in a deep, sonorous voice, with all the affection of a father talking to his wayward middle child. “You’re the only one who comes in here hollering like you’re at a football game.”

“That’s because I’m always happy to see you!” Kimberly joked. She motioned to Ethan. “I figured it was time I brought Ethan to meet you,” she explained. “So, Derek, this is Ethan Bennett. Ethan, this is Dr. Derek Rivers, the one who’s going to save us all.”

Derek laughed and shook his head. “Not quite how I’d have phrased it, but one can only hope that’s what actually happens.” He approached and extended a hand, offering it to Ethan with a friendly smile. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Bennett. I’ve heard a great deal about you.”

“All good things, I hope.” Ethan took Derek’s hand in a firm grasp and shook it. “And you can just call me Ethan. No need for the whole formal Mr. Bennett thing.”

“In that case, I’ll go by Derek then,” the doctor said. He released Ethan’s hand and motioned for both of them to come deeper into the room. He stepped past them to shut and secure the door, and then he turned his attention to Kimberly and asked in a brisk, almost urgent tone, “Is she still gone?”

“If she weren’t, I wouldn’t have risked bringing him here,” Kimberly replied. She slid past Derek to sit in one of the two chairs.

Ethan gave Kimberly a questioning glance, but his attention was brought back to Derek as the man addressed Ethan directly. “I’m sure you’re wondering what’s going on around here,” Derek started. He paced away from Ethan and stopped at the table with the notebooks piled on it. He dragged his fingertip along the spirals of a notebook, and it was then that Ethan noticed the disturbed look in the doctor’s dark eyes.

“The thought did cross my mind,” Ethan admitted. “I’m beginning to suspect it’s a lot more than I was originally told.” His eyes narrowed as he watched the tall man carefully.

“If Alicia Day is the one who told you, then yes, she likely hid a lot from you,” Derek acknowledged. “That’s almost all she does. How much do you know?”

Ethan pressed his lips together as he thought back on what Alicia had told him. There wasn’t much to think over; Alicia had made it a point to give him as little information as possible. It was one of the many reasons why Ethan couldn’t understand why she’d left him in charge in her absence. He cleared his throat and tore his eyes away from the carpet he’d been studying intently, looking up at the doctor.

“Truth be told, Alicia hasn’t told me much,” Ethan said. “Everything’s been on a need-to-know basis, and I think she decided I didn’t need to know.”

Derek and Kimberly exchanged knowing glances. “That’s not surprising,” Kimberly said. “The only people who seem to know what’s really going on around here are the ones in her exclusive little circle.” She motioned to Ethan and directed her next statement to Derek. “Fill him in, oh great one.”

Derek nodded and pulled a notebook from the bottom of the stack. He offered it to Ethan and motioned to the remaining chair. “You might want to sit down for this,” he warned. “It’s all … definitely a lot more serious than you think it is.”

Chapter 14

The day after Brandt and Gray left found Cade pacing back and forth across the small second-floor bathroom. Her hands were twisted together in front of her, and her face was the very definition of “freaked out.” Remy smirked slightly as the woman glanced at the sink again, and she shook her head at Cade and sighed.

“It’s not really that big a deal, Cade,” Remy said. Her eyes tracked the woman’s movement as she stalked slowly toward the door. It was a desperate ploy to soothe the woman so near to coming apart at the seams right in front of her. It must have been the wrong thing to say, though, because Cade turned on her, her blue eyes wide and almost shocked at Remy’s admittedly cavalier attitude.

“Not that big a deal?” Cade repeated incredulously. “Remy, this is so a big deal. It’s probably the biggest big deal to happen in … hell, I don’t know how long.” Her watch beeped, and she snatched the pregnancy test off the sink’s edge and looked at it before throwing it into the sink with the other three in disgust. Remy sat up straighter and squinted at the test. Its little blue plus sign glared evilly at both women. “Do you think maybe they’re defective?” Cade asked hopefully. “I mean, they have just been sitting in the medicine cabinet for over a year.”

Remy shook her head slowly. “If it’d just been the one, I’d say yes. Two, I could maybe even concede that point. But four?” Remy stood and caught Cade by the shoulders, forcing the other woman to stand still. “Face it, honey. You’re pregnant.”

Cade’s shoulders slumped, as if she’d hoped that Remy would tell her otherwise. She let out a heavy breath. “Oh man, what the hell am I going to tell Brandt?”

Remy snorted and sat back on the edge of the tub. “Just get him alone, sit him down, and say, ‘Baby, I’m pregnant!’” Remy completed the mock announcement by throwing her arms out to her sides and giving Cade a cheesy grin.

“You’re really looking to get punched, aren’t you?” Cade grumbled.

“Why do you ask? Am I on the fast track to getting there?”

“Absolutely.”

“Awesome.”

Cade gave Remy another odd look and rolled her eyes before continuing. “It was one time, Remy. You and Ethan were practically like rabbits for three months, and you didn’t have this problem.”

“You’re thirty-three. Are you seriously telling me you’ve never heard of condoms?” Remy asked before she added flippantly, “Besides, Ethan was sterile, so we didn’t have to worry about all that.”

Cade paused in mid-step and gave Remy a baffled glance. “Ethan was sterile? He never told me that. No wonder he and Anna never had kids.” She shook her head and ran her hands through her hair, starting to gather it into a ponytail. “And Brandt and I weren’t thinking about that kind of thing. It was more like, ‘Oh shit, we’re probably going to die tomorrow, let’s get laid!’”

“That’s not what it was for him,” Remy said in a singsong voice. That only prompted another ugly look from Cade. “What? I’m just saying. The man is hardcore in love with you, and you’re totally avoiding it. You need to … I don’t know … live a little and maybe acknowledge it. Because I will seriously smack the shit out of you if you blow him off.”

“Since when have you been so protective of Brandt?” Cade asked, snapping the elastic into place on her hair. “You don’t even like him all that much.”

“Since I’ve seen the way he looks at you. He’s head over heels for you,” Remy explained. “Give him some hope and quit being a frigid bitch over the whole thing. You two are going to have a kid. I think you’re past the I-don’t-want-a-relationship stage.”

Cade opened her mouth to reply, but a loud crash from downstairs preempted whatever she was going to say. Both women looked to the cracked bathroom door simultaneously, and Cade reached for her rifle, which sat propped against the wall by the door.

“Do you think Brandt and Gray came back early?” Remy asked. She grabbed the gun she’d left on the sink and silently cursed her luck; she’d left her bolo knife in her bedroom, thinking they wouldn’t be long. Now all she had was the Glock in her hands and the Ruger that Gray had given her in the waistband of her jeans. She hesitated, then grabbed the Ruger and slipped the tiny pistol under her shirt, tucking it into her bra. She wasn’t sure what made her do it, but instinct insisted, so she obeyed.

“I’ll go check it out,” Cade said. She shouldered her rifle and slid her flashlight from her pocket. “You stay here. Be ready to run.”

Remy rolled her eyes and flipped the safety off on her Glock. “Fuck that. Everybody could use the backup. Especially you.”

“Remy—” Cade started to protest. She clamped her mouth shut, her eyes darting to the bathroom door. There was the distinct sound of multiple sets of booted footsteps in the hall, moving slowly and stealthily along the floorboards. The indistinct sound of a woman’s whisper filtered through the door, and Cade’s jaw visibly tightened. She signaled for Remy to stay still and quiet, and then she eased to the crack in the door, hovering next to it. She pressed flat against the wall and pocketed the flashlight, gripping her rifle in both hands. After a long silence, in which Remy’s heart hammered wildly against her ribs, the voices in the hall faded away, the footsteps retreating to the stairs once more.

Cade eased toward the door, and nervousness churned in Remy’s gut. Something was wrong. If this was an attack, something was different about it. The people in the hallway weren’t infected, by the sounds of it. The infected didn’t talk. Remy swallowed hard and moved to stand beside Cade, leaning close and whispering in her ear.

“Maybe we should just stay in here,” she suggested. “Something isn’t right about this. I don’t like it.”

Cade merely waved her hand at Remy to indicate silence before she reached for the doorknob.

It happened almost too fast for Remy to comprehend. As Cade reached for the knob, the door flew open, striking Cade before she could dodge back from it. Cade staggered at the impact, and she raised her rifle instinctively. Remy darted deeper into the bathroom and lifted her Glock. A hand closed around the barrel of Cade’s rifle and drove it up. A bullet discharged into the ceiling with a deafening bang as a large black man pressed forward into the room. Cade gasped as her rifle was wrenched from her grasp.

“Cade, move!” Remy yelled. The woman, thankfully, obeyed, twisting to the side. Once she was clear of the doorway, Remy squeezed the trigger. A bullet slammed into the man’s shoulder and knocked him back into the wall across from the door. Cade’s rifle skittered across the hallway floor, and Remy lowered her gun as Cade grabbed her arm.

“You okay?” Cade asked. Without waiting for Remy’s answer, she pulled Remy with her into the hall, retrieving her rifle from the floor as the man regained his footing with a pained grimace. “Come on, we’ve got to get out of here,” she said urgently.

Remy followed Cade wordlessly, sparing a squinted glance at the dark hallway, hoping there wasn’t anyone else hiding in the darkness. No one came at them, though, and they made it safely down the stairs. “Where are we going?” she finally asked as they reached the bottom.

“I don’t know. We’ll figure something—”

Cade was cut short when she rounded the corner into the living room and the butt of a rifle slammed into her face. She landed flat on her back with a grunt of pain. Remy moved to help, lifting her Glock defensively, but someone dove from the living room’s shadows and grabbed her arm. Her gun was wrested from her grasp, and then she was swung around and slammed face down onto the floor. Her arms were pinned underneath her, and her breath rushed out of her lungs in a harsh gasp. She tried to push herself up, but a heavy booted foot pressed down between her shoulder blades, holding her in place.

The click of a gun cocking behind her was accompanied by the words, uttered in a harsh male voice, “Don’t fucking move, or I’ll blow your damned brains out.”

Remy obediently froze, panting as she tried to get enough air back into her lungs. The gun in her bra dug painfully into her skin, and a hand at her hip smoothed around the waistband of her jeans, presumably searching for weapons. When the hand pulled away, she closed her eyes. A scuffle broke out nearby, followed by a woman’s voice.

“Where is he?” the unknown woman asked, her voice hard and strong.

“Where is who?” Remy heard Cade snap back. Her voice was just as strong as the unnamed woman’s, laced with a vein of cold, hard anger. Despite the anger, Remy heard a faint tremor of pain under the words.

“Michael Evans. Where is he?”

“I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

There was a scrape of boots, and then the woman spoke again. “Get her up. On her knees.”

Remy managed to turn her head, and the scene beside her came into view. Cade knelt on the floor, her head bowed, her arms extended to her sides, palms out. A redheaded woman stood over her, a gun in her hand, her arms crossed as she glared at Cade. A Hispanic man stood behind Cade with a gun pressed to the back of her head. The black man Remy had shot sat on the stairs, a bath towel pressed to his shoulder as he grimaced in pain. Remy swallowed hard.

The woman leaned to look into Cade’s face again. “Where is Michael Evans?” she repeated, speaking slowly and sternly.

“I don’t know anyone named Michael,” Cade shot back, visibly gritting her teeth. A trickle of blood inched down her chin, and a large swollen area decorated the side of her face where the rifle had struck her.

“You’re lying,” the redhead shot back. “Where’s he hiding?”

“He’s not here,” a man announced as he came down the stairs. He was just out of sight, and Remy didn’t dare turn her head any farther to look at him. “There were bags and other things upstairs that indicated it’s more than just these two. And there were these.” A small object flew into Remy’s line of sight, and the redhead caught it. She held it up, and Remy recognized it at once as the dog tags Brandt had given Cade before he left. As the woman studied them, the man who’d come down the stairs knelt beside the black man and started tending to his shoulder.

The woman dangled the tags in Cade’s face. “See? You are lying,” she said, her voice oddly mild but still triumphant. “Now tell me where he is.”

“He isn’t here,” Cade said. Her eyes didn’t even flicker toward the tags, staying locked on the woman in front of her. “He’s dead.”

“Bullshit.” The redhead nodded to the Hispanic man behind Cade. The man nodded and put the gun away, drawing the knife from Cade’s own belt and holding it to her throat, pulling at her hair to tilt her head back. “Tell me where he is, or I’ll have Cortez cut your throat,” the woman ordered.

“Cut my throat and you won’t find out where he is,” Cade replied calmly. She was seemingly not rattled in the slightest by the knife at her throat.

“True,” the woman said contemplatively. “However …” She glanced in Remy’s direction. A hand closed into her hair, and Remy gasped as she was pulled to her knees, her eyes watering with the pain in her scalp. Cade’s eyes slid toward her as Remy felt a gun press firmly against the back of her head.

“He went out for supplies yesterday,” Cade said quickly, her eyes meeting Remy’s. Even from where she knelt, Remy could see the concern and fear in them. “He won’t be back for at least two more days.”

“See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” the woman crooned. The hand released Remy’s hair, and she was shoved back to the floor, her scalp aching. “Now, which one of you is Cade Alton?”

Chapter 15

Brandt planted his feet firmly on the roof of the Honda Civic, pressing his compact binoculars to his eyes and studying the landscape ahead of him. He could hear Gray scuffing his boots against the pavement behind him. He only saw a few infected in the distance, too far away to be a real threat to them.

“How’s it looking?” Gray asked. He shifted his mostly empty backpack against his back and tilted his head to look up at Brandt.

“Surprisingly clear,” Brandt reported. He slowly turned on the car roof to scan the rest of their immediate surroundings. Once he was satisfied that there were no immediate dangers around them, Brandt lowered the binoculars and stuffed them into the side pocket of his own backpack. “You know, you might’ve been right about your whole close-to-the-beach theory.” He sidestepped onto the trunk and then dropped to the pavement beside Gray.

“What can I say? I’m just smart like that,” Gray said, not bothering to temper his boasting with any modesty.

“Smart-assed, maybe,” Brandt retorted. He slid his rifle from his shoulder and returned it to a ready position against his chest, motioning to the street ahead of them. “Now come on. Don’t get cocky. There might not be very many of them on the street, but that doesn’t mean they’re not in the buildings.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Gray said flippantly, following Brandt. “I may occasionally do incredibly stupid things, but that doesn’t mean I’m an idiot.”

Brandt snorted and began to walk down the sidewalk. “So, you and Remy, huh?” he said conversationally as he led Gray toward the shops farther into the downtown area. He glanced at Gray and noted that the man’s cheeks had already flushed red, even as he protested.

“Who said anything about me and Remy?” Gray asked irritably. “Geez, you sound like Theo.”

“Come on, man, I’m not stupid,” Brandt retorted. He motioned to Gray’s hand, letting a smirk cross his face. “Get your damned gun out.”

Gray snarled at him, pulled the weapon from its holster, and waggled it in Brandt’s face. “It’s out, it’s out!”

Brandt laughed and continued walking in silence for a moment. “You know, I’m not deaf either,” he suddenly added, picking up their previous conversation as if he’d never left off.

“Oh God,” Gray groaned. His reaction sent Brandt into a short fit of laughter.

“Chill. You two weren’t that loud,” Brandt assured him. “I just happened to walk by and overhear. Mostly, I was wondering why neither of you felt that keeping watch was more important than getting laid.”

“It was … it was nothing,” Gray said, his cheeks flushing even redder. “It was just …” He looked at Brandt again, and under the man’s scrutiny, he seemed to crack. “Okay, I’m sorry! What the hell would you have done if she’d propositioned you?”

“I don’t think Remy would proposition me,” Brandt replied, fighting back his smirk. “I get the impression she doesn’t even like me all that much. Why would she want to sleep with me?”

“Well, fuck, you know what I mean,” Gray tried. “Look at her. She’s gorgeous. And she was just, I don’t know, there and asking. Think I was going to tell her no?”

“I know what you should have done, but that’s usually far from what most people would do,” Brandt acknowledged. “It’s okay, this time. Don’t let it happen again. The last thing we need to do is slip up and get careless. That’s when people start to die.” He ran a hand through his hair and scanned the street ahead of them again. “So, how was it?”

Gray stopped in the middle of the sidewalk with a shocked expression on his face. “Did you really just ask me what I think you asked me?”

“Well, I’m pretty sure I wasn’t talking in Swahili.”

Gray groaned again and shook his head, hurrying to catch up with Brandt. “I’m not describing my sex life to you, okay?”

“Wasn’t asking you to,” Brandt said smoothly. “I was just wondering if it at least was good enough to knock that chip off your shoulder.”

Gray seemed to ignore Brandt’s veiled insult, because he skimmed right past it to answer the question. “Let’s just say she knows what the hell she’s doing and leave it at that, yeah?” he suggested. His entire face was reddened by then. “It’s not all that big a deal, anyway.”

“It’s not?” Brandt asked. “What was it then?”

“Just a … I don’t know, just a comfort fuck, I guess,” Gray said with a nonchalant shrug that Brandt saw right through. “I don’t care.”

“Is that so?” Brandt raised an eyebrow. “Had me fooled. Did you at least use protection?”

“What am I, an idiot?” Gray shot back. “Hell, didn’t you?”

Brandt didn’t answer the question. Instead, he scanned the surprisingly untouched storefronts again, dropping the conversation as he spotted a drugstore across the street. Despite what he’d told Gray during the short drive toward the downtown area, Brandt’s first priority was Cade’s health. Even though her fever had broken and she’d been up and moving for a week, Brandt didn’t want to risk infection of the still-healing wound in her side. He motioned to Gray and began to cross the street, weaving among cars and trucks.

“I thought we were after food,” Gray said, hurrying to catch up.

“We are,” Brandt said. He paused just outside the drugstore’s door and squinted into its darkened interior. He couldn’t see anything moving inside, but he didn’t think it was wise to just charge in there either. He slid his hand into his backpack’s side pocket again and pulled free his flashlight, thumbing the switch. He glanced back at Gray. “We’re going inside,” Brandt said, raising his rifle. “Stick close to me, don’t do anything too stupid, and keep your eyes open.”

“You act like I’ve never been to one of these rodeos before,” Gray grumbled. He raised his own gun and flipped the safety off. Brandt raised an eyebrow at the motion but chose to not say anything. This time. “I’m old hat at this.”

“I think just about everybody still alive is old hat at this,” Brandt replied. He grasped the door’s handle and eased the door open. “Anybody who isn’t is probably dead.” As the door swung open, a bell chimed. Brandt flinched, and he and Gray both froze. Brandt held the door open with his foot and aimed his rifle into the store as the two men waited to see if anything would charge from the darkness of the shop.

“Think it’s safe to go inside?” Gray murmured. His eyes darted between Brandt and the interior of the drugstore, waiting for Brandt’s cue, his fingers on his sidearm in a white-knuckled grip. Brandt pressed his lips together and nodded.

“Yeah, but let’s leave the door open so that damned bell doesn’t ring again, okay?” Brandt suggested. He didn’t particularly like the idea of leaving the door open—anything could walk in on them, and they’d be less likely to hear it. But Brandt figured that, at this point, leaving the door open was the lesser of two evils, so rather than pursue the thought any further, he simply dragged a trash can over and used it to prop the door open. Then, with a simple, “Let’s go,” Brandt eased into the drugstore, sweeping the store carefully for any threats, Gray close behind.

“What are we after here?” Gray asked. He slunk inside, turning his head this way and that nervously.

“The usual shit,” Brandt replied, keeping his voice soft in the emptiness pressing close around them. “Any meds and first-aid supplies we can find, and anything else that looks useful.” He shrugged and stopped at the first shelf he reached. There were several boxes of rolled gauze left, so he tore the boxes open and stuffed the loose rolls into the very bottom of his pack. He tossed the last roll of medical tape on top for good measure.

Gray wandered to the end of the aisle while Brandt stuffed the gauze in his bag, pausing to scoop a few stray packages into his own. “Got some painkillers here,” he announced before stepping to the next aisle and browsing through the section under a sign that proclaimed Family Planning. “Not much left,” he added. “Looks like most of the stuff is already gone.”

“Yeah, I noticed.” Brandt sighed and shook his head in frustration. After a year of Michaluk’s reign, the supplies he considered absolutely vital to their survival were becoming difficult to come by in anything resembling adequate quantities. He could see it already: six months from now, they’d be forced to hunt for animals, forage for vegetables and other edible plants, and figure out how to keep up their health and general well-being outside their realms of comfort. While Brandt was sure he and Cade could manage, he wasn’t so sure about Remy and Gray. He also wasn’t sure it was safe to grow food outside where they presently hid, and he’d never been much of a hunter. Perhaps it was time to begin the search for a more permanent place for the four of them.

“What do you propose we do, then?” Gray asked. He rejoined Brandt and shone his own flashlight around the store.

Brandt sighed again and shrugged at Gray helplessly. “Move on, I suppose. We need food more than anything else at this point. Maybe we can check some of the restaurants along this street, see if there’s any canned goods left in them.”

They were back into the street and halfway down the block when something shiny caught Brandt’s eye. He slowed to a stop and stared across the street, raising an eyebrow at the genuinely surprising sight before him. Gray prodded him in the back.

“What is it? What are you looking at?”

Brandt nodded to a jewelry store, locked up tight and completely untouched despite the jewelry displays in the plate-glass window. “That. It’s fucking pristine.”

“How … weird,” Gray murmured as he too took in the sight before them.

“Exactly.” Brandt shifted his backpack onto his shoulders and squinted at the building thoughtfully. “Think it’s safe?”

It was Gray’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “Why do you ask?”

“Because I want to get in there.”

Gray snorted and shook his head. “Seriously? Why? There’s nothing in there that we’d absolutely need.”

“No, but there’s something in there I want,” Brandt replied. He started to cross the street.

Gray swore and followed him. “You’re insane, you know that?”

Brandt smirked. “What, you just noticed?”

Chapter 16

Cade’s heart raced as the question left the redheaded woman’s lips. Cade Alton? What did this woman want with her? The man behind her prodded her in the back of the head with the barrel of his gun, and she clenched her jaw. An intense ache had settled into her upper back and shoulders from having her arms extended for so long. But she refused to let the pain show. She’d been through worse, had prepared and trained for the worst, in her time in the IDF. What this redheaded bitch could do to her didn’t compare.

“I said, which of you is Cade Alton?” the bitch in question asked again, her words clipped and measured. She was clearly not bothered by holding two unarmed women at gunpoint. That told Cade it was something she’d done before. She fleetingly wondered if the woman had any compunction about torture, but her brain advised her that it was a line of thought not worth pursuing.

The redhead turned to Remy and took a step toward the young woman’s prone form. As the word “torture” wandered through her mind again, Cade spoke up.

“Right here,” she snapped. The woman turned on her heel to face Cade again, her eyebrow raised.

“How do I know you’re not lying?” the woman demanded. “You’re so obviously willing to do so.”

“Back right pocket,” Cade bit out. She folded her hands into fists, digging her nails into her palms to keep herself calm. “Photo military ID.”

The woman took a quick step forward, and Cade felt her ID slide from her pocket. She debated taking the opportunity to attack the woman, but her instincts warned that it’d likely end very badly for her and Remy. So she remained motionless, her eyes glancing fleetingly at Remy and the short, ugly man practically standing on her back.

The redhead studied the card carefully. A slow smile crept across her lips. “So you are the infamous Cade Alton.”

“I hardly think I’m infamous,” Cade muttered sourly.

“Oh, to the contrary, you certainly are,” the woman corrected. Cade’s eyes followed the card as the woman tucked it into her pocket. One of the men approached the woman, leaning close and murmuring something in her ear. Cade couldn’t hear everything, but she heard snatches of words, including the phrase “pregnancy tests.” She swallowed hard, and the woman’s eyes met hers with a startled expression before settling into a more determined stare. “You’re going to have to come with us.”

“No, I don’t think I will,” Cade retorted.

“That wasn’t a request.”

Cade cut her eyes to the woman’s face again, but she didn’t have time to offer a retort before the man behind her goaded her roughly with the gun. Cade flinched at the impact of the metal against her scalp, but rather than fight it—she was still afraid for Remy—Cade slowly rose to her feet, standing straight and tall in front of the other woman.

“Let’s go,” the redhead barked. She stalked toward the door.

“What about the other one?” one of the men called out as Cade was shoved out the door and onto the porch. The redhead turned on her heel to look to the speaker.

“Do whatever you need to make sure she doesn’t follow us,” the woman ordered. “Whatever you feel is necessary. I leave it up to you. And don’t forget to leave the note.”

Cade’s eyes widened at the implication in the redhead’s words. She started to turn back, but Cortez and the black man Remy had shot grasped her upper arms and forced her forward, nearly dragging her outside and to a waiting black van. Another van sat behind it, ready for whoever would be getting inside. Cade struggled against their tight grips as she was led to the first van, nearly thrashing her body between theirs.

“Let go of me! Let go!” Cade demanded. Her voice was shrill, and she hated how panicked her words sounded. She dug her heels into the dirt driveway as the men moved her inexorably to the van. As the back door was flung open and as she was physically lifted off the ground and shoved inside, gunshots rang out in the house. Cade tried to throw herself back out of the vehicle, but rough hands shoved her back inside.

The door slammed shut with a finality that thudded in Cade’s gut.

Chapter 17

Brandt knew something was wrong before he and Gray reached the halfway point down the block on which the safe house sat. He noticed it as he walked beside Gray, one hand clutching a gallon jug of water, the other on the rifle in a tactical carry against his chest. The first thing that tipped him off was the apparent stillness that had settled over the street. Real or imagined, it unnerved him.

The second thing that made Brandt suspect not all was right was the sight of the van parked haphazardly in front of the safe house—a vehicle that most assuredly had not been there before. It had jumped the curb, half parked on the sidewalk, the other half jutting into the street. It resembled a sleek dead black whale beached on a shore. Nothing around it moved.

Brandt’s eyes widened. His pace quickened, and he took four hurried steps before forcing himself to slow down. Racing into an unknown situation wouldn’t do anyone any good, especially if he walked straight into a trap. Brandt set the water jug he held on the pavement beside his left boot and glanced at Gray. The younger man had also noticed the oddness around the safe house and had begun to offload anything unnecessary that he carried.

“Who the hell is that at the house?” Gray asked. He shifted his heavy pack, loaded down with food and other supplies they’d found, closer against his back and nervously drew his gun from the holster at his side.

“I don’t know, but I really don’t like it,” Brandt acknowledged. He abandoned the water in the middle of the street, figuring he’d come back for it, and sped his pace to the house.

As Brandt stepped onto the curb beside the van, he lifted his rifle to his shoulder, instinctively hunching down as if to make himself a smaller target. His heart hammered as he eased up to the vehicle and peered into its tinted windows. He didn’t see any movement inside. There was no blood anywhere in it either, Brandt verified after he’d slid the side door open and looked into the vehicle, sweeping it for dangers. He didn’t think anyone infected had been inside. He shook his head and motioned to Gray to stay behind him as he hurried through the tall grass to the front porch.

Brandt was certain something was wrong when he reached the porch and saw the front door wide open, the glass shattered, the lock broken beyond repair. He sucked in a sharp breath and tightened his grip on his rifle as he crept up the steps. “Oh Jesus,” he murmured. He barely heard Gray’s footsteps on the boards behind him as he stepped into the house.

Brandt swept his rifle across the entryway, checking for any immediate dangers in their vicinity, even as he slid deeper into the living room. It was too dark to see by just the light from the front door, so Brandt ripped his flashlight free from his pack and flicked it on.

The first thing on which the flashlight’s beam lit was a puddle of blood, partially clotted and spread across the floorboards to soak into the edge of the rug. The body of an unknown man lay at the source of the blood, collapsed onto his face on the floor. A Sig Sauer P226 lay near one of the man’s hands. He was definitely dead.

“Oh fucking—” Gray started. He didn’t manage to finish his expletive before Brandt ran for the stairs, yelling out, heedless of any dangers remaining in the house and tossing everything he’d ever been trained to do aside.

“Cade! Cade!” Brandt shouted. He charged up the stairs, his boots thudding heavily on each step. He shrugged his backpack off halfway up the stairs to rid himself of its extra weight. He could hear, below and behind him, Gray’s voice joining his as the younger man took his cue from Brandt and yelled for Remy.

“Brandt!” a woman’s voice called out. Brandt nearly fell as he stopped and turned, catching himself on the railing before going back the way he’d come. He jumped over his own pack as he searched for the source. He recognized Remy’s voice as she called out again. “Brandt! Gray! In here!”

Brandt’s brain pinpointed the woman’s voice in the kitchen, and he caught Gray’s arm and hauled him along as he headed in that direction. Brandt’s heart raced, and his hands shook as he pushed the door to the kitchen open, afraid of what he’d find, hopeful that it’d be both women safe and in one piece. But something in Remy’s voice dinged at his instincts, warning him that not everything was okay.

When Brandt and Gray moved into the kitchen, the sight that greeted Brandt took his breath away. He managed a quick intake of breath through his clenched teeth and let go of Gray’s arm, lowering his rifle and taking a quick step toward Remy. The woman was perched on the dining table, her booted feet resting in one of the chairs. Another Sig Sauer was on the table beside her. In her hand, she clenched a small Ruger Brandt had never seen, her knuckles white with the force of her grip. A large bruise darkened the side of her face, extending down onto her neck. The look in her eyes was infuriated, her face tight with exhaustion and suppressed emotion. But it was what she had the Ruger pointed at that captured most of Brandt’s attention.

Remy held the gun pointed steadily at a short, squat, dark-haired man as unfamiliar to Brandt as the handgun Remy held. He was duct-taped to one of the dining chairs, his lip split and his jaw scraped and scabbing. A bullet wound decorated his left thigh. Another was plugged into his abdomen, and a furrow disfigured his upper right arm, as if a bullet had just barely missed him. The man’s chest heaved with the struggle to breathe. He was severely wounded, likely dying, and there was no medical care Brandt and Gray could possibly offer that would do the man any good. Brandt’s eyes flicked from the man to Remy’s slender form. The woman had climbed off the table and approached the man. As Brandt watched, she kicked the man hard in the shin. The man let out a low groan of pain.

“What the fuck is going on in here?” Brandt demanded. He grabbed Remy’s shoulder and tugged her back from the man. “Where’s Cade? And who the hell is this?”

“Cade’s gone,” Remy said. She looked at Brandt with wide eyes, the pain in her voice evident. A bolt of shock zipped through Brandt, and he took an involuntary step back. “She’s gone. They took her. This bastard’s people took her. And he won’t tell me where they’re going.”

“Took her?” Brandt demanded. His shock swiftly turned to anger. “What the fuck do you mean, they took her?”

“Just that, Brandt. They took her!” Remy snapped. She turned on him and raised her hand as if she were going to hit him with her gun. Brandt caught her wrist and forced her arm back down to her side. “They broke in while we were upstairs. They attacked us and held us at gunpoint. They started grilling Cade for information, and when she wouldn’t answer them straight, they took her and told him and his fucking buddy to kill me.” She kicked the duct-taped man in the shin again, harder than before. This time, Brandt didn’t bother to stop her.

“Information,” Brandt repeated, simply stating the word as his brain raced to come up with a reason why some unknown group would come after them. He turned his eyes momentarily to the man fastened to the chair, studying him closely, trying to decide if this was a man he’d seen before. The examination was futile; he didn’t recognize the man at all. “What kind of information were they asking for?”

“They were looking for you,” Remy said. “They kept asking where you were. Cade tried to tell them you were dead, but they didn’t believe her. They just kept pushing, and she … well, she caved. She told them you were out on supply and wouldn’t be back for days. That was when they asked which of us was Cade, and they took her.”

“And this guy ended up taped to a chair … how?” Gray prompted. He stepped closer to look the injured man over.

“I put him there.” Remy waved the gun around, and Gray’s eyes lit onto it. He gave her a slight smile. “Thank you for giving this to me, by the way. I stashed it in my bra. He had no idea. I rolled over and shot his sorry ass. His and his friend’s.” She swallowed hard, and Brandt put his hand on her shoulder again, squeezing it gently and reassuringly, as she continued. “I killed the other guy. This one, I didn’t. I figured we could get some information from him, so I’ve been trying to keep him alive until you got back.”

Brandt pulled away from Remy, his mind reeling as he glanced between the young woman and the trussed-up man in the chair. “What about Cade? How was she when you last saw her? Was she hurt?”

“No, she was incredibly pissed,” Remy replied. She took a step away from the man to let Brandt take over the attempted interrogation.

“God help the guys who took her, then,” Gray murmured. A smile crossed his face before it faded just as quickly.

Brandt nodded and stepped in front of the seated man. He stared at him, trying to decide on the first line of questioning he should pursue. Brandt wanted to make it fast; he wanted to get what he needed as quickly as he could. Because he planned to go after Cade, and he was going to pull her out of whatever mess she’d been dragged unwillingly into. It was the least Brandt could do, because by all appearances, it was his fault she was in it to begin with.

“Where did your people take Cade?” Brandt started. He set his rifle carefully on the dining table and leaned over the man threateningly, letting his sheer size be his weapon against any resistance the man might offer. “Where are they going? When do they plan to get there? And, for that matter, what the hell do you want with me?”

The man didn’t answer at first, visibly resistant to Brandt’s line of questioning. Brandt gritted his teeth and drew his sidearm from its holster, pressing it against the man’s temple as if he were going to shoot him. The man cringed back in his chair and started to babble, breathless with pain from his wounds, and Brandt lowered the weapon as his goal was accomplished.

“They took her to Atlanta,” the man started. “They’re trying to lure you in. They tried to do it a month ago with Avi Geller but didn’t manage, because she was working for someone else. It was our backup plan to take Alton if you weren’t here, because the people who planned this knew you would come after her, and they’d have you right where they wanted you.”

“And what the hell do they want with me?” Brandt persisted. “Why are they after me? Why are they so desperate to get their hands on me that they’d take Cade in the hopes I’d track her to their location?”

“Because you’re the cure,” the man said, panting with the effort of speaking. “Or they think so, anyway. They think you’ve got the virus in you and you’re not showing symptoms, and they think that means you have the cure in you.”

“What? The cure?” Brandt repeated, baffled. “I don’t have the fucking cure. I was part of the damned control group,” he spat out. “I was never once exposed to the actual pathogen.”

“Wait, what is he talking about?” Gray asked, touching Brandt’s arm to get his attention. Brandt flicked his eyes to Gray, feeling his stomach turn over as he realized what he’d said. He swallowed hard and shook his head, trying to figure out how best to dig himself out of his own words.

“It’s nothing,” he said. “Not something I’m going to discuss with you right now.” Brandt turned back to the man duct-taped to the chair and studied him carefully, leaning closer as the man’s eyes met his. “Where did you hear all this shit about me being the cure?” he asked. He didn’t look at Remy and Gray. He could feel their eyes on him, the curiosity and suspicion rolling off of them in waves. “Who told you this?”

“Alicia did,” the man panted out. He cringed and flinched in pain. “Alicia told us all of it. All about the whole mess at the CDC.”

“Alicia?” Brandt repeated. His face chilled as the blood ran out of it. His hands went clammy, and he curled his fingers into fists. “Alicia who?” He paused as a thought occurred to him, and just as quickly as his face had paled, it flushed with anger. “Alicia Day?”

“Yeah, that’s her,” the man acknowledged.

Brandt gritted his teeth and straightened, his anger getting the better of him. He turned on his heel and slammed his fist as hard as he could into the refrigerator’s stainless steel door. His knuckles split, but he ignored the blood that welled to the surface as he snapped, “Son of a bitch! That bitch got out?”

“What the hell is going on, Brandt?” Remy demanded. Brandt glanced at her and put his hand up, wordlessly ordering her to shut up before he turned back to the man in the chair.

“Where in Atlanta?” Brandt asked. He took a step closer to him and leaned only inches away from his face. “Where is Alicia? And where did she take Cade?”

“Wait, wait, wait!” Remy said. She pulled Brandt back from the chair and stepped in front of him so his attention was fully on her. He allowed her to do so only reluctantly, his eyes scanning her face as he gritted his teeth. “Who the fuck is this Alicia you keep referring to? And what the hell is going on?”

“It’s nothing that concerns you, Rem—”

“Like hell it doesn’t concern me! This bastard held a gun to my fucking head!” Remy shouted, her voice echoing through the kitchen. She jabbed her finger at the man in the chair. “He tried to shoot me! And that redheaded bitch told him to! I want to know what’s going on, and I want to know five seconds ago!”

Brandt hesitated, looking from Remy to Gray and then glancing at the man in the chair, who smirked at him despite the pain he was in. “Not now, Remy,” he said. He hated how much his voice sounded like he was pleading. “Not now. I’ve got to get information out of this guy, and I can’t do that and answer your questions at the same time.”

“Answer the question,” Gray said. He stepped into the argument and grabbed the man’s forearm. Brandt tensed, and he wrenched his arm from Gray’s grip.

“Not now,” Brandt repeated. He raised his voice just enough to show the two that he meant business. “Get the fuck out of here while I get what I need from him.”

Chapter 18

“I don’t like this,” Gray said. He paced the creaky hallway floorboards, his hands stuffed into his pockets and his boots scuffing the floor. He glanced at the closed kitchen door and wondered what the hell was going on in there, what was taking Brandt so long to get whatever he needed from the wounded man. “I don’t like this at all.”

“And you think I do?” Remy snapped. She didn’t look at Gray. She stood at the end of the hall, staring into the darkness of the living room, her hands on her hips. “I want to be in there just as badly as you do.”

“What is he doing in there?” Gray asked in frustration. He approached Remy, and the woman shot him a warning glance that he ignored as he stopped beside her.

“Hopefully what I want to do,” Remy grumbled. She moved away from Gray and deeper into the living room.

“Which is?”

“Granting that motherfucker a slow, painful death.”

“Remy, that’s not right,” Gray started to protest. The woman turned on him and shoved him against the wall with a firm strike of her hands against his chest. He bit back a grunt as his shoulders bumped into the sheetrock.

“Not right? That’s not fucking right?” she repeated. “What the hell, you asshole? That son of a bitch and his fucking little friend put a gun to the back of my head. They were talking about how much fucking fun they were going to have with me, and I had to pretend like I was going to go along with something that I am so morally against just to give myself an opening to do what I needed to do. They were going to pull the damned trigger until I rolled over and shot them. What part of them nearly killing me is difficult to comprehend?” She braced her hands more firmly against Gray’s chest and pinned him harder against the wall. “Ethan would never have stood for this kind of shit. Even he would’ve thought it was okay for me to go down fucking fighting! Hell, he did! Are you telling me you think I’m not entitled to do the same?”

“I’m just not comfortable with the idea of you sinking to their level,” Gray said. He caught her wrists and squeezed them gently. Her pulse raced under her skin; he slowly and soothingly rubbed his thumbs over the soft skin on the insides of her wrists and tried to calm her down, pulling her to him in a tight hug. “You’re better than that. You’re a better person than that. You wouldn’t kill someone who isn’t infected and who isn’t directly threatening you at that moment. You’re too good to do something like that.”

Remy watched Gray with a wide-eyed, almost hurt expression on her face. “You say that like you’re desperate to believe it,” she said. Her fists slowly relaxed, her fingers uncurling.

Gray pressed his lips against her temple and sighed. “Maybe I am,” he murmured. “Maybe I want to believe there’s still some goodness in the world. Maybe I just don’t want to see you do something I know you’d regret later on.” She kept watching him, her eyes still wide, and he felt the overwhelming urge to lean in and kiss her. But that urge was broken when Remy sighed and pulled away from him.

“If you say so,” she said. “But that still doesn’t change the fact that I really want to shoot that bastard right in his ass.” She glanced at the kitchen door and crossed her arms, hugging herself. “You think we’re going to go after Cade?”

“I don’t think it’s a matter of if so much as when,” Gray admitted. He, too, looked at the closed kitchen door. Everything was silent on the other side. He itched to get in there, to find out what was going on in the other room. Brandt was hiding something, and Gray wanted to know what it was.

Gray wasn’t an idiot. He’d known all along that something wasn’t right with Brandt. Unlike the rest of them, the Marine had never been forthcoming about his past. Sure, they’d all had their secrets, things they wanted to keep hidden; no one wanted to tell every detail about themselves and their lives prior to the outbreak of the Michaluk virus. But unlike everyone else, Brandt had kept nearly everything hidden. All Gray knew about the man personally was that he’d come from Atlanta and had a sister there who’d died at Emory University—a sister about whom he never talked. Gray couldn’t help but be suspicious of what the man was hiding. And when Brandt had kicked him and Remy out of the kitchen to interrogate the wounded man in private, well, that had only heightened Gray’s suspicions.

As Remy paced down the hallway, her dark eyes fluttering to the broken front door with every other step, the kitchen door eased open, and Brandt emerged. The man looked tired; there were dark circles under his eyes, and his hair was a mess from running his fingers through it constantly. He met Gray’s eyes for a fleeting moment before he shifted his gaze to Remy. Gray grimaced.

“What’s the deal, Brandt?” Gray asked, breaking the silence and drawing Remy’s attention to them. She approached, walking slowly across the living room, appearing uneasy. “What’s going on?”

“They’re taking Cade to the Westin at Peachtree Plaza in Atlanta,” Brandt answered after a long, careful pause. “There’s a group of people living there. It’s led by a woman named Alicia Day.”

“Who you seem to know, judging by your reaction to the guy’s news in there,” Remy said. “Who is she?”

Brandt breathed out and looked away from them pensively, moving into the living room and halfway up the stairs to retrieve his backpack. He carried it back down as he answered, not looking at either of them. “Alicia Day is a woman I knew a while back, before all this shit happened,” he said. He waved his hand vaguely to indicate the circumstances they were in. “She was in the Military Police, Marine branch, as far as my understanding went,” he explained. “I knew her as an acquaintance, nothing more. We weren’t exactly close, needless to say.”

“Is that why she kept referring to you as Michael?” Remy asked. She leaned against the post at the end of the staircase railing.

“Yeah, it’s what I used to go by,” Brandt answered. He stopped beside Remy and set his bag and rifle down before sitting heavily on a step. He dropped his head into his hands. “It’s … well, this is a long, complicated story. I don’t want to go into details. I don’t have time to go into details. Cade’s more important than all this shit.”

“But you’re going to tell us the bare basics regardless,” Gray said firmly. He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall across from Remy, effectively blocking any potential escape route Brandt would have had. “Because I absolutely refuse to allow me or Remy to go along and help you when you’re not being fucking straight with us.”

“You would,” Brandt muttered to the stair below him. Gray chose not to say anything in reply. Brandt heaved a sigh before continuing. “I wasn’t honest with you about my past in Atlanta,” he said. “I didn’t lie, but I didn’t tell you anything either. I guess I lied by omission more than anything else.” Brandt breathed out again, slowly and steadily. “I was at the CDC when it fell.”

Remy raised an eyebrow. “That’s it?”

“No, that’s not it by far,” Brandt admitted. “I was … there were these tests. Like I told you last month in the back of that truck. The tests and experiments with the pathogen on Marines and other military volunteers.” Gray’s eyes widened as his brain caught up with what Brandt was saying. “I was one of the volunteers. One of the Marines that Michaluk was supposedly tested on.”

“Jesus,” Gray hissed out.

“I wasn’t one of the actual test subjects, though,” Brandt said in a rush. “Well, I was. But my doctor, the one in charge of my case, he said I was in the control group, not one of the groups getting the actual pathogen. He said I was being given placebos. Nothing more than that.”

“And this Alicia chick?” Gray prompted.

“I don’t know about her,” Brandt admitted. “She was there too. I talked to her a few times, but only fleetingly. She struck me as a hate-the-world type, and I never really enjoyed hanging out with those types of people. I don’t know anything about her case, though. Derek was never willing to enlighten me on details about her or anyone else. Hell, he screwed up and compromised the testing just by telling me I was in the control group.”

“So what’s this got to do with the bitch taking Cade?” Remy demanded.

Brandt lifted his head and looked first to Remy, then to Gray, and finally to the closed kitchen door. “Because for some reason, she’s fixated on this idea that I have the Michaluk virus and I’m just not showing symptoms because I’m immune or something. She thinks she can force me to, as the guy in there put it, ‘give up the cure’ and save the world or something.” His voice betrayed just how ridiculous he thought the idea was. “Doesn’t she know that if I had the fucking cure, I’d be shouting it from the rooftops?”

“Some people just aren’t receptive to reason,” Gray said with a sigh. “So why didn’t you tell us this before? Why wait over a year, when something bad has happened, before telling us anything to do with your time in Atlanta?”

“I didn’t want to not tell you guys,” Brandt said. “But I had to keep it to myself. I couldn’t let anyone know. Until a month ago, they all believed I was dead, and I wanted it kept that way. I didn’t want any of you in danger.”

“In danger from what?” Gray asked, unable to hide his frustration with Brandt’s evasiveness.

“From the Feds,” Brandt finally answered. Gray raised an eyebrow, and he looked the man over doubtfully. “Back in January of last year, when the Michaluk virus broke out and started to spread like hell all over the place, the Feds—the ones sponsoring the test to begin with—ordered the complete shutdown of the project. They sent in the Marines stationed at the CDC and an Army special task force to assist with the shutdown.”

“So they shut the project down,” Remy said. “So what?”

“So ‘shutdown’ entailed the complete elimination of everyone involved with the project,” Brandt said. His voice was hushed, his words a monotone. “The patients, the doctors, nurses, lab techs, everyone.”

“Jesus,” Gray breathed again before he could stop himself.

“I thought they killed them all,” Brandt said, closing his eyes. “That was my impression, anyway. Derek helped me get out. I never saw him again, figured he was dead. And I never saw anyone uninfected come out of that building. I thought they were all dead. I thought it was just me. I had no idea Alicia was still alive or even that she was a threat.” He shook his head. “I swear, if she’s so much as hurt a single hair on Cade’s head, I’m going to kill her with my bare hands.”

Gray believed every word Brandt said, and the older man’s tone suggested he’d let nothing stop him from being successful. He let out a breath and studied the man for a moment before speaking again. “So what’s the plan? How are we going to get her back?”

“And when do we leave?” Remy added. She pushed off the post and placed a foot on the steps, as if to start climbing them. “And, for that matter, what are we going to do about the guy in there?”

“Absolutely nothing,” Brandt said. “He’s dead. He was already dying. He hung on long enough to give me the information I needed.” He dropped his head back into his hands for a moment before standing abruptly. “Let’s get our shit together. I want to be out of here within the hour.”

“What about the bodies?” Gray asked tentatively as the other man began to climb the stairs.

“Search them, then leave them,” Brandt bit out. “I don’t have time to deal with some assholes who tried to kill one of us. They don’t deserve anything we can give them at this point.”

Chapter 19

Cade was in that pleasant haze somewhere between asleep and awake, where not everything seemed quite real, where the dream world intersected with the real one, brushing against the edges of her consciousness. She’d been like this for almost an hour, ever since Brandt had reluctantly rolled off her and dragged the sheets over both their bodies. She imagined she could still feel Brandt’s body against hers, his hands loosely gripping her waist. She shivered, and almost immediately, Brandt’s arms were around her, tugging her closer. She lay on her side, and he was just behind her, his nose buried against her hair as she hovered just shy of wakefulness, content. She could imagine that the infected didn’t exist, that the two of them weren’t fighting for their lives every day. It wasn’t hard to do.

Brandt’s stubbled chin brushed against her bare shoulder as he dropped a light kiss on her skin. Cade smiled and closed her eyes, forcing herself to relax for the first time in over a year. That was hard to do. Her back and shoulder muscles felt like they’d never be relaxed again, not after the tension and weight they’d carried. Brandt’s fingers found her side, tracing her ribs lightly before he spoke.

“Cade?” His voice was soft, hoarse with lack of sleep.

“Hmm?” she managed to hum out. She was too tired for anything else.

“Are you okay?”

Something in the man’s voice made Cade raise an eyebrow. She opened her eyes and shifted onto her back to get a look at him. In the faint moonlight coming from the second-story window, she could just make out his eyes, soft and dark and a little droopy. He looked exhausted, but at the same time, he seemed oddly alert.

“What makes you ask?”

“Just thinking about tomorrow,” Brandt admitted. His grip on her tightened. “Everything that can go wrong. All the bad shit that could happen. How I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Cade let a faint smile drift across her lips as she smoothed her fingers down his arm, tracing the knot of bone at his wrist. “I’m not going to get hurt,” she said assuredly. “Do I ever?”

“Well, there was that time with your knee in Biloxi,” Brandt pointed out.

Cade rolled her eyes and shifted until she lay on her other side, facing him. “Hey, that wasn’t my fault,” she protested. “You’re the one who threw me down, if you do recall.”

“I do recall,” he agreed with a soft chuckle. “I also recall making you jump out the fifth floor of an office building.”

“Let’s not go there,” Cade warned. “The thought still scares me.”

Brandt chuckled again, the sound vibrating through his chest. He smiled and nuzzled his nose against hers affectionately, pressing a kiss to her lips, a soft noise escaping his throat as he twisted his fingers into her hair. She returned it, of course; Brandt was a fantastic kisser, and she’d have been a liar if she said she didn’t enjoy it.

When he finally pulled away, his fingers still threaded in her hair, Brandt’s eyes were serious. “I don’t want to go to sleep,” he confessed.

“Why not?” Cade asked. She smoothed a hand over his cheek, her fingers caressing his skin idly.

“Because sleep is for the weak,” he attempted to joke, but Cade could tell his heart wasn’t quite in it.

“Seriously, Brandt,” she persisted.

“Because I’d rather stay awake and talk to you,” he said, catching her around the waist again and pulling her more firmly against him.

Cade raised an eyebrow. “Oh? And what exactly should we talk about?”

Brandt shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m sure you could come up with something.”

Cade mulled over and rejected an entire list of possible topics of discussion before settling on an old standard she used when she wanted to know more about someone. “Tell me something about you that I don’t already know,” she requested.

“Something you don’t know about me,” Brandt repeated. “What kind of something are you thinking of?”

Cade shrugged. “I don’t know. Just … something you haven’t told the others. Something no one in the world today knows about you.”

Brandt fell silent at the request, staying that way for so long that Cade lifted her head to check whether he’d fallen asleep. But no, he still lay awake, staring at the ceiling, his hand rubbing slowly up and down her back as he thought the question over. Finally, when he spoke, his words were surprisingly hushed.

“I was married once,” he started. Cade looked at him in surprise, her eyebrows rising, but he didn’t seem to notice the look. “Long time ago, back when I was young and pretty stupid. Thought we were in love. Maybe we were, I don’t know. I’d accidentally gotten her pregnant. Usual sad story, you know?”

“How old were you?” Cade asked softly, wondering why he’d never mentioned any of this.

“Seventeen when I got her pregnant,” Brandt said. “Eighteen when I finally married her. Shit was good for a while. She had a boy. We stayed in Atlanta, mainly because I didn’t want to live anywhere else.”

“So what happened?”

“There was an accident,” Brandt said. “Baby died. And Kayla wasn’t quite the same after that. Things got really bad. She asked for a divorce when I was nineteen. I gave it to her.” Cade heard the sadness in his voice as he uttered those last five words.

“It wasn’t what you wanted though, was it?” she asked softly. “You didn’t want a divorce.”

“No, I didn’t,” Brandt confirmed. “But it was what she wanted, and I wanted to see her happy, so …” He trailed off and shrugged. “What else could I do?” He closed his eyes. “So we divorced. She went her way, and I went mine. Never heard from her again.” He traced a circle along Cade’s spine, and she dropped her head onto his chest again. “After that, I drifted aimlessly for about six years. Worked shitty dead-end jobs, barely scraped by. I finally decided to join the military when I was twenty-five and entered Marine boot camp a few months before I turned twenty-six. I’m sure you can guess the rest.”

“Yeah, I think I can,” Cade murmured in agreement. She closed her own eyes, just listening to his heartbeat. “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

“I’m not. If it hadn’t happened, it’d never have set off the chain of events that led to where we are now,” Brandt said. “While the circumstances suck unbelievably, I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”

Cade lifted her head so Brandt could see the disbelieving look on her face. “Are you serious?”

“Well, yeah,” Brandt said, not sounding the least bit uncomfortable with his own statement. “I’ve always been a firm believer in the idea that things happen for a reason. Might not be things we like, and it might not be for reasons we like, but all the same, they happen. And I firmly believe I’d not be right here right now if all the shit that happened before hadn’t happened.”

Cade’s head banged against the side window as the van struck a pothole in the road. She jerked awake, blinking rapidly and trying to orient herself. It took her several moments to remember where she was, when she was, and who the hell she was with. When it all rushed back, her anger came with it. She quickly fought back the urge to lunge at the nearest warm body. Knowing her luck, she’d be promptly shot to death by the man watching her over the back of the seat in front of her—the man holding her rifle.

As she came more fully awake, the soreness in her body slammed into the forefront of her mind, and she shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Her jaw ached, both from the swelling and bruising on the side of her face and the apparent grinding of her teeth in her sleep. But none of it could compete with the overwhelming disappointment she’d experienced when she’d been so rudely woken from the wonderful dream—memory—she’d experienced in her heavy doze.

That redheaded bitch sat directly in front of her; the back of her head was presented to Cade as if she didn’t have a care in the world. Cade wondered how easily it’d be to go on the attack. Every fiber of her being desired to rip this woman a new one. She clenched her fists tightly.

No. Not yet. No matter how much Cade’s body screamed to make these people pay for Remy’s death—because she had no doubt that the younger woman was dead—she still needed answers, still needed to know what they wanted with her. And, for that matter, what they wanted with Brandt. The redhead’s line of questioning back at the safe house had indicated that whatever the woman wanted had something to do with Brandt. Cade wanted to know what that something was. She wouldn’t find out if she came out of her nap with fists swinging.

Cade sucked up her courage, stomped down her anger, and finally spoke.

“Hey,” she started, trying to get the redhead’s attention. The woman didn’t move, didn’t react to Cade’s voice. Cade grimaced and kicked the back of the woman’s seat. The redhead sucked in what sounded like a pained breath as she turned around, and Cade caught a glimpse of a needle in the woman’s arm. Oh great, I’ve been kidnapped by a bunch of fucking junkies, she thought irritably.

“What?” the woman snarled. There was so much venom in her voice that Cade instinctively recoiled from her. She swallowed the deep-seated kill, kill impulse she’d developed over the past year and soldiered on. She refused to be cowed into submission by this bitch.

“What the hell do you want with me?” Cade demanded without preamble. If she was going to go on the attack—verbally, anyway—then she was going to aim right for the jugular.

“You think I’m going to answer your questions with a shitty attitude like that?” the woman shot back. She expertly deposited the needle in a plastic sharps box stashed between the seats and, as Cade watched, took a quick swig of water and two painkillers.

“You’d better tell me something before I kick all your asses,” Cade grumbled.

“I don’t have to tell you jack shit.”

Cade fought to not kick the woman’s seat again and instead folded her arms over her chest, glaring at them all. “Well, it’d sure be incredibly helpful, so when I do kick all your asses, I’ll at least know why. Besides the obvious, that is.”

The redhead’s brilliant green eyes—almost as green as Ethan’s, Cade observed fleetingly—rolled once. “You think this has something to do with you?”

“Well, considering I’m the one you kidnapped, I figure it has a lot to do with me,” Cade argued.

“It has almost nothing to do with you,” the woman snapped. Cade saw a glimpse of anger flare up in the woman’s eyes again. The woman squeezed her eyes closed momentarily before she continued. “But it has everything to do with Michael Brandt Evans.”

The way the woman said Brandt’s name, carefully enunciating each word, raised Cade’s curiosity to new levels. “What about Brandt? What do you want with him?”

The redhead scoffed and faced the front again. “Yeah, like I have any reason to tell you anything right now.”

Cade crossed her arms again, digging her nails into her sides so she wouldn’t punch the woman in the back of her head. “So what’s your name, anyway?”

“Why do you need to know my name?” the redhead asked placidly.

“So I have something to call you other than redheaded bitch,” Cade replied. “Though I have to admit that has a nice ring to it.”

Disdain rolled off the woman in front of her. “Alicia Day,” the woman finally said. “Now shut the hell up. I have a headache, and your voice isn’t helping me get rid of it.”

Chapter 20

It took an hour longer than Brandt would have liked to set out on their journey, but it couldn’t be helped—they’d taken time to search not only the van, but the bodies of the men Remy had killed, and had recovered a couple of guns and a few spare magazines of ammunition. Remy could tell Brandt wasn’t happy about the delay by the expression on his face. Blazing anger flamed in his eyes, and his jaw was set in determination, a determination she shared. They were going after Cade, and they’d let nothing stop them from rescuing her.

As they walked to the SUV parked a couple of blocks away, Remy strained her brain as she fought to remember every frightening detail of the attack in the house. She couldn’t piece together much. In hindsight, it was all chaotic, sounds and smells and shouts, the feel of the Ruger pressing into the skin between her breasts, the man’s boot grinding into her back. And the sick, acrid taste she’d had in her mouth after she’d shot both men. And the fury that had enabled her to drag a man almost twice her size into the kitchen, haul him into a chair, and duct tape him into place.

That was the second-worst part of it, Remy decided. She hated the idea of killing the uninfected; they were survivors, just like she was, people who’d somehow managed to escape the ravenous hordes and scrounge up some semblance of a life in this awful world. But the actions of the two men who lay dead in the former safe house had only contributed to that awful world. It was likely better they were no longer in it, especially if they were going around threatening and killing their fellow human beings.

Ultimately, Remy was a survivor, just like Brandt and Cade and Gray. And she’d fight for her life when it was threatened, just like they would.

“Penny for your thoughts?” a voice asked to her right. Remy glanced to the side and saw Gray hovering at her right elbow, keeping pace with her brisk walk. She’d been so distracted she hadn’t heard his approach—an inattentiveness that would have cost her her life in any other situation. She glanced at Brandt; he walked ahead of them stoically, his back straight, his shoulders squared. The Marine in him had come out to play; Remy could see it in every inch of his demeanor.

“It’s nothing,” she answered, turning her attention back to the man beside her. His dark hair had fallen into his eyes, making him look younger than twenty-three, giving him an oddly boyish air. “I’m just … I’m worried about Cade is all.”

“Believe me, you’re not the only one,” Gray admitted. He, too, glanced at Brandt, concern in his eyes. “You think she’s even still alive?”

“I’m sure of it,” Remy said confidently.

“What makes you so sure?”

“Because if they wanted Cade dead, they’d have killed her back in the house,” Remy pointed out. “They wouldn’t drag her off to Atlanta without a reason.”

“And what reason would they have to drag her to Atlanta in the first place?” Gray asked with no small amount of bafflement.

Remy nodded toward Brandt’s back. “I think he said it for himself. They think he’s got a cure or whatever. They’re probably using Cade as bait to lure Brandt in for whatever they want him for.”

“And it’s obviously working,” Gray said. “Because here we are, charging into an unknown situation with limited weapons and ammunition, while they have Heaven knows what on their side.”

Remy glanced at him again and saw his hand trail to the rosary dangling from his front right pocket. “I think we’ll be okay,” she tried to assure him. “I mean, we might not know what they have, but we have Brandt. And on top of that, he’s a Marine. And Marine pretty much means machine, you know.”

Gray snorted, but Remy could tell his heart wasn’t in the short snap of laughter. “That’s true,” he conceded. “Think we’ll survive this, then?”

“I think if Brandt has anything to say about it, we will,” Remy said. She gently touched the long knife sheathed at her side. “Same with me. I refuse to let us go down. At least, not without a fight.”

The three of them reached the SUV just minutes later, and Remy immediately went to the front passenger door and checked inside for anything unusual. She didn’t see anything there and so, nodding in satisfaction, she abandoned the front of the vehicle and headed to the back, where Brandt had opened the rear door to offload his bag. She dumped her own beside his, took a few moments to pull free some spare ammunition from the pack and pocket it, and then said, “Are you okay?”

“Do I look not okay or something?” Brandt asked irritably. He took Gray’s backpack and dumped it into the vehicle before slamming the door closed.

“You’re acting like you hate the world,” Remy said.

“Right now? I do,” Brandt admitted. “I’m seriously imagining every horrible death I can think of to inflict on the assholes who took Cade.” He breathed out, as if trying to calm himself. “I’ve never been so angry in my life.”

Remy squeezed Brandt’s forearm. The man deflated at the action, and Remy gave him a gentle smile. “I’m sure Cade is fine,” she said. “She’s one of the toughest people I know. Hell, I bet right now, she’s kicking all their asses so bad they won’t be able to sit down for a week.”

Chapter 21

Cade’s first chance to make a break for it came early that evening, and she’d have been an idiot if she hadn’t at least tried to take it. It was approaching dusk when Alicia ordered Cortez to pull the van over for a few minutes so they could stretch their legs at the side of the road. Much to Cade’s surprise, Alicia returned to the van after disappearing for several minutes and flung Cade’s door open. Cade nearly spilled out of the vehicle as her armrest was yanked from under her elbow.

“You need to piss?” Alicia asked shortly, looking Cade up and down as she righted herself.

Cade didn’t really have to, and she almost said no. But as she scanned their surroundings, Cade thought better of it. She nodded and slid to the edge of the seat, dropping onto the pavement. Her knees buckled as she put weight on her legs, and she grabbed the edge of the seat and steadied herself.

“Yeah,” Cade said out loud. “Where?”

“Trees,” Alicia ordered. “Where else?” She looked up and made an odd snicking noise with her tongue and teeth, beckoning with her fingers. Cortez hurried over, his hand resting on a gun at his hip. “Take her into the trees and let her do whatever she needs to do. No funny business.” She looked right at Cade and added, “Either of you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Cade grumbled. Cortez grabbed her elbow and tugged at it, practically dragging her the first several feet along the side of the vehicle. Cade jerked her arm out of his grasp and grimaced at him. “I’m perfectly capable of walking on my own, thank you,” she snapped.

Cortez rolled his eyes but didn’t say anything. Instead, he simply led her down the short embankment to the tree line at the side of the road, waving her into the shadow of the trees. Cade reflexively felt at her pockets for a flashlight and, of course, came up empty. Alicia had done too good a job searching her person and confiscating anything potentially useful. The only thing left was an empty knife sheath on the back right side of her belt. As Cortez led her into the trees, Cade noticed her own knife repurposed on his belt. She quickly averted her eyes. The last thing she needed was the man realizing she was looking at it. Then he might have figured out the plan that had begun to work its way into her brain.

Cortez stopped several feet into the tree line and motioned to the ground vaguely. “Do your business,” he said in a clipped, accented tone. Cade glanced back to the road, where the van was barely visible through the trees. “Don’t worry. We’re far enough away that you’ve got some privacy.”

“Thanks.” She started to unfasten her belt, glancing at the man and realizing he was still staring at her. “Do you mind, oh, I don’t know, turning the fuck around?” Cade bit out more angrily than she meant to. Not that she really cared if she was rude with these assholes. She was the one who’d been kidnapped.

It took Cortez seconds to turn his back to Cade, crossing his arms with an impatient sigh, as if he felt guard duty was beneath him. He seemed assured of his prisoner’s lack of ability to escape, though, and Cade understood why. The forest floor around them was littered with a thick carpet of dead leaves and fallen branches; trying to sneak away on ground like that would be difficult, if not outright impossible. Cade would have to take another route if she expected to escape from her captors’ clutches.

With Cortez’s back to her, it was the perfect time for Cade to launch her plan. Abandoning any pretense of “taking care of business,” Cade took three brisk steps forward. She threw herself at Cortez, jumping onto his back and wrapping both legs around his waist. She hooked her arm around his neck and pressed her forearm to his throat, grasping her wrist with her free hand as she clung to him. Cortez flailed, bucking violently in an attempt to dislodge her from his back, but she only tightened her arm around his neck and squeezed more firmly.

It felt like it took minutes for Cortez’s motions to slow as his oxygen was cut off from his brain, but in reality, Cade knew it was closer to just over a minute. As he sagged to his knees, she rode him down, still applying pressure to his neck as he collapsed to the forest floor. It was only after he’d slipped into unconsciousness that Cade released him.

As she rose from her knees, Cade’s eyes immediately darted to the tree line, where she could see the rest of the group waiting on their return. It would only be moments before they realized that a quick piss in the woods was taking much longer than it should have, and then they’d be coming in after them. She fumbled at Cortez’s belt, looking for a weapon. Unfortunately, he’d fallen on his gun, and she didn’t have time to roll him over to find it. Instead, she snatched the knife from his belt. After hesitating, contemplating killing the man to ensure he wouldn’t follow her, she slipped the knife into the sheath still on her own belt. With one last glance at the tree line, she turned and began to run deeper into the trees, her every footstep crunching loudly in her ears. Cade had only made it about twenty-five feet before she heard Alicia calling out.

“Cortez! Cortez! What the hell’s taking you so long?”

“Shit,” Cade hissed, trying to speed her flight. It was easier said than done, though; her boots were insistent on getting stuck in the soft undergrowth and dead leaves littering the ground, and her pant legs kept snagging on bushes and tree branches. She broke loose from yet another brush that grabbed her and dodged around a large tree, hiding behind it for a moment to catch her breath. Her fingers found the knife she’d stolen back, and she drew it, gripping it in her fist and struggling to breathe without making too much noise.

Shouts behind her caught her attention again, and she tried to focus on what was being said. It was Alicia’s voice, and while Cade couldn’t tell what every word was, she could definitely make out the curses flowing from Alicia’s mouth and the venom underlying them. She grimaced as she heard another shouted order, this one more intelligible.

“Find her! Now!” Alicia yelled. “We need her!”

“Shit,” Cade hissed again. She gritted her teeth and hesitated, glancing over her surroundings, trying to determine the best path. The best plan was probably cutting across the treed area, angling back, and taking the van. It’d give her a means of transportation, and she could try to make her way back to the safe house and warn Brandt of what was going on.

After one more deep, fortifying breath, Cade pushed away from the tree and darted forward, intending to put more distance between herself and her pursuers before trying to cut back to the highway. She darted from one tree to the next, ducking behind them and plotting her route as she went, listening to the crunch of Alicia and Dominic as they charged through the underbrush after her. She had no idea whether Cortez was up and moving yet. She had to assume he was.

It was when Cade followed through on her admittedly half-assed plan to double back to the van that things fell apart on her. As she ran back in a wide arc, attempting to circle around her pursuers, someone darted from the shadows of a large tree and tackled her. She hit the ground with bruising force, and the breath rushed from her lungs. Despite her inability to breathe, she braced her hands against the dead leaves and pushed herself up, trying to throw off the body grappling with her. Hands fumbled at her belt. The blade of a knife pressed against her neck, just below her chin, and she froze.

“I’ve got her!” a hoarse voice shouted above her. It took Cade just seconds to recognize the voice as Cortez’s. She fought back a grimace and debated struggling against him again, but knowing her luck, it’d end in spilled blood—and it wouldn’t be his. “This way! Over here!”

Two sets of footsteps ran toward them. Cade sighed heavily and went nearly limp against the ground. There was no chance she’d make her way out of this one, not right now. Resigning herself to trying again at another point in time, she allowed Cortez to haul her off the ground and turn her to face Alicia, who steadily approached, a look of fury on her face.

Alicia stopped in front of Cade, her eyes cold and angry. She raised her fist and slammed it against the side of Cade’s jaw, right over the place where, hours earlier, the butt of a rifle had bruised her skin. Cade clenched her teeth as a surge of pain ripped through her face, but she managed to keep from crying out. She wouldn’t show any weakness in front of this bitch. She was better than her.

“Get her back to the car,” Alicia ordered. She fumbled at a pocket of her pants and pulled free a pair of handcuffs. “And put these on her. I don’t want to see that happen again.”

Chapter 22

Brandt slammed the SUV to a stop twenty miles into their journey. The occupants of the Escalade rocked forward violently. Remy nearly tumbled right out of her seat, and she braced a hand against the dash to save herself from that fate. She turned her glare onto Brandt, gritting her teeth, and snarled out, “What the hell, Brandt? You trying to throw me through the windshield?”

“No. I’m trying to figure out where the fuck I’m going,” Brandt snapped back. He dug his fingers into the steering wheel hard enough that his knuckles turned white. He didn’t bother looking at Remy again. He didn’t need to. He felt her anger across the entire front seat. “We don’t have a map.”

“And we need one?” Gray spoke up from the back seat. “I thought you knew your way all around Georgia.”

“What, do I have the word ‘Garmin’ printed across my fucking forehead?” Brandt grumbled. “I know my way around most of Atlanta, not the entire fucking state.” He opened his door. “Wait here. I’m going in that gas station to see if they have any maps.”

Remy huffed and flopped against her seat. Thankfully, she didn’t make a move to follow him out of the Escalade.

Gray, however, was another matter.

“Get back in the car,” Brandt ordered when he heard Gray’s door shut.

“You might need backup,” Gray said.

Brandt grabbed Gray’s upper arm and shoved him back toward the Escalade. “And Remy might need it more. Get in the fucking car.”

Gray looked like he was wavering between defying Brandt’s orders and going back to the SUV. His eyes flickered from Brandt’s face to the Escalade and back again, and he opened his mouth to protest.

“Gray,” Brandt said warningly, drawing the man’s name out and shaking his head.

Gray’s shoulders slumped, and he rolled his eyes. “Fine. Whatever. But if you get in trouble, I’m coming in after you.”

Brandt pushed at Gray’s shoulder again. “I don’t need any help. Now go.”

Brandt made a point of waiting for Gray to get back into the vehicle. Then he turned on his heel with a scrape of boot against pavement and strode across the highway to the darkened gas station he’d spotted. His heart pounded uncomfortably as he stepped over the clogged, overgrown gutter and onto the cracked gas station parking lot. His eyes scanned the lot, studying it for signs of danger. Something fluttered in the corner of his eye, and Brandt whirled in that direction, drawing his sidearm as he moved and pointing it toward the threat, even as he mentally cursed himself for leaving his rifle in the Escalade. But it was only a half-rotten sheet of newspaper, pushed around by the cool breeze that skimmed over the lot. Brandt shook his head at his own jumpiness and lowered his weapon.

The gas station’s front door was broken, glass littering the tile and concrete. It wasn’t an unusual sight; most store windows and doors they came across seemed to be broken nowadays. Brandt peered into the store, squinting into its dim interior. He didn’t see anyone or anything inside. He eased over the doorframe, lifting his Beretta and quickly clearing the store before he headed toward the front counter. He skirted a knocked-over display of candy bars, kicking one out of the way, and scooped up a map from the overturned display on the counter. After skimming over it to make sure it was the map they needed, Brandt tucked it into his back pocket and turned to leave the store.

An infected woman stood nearly within arm’s reach of him.

“Jesus!” Brandt gasped. He stumbled backward instinctively, striking the front counter and finding he could go no farther. He swore under his breath and lifted his Beretta with the intention of putting a bullet in the infected woman’s skull. Before he could get the weapon fully raised, however, the woman lunged, her broken fingernails seeking out his face.

Brandt threw his arms up, bracing his hands against her shoulders and pushing her off him, nearly dropping his Beretta in the process. Thankfully, he managed to keep his grip on it, and as she went for his face again, Brandt put a booted foot against her stomach and kicked her away from him. She grabbed at his arms as she was repelled back, and her nails dragged down his right forearm, cutting into his skin. Brandt grunted in pain, but he didn’t let it stop him from raising his arm and pointing the gun at the woman’s face. He fired three shots, the second two reflexively, right into the woman’s face. She collapsed to the floor in a pool of blood.

No sooner had the woman hit the floor than three more infected emerged from their hiding places—two from behind shelves, one from the back room. Brandt cursed and raised his sidearm again, taking aim at the nearest one: the gas station clerk, his uniform torn and bloodied, his face pale and gaunt with hunger. Brandt flexed his finger on the trigger.

A pair of arms grabbed Brandt from behind and wrapped tightly around his neck and shoulders. Brandt’s shot went wild, plugging into a light fixture in the ceiling and sending a shower of glass to the floor. Brandt flung himself backward against the counter, knocking the infected man who’d grabbed him off balance. Fingernails on his shoulder tore fabric and broke skin. Brandt ignored the pain and turned, putting a bullet in the man’s head. The man’s skull exploded like an overripe melon, blood and bone and gray matter splattering across the mostly empty cigarette display cases.

Brandt’s shoulder and arm ached, sending waves of stinging pain like fire through his skin. Brandt forced himself onward through the pain, turning around and aiming his weapon again. He was going to take out the three targets that remained, the three that had begun to close the distance between them.

Brandt’s intention to squeeze the trigger was interrupted once again. This time, it was by a veritable hail of gunfire from his right, seven shots in total. Every single bullet hit its target, and all three of the infected went down. Brandt blinked in surprise and lowered his gun. Remy stood in the gas station’s doorway, Brandt’s spare Sig Sauer in her hands, Gray standing behind her with Brandt’s M-4 Carbine rifle.

“What the hell is this about you not needing any backup?” Remy snarled. Her dark eyes narrowed, and she skimmed the convenience store for more infected. “We don’t go anywhere without backup, remember? Ethan’s rules.”

Brandt lowered his Beretta and gave Remy an irritated grimace. “Yeah, well, Ethan isn’t here anymore,” he pointed out. “So his rules don’t apply.”

“Like hell they don’t,” Remy snapped. “Those rules have kept us alive this long, and I think—”

“I am in charge now, Remy, not Ethan,” Brandt snarled. He pushed her to the door and out into the parking lot as he continued. “Not Ethan,” he repeated. “Me. And if you’re not going to follow my orders and stay in the fucking car when I tell you to, then you can get the fuck out of here.”

Remy stopped in the middle of the lot and turned on Brandt. She lifted the Sig Sauer and pointed it right at Brandt’s head. Brandt and Gray both stopped, and Brandt instinctively put his hands out in a gesture of placation as Remy spoke.

“I make my way through this shithole of a life killing as many fucking infected as I can physically manage before they get to me,” Remy started in a cold, hard voice that Brandt had never heard from her before. “Those bastards killed my family, and they killed Ethan.” Her grip on the weapon noticeably tightened, and her finger rested firmly, assuredly, against the trigger. “By your own damned admission, you were involved in the virus’s testing. You were involved in this shit getting out. You were involved with the entire world’s ending. You might even be infected in some way. Now, tell me one fucking reason why I shouldn’t put a fucking bullet in your head.”

Brandt’s jaw tightened. His eyes met Remy’s. There was no hesitation in her gaze, no concern whatsoever over what could happen if she squeezed the trigger. He vaguely remembered the words Dr. Derek Rivers had spoken to him the morning the CDC had been wiped out: Don’t get killed, okay? You might be needed one day. At the time, the words had been strange and cryptic, lacking any real meaning, and there’d been no time to ask. Brandt doubted he’d have gotten an answer out of Derek anyway.

But as Brandt faced down Remy and her gun, and as his mind struggled to give her a reason why she shouldn’t kill him, Brandt’s mind skipped right past everything to do with the testing and the drugs and the Michaluk virus and instead settled on a single word.

“Cade,” he said softly. He lowered his hands limply to his sides. A trickle of blood inched down his forearm, and the pain in his wounds returned to sharp focus. “Because of Cade.”

That was all it took. The hard look in Remy’s brown eyes softened, and she abruptly lowered the Sig Sauer that had, until then, been aimed right at his forehead. “You better do right for her,” she said firmly. “And the baby. Because if you don’t—”

Brandt’s eyes widened as Remy’s words registered in his ears. “Wait. Baby?” he repeated. “Who said anything about a baby?”

“I did,” Remy replied. She turned away from him and strode toward the Escalade. “Cade is pregnant. She found out earlier today, before those bastards took her.”

“Oh Jesus. Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” Brandt demanded. He hurried forward to catch up with Remy as she stormed to the SUV still parked in the middle of the highway.

“We had other things to do that were more important,” Remy snapped. She grabbed the driver’s door and flung it open. “Get in. I’m driving. Let Gray get a look at your arm and shoulder. You’re bleeding all over the fucking place.”

Chapter 23

The van bearing Cade against her will had stopped for the night. Since her attempted escape in the woods, Alicia had seemingly decided that the best course of action was to treat Cade as a nonentity, as an inconvenience to her plans. The treatment—and the handcuffs—chafed at Cade’s composure. She was in a dark mood, stewing as she sat on the seat in the van, her legs hanging out of the open back door. She watched her three captors stand in a cluster outside the vehicle, bickering among themselves. Alicia gesticulated as she talked heatedly, gesturing pointedly at the van where Cade sat. Cade scowled, but even as she did so, she focused her ears in on what Alicia said to her companions, her curiosity getting the better of her.

“I want to know where they are!” Alicia nearly shouted as she jabbed her finger in the direction they’d come. “They should have caught up to us by now!”

Cade discreetly cut her eyes away from the group and scanned the tree line. The vehicle was parked haphazardly in the gravel on the side of the road, its back end jutting out into the highway. Save for themselves, Cade couldn’t see any signs of civilization anywhere she looked. If it weren’t for the handcuffs around her wrists and the lack of a weapon in her possession, Cade figured it would have been a great place for a second escape attempt.

Shaking her head free of her thoughts of escape—Heaven knew it hadn’t worked well the first time around—Cade shifted her gaze to the group again. Dominic dropped a hand onto Alicia’s shoulder and squeezed.

“Calm down,” the man said, his voice deep and gentle. His other arm was secured in a makeshift sling, immobilizing his injured shoulder. “Yelling isn’t going to get them here faster.”

“Or at all,” Cortez spoke up. “I know Carlos. He would be here if he was coming. He’s not coming.”

Alicia turned on her heel and went to the back of the van. She flung the door open and started to shove supplies around. “We can’t afford to lose two members of our security team.”

“Then you shouldn’t have brought any of them along,” Dominic said. “You should have left them at the Westin to keep an eye on Eth—”

The redhead cut him off. “Well, I didn’t, okay?” She slammed through a bag, pushing the items inside it around. “And now it’s all nothing but a massive clusterfuck.”

“You can say that again.”

Alicia slapped a bottle of water into Dominic’s hand. “Give her this,” she ordered. “And don’t mention him again.”

When the man brought her the bottle and cracked it open for her, Cade took it gratefully. She hadn’t realized just how thirsty she was until she’d seen the bottle in Alicia’s hands. She drank, greedily and deeply, spilling a trickle down her chin as she held the bottle awkwardly in both of her cuffed hands. The man watched her carefully and then glanced at Alicia, who’d moved away from the vehicle and was arguing with Cortez once more. This time, though, Cade couldn’t hear what was being said.

“Look,” Dominic said, keeping his voice low. He propped his arm on the doorframe above Cade’s head. “I’m sorry about all this, okay? Alicia … she can be forceful sometimes, especially when she wants or needs something very, very badly. And this is definitely one of those cases.”

“And what in the world does she want with me?” Cade asked before she took another swig of water.

The man shook his head. “Just your cooperation. Please,” he said with emphasis. “I want to see everybody come out of this okay. I don’t want to see anyone get hurt.”

Cade gritted her teeth. “Oh, like you guys hurt Remy?” she bit out. Dominic flinched at the words.

“Regrettable,” he said. “And if I’d known what she intended and what Carlos and Justin had planned to do, I would have stopped them.”

“You know, when Brandt finds her dead and me missing, he’s going to find you, and he’s going to kill you all in the most painful way he can manage,” Cade said steadily, meeting the man’s eyes. “And when he’s done? I’m going to spit on all your fucking corpses.”

Dominic grimaced and snatched the bottle from her hands. “Don’t let Alicia hear you say that,” he warned. He threw the bottle into the gravel. “She doesn’t take too kindly to threats.”

“I don’t care what she takes kindly to,” Cade snapped. Her eyes flitted to the water gushing from the bottle and over the rocks, and she fought to conceal her disappointment at the loss of the water. She really was still thirsty.

“Is there a problem over here?”

Alicia’s voice cut through the evening light to interrupt whatever reply Dominic could have formulated. He jerked back from his looming stance over Cade and turned to the woman approaching them.

“No problem,” Dominic said. “Just explaining to Miss Alton exactly why she should go out of her way to be cooperative with us.”

Alicia stared at them and then nodded shortly. “Get in. We’re moving.”

The man’s posture visibly stiffened. “At night?”

“All night,” Alicia confirmed. “We don’t have time to spare. We’ve got to get back to the Westin.”

Cade raised an eyebrow but refrained from speaking. The Westin? She thought it over, wondering if the Westin to which the woman referred was the massive one in downtown Atlanta. But if it was, that didn’t make any sense! Why would a group of people choose to live in Atlanta? Atlanta was, by all accounts Cade had ever heard, a veritable cesspool. It shouldn’t have been someplace people would want to live anymore.

As she pulled her legs into the van and as Dominic slammed the door closed, Cade began to wonder just how much she didn’t know about what was going on.

Chapter 24

It’d been nearly eight hours since Derek Rivers had revealed the truth to Ethan. And despite the passage of time between the revelation and that moment, Ethan still felt the incessant urge to punch the nearest wall. Fortunately, he refrained—primarily because he felt no desire to nurse busted knuckles—and instead paced in the eighteenth-floor room in which he’d lived for the past month. He trekked across the thick carpet, stopping near the door before turning on his heel and making his way back to the window, trying his damnedest not only to put together what Derek had told him, but to combine it with Alicia’s words and motives and with the man he’d thought he’d known. It seemed like everybody around him was lying to him, hedging around the truth, bending it, twisting it, and avoiding issues and problems that needed to be addressed. And frankly, he was sick of it.

“Stupid son of a bitch,” Ethan muttered. He passed by the bed once more and glanced down at it, eyeing the pistol that lay there. “I knew I shouldn’t have trusted you. I should have just taken Cade and moved on.”

Ethan knew, though, that it was irrational to blame Brandt for this. Brandt’s initial secrecy couldn’t have been helped. If what Derek had explained to Ethan was accurate—and Ethan had no doubt that it was accurate, as the man had actually been there when it happened—then there had been a significant chance the military was seeking Brandt out, trying to track him down and do Heaven knew what to him. Considering he’d been involved in the testing of what would later become the Michaluk virus, it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that he was being hunted for extermination or experimentation. He’d likely hidden the fact from the others in order to protect them. Ethan couldn’t say he wouldn’t have done the same.

Despite this repeated mantra in Ethan’s head, the man was still incensed at the very idea of being lied to. Ethan esteemed few things as much as honesty—trust and friendship were the only qualities he valued so highly. And he had believed that he’d developed all three with Brandt over the past year, that they had both moved on past the initial caution they’d displayed toward each other on meeting.

Clearly, Ethan had been mistaken.

And Alicia …

Ethan paced to the bed and sat heavily on the end of it. He leaned forward and dropped his head in his hands, digging his fingers into his blond hair, tugging at the strands in his frustration. It was so tempting to pick up his Glock and hunt down some spare ammunition and supplies and get the hell out of there. The thought of helping Alicia any further was simply distasteful, and it made him sick to his stomach.

But he couldn’t leave—at least, not with Alicia actually gone. He couldn’t abandon these people to whatever fate came their way. He wasn’t self-centered or egotistical enough to believe that the only thing standing between these people and chaos was him. But if he left, if he shirked the duties that Alicia had given him on her departure, then someone a lot worse could potentially step in and make their lives a living hell, a dictatorship worse than anything they could imagine. Ethan just couldn’t take that chance.

A soft knock at the door interrupted Ethan’s train of thought, and he lifted his head from his hands to look at the closed door almost accusingly. He slowly rose to his feet and glanced at his gun one more time before venturing to the door. He paused before it as another knock sounded from the other side.

“Yeah? Who is it?” Ethan called. His voice was surprisingly gruff, almost harsh in tone. He cleared his throat as the person on the other side of the door spoke.

“It’s me. Kimberly,” a woman’s voice replied. “Let me in. I have to talk to you.”

Ethan raised his eyebrows, his hand dropping to the doorknob. He refrained from flinging the door open; instead, he eased it open to see the blond woman in question standing in the hallway. Her normally pretty features had a disturbed look to them, which only served to heighten his concern. His eyebrows knitted together in a frown.

“What’s wrong?” Ethan asked. Kimberly’s eyes flitted in either direction down the hallway. She made an odd motion with her head.

“Inside. Not out here in the hallway.”

Ethan moved aside to let the woman enter. Once the door was shut and locked again, he turned his full attention to Kimberly, the frown still on his face as he spoke. “What’s going on that’s got you coming all the way up to the eighteenth floor to my room?” Ethan studied Kimberly’s expression, trying to read something in it. Once again, he was reminded of his total lack of skill in doing so and how badly he wished Remy were there with him, even if only for her unique ability to give the illusion of reading minds.

Kimberly walked briskly across Ethan’s room to the windows, pushing the heavy curtains aside and looking out into the early dawn intently. She scanned the street below, squinting into the distance, as if she were searching for something. “We got word a little over an hour ago,” she said. She faced Ethan and let the curtain drop over the window behind her. “Alicia and her crew were spotted entering the city from the northeast two hours before dawn. They left with two vehicles. They only came back with one.”

“So what does that mean?” Ethan asked impatiently. “That they’ve lost a vehicle?” He finally moved away from the door and toward Kimberly with a deep frown. “That’s not a big deal.”

“Alicia doesn’t ditch vehicles just to ditch them,” Kimberly explained. “If she’s lost a vehicle, that means she’s likely lost the people who were in it.”

Ethan pressed his lips together and joined her at the window. “Do you think she’s got Brandt?”

Kim shook her head. “Ethan, I honestly have no way to know that right now,” she said. Her eyes met his; they were wide, with a touch of nervousness hidden in them. “With any hope, our contacts out on the city limits will have more information for us soon. We’ve requested they let us know whether any others are coming back with her.”

“And how long do you think it’ll be before we hear any updates?” Ethan asked, only the slightest note of impatience in his voice at the decided lack of information Kimberly had available for him.

“I’m not sure,” Kimberly admitted. “A couple of hours, maybe?”

Ethan sighed. “And then we’ll know if she’s got Brandt?”

“Maybe,” Kimberly hedged. Ethan gave her a dirty look, and she held both of her hands up defensively. “Hey, don’t shoot the messenger, Ethan. I can’t tell the future. I don’t know what sorts of information Isaac will be able to get.”

“Why do you have a guy on the city limits anyway?” Ethan asked with both irritation and curiosity.

Kimberly shrugged. “We only stick him there when a certain someone leaves the city, so we have some forewarning of her return.”

“I see,” Ethan said thoughtfully. “And, what, this guy only has a carrier pigeon to use to get messages to you?”

Kimberly snorted. “Yeah, something like that,” she joked. “Its name is Emerson. They come in pairs.”

Chapter 25

Brandt was in pain. That fact was clear to Gray merely through the older man’s mannerisms and the way he moved—somewhat gingerly, as if he were afraid to cause himself more pain. Gray narrowed his eyes and watched the man pace alongside the Escalade, his expression brooding and pensive, with a hint of anger.

Despite Brandt’s pain, the man was obviously, in a word, pissed.

They’d stopped on the highway outside another gas station an hour down the road from the last one. It was a beat-up affair that, despite the dozens of cars crammed in its small lot, was blessedly free of infected. Remy flitted from one car to the next—crowbar, gas can, and rubber hose in hand—siphoning gas from where she could in order to fill up the Escalade with as much fuel as it could hold. Gray still sat in the back seat and watched his companions. His eyes followed Brandt as the man moved to the front of the vehicle and back again, passing the opened back door with a grimace on his face that made him entirely unapproachable.

“What’s on your mind, Evans?” Gray asked.

Brandt stopped in mid-step and gave Gray an incredulous look. “You’re kidding, right?” he asked. “I mean, you seriously didn’t just ask me that fucking question.”

Gray rested his elbow against the back of the seat and watched Remy as she wedged a crowbar into the gas door of a sedan and wrenched it open, unscrewing the cap and threading the tube into the gas tank. “Let it out, Brandt,” he said. “It’s eating you up inside and turning you into a temperamental motherfucker. Well, at least more of one than you already are. We’re all friends here. You don’t need to take it out on us.”

Remy let out a cough and spit something—presumably gasoline—onto the ground at her feet, her face snarled up in an ugly expression as she jammed the other end of the tube into the gas can at her feet. Gray bit back a smirk and shook his head slightly, turning his eyes onto Brandt instead. Brandt remained silent as the gasoline drained into the gas can, and he didn’t respond until after Remy had finished and lifted the can to check its fill line.

“I’m not taking it out on you two,” Brandt grumbled.

Gray raised his eyebrows. “Want to bet?” he asked. “You’re acting like—”

“A total douche,” Remy said as she rejoined them, circling around the Escalade with the gas can to fill the tank.

“Not exactly the way I would have put it, but it’s rather accurate,” Gray acknowledged. “Gas in your mouth?” he asked, directing the question at Remy as she scrubbed her sleeve over her lips.

“Misjudged how far the gas was from my mouth in the tube,” Remy replied, pulling the gas cap off and shoving the can’s nozzle into the tank.

“Well, I don’t know about you two, but can you blame me for being pissed off that the woman I love has been taken hostage by a person I really, really hate?” Brandt bit out. He slumped against the side of the vehicle and crossed his arms. His eyes locked onto the empty lot around them, and his jaw visibly clenched. Gray pressed his lips together and leaned forward in his seat, resting his elbows against his thighs. His hands dangled loosely between his knees.

“We’re all upset over that bitch taking Cade,” Gray said. “Believe me, I’m almost as angry as you, but for different reasons.”

“And what reasons could those possibly be?” Brandt asked.

“You and Cade were essentially our leaders,” Gray explained. “I know we generally acted like you were the one in charge over the past month, and even before that, we acted like Ethan was the leader, but it was definitely you and Cade. And Cade was the one who kept you grounded and sane, which is obvious by the way you’re acting now that she isn’t here. You were a team, even when she was out of it for two straight weeks. You’re still a team. And we’re going to get the other half of that team back, come Hell or high water.”

“Basically, what Gray here is saying,” Remy spoke up, setting the empty can on the ground by the SUV and screwing the gas cap back on, “is don’t act so mad at us, okay? We didn’t have anything to do with Cade getting kidnapped. We’re just as angry as you are.”

“No, you’re nowhere near as angry as me,” Brandt grumbled. He sighed heavily and sagged against the vehicle again, dropping his head into his hands. “Fuck, guys. I’m just … hell, I’m scared for her. I don’t want anything to happen to her. And finding out she’s pregnant? That just makes it all a hell of a lot worse.”

Remy flipped the gas door shut and circled the vehicle, grasping Brandt’s uninjured shoulder and giving it a reassuring squeeze. “Hey, it’s okay to be scared, you know? Just because you’re some big, bad, kickass Marine doesn’t mean you’re not entitled to a little bit of fear on the random, rare occasion.”

Brandt cracked a smile that disappeared almost as quickly as it had appeared. “Yeah, okay, Remy. I’ll take your word on that.”

“You better. Otherwise, I’d have to kick your ass,” Remy mock-threatened. Even Gray had to laugh at the delightful mental image of skinny little Remy trying to beat the hell out of tall, muscular Brandt.

Brandt shook his head and pushed himself off the vehicle. “I think we need to start planning our next move,” he announced. He leaned into the front passenger side and retrieved the map he’d swiped before the attack at the other gas station. “We’ve got to figure out what to do, because while we know where they took her, we’re at a disadvantage because we don’t know what we’re walking into.” He unfolded the map and walked to the front of the vehicle to spread the paper out on the hood. Gray joined him, Remy close behind. Brandt smoothed both hands over the paper and stared at it for long, silent moments before speaking again. “So. Suggestions?”

Gray raised an eyebrow. “Seriously? You’re asking two untrained people who’re probably just lucky to be here for suggestions when you’re the one with all the skills and experience in this kind of thing?” he asked incredulously. “Come on, man. Use your brain. Stop focusing on Cade for ten seconds, okay? I know she’s the ultimate goal, but right now, our immediate objective is actually getting there.”

Brandt sighed heavily and nodded in concession. “Right, right,” he acknowledged. He leaned over the map again, squinting at it. “Sorry. I’ve just gotten so used to conferring with, say, Cade and Ethan on ideas and suggestions and plans that I didn’t even think twice about asking.”

Remy laughed. “Hey, totally understandable,” she said. She gave Brandt another squeeze on the shoulder. “So let’s start with this. Where the hell are we?”

Brandt moved his fingers over the map, his index finger dropping onto Hollywood, South Carolina. He looked up from the map and squinted at a collection of highway signs near the gas station. Then he refocused on the map, his fingers trailing from Hollywood along a highway, where he stopped on a point.

“We’re near Allendale,” Brandt announced. “Coming up on it, anyway. We should definitely be reaching Augusta before nightfall, if my estimates are right.”

“So of course, the next question should be if we plan to push on all night or stop before Augusta and handle that in the morning,” Remy said thoughtfully. “And if we plan to go through Augusta or around it.”

“Well, we know what my vote will be,” Brandt said. He continued to slide his finger along their presumed trail. “I’m all for keeping on to Atlanta nonstop.”

“What about rest, Brandt?” Gray asked. It was something with which Theo would have been concerned. And since Theo wasn’t around to ask it, Gray felt it fell onto his shoulders to bring it up.

“Fuck rest. I’ll be fine,” Brandt said stubbornly.

“And you know what? I really don’t think I believe that,” Gray said, taking in the man’s rumpled clothes and the dark circles under his eyes.

“I don’t give a fuck what you do or don’t believe,” Brandt snapped. And just like that, Cranky Brandt was back in full force. Gray gritted his teeth and opened his mouth to reply, but before he could get any words out, Remy spoke up.

“Both of you shut the hell up,” she ordered. “I personally don’t care who’s tired, who isn’t, or who thinks who needs rest. I just want to get this shit over with, get Cade, and get the hell out of the entire fucking southeast.”

“So you’re with Brandt, then?” Gray asked. “Travel all night, little to no stops?”

“I’m not with anybody but myself,” Remy replied. “So can we please just get moving already? I’m ready to kill something.”

“I figured you’d be past the whole mindless killing spree thing after what happened at the safe house,” Brandt said in a low voice. His eyes were focused on his hands as he folded the map back up.

Remy froze, her eyes widening. Even from his vantage point across the hood, Gray could see the hurt in her eyes. “What did you say?” Remy hissed.

“You heard me,” Brandt replied. He put the folded map into his back pocket.

Remy’s jaw clenched, and she turned away from them both. “I’ll be in the fucking car,” she muttered. She climbed into the Escalade’s back seat and slammed the door.

Gray turned on Brandt, his face flushed with anger. Throwing aside his year-long feelings of trepidation toward the Marine, he took three brisk steps and pushed the man against the front of the Escalade. Thankfully, Brandt didn’t punch him—Gray’s worst fear. Instead, the other man merely narrowed his eyes.

“Why did you say that?” Gray demanded. “That was totally unnecessary! You know how she feels about what happened back there!”

“Yes, I do know, and yes, it was necessary,” Brandt said emphatically. “She has got to face up to what she did so she’ll at least be okay enough with it that she won’t freeze up if we get into a fight in Atlanta.”

“Did it look like she froze up back there at that other gas station?” Gray asked. He jabbed his hand in the general direction of the highway. “She had no problem pulling the trigger back there!”

“Yeah, on someone who was infected,” Brandt pointed out. “That is a whole ‘nother world from killing a person who isn’t infected, never mind two of them. And that is why, at this point, I wouldn’t trust her to have my back at all in Atlanta.”

“You can’t possibly—”

Brandt slammed his fist onto the hood of the SUV. Gray jumped and took an involuntary step back. “Damn it, Gray! I’m not in the mood for your bullshit!” he barked. “Stop with your equivocating on something you’ve never had to deal with! I’m talking from fucking experience. What have you got?”

Gray was startled by Brandt’s outburst. He hesitated before muttering, “Nothing.”

“Yeah. Nothing,” Brandt said in a measured tone of disgust. “So stop trying to fucking psychoanalyze me, and get in the damned car. We’ve got a long way to go, and I don’t want to put up with your bullshit the whole way there.”

Gray stared at Brandt for a moment longer as the older man circled to the driver’s side and flung the door open. He knew better than to question Brandt’s orders or try to continue the argument, though, so he retreated for now, moving to the passenger door and climbing in. He gritted his teeth at the thought of the uncomfortable ride he was in for.

Chapter 26

Cade’s arrival in Atlanta was met without comment or fanfare—not that she’d expected any. If it hadn’t been for the dirty blue sign at the side of the highway that said, “Welcome to Atlanta,” Cade wouldn’t have known she was even in the city. She glanced at the back of Alicia’s head and frowned as she studied the woman’s hair, trying to make Alicia turn around just by glaring at her. After a few moments, she gave up. There wasn’t any sign that she’d even made Alicia uncomfortable. Instead, Cade diverted her eyes to the desolate cityscape outside, watching it roll past the window and mentally toying with her options.

Cade had to escape from Alicia’s clutches. She had to. She didn’t know exactly where the woman and her two remaining cohorts were taking her, save for Alicia’s reference to the Westin. Though they’d treated her reasonably well so far—all things considered, including her attempted escape back in the woods—she didn’t know if it was because of her pregnancy or because they were expediting the trip to a place where things would turn decidedly bad for her. Cade couldn’t risk waiting to see if Brandt came after her. As in the past, she’d have to take her fate into her own hands.

The early hours were overcast; it looked like it was going to rain, maybe even thunderstorm, judging by the darkness of the clouds above. Visibility was lower than normal. This would be the perfect place to attempt an escape, when she could disappear into the dimness of the streets and hide more easily.

But something inside Cade told her to wait, to plot and plan, to not rush headlong into a second attempt without a clear idea of what she was doing. They fast approached the downtown area, the same general location where Brandt had taken them the month before. She wasn’t wholly familiar with it; at the time, she’d been nearly unconscious and more focused on the pain in her side than on her surroundings, trusting Brandt to keep her safe. Despite that, she recognized the tops of several buildings, ones of which she’d caught glimpses as her companions took turns carrying her from the street on which she’d been shot to the Tabernacle. They looked vaguely familiar enough that she was sure she could attempt to navigate the city with at least a little confidence—assuming she kept looking up, that was.

As the van approached a congested intersection, Cade felt the vehicle slow down. She glanced out the window and then down at her hands, still linked by the cuffs. They were the obvious flaw in her plan. She’d have to obtain the keys off Alicia’s person at some point during her escape. Cade was reasonably sure she could take Alicia down. Reasonably sure didn’t guarantee success, but she’d have to try.

As the van slowed down further, Cade leaned forward. It’s now or never, she thought. She raised her arms and, with a savage twist of her upper body, swung them to the right. She slammed the metal cuffs and her fists against the side of Alicia’s head. Alicia floundered sideways against the seat, stunned. Her hand touched the side of her head; her fingertips came back stained with blood.

Cade didn’t take time to worry about the woman. Dominic was quickly turning, raising the rifle in his hands to aim it at her. It was her rifle, and she’d be damned if she got shot by her own weapon. Cade fell back in her seat. She kicked out and jarred the weapon from his grip with a single strike of her boot heel against his knuckles. Dominic swore and grabbed for the rifle, retrieving it as Cortez slammed on the brakes. Everyone in the vehicle lurched forward violently. Cade let out an involuntary cry as she was thrown against the seat in front of her. She took the opportunity the new proximity to Alicia offered to reach over the seat and snatch the redhead’s sidearm from the holster at her hip. Cade raised the gun and gritted her teeth, holding the weapon tightly in both hands and pointing it almost wildly at the three people holding her captive.

“Put the fucking rifle down,” Cade barked to Dominic as she trained her newly acquired gun right at his head. “Or so help me God, I’ll put a bullet right between your fucking eyes.” Dominic didn’t lower the rifle, despite her warnings. She narrowed her eyes and flexed her finger against the trigger. “Don’t do it, Dominic. I said put it down.”

“Cade, you don’t want to do this,” Alicia spoke up. Her voice was soft, a faint tremor ringing through it. Cade wondered only fleetingly what the emotion under her words was. She didn’t have time to focus on that, though. There were more pressing needs in front of her.

“And what makes you think that?” Cade demanded. “Because right now? Nothing would please me more than to pull the fucking trigger.”

“If you kill him, I swear to anything and everything holy that I will have you shot,” Alicia threatened.

“You wouldn’t dare,” Cade said. The pang of memory of her last—and only—gunshot wound ripped through her mind. “You need me. You’re hoping Brandt comes after me.”

“Nobody said we needed you alive,” Alicia snarled. “Just here. We could lure him in just as easily with your rotting corpse.”

Cade had had enough of Alicia’s bluffing. She lunged forward again and batted the rifle aside to deliver a swift punch straight to Dominic’s nose. Then she lashed out at Alicia with the pistol, striking her in the head with the weapon. The woman collapsed in her seat, unconscious.

Cade didn’t spare Alicia another glance. Instead, she grabbed the barrel of the rifle Dominic attempted to point at her again and wrenched it to the side. She nearly dropped the sidearm in her hand as she twisted the rifle from the man’s grasp. Once it was successfully in her hands, she slammed the butt of the rifle firmly into his face. He fell back onto the floorboard, scrunched behind the driver’s seat, his nose and the new cut on his forehead bleeding profusely.

A shift of movement at the front of the van caught Cade’s attention. Unable to twist the rifle around and hold it appropriately in her cuffed hands, she dropped it onto the seat and raised the sidearm again. She squeezed off a single round in Cortez’s direction. He’d turned with his own gun to point it at her, but he dropped it when the bullet struck the windshield a mere inch from his head.

“Don’t fucking try it,” Cade snarled, even as he clapped a hand to the side of his head with a grimace of pain. Cade slid sideways along the seat and opened the door, keeping her weapon trained on Cortez. She leaned over the seat again and grabbed the keys clipped to Alicia’s belt loop, ripping them free and staggering out of the van. She turned on her heel to flee and nearly ran right into a group of infected drawn to her location by the sound of her gunshot.

Cade stumbled back with a yelp of alarm. She reflexively raised her weapon and squeezed the trigger, firing a bullet into the crowd before turning on her heel and running. She only had a single magazine with an unknown quantity of bullets, and she was far too outmanned to attempt to fight. Her better option was clearly to run.

Cade clutched Alicia’s keys in her left hand, ignoring the pain of the metal digging into her palm. She darted around the front of the van and headed straight for the traffic-jammed street ahead of her. She slid between two cars, nearly getting her breath knocked out by their side mirrors, and took the chance to glance over her shoulder.

The infected, dozens of them, more than Cade had ever seen in one place thus far, had flooded the street behind her. There were men, women, even children, all thin and bony, all looking as if they hadn’t had a decent meal in weeks. And they were intent upon her, the prospect of food brightening the looks in their eyes, their bodies moving with an agility she couldn’t match as they wove among cars in pursuit of her.

The van was moving, tires squealing as it sped backward down the street. Cade didn’t blame them for leaving her. She was sure she’d have left her too, if she’d been in the same circumstances.

Cade refocused her energy more fully on the path ahead of her. Her boots beat against the pavement with her heartbeat as she twisted and turned, weaving between crookedly parked cars, dodging side mirrors by centimeters, stumbling over debris in her path between the vehicles. Her fingers fumbled with the keys in her hands, searching for the key to unlock the handcuffs binding her wrists together. She had to get her hands free if she expected to survive. She couldn’t possibly last long without doing so.

Distracted by the keys, Cade nearly ran headlong into the front end of a Ford Taurus. She cried out as her knees collided with its fender, putting her hands out instinctively to soften the blow. Her sidearm clattered onto the hood. The keys struck the hood alongside it and slid to the ground at her feet. Cade cursed and slapped her fist against the car’s hood before grabbing the gun and dropping into a crouch between the cars, scrabbling for the keys. She found them, and as the first of the infected came almost within arm’s reach, Cade sprang up and fired a single bullet at him. She didn’t wait to see if it struck its intended target. Instead, she turned and started to run again.

The cars breezed past her in a haze as she sprinted for everything she was worth. She could hear the infected adjust their jostling paces to match hers. Her lungs hurt, and the muscles in her thighs and calves burned with the effort she expended trying to get away. At this rate, there was no way she’d outrun them. She’d simply collapse on the street, and then they’d do with her what they wanted. The thought alone was simply unacceptable.

Cade had run over a quarter of a mile, and her lungs had begun to burn along with her legs when her fingers finally found the small key for which she searched. She jammed her weapon into the waistband of her jeans before fumbling the key into a bracelet by feel alone. She gave a savage twist, and one of the bracelets fell away from her wrist.

Her hands sufficiently freed, Cade found it in her to run faster. She pocketed the keys, snapped the loose bracelet around the same wrist as the other, and then drew her sidearm again. The pursuit of the infected hadn’t let up a fraction, she discovered as she glanced back again. If anything, it had grown in intensity with the horrible sounds the infected made, heard more clearly than ever over her gasping breaths.

Cade tore her eyes from them. The road in front of her was nearly blocked by vehicles jammed haphazardly in the street, lacking the uniform lines that had composed much of the traffic jam thus far. Cade didn’t have much choice as to where to go; she chose the most obvious path available.

With a final burst of energy, Cade charged at the nearest vehicle—a sports car with a low front end—and leaped onto the hood. The heels of her boots left dents and scrapes in the car’s paint as she ran up the hood and onto the roof, plunging across and down onto the narrow trunk. She made a desperate leap for the next car in the cluster and landed on it effortlessly. In moments, she was on the second vehicle’s roof, her chest heaving as she looked back at her pursuers. They had, thankfully, been delayed by the same mass of vehicles over which she’d gone. But Cade knew that wouldn’t last. She shook her head and, still struggling to breathe, slid off the car’s roof and started for the next vehicle, intending to climb over it and begin a search for shelter while she tried to figure out what to do.

Chapter 27

Alicia’s return to consciousness was slow and painful. She clawed her way toward it with the determination of a boxer in the twelfth round of fighting, opening her eyes and shifting them around the darkened room. She was back in the Westin; that much was obvious based on the familiar sight of the furniture. But she was most decidedly not back in her own space on the fourth floor. If she wasn’t mistaken, she was in a bed in one of the smaller conference rooms on the sixth floor that had been converted into a miniature hospital ward.

Alicia rolled her eyes in exasperation and pushed the heavy covers off, sitting up gingerly so she didn’t disturb her head too much. Dominic lay in the bed beside hers, his shoulder bandaged better than she’d done it. He watched her from his position on his back.

“You’re okay,” Alicia said. Her tongue felt thick in her mouth, and her brain gave her the disturbing sensation that it was sloshing around in her skull.

“So are you,” Dominic replied. He slowly sat up in his own bed with a low groan. “How are you feeling?”

“Pretty shitty,” Alicia admitted. She stretched, resisting the urge to flop back on the bed once more. “What about you?”

“Doc dug the bullet out of my shoulder and stitched it up for me,” Dominic answered. “Fortunately, I’ll live.”

Alicia slid to the side of the bed. Her booted feet found the carpeted floor, and she levered herself to her feet. Once steadied, she looked Dominic over one more time before she asked, “And Cade?”

Dominic shook his head. “She escaped,” he said. “After she knocked the two of us out, she got out. Stole your keys in the process.”

Alicia gritted her teeth. A flash of anger surged through her at Dominic’s news. “Where is Cortez?” she bit out. Her eyes darted to the door. “I want him in here now.”

Dominic held his good arm out almost helplessly. “What am I supposed to do about it? Pull him out of my ass? Why don’t you exercise some authority and get him down here?”

Alicia rolled her eyes and huffed out an exasperated breath. She went to the conference room’s door and flung it open. A man sat on the carpeted hallway floor directly across from the door. His eyes eased up to meet hers. It was, unsurprisingly, Cortez.

“Get in here,” Alicia snarled. She slammed her palm flat against the door to open it wider. After Cortez ducked under her arm, she shut and locked the door. “What the fuck was that clusterfuck you two called a mission?”

Dominic sat up straighter, and the look in his eyes was hard enough to cut glass as he inched to the side of the bed. “If it was a clusterfuck, it was one you helped create,” he said. “We aren’t solely responsible for this mess. You fucking helped, what with your whole go-in-guns-blazing attitude. This isn’t the DIA anymore, Alicia. You can’t just pop off at every single person you come across just to get your way.”

“You are not going to pin all this shit on me!” Alicia yelled. “I’m not the one who let our hostage get away! Which brings me to my next question.” Alicia turned on Cortez, her eyes hot with anger. “Why the hell did you let her get away? Even if we were incapacitated, you should have been able to handle her! She’s only one woman!”

“I’d have handled her if she hadn’t been holding me at gunpoint at the time,” Cortez said in a carefully measured voice. His words barely broke the space between him and Alicia. “And she was leaning right over you. I didn’t want to risk her shooting you during her escape attempt.”

“And where the hell did Alton get a fucking gun?” Alicia asked. Her voice was significantly louder than Cortez’s. She didn’t care.

“From you,” Cortez said. “The woman seems to be incredibly resourceful.”

Alicia paced to the bedside table and slammed her fist against its top for want of anything better to hit. “And when she got out of the fucking car, you drove the other way instead of going after her why?”

“She shot at me.”

That was all Cortez needed to say. Alicia held on to her composure with difficulty. The sound of a single gunshot was enough to bring every infected person, living and dead, within earshot of the noise straight to the source of it. And in a city the size of Atlanta, with a dense population pre-Michaluk, to say there were quite a few infected to respond to a sound like that was most assuredly an understatement.

Alicia drew in a slow breath and faced Cortez again, watching his face closely for any sign of deception. She couldn’t see any. So she nodded and said, more calmly than before, “At least you got us out of there. That’s all I could ask for under those circumstances.” She paused and looked between the two men, then added to Cortez, “Did you see which way she went?”

“Straight ahead, right into the traffic jam on Central Park Place,” Cortez said confidently. “I know I saw her go into that. I don’t know if she made it all the way through or not. I was already getting us out of there by then.”

Alicia pressed her lips together, her frown deepening as she crossed her arms. A number of options flitted through her head. Not a single one seemed remotely acceptable. She hissed a breath through her teeth and raised her eyes from their contemplative study of the cream-colored carpet. Dominic and Cortez stared at her, waiting on the ideas she’d hand out that started them on whatever new path she desired to set. It was times like this when Alicia almost hated being in charge of this mess.

Almost.

“Okay,” Alicia started. She hissed out another breath and ran her hands slowly through her hair. Her fingers bumped a painful knot on the side of her head, and she grimaced. “I need four people, including you, Cortez,” she continued. “We’ve got to go out and find her.”

“Find her?” Cortez repeated, his eyes widening. “You’re joking, right? We can’t go out there just to find one woman! In a city this size, it’s impossible!”

Alicia’s face flushed as anger washed through her again. “We’re about to do the fucking impossible,” she snapped. “We have no choice.”

“We should leave the bitch out there to rot!”

Alicia took a step toward Cortez. “That is not an option! I don’t think you comprehend what sort of situation we now find ourselves in.” She narrowed her eyes and fought the urge to push the man into the wall and inflict a little bodily injury on him. “If the note was left like it was supposed to be, back in Hollywood—and I have no doubt it was—then Evans is well on his way here. If he gets here and she isn’t with us? He’s going to fucking kill every single one of us. And that is definitely not an option!” She turned to Dominic and said, “We’re going after her. You’re staying here, since you’re in no condition to go out in the field. You’re to get Ethan Bennett under lock and key and make sure he doesn’t go anywhere or do anything I won’t like.”

“Literal lock and key, or just keep an eye on him?” Dominic asked.

“Literal.”

Dominic sucked in a breath. “He’s not going to take that very well, you know,” he pointed out.

“I don’t really care what he does or doesn’t take very well,” Alicia said. She backed away from Cortez, one careful step at a time. “He can fucking well shove it up his ass if he doesn’t like it. I’m more focused on getting Evans here so we can get well again.”

“Your desperation is starting to show, Alicia,” Dominic warned. He didn’t look at her. Instead, he focused on the duffel bag through which he dug, pawing at the clothes inside and pulling free a gray t-shirt. He tugged it over his head, looking as if he wanted to add something else, but then snapping his mouth shut.

“I don’t care!” Alicia snarled. “We have got to find her! We have to take the chance that Evans won’t show up. And if that happens, it makes Cade Alton incredibly valuable, especially if it’s true that she’s carrying his child! Whatever is so special about Evans that he doesn’t show symptoms of Michaluk might have been passed on to the child, and we can’t risk losing the baby to a chance encounter with the infected.” Alicia turned on her heel and stormed toward the door, shoving Cortez out of the way in the process. She rested her hand against the door, then drew in a deep breath and said, “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got work to do, especially if we expect to be able to find this woman.”

Chapter 28

A deep, rolling boom of thunder startled Cade from her fitful slumber. Her eyes darted open, and she blinked rapidly to clear the haze from her vision as she pushed upright from the cold concrete wall against which she’d slumped. She raked back the stray locks that had fallen in her face and squinted into the darkness around her, trying to remember where she was.

A flash of lightning illuminated her surroundings. She huddled at the end of a short hallway in a dingy parking garage, next to a bank of badly painted elevator doors. Her side ached, and her palms were skinned from falling on the street on her way into the garage. But she was alive. None of the infected had gotten their hands on her.

Cade picked up her gun and dragged herself to her feet. She edged to the end of the hallway, her boot heels clicking on the ground; worry stirred up in her gut at the possibility that the sound could draw unwanted attention to her. She drew in a breath and forced herself forward, trying to quash the feeling. It wasn’t time to freak out over her situation. That would have to come later.

Another blue flash of lightning revealed that Cade needn’t have worried. Absolutely nothing, living or dead, was in sight. She relaxed a fraction and lowered the weapon to her side. Her shoulders slumped, and she tried to decide what to do.

This was quite possibly the worst situation in which Cade had ever been. She couldn’t recall a single time in her life when she’d been this afraid. Not even her military service approached this. She wasn’t even sure the Memphis outbreak rivaled it, because at least then she had Ethan next door to help her when she needed it. Now, she had no one. No backup. No companions. No friends. Nothing. Just herself and her brains and the gun in her hand. The thought of her friends almost made tears spring to Cade’s eyes. She quickly suppressed them. Now was the last time she needed to be emotional. She had to stay focused on her own survival.

Cade checked the safety on the sidearm she’d stolen from Alicia and took a moment to really look it over. It was a Beretta M9, a standard service pistol identical to the one Brandt had carried for as long as she’d known him. It gave her pause, and as she glanced toward the short retaining wall at the edge of the parking deck, she narrowed her eyes and thought over the implications. Could her kidnappers have been military? Or was this a weapon Alicia had picked up at some point during the intervening year? She traced her finger along the weapon’s slide and tried to gauge the safety of her surroundings.

There weren’t as many cars in the garage as Cade had thought there would be. In her limited line of sight, she made out only four vehicles in their parking spaces, far fewer than she’d expected in such a large city. None looked as if they’d been disturbed in the entire year they’d sat there. A police cruiser was parked near the entrance to the deck level; Cade raised an eyebrow, intrigued, and approached it, lifting the Beretta once more. As lightning flickered and flashed through the garage’s open sides, accompanied by the rumble of thunder, Cade eased to the driver’s-side door and leaned to peer into the vehicle.

A particularly bright flash of lightning illuminated the corpse in the driver’s seat, mere inches from Cade’s face. The ensuing burst of thunder covered the sound of her boots as she took several hasty steps backward in startled retreat. If she’d been a weaker person, she likely would have screamed. Instead, Cade impulsively lifted the Beretta in a two-handed grip and pointed it at the glass, her heart hammering in her chest. She blinked rapidly as another flicker of lightning revealed that the corpse hadn’t moved an inch. Cade lowered her weapon with a soft, sheepish laugh.

“God, I’m so ridiculous,” Cade muttered as she approached the car again. She circled around to the passenger door and tried the handle; it was, surprisingly, unlocked. She eased the door open and was hit by the foul, musty odor of decay that had been pent up inside the vehicle. She wrinkled her nose before leaning into the car to see what she could scavenge.

There was far more than she expected. In her search through the cruiser’s front seat, she found two magazines of ammunition in the glove compartment, which fit the Glock holstered on the dead officer’s hip. She pocketed the magazines and, after wrestling with the dead man’s belt, managed to dislodge the holster and slip it onto her own belt. She slid the weapon into its holster, tucking the Beretta into her jeans alongside it. A heavy metal flashlight was wedged between the seats; she pulled it free and turned it on, searching the rest of the vehicle by its bright beam.

There wasn’t much else in the passenger compartment, but Cade didn’t give up hope that she’d find something useful. She snagged the keys from the ignition and abandoned the front seat in favor of the trunk. If her memory served her well, she recalled that Ethan had kept quite a few emergency supplies and even riot gear in the trunk of his police cruiser. It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that police officers in Atlanta did the same.

Cade slid the key into the trunk, and it opened with a muffled whump. She was rewarded by the sight of a large, heavy-looking blue crate. She found the key for the crate’s padlock on the key ring in her hand, and in no time, she had it unlocked and opened. As she eyed the crate’s contents, a smile spread across her face.

The crate was packed to the gills with everything Cade could possibly need to survive in a fight. A shotgun was fastened to the inside of the lid—the first thing Cade noticed when she opened it. Right below the shotgun, just at the top of the crate, was a black lump that, on further inspection, revealed itself to be a little-used Kevlar vest. She shook it out and held it up, examining it with an appreciative eye. After setting it on the concrete at her feet and aiming her flashlight into the crate, she dug deeper into its contents and began to sort the supplies into two piles.

Once she’d finished sorting the supplies, Cade donned the bulky Kevlar vest and began to load herself down with the weapons and ammunition she’d collected from the cruiser. Once Cade had the shotgun on her back, the Glock holstered on her hip, and the Beretta tucked into the waistband of her jeans, a survival knife sheathed at the small of her back, and a black backpack on her back stuffed with the minimal first-aid supplies and ammunition she’d found, Cade felt better about her current situation. It wasn’t exactly an ideal situation, but at least she didn’t feel so helpless anymore.

“Okay, so what now?” Cade asked out loud. She rested her hands on her hips and squinted into the darkness surrounding her. She wondered if she should leave the parking garage and seek better shelter. She didn’t feel up to venturing into the rain and lightning and thunder and darkness, however, regardless of how reasonably well armed she now was.

Cade retreated to the hallway she’d occupied previously, setting her newly acquired belongings down and sliding back against the wall to the floor again. She had no watch, so she was unsure of the time. She hoped the rain would stop and morning would come soon. Hunger gnawed at her stomach, and she’d need to begin the search for food and water before much more time passed.

She leaned forward and rested her head against her knees with a heavy sigh before asking in a hushed whisper to herself, “Jesus, Brandt, where the fuck are you?”

Chapter 29

Despite Brandt’s insistence that they travel through the night, Remy and Gray managed to convince him that it’d be a wiser idea to find a place to camp until dawn. It had taken a good deal of poking and prodding—and more than just a little swearing on Remy’s part—but now the three sat at a very small campfire in total silence just into the edge of the woods on the side of the highway.

Remy fed a few twigs into the fire, and it snapped and cracked in response. She peered over it at Brandt. He knelt across from her in the space they’d cleared, examining his pistol and pointedly ignoring her. Remy didn’t expect to get any conversation from Gray, either; the man had lain down on top of his sleeping bag and passed out at the first available opportunity. Remy grimaced at his sleeping form. He’d left her with just Brandt for company, and something told her that Brandt would be less than pleasant company.

Finally, when Remy could stand the silence no longer, she cleared her throat. Brandt didn’t move, didn’t flinch, didn’t so much as acknowledge her attempt to get his attention. Remy rolled her eyes and tossed a twig across the fire at him. Brandt still didn’t look up as he ejected the magazine from his gun, but he did finally speak.

“What, Remy?” Brandt’s voice was tired and heavy, and it held a faint trace of annoyance. Remy was pretty sure the irritation was aimed at her. She didn’t really care.

“You don’t look—or sound—too terribly happy,” she observed. It was a poor attempt at starting a conversation, but it was all she could think of that was potentially non-confrontational. Then again, with the mindset Brandt was seemingly in, he’d probably take everything as confrontational.

“Oh, you guessed?”

Remy shrugged and fed a few sticks into the campfire. “I know you’re not happy about having to stop for the night when Cade is out there,” she said.

Brandt snorted. “You’re telling me,” he muttered. He locked the Beretta’s slide back and squinted into its innards.

“But,” Remy continued with emphasis, “we’ve got to put that aside for now. Cade is tough. Hell, outside of you, she’s the toughest person I know. She can take care of herself just fine.”

“But she’s pregnant, Remy,” Brandt said with impatience.

“And? You think that’s going to stop Cade from kicking ass and taking names?” Remy pointed out. “You think she’s going to let some assholes stop her from showing them who’s really in charge, just because she’s pregnant?”

“No, and that’s the problem,” Brandt said. He unlocked the Beretta’s slide and slammed the magazine back into the gun’s grip, chambering a round. He flipped the safety on and slid the weapon into its holster before continuing. “She doesn’t know that bitch like I do. She doesn’t know what she’s capable of.” He clenched his fists, looking ready to hit something. The expression made Remy nervous. She didn’t want it to be her. “She doesn’t understand what’s wrong with Alicia.”

The fire popped and crackled between the two of them. Gray shifted in his sleep, rolling onto his back, but he didn’t wake up. When no further words were forthcoming from Brandt, Remy growled under her breath and barely refrained from throwing another stick at him.

“Well then, do you care to fucking enlighten me?” Remy snarled. “I’m tired of all the damned lies and deceptions. I’m tired of people hiding shit from me. Especially you!” She jabbed her finger at him, nearly singeing her jacket sleeve as her arm got too close to the fire. “Now, for once in your damned life, Brandt Evans, tell me everything about what the hell’s going on. Or has lying become so second nature to you that you don’t even notice when you’re doing it anymore?”

Brandt didn’t look at her. “I’m not fucking lying. Not anymore. I was telling the truth when I said I didn’t know the details of her testing. But I do know how she reacted to it.”

“Which was?” Remy prompted impatiently.

“She lost her fucking mind,” Brandt said. “And I don’t mean that figuratively. I think they had her on some variant of Michaluk, but I don’t know what kind. About … I don’t know, a week or so before project shutdown, Alicia attacked two orderlies and a lab tech. It took three more orderlies to get her off the guys. Needless to say, the aftermath wasn’t pretty. A lot of broken bones and shit.

“But it’s gotten me thinking, you know? About Alicia, about me, about the shit they were or weren’t doing to us at the CDC. Do you remember what you said last month in the back of that truck?”

Remy sighed and rolled her eyes. “I barely remember what I said last week,” she said. “What are you talking about?”

“The whole super-soldier thing,” Brandt prompted. “When I was explaining what was going on at the CDC, you started babbling about Kurt Russell and said you thought maybe they were experimenting to create a super-soldier. I’m beginning to wonder just how far off the mark you were. Or weren’t, as the case may be.”

Remy fed a few more twigs to the fire, watching in silence as the flames eagerly devoured them, before she said simply, “Explain.”

Brandt ran a hand through his dark hair and let out a sigh of his own, studying the flames before averting his gaze to the trees around them. “Okay, see if you can follow me on this,” he began, his tone hesitant. “Not long after they started doing the tests, some of the test subjects began to have some … abilities they didn’t have before admission into the program. Like … well, let’s just take Alicia as an example. You’ve seen her recently, right? Still skinny as a rail?”

“Yeah, she is,” Remy confirmed. “Looks like she really needs to eat a fucking cheeseburger. But what’s that got to do with—”

“Does she look like the type with the physical ability to whip the asses of three men at least as big as me, singlehandedly?” Brandt persisted.

Remy looked Brandt over, humming thoughtfully. He was a big guy—all height and muscle, granted, but big nonetheless. Remy thought back on the redhead and what she’d seen of her. She definitely didn’t look like she could handle herself in a fight against Brandt. But looks could be deceiving, Remy thought. Maybe Brandt wasn’t as tough as he looked, or maybe Alicia was tougher. Remy sighed again and tossed another stick on the fire for want of anything else to do. “What are you driving at, Brandt?”

“That maybe the virus did something to Alicia that she isn’t even aware of,” Brandt tried to explain. “That maybe she’s a … well, a super-soldier, just like you said. That she’s got some abilities that she didn’t have prior to testing, ones that would be beyond her normal skill set otherwise. That maybe they actually were doing super-soldier-style testing and that they actually did have some level of success at it, at least with her. If not others.”

A nasty chill slimed its way down Remy’s spine as she contemplated the possibilities. “But how could they get away with all that?” she asked. She flung the remains of her sticks into the fire. “I mean, wouldn’t word have eventually gotten out?”

“Remy, it’s the government,” Brandt pointed out. “They have been and always will be the ultimate masters of lies, deceptions, and cover-ups.”

“Touché,” Remy acknowledged. “But … Brandt, this is big. This is really big. They were using human beings as guinea pigs to further some agenda we don’t even know. What was going to happen if the government actually managed to make Michaluk act the way they wanted it to act? Were they going to force the entire United States military to undergo the same treatments they used on you guys?”

“I don’t know,” Brandt admitted.

Remy hesitated and shifted her eyes to the darkness beyond their campsite. She studied it, listening to the crackle of the fire and the soft sounds of nature around them, the breeze blowing through the trees and rustling their leaves. She focused on the sounds around her instead of the ones spinning through her mind. Her next question was an obvious one, one that absolutely needed to be asked, but Remy was reluctant to even open her mouth.

Brandt seemed to realize Remy’s reluctance, because he interrupted her thoughts. “Remy? What’s on your mind?”

Remy blew out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding and choked out the question. “Brandt … are you absolutely sure they didn’t do any testing on you? That you actually were in the control group like they said you were?”

Brandt hesitated, opening his mouth before closing it again. He shifted his eyes away from her as he found the words to answer her. “Honestly, Remy? I don’t know,” he confessed quietly.

Chapter 30

It’d been almost five hours since Dominic had come to his room and announced that he was now confined to it, and Ethan had felt every single second of it. He’d initially entertained the idea of simply walking out of the room—after all, there was only one guy out in the hallway to stop him—until the four-hour mark, when someone returned and used a power drill and some screws to fasten the door shut, thereby earning every form of verbal abuse Ethan could throw through the door.

Ethan had spent upwards of thirty minutes yelling and beating on and kicking the door to no avail. Now he simply paced and brooded, kicking inanimate objects whenever the mood took him and pondering ways to escape the room, if not the entire hotel. When nothing plausible came to mind, Ethan abandoned his pacing in favor of slouching at the end of his bed in a funk.

Ethan didn’t understand what was going on. He had no idea why, after a month, Alicia suddenly wanted him pinned down, wanted his previously enjoyed autonomy ripped away. Obviously, a variable in the equation had changed. Something had happened that changed Alicia’s mind about him. Ethan had no way to know what that something was; all he had were possibilities and suspicions built upon by Dr. Rivers’s statements to him the day before—possibilities and suspicions that he couldn’t prove beyond a shadow of doubt.

And Ethan’s suspicions suggested that part of why he’d been locked up had to do with his meeting with Kimberly and Derek the day before. Both of them had seemed fairly forthright, honest, and sincere in their beliefs that Alicia wasn’t good for the people living in the hotel. They’d genuinely seemed to be exercising some discreet level of rebellion against the woman’s control. But it wasn’t difficult to fake that sort of thing. There was every chance that one or both of them had turned over to Alicia information on him and everything he’d said during the meeting in the Overlook. I should’ve been more cautious, he berated himself. I shouldn’t have been so fucking trusting.

For not the first time in the past month, Ethan missed his friends desperately. If they’d been here, or if he’d been with them, then he wouldn’t be in the grubby situation in which he found himself stuck. He wondered where they were, if they were all okay, if they had enough supplies to keep them alive. He hoped Cade had healed well from her injury and that she and Brandt still got along. He hoped Remy was okay; he still couldn’t get the sound of her screaming for him out of his ears—the one thing he really wished he hadn’t been able to remember. He even hoped Gray was okay. He still wished he could see them all again, still wished they were there with him so he could ask for advice, get their opinions on Alicia and on the horrifying reality of which he’d learned over the past day.

A soft scratching sound met Ethan’s ears. His head jerked up, and he looked at the door in time to see a slip of paper slide underneath it. Footsteps in the hall rapidly walking away accompanied the paper’s appearance.

Ethan hesitated as he stared at the paper lying innocuously on the carpet. Then he darted off the end of the bed and snatched it up, clenching it tightly in trembling fingers. It was a note carefully printed in pencil, short, sweet, and straight to the point.

E—

Be ready. 9:00 p.m.

—K

A surge of something resembling a mix of relief and hope rushed through Ethan’s body. He stared at the paper a moment longer, reading and rereading Kimberly’s words. He realized he was holding his breath only when his chest began to ache, and he let it out with a gasp. He crumpled the torn piece of notebook paper in his fist.

They were going to do something. They were going to help him. And then maybe they could get out of this hotel, maybe make a life of their own somewhere else. Where they could determine for themselves what they should do and when they should do it. Somewhere outside of Alicia’s control.

Ethan walked briskly across the room, still clutching the note. He looked around wildly, trying to find a place to hide it, and settled on simply shoving it into his pants pocket. He began to gather the few belongings he had left in his possession. There wasn’t much; a lot of it he couldn’t have cared less if he never saw again. But there was the locket, still hanging from its broken chain. That was one thing he refused to allow out of his sight again; the heart-stopping time when he’d believed it gone for good had been relieved when Kimberly had located and given him his bag the evening before. He tucked the locket into his pocket alongside the note, where it’d be safer than in the bag.

As Ethan packed, his mind hung onto thoughts of his friends, both old and new. His brain kept tripping over the same single question he’d entertained for the past five hours.

What in the hell is going on?

Chapter 31

It’d taken half the night, but Brandt had managed to push past the ever-growing ache and pain in his shoulder and forearm, the nausea churning in his gut, and the pounding in his head in order to get some rest. It was a rest he neither wanted nor needed, but he took it anyway; he knew if he didn’t, Gray would breathe down his neck during the entire journey to Atlanta.

Sometimes, Brandt thought Gray acted entirely too much like Theo. He hadn’t decided if that was a good thing or not yet.

Brandt gingerly rotated his stiff shoulder as he stood at the opened back door of the Escalade, feeling the crinkle of gauze and medical tape wrapped around his shoulder and bicep. He waited for Remy to emerge from the thick trees at the side of the road. Gray was already in the Escalade’s driver seat, uselessly twisting knobs on the vehicle’s in-dash radio. Brandt didn’t bother saying anything to him about it anymore; the younger man never listened anyway. Brandt figured Gray had his reasons for the ritual, and he was sure it was mostly hope that he’d hear some semblance of civilization amidst the static. Brandt wouldn’t begrudge him that.

Sometimes, Brandt thought Ethan did too good a job instilling hope in the younger members of the group.

Brandt huffed out an impatient breath and rested his hand lightly against his holstered Beretta. Remy was taking too long—typical female—and he was ready to get moving again.

“Remy! Come on! Get the lead out!” Brandt called out. He contemplated going into the trees after her. He was sure he’d probably see something he’d later regret, and he was positive Remy would never forgive him if he did, but the potential for the resultant amusement was intriguing.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Remy replied irritably. She emerged from the trees, brushing her clothes off and grimacing at Brandt.

Brandt took her backpack and flung it into the back of the SUV before pushing the door shut. “It’s about time,” he teased.

“Hey, you guys have it easy, okay?” Remy protested. “Don’t blame me. Blame Mother Nature.”

Brandt snorted out a laugh and motioned to Remy. “Well fine then. Get in the car. I want to make it to Atlanta by this evening.”

“Think we can get there that soon?” Remy asked. Brandt heard the heavy doubt in her voice. “I mean, last month it took several days just to travel two hundred miles. This time, we’re talking … what?”

“Three-eighty,” Brandt clarified. He went to the back passenger door and started to open it for Remy.

Remy stopped him with a hand on his arm. “We’ve only traveled, like, eighty of those miles. And you’re proposing we do three hundred in less than twelve hours?”

“We’ve traveled one-twenty-five, Remy, not eighty,” Brandt corrected. “You slept part of the way. And besides, when we last went to Atlanta, we had to walk a good portion of the way, and we were traveling with twice as many people as we’ve got now. If we stick to the highways and avoid the interstates—”

“I know, I know. We’ll get there faster because there’s less vehicular congestion on the roadways,” Remy said in exasperation. “You don’t have to tell me this. I’m not new to this whole dog-and-pony show.” She sighed and twisted her ponytail around her hand. “I’m just concerned, that’s all. If we track down the Westin, and if Cade is there, I don’t think going in exhausted will help any of us drag her out of that woman’s dirty little paws.”

Before Brandt could formulate an appropriate response beyond the nasty one on the tip of his tongue, Gray flung the driver’s door open and nearly fell out onto the pavement. Remy and Brandt turned as one to look at him as he scrambled to his feet, and Brandt raised a curious eyebrow. “Are you … okay?” he asked reluctantly.

“The radio,” Gray told them, breathless with excitement. “I think I’ve picked something up.” Brandt and Remy merely stared at him, until Gray rolled his eyes and added, “It’s not a recording.”

Brandt and Remy stared for a second longer before launching into action. In a flurry of movement, Brandt shoved away from the back door, and Remy threw it open and flung herself inside. Gray was already back in the driver’s seat, so Brandt joined them, sliding into the passenger seat and pulling the door shut. Gray turned the stereo up so they could all hear clearly, and almost as one, they leaned closer to the radio.

Meanwhile, the search for Michael Evans continues, a soothing female voice said over the car’s speakers. Alicia Day and her people reportedly returned from another trip out of town chasing another lead on his location, but our spies say she did not return with Evans as initial rumors stated.

In other, somewhat related, news, there was significant infected activity near the intersection of Central Park Place Northeast and Ralph McGill Boulevard Northeast. Though we have no specific information at this time, Day’s people were involved, and shots were fired. Our people are currently investigating, but we can only hope that Day herself was involved.

Brandt heard the unspoken words under the woman’s voice, the words that seemed to say, “We can only hope she bit it in the fight.”

There are unconfirmed reports of an escapee from the attack. We’re in the process of searching the area for this potential ally to offer our protection. We will give updates on this situation as they become available.

That’s it for now. Those of you standing against Day’s control, tune in to the usual frequency at the usual time for your updated messages.

Over and out.

The radio station turned to dead air and then switched to the usual static they’d become so accustomed to hearing. Gray switched the radio off, clearing his throat in the silence that followed. “I, of course, don’t know what other frequency they’re referring to,” he said weakly, visibly overwhelmed at what they’d just heard.

Remy let out an ear-shattering whoop of excitement and bounced in her seat. Brandt fought to not cover his ears, though he did turn to glare at her. She ignored him. “There are people in Atlanta!” she exclaimed.

“There have been people in Atlanta all along,” Brandt snapped. “Gray, get moving. We’re wasting time just sitting here.”

“I know there’ve been people there all along,” Remy said, visibly deflated by Brandt’s lack of enthusiasm. “What I mean is there are people there who could maybe help us.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Brandt muttered. Stomach acid churned in his gut, and he started to feel nauseated again. He occupied himself with the road map, snatching it off the dash and opening it to examine it closely.

“Here’s what I’m worried about,” Gray spoke up as he pulled the Escalade back onto the highway. “Did you hear what she said about an escapee?”

“Yeah, I heard,” Brandt answered. He kept his eyes focused on the map.

“Do you think it might’ve been Cade?”

“I hope not,” Brandt confessed. “Because if it was Cade, well, she’s in infected territory and likely unarmed. On top of that? She’s within a mile of the Atlanta Medical Center.”

“What’s so bad about the Atlanta Medical Center?” Remy asked.

“It’s essentially hell on earth, or at least it was a year ago,” Brandt said. He hated the way his voice shook as he answered her. “It was a place so dangerous the military declared it a total loss. And now Cade might be near it.” He swallowed hard and added, “I don’t see how she could possibly survive for any length of time in that area without help.”

Chapter 32

When Cade emerged from the parking garage into the hazy, foggy morning light, she was bone tired and starving. The thunderstorm she’d had to endure had kept her awake for most of the night, so she’d had only a couple of hours of fitful sleep, nowhere near enough to sustain her for a significant amount of time. But it’d be long enough for her to scavenge something to eat and drink. She wasn’t willing to wait any longer for that.

Cade stepped around the gate that once blocked vehicles from exiting without a ticket and stopped on the sidewalk beyond. She looked in either direction, frowning as she squinted into the fog, gripping her shotgun tightly in both hands. She couldn’t see anything moving within her line of sight, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t anything lurking behind the cars parked in jumbled messes along the roadway. Cade sucked in a fortifying breath and started forward, choosing to walk east until she reached an intersection that would tell her where she was.

The area of Atlanta through which Cade passed was home to the largest mess she’d seen yet. Store windows were broken, their glass littering the sidewalk and crunching under her boots with every step, their displays long since pilfered. Cars were parked and smashed everywhere, their frames bent and crunched, their contents spilled out across the pavement and adjoining vehicles. Cade even passed a large truck sitting almost completely on top of a small four-door coupe. The car was crushed under the weight of the truck; Cade wondered only fleetingly what had happened to its former occupants, but she didn’t dare go closer. She didn’t need to know that badly.

As Cade passed store after empty store, she began to worry that she’d be unable to find the food and water she so desperately needed. Weapons and ammunition were useless if she became too dehydrated to use them. She was already losing fluids; her tank top and flannel shirt were damp under the Kevlar vest. Taking the vest off wasn’t an option, however. She needed every ounce of protection she could get.

Cade squinted into the distance again, narrowing her eyes as she tried to make out the path ahead. Still, nothing stirred anywhere. She glanced at the shops around her, spotting a health-food store. The windows were broken, but she hoped there would be something left inside that could hold her over until she found a more substantial source of sustenance. She scanned the street one more time before crossing, weaving between vehicles and climbing and sliding over them as necessary, ignoring the pang in her side that the exertion caused. Thankfully, nothing assaulted her on her short journey, and she arrived in the broken doorway of the health-food store unmolested.

The interior of the shop was as dark as Cade expected. She hesitated in the doorway and examined the interior as closely as she’d studied the street outside, her shotgun against her shoulder as she scrutinized every inch of the store that she could see. She couldn’t make out any movement, but that didn’t mean it was safe. There could have been infected inside that just hadn’t noticed her yet. Considering how cunning they’d seemingly become, the infected could have been simply lying in wait, watching, waiting for her to walk into the store before they pounced on her. The thought alone made Cade shudder in disgust.

Giving in to the need for light, Cade fished the flashlight she’d pilfered from the police cruiser out of her bag. Once the cool metal was in Cade’s palm, her thumb depressed the squishy black power button, and a bright white light flared on, shining over the interior of the shop. Cade blinked rapidly as her eyes were flash-blinded by the brightness, but she ignored the stinging, watering sensation and stepped into the shop. She took a look around, easing forward, one careful step at a time, sweeping her eyes and the light over every nook and cranny in the shop.

When Cade didn’t see anything worth noting, she moved farther into the shop. Instead of eyeing the corners, she looked to the metal shelves and toppled displays. Most of the shelves were bare and dusty, long since ransacked of any food they once held. Cade bit her lip as she registered the lack of anything useful in her immediate vicinity, and then she continued on. Her blue eyes scanned every inch of shelf she passed, her head swinging from side to side to check the shelves on either side of her.

By the time she reached the end of the first row, the only thing Cade had found was a small box of raisins. She gently squeezed the box and then tore it open, peering inside. The dried fruit looked far drier than it should have, and it was covered in a fuzzy mold. Cade sighed in disappointment and tossed the box to the floor, crushing it underfoot as she moved on to the next aisle.

The next three aisles yielded no results, and by the time she reached the last aisle, Cade was near tears in frustration. It was ridiculous to be so upset over her lack of luck in this one store. There must have been dozens of stores within a mile radius that she could search. But suddenly overwhelmed by a sense of helplessness, Cade sagged against the nearest shelf. She covered her eyes with her hand, shaking her head slowly and taking a moment to herself, breathing in deep, ragged breaths.

Cade swore under her breath and slapped the side of her own head. “Come on, Cade, get it the fuck together,” she muttered. “Now isn’t the time to have a fucking breakdown.” She pushed away from the shelf and lifted the flashlight, wiping haphazardly at her eyes with the back of her hand. She shone the flashlight over the shelves once more, hoping to see something she’d missed on the first pass.

A thud and the distinctive sound of something rolling across the floor rang out behind Cade. She spun on her boot heel and aimed her flashlight down the dark aisle. She didn’t see anything there. She narrowed her eyes and took a slow step, lifting her shotgun as a precaution. The squeak of a sneaker on the tiled floor drew her eyes to the right, and she caught a glimpse of hair over the shelf as someone hurried to the front of the store, bent low to stay hidden below the top of the short shelves.

“Stop right there,” Cade said sternly. She aimed her shotgun in the figure’s general direction, even as she briskly rounded the end of the shelf to step into the adjoining aisle. The dark figure froze and didn’t turn to face her, which was enough to convince Cade it wasn’t an infected person. “Put your hands up and turn around,” she ordered. “Slowly.” Her shotgun didn’t waver a fraction of an inch from the girl—and by then, Cade was absolutely sure it was a girl—who stood, her back to Cade, at the end of the aisle.

The sound of a pistol’s hammer being pulled back cracked out behind Cade. Her back stiffened. A steely male voice spoke up. “You let your guard down. Bad move.”

“You try to pull that trigger and I’ll drop her before I even hit the ground,” Cade warned.

“Don’t even try,” the man behind Cade warned. “We’re not here to harm you anyway. So you can put the damned shotgun away.”

Cade didn’t lower the shotgun. She didn’t dare. For all she knew, the moment she did so, the man would pull the trigger on his own weapon. Instead, she tightened her grip on it, her fingers clenching the weapon firmly enough to blanch her knuckles white. “Then what are you here for?” Cade demanded.

“We’re here to help you,” the man said. “We saw you escape from that Alicia bitch yesterday.” The way he said Alicia’s name reminded Cade of the way someone would discuss something smelly he found stuck to the bottom of his shoe. “We’ve been searching for you ever since. We’re just here to lend you a hand.”

Cade felt a surge of hope at the man’s tone, but she quickly tamped it back down. She couldn’t let her emotions show. To do so would risk making herself vulnerable, showing these potential enemies just what it took to get under her skin.

But these aren’t enemies, her brain whispered. And she knew her instincts were right, despite the gun held to her head. They felt more like potential allies—something she desperately needed in this unfamiliar city. She hesitated, her brain swinging between her options. Then she lowered her weapon.

“Fine then,” she said to the man behind her. “You win. Now can you please get the gun off me?”

The man chuckled. “I’ve got to hand it to you. You’ve got some serious balls,” he said, the amusement clear in his voice. “But just so you’re aware, I haven’t had the gun pointed at you for a good thirty seconds already.”

Cade’s shoulders relaxed. She looked at the girl, who still stood at the end of the aisle, watching Cade with wide eyes. Cade turned her back on the girl to face the man who had managed to sneak up on her and hold her at gunpoint.

The man was older than Cade expected, somewhere in his late forties or early fifties. Taller, too—at least six feet. He had ebony skin that helped him blend into the darkness surrounding them. His dark eyes were slightly slanted and appeared amused, crinkling at the corners as he grinned at her. He took a step forward, and Cade forced herself not to take a matching step back as his imposing form was brought farther into the beam of her flashlight. As he extended a hand in offering, Cade blinked in surprise as she realized why the man looked so large.

“You’re wearing body armor,” she commented. She shifted her belongings around to free a hand and shook his proffered hand firmly.

“You noticed,” the man said. He gave her hand a light squeeze and then let go. “My name is Isaac Wright.”

“Cade Alton,” Cade introduced herself as she dropped her hand back to her shotgun.

Isaac nodded to the girl behind Cade; she approached cautiously, slipping past Cade to stand beside Isaac. She was blond and skinny—too skinny—and pale, almost nondescript in her plainness. “And this is Jocelyn Collins.”

“You know, the girl you almost shot,” Jocelyn said. She stuck close to Isaac, and Cade wondered fleetingly if the girl was afraid of her. She tried to guess Jocelyn’s age; she thought maybe the girl was around seventeen, definitely no younger than Nikola had been.

Thoughts of the dead teenager sent a pang of sadness through Cade’s heart. She quickly diverted her mind before it could go further. “Sorry about that,” she said contritely. “I just … well, you can’t be too careful out here. And I’m not familiar with the city, and—”

“Hey, no need to explain,” Isaac said, holding up a hand to stop her. “Really. It’s okay. I promise.”

Cade shuffled her feet against the floor and looked between Isaac and Jocelyn. Jocelyn edged half a step closer to Isaac, and he put a reassuring hand on the girl’s shoulder. Cade hesitated and then asked, “So where exactly are you heading?”

Isaac motioned to the shop’s door. “We have a base about a mile from here. You’re welcome to join us if you’d like. There’s plenty of food and water, a low number of infected, and we can put our heads together for information on the way.” He paused and looked her over once more. “That is, if you’d like to join us, of course. It could be beneficial to all of us.”

Cade hesitated again as she debated the man’s offer. It would be good to have some help, to have backup when she needed it. But at the same time, something in the back of her head said no. After the hellish time she’d had in Alicia’s hands, Cade wasn’t sure she was willing to trust just anyone with whom she crossed paths. She wavered, uncertain. Isaac noticed her indecision and spoke up.

“Look, Cade, I know you had to deal with Alicia, and that’s not a picnic for anyone,” Isaac said gently. “Believe me, I know that from personal experience. I can understand you’re nervous at the idea of throwing your lot in with people you don’t know. I’m not asking you to trust me. I’m just trying to assure you we’re definitely on the same side. There is no love lost between me and Alicia, and if anything, I have every intention of kicking her ass, either literally or figuratively—preferably both—as soon as I get my hands on her.”

“And why is that?” Cade asked, surprised at the man’s vehemence.

Isaac eyed her closely. “Now that is a long story. Come with us, and I’ll tell you on the way.”

Cade hesitated one more time and then nodded in agreement. “Okay.”

Chapter 33

Gray watched Brandt closely as the man stared fixedly out the windshield in the early morning light, his dark eyes locked onto an unseen point far ahead of them, hopefully watching for hazards along the way. It’d been a tremendous fight to make him pull over for a second night of camping out, but he and Remy had managed, forcing him onto the side of the road for sleep before entering the city. Brandt hadn’t quite been himself since the radio message they’d overheard—since all this shit really started, Gray acknowledged. But none of them had acted quite right. All three of them were being driven by pure instinct, taking rasher, bolder actions than they would have in other circumstances. But these circumstances involved one of them, which gave everything a heightened sense of alarm and foreboding, a sense of urgency on a level that none had felt before.

If Ethan had been there, their behavior would have pissed him off by now. Gray could practically hear the man’s voice echoing in his ears as if their former leader were actually there. This is an absolutely asinine idea—asinine had always seemed to be Ethan’s favorite word—and you’re going to get yourselves killed if you keep this up. You’re acting borderline suicidal, and it’s turning you into a bunch of idiots. Still, Gray knew that if Ethan had actually been with them, he’d have been the one behind the wheel, barking orders and snarling out everything he’d want to do to the people who had taken his best friend.

Despite how dangerous their new mission was, Gray was sure Ethan would have been behind their every move one hundred percent.

Gray glanced at the man in the driver’s seat again before looking back at Remy. She was surprisingly asleep, her head lolling against the back of her seat. Her bolo knife lay on the seat beside her, well within reach should the need arise. Gray was disappointed with her unconscious state; he’d been hoping for someone to talk to—the silence in the vehicle grated on his nerves. His only option was Brandt, and the man didn’t look like he’d make a very appealing conversational partner.

“Whatever you want to say, spit it out,” Brandt said suddenly, tightening his grip on the steering wheel. Gray was startled by the man’s statement, and it scattered his thoughts enough that it took him a moment of stammering before he choked it out.

“I just hope you have a plan,” Gray admitted. “I don’t want to get in there and find out we’re up shit creek and you have no idea where the paddle is.”

Brandt blew out a breath. “I have a fucking plan,” he grumbled.

“Does the plan include an exit strategy?” Gray asked.

Brandt rolled his eyes. “That was one time,” he protested.

“Yeah, and that one time nearly got you and Cade killed,” Gray pointed out.

A faint smirk flitted across Brandt’s face. “Yeah, well, we saved our asses and Remy’s,” he said smoothly.

“So do you plan to, you know, share that plan with us, or are you sticking with keeping it to yourself and letting us muddle our way through it for your own personal amusement?” Gray asked. He rubbed at his eyes and ran a hand through his hair. “Because I, for one, am tired of stumbling my way through everything blindly.”

Brandt chuckled. “Gray, I hardly think either one of you is stumbling through life blindly,” he said. He navigated the SUV around two cars crashed at the highway’s shoulder. “If anything, sometimes I wonder if you and Remy understand the way of shit far better than I do.”

Gray huffed out a frustrated breath. “Can we just not discuss your general philosophies on my and Remy’s temperaments and get on with the sharing of the plan?”

Brandt rolled his eyes again but kept his gaze on the windshield. “I don’t have a complete plan yet,” he admitted. “What do you want to know? Because if you want to know the plan, you’re going to help me put the damn thing together.”

Gray made a face at Brandt, but regardless of his feelings on being dropped into making a plan without knowing anything about where they were heading, he reached into the bag at his feet and pulled free their map. He unfolded it and spread it across his lap, careful to not let it overlap into Brandt’s space, and quickly located the city of Atlanta. “Where’s this hotel at? And what’s the area around it like? I don’t know anything about this place.”

“Do you remember that really tall, round skyscraper we saw on our way to the Tabernacle last month?” Brandt asked. “Trust me, you can’t miss it. That is the Westin, which is where that guy said they planned to take Cade. I think it’s the fifth-tallest building in Atlanta. Seventy-something floors, and she could be anywhere on any one of them.”

“If she’s even there,” Gray pointed out. “You heard what they said on that radio report. There was an escapee in that fight yesterday.”

“But there’s nothing to guarantee it was Cade,” Brandt argued.

“There’s nothing to guarantee it wasn’t.”

“Look, we don’t know what kind of people made that announcement,” Brandt said. “We don’t know if they’re good or bad, if they’re the type of people to be on our side or not. I don’t know their motivations. I don’t know if they’re really working for Alicia and are attempting to fool us into thinking they’re on our side. I don’t know if they actually are on our side. I don’t know how factual their reports are or what their history is or what they’re like or anything. So I don’t know if we can trust them.”

“Sometimes you just have to trust people, whether you know anything about them or not,” Gray said. He focused on folding the map to examine the inlaid square containing a close-up grid of metro Atlanta. “I mean, that’s what you did when you and Cade came after me and Theo and convinced Ethan to let us stay with you guys. If you hadn’t, I don’t think either of us would have survived as long as we had. Sometimes you just have to count on people, whether you’re comfortable with them or not.”

“I’m aware of that,” Brandt said, sounding more contrite. “I’m well aware that sometimes you just have to trust people. But these are the same dirt bags that kidnapped Cade. What if they do something awful to her? What if we get there and find out she’s dead because those assholes did something to her that she couldn’t get out of?”

“What if she’s perfectly fine and they’re feeding her well and taking good care of her?” Gray responded. He retrieved a bottle of water from his bag, cracking it open and taking a long swallow before continuing. “Do you remember what Ethan used to say?”

“You’re the last person in this car to be talking about things Ethan used to say,” Brandt muttered. He swerved around several more wrecked vehicles, his grip on the steering wheel tightening once more.

“I didn’t exactly like the bastard, but even I have to admit he made some excellent points from time to time,” Gray said. He swallowed from his bottle again and twisted the cap back on. “Ethan used to go on about how when things got shitty, if you could see even a little bit of hope, it was leagues better than having no hope at all. Because the hope is there. And this time, the hope is that Cade’s fine. And personally, I think she’s more than fine.” Gray paused and contemplated what he’d just said before adding, “So can we get on with the planning already? I’m tired of offering up reassurances that Remy and I have already repeatedly given you.”

Brandt sighed. “I can’t say for sure what the area immediately around the Westin is like. I can only guess. It’s probably pretty roughed up. I know for a fact there was a big fight in that area when the military tried to contain Michaluk’s spread. I can imagine the infected have long figured out where these people are hiding, so I’m willing to bet they’ve got the place essentially surrounded.”

“So how the hell are people getting in and out?” Gray asked. “If the place is surrounded, then they obviously have a place through which they’re able to access the building.”

“Exactly. And our first step is to find out what that place is,” Brandt said. “But before that, we’re going to Park Place and Ralph McGill. I want to check that out before we do anything else. Maybe we can find some signs of what happened there and whether or not Cade was involved.”

Chapter 34

Just as promised, Ethan’s help arrived at precisely nine that evening. He sat on the end of his bed, his bag beside him; he’d been there for most of the evening, watching the closed door and waiting for any sign that the promised help had arrived. It was heralded with a faint scratching noise on the other side of the door, followed by the sound of hushed whispers and a soft thump. The quiet whirr of a power drill brushed the air, and then soon after, the door swung open, revealing a familiar blond-haired figure standing in the doorway, a gun in one hand, a drill in the other, and a bag strapped to her back.

“Jesus, Kimberly, it’s about time you showed up,” Ethan said, the relief in his voice almost palpable. He stood and scooped up his bag, slinging it over his shoulder. “Where are we going, and how are we getting there? And, for that matter, what am I going to do without my medication?”

“Oh, we’ve got that covered,” Kimberly said. She stepped into the room and motioned to the doorway. Ethan looked past her and was surprised to see Derek in the doorway, dressed as if he were ready to go out, in dark jeans, a white dress shirt, and a comfortable jacket, a backpack on his shoulder and a messenger bag against his left side, a gun in a holster at his right.

“I’ve got almost everything we’ll need,” Derek said.

“Almost?”

“I’ve got medication and paperwork and reports,” Derek clarified. “Plus what appears to be the closest I’ve come to a cure yet. Now all I need is Brandt, preferably before Alicia gets her hands on him. And maybe sometime soon, a test subject or two to try it out on.”

“Just stick close to us,” Kimberly added. She took a step back and motioned to Ethan. “We’ve got to get you out of here. It’s gotten too dangerous for you to stay much longer.”

Ethan followed her to the door. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Means you’re starting to outlive your usefulness to Alicia,” Derek said. An odd, nervous wiggle stirred in Ethan’s stomach at the doctor’s words. “I’ve seen it happen several other times, and I conveniently never saw those people again.”

“Plus, with all this new information we’ve come across …” Kimberly began, starting to walk briskly down the hall. She didn’t say anything further, though she exchanged a nervous glance with Derek. Ethan scrambled to catch up with her.

“What new information?” Ethan demanded.

“I’ll tell you as soon as we get the hell out of here,” Kimberly said. “We’ve got to slip out from the sixth floor. There’s a walkway attaching the hotel to AmericasMart across the street. From there, we’ll work our way down to the street level, and then we head for Williams Street behind the Hampton.”

“And from there, we meet up with a group of people who will be getting us out of here,” Derek finished.

“But what’s this news you’ve learned?” Ethan persisted as they reached the stairwell door. He slipped between Kimberly and the door, blocking her from opening it, and watched her closely. She avoided his gaze, keeping her eyes on their surroundings—anywhere but on him. “What is it?”

“Alicia found where Brandt and his friends, your friends, were staying,” Kimberly said. “She tried to get to Brandt, but he wasn’t there. So she …”

“So she took another one instead,” Derek spoke up after Kimberly trailed off. “As bait, so to speak.”

“Who? What happened?” Ethan demanded. He felt a lurch in his gut, and he clenched his teeth against a surge of nausea.

“She took your friend Cade Alton,” Kimberly said. “She made Cade go with them, and she … My informant overheard Cortez talking about how the other woman who was there at the time is dead.”

“Oh God,” Ethan whispered. He staggered back, bumping into the stairwell door. “Remy is … Remy is dead?”

“They think,” Derek said quickly. “It’s all hearsay at this point. There’s a chance she isn’t.”

“But that’s not the worst of it,” Kimberly interrupted.

“It gets worse?”

“Cade escaped,” Kimberly finished.

“And that’s … bad?” Ethan asked incredulously.

“She escaped here in Atlanta, Ethan,” Kimberly said patiently. “She’s somewhere in the city. I don’t know where. But we’ve got to get out of here, because Alicia is trying to find her, and we’ve got to meet up with the people who are going to try to find her first.”

“But what the hell does Alicia want with her anyway?” Ethan asked. He moved so that Kimberly could open the door. “Why does Alicia need to track Cade down? Cade isn’t the one she wants.”

“We don’t know,” Derek admitted. He motioned for Ethan to follow Kimberly out into the stairwell. His voice dropped to the barest of whispers as he added, “I’m missing some information. I couldn’t find out everything. But I heard enough to decide I couldn’t wait any longer. I have to meet up with this other group. They’re the best shot we’ve got at survival, especially with Alicia acting like she’s lost her damned mind.”

“Lost her mind? What?” Ethan repeated. He struggled to keep his voice as low as Derek’s.

Derek merely put a finger to his lips, indicating that Ethan should shut up, and then began the descent down the stairwell behind Kimberly. Ethan followed, his brain feeling muddled. He was having trouble wrapping his mind around the idea of Cade in Atlanta, in danger somewhere out there, probably without any help whatsoever. Ethan hoped she was okay. He hoped she hadn’t gotten hurt or killed in the process of escaping Alicia’s custody.

And Remy … dead? A deep pit felt like it had opened up in the bottom of his stomach, and he fought to focus on Kimberly’s back instead of on the feelings threatening to overwhelm him. Remy’s death was a concept entirely too horrible to contemplate, so he shoved it aside for later, to wait for when he’d have time to truly think on it and its implications.

The three managed to reach the sixth floor surprisingly unmolested. Kimberly stopped outside the stairwell door and drew a Walther PPS pistol from its holster on her hip, motioning for Derek to do the same. Ethan fumbled for the Glock stashed in his bag, but Kimberly put out a hand to stop him.

“No, don’t,” she hissed. “If we run into someone, we can claim we’re following Alicia’s orders to move you someplace else. She’s not here to contradict that.”

“Smart,” Ethan breathed out appreciatively. He dropped his hand back to his side and glanced at Derek. The doctor’s jaw was set in a hard, determined line, and his dark eyes met Ethan’s as he held his own firearm up.

“We’ve got your back,” Derek assured Ethan. He nodded to Kimberly over Ethan’s shoulder. She drew in a deep, audible breath and pushed the door open, ushering Derek and Ethan through before she slid into the short hallway beyond. She eased the door shut, keeping her hand on it so it didn’t make a sound as it swung closed, and then grabbed Ethan’s wrist.

“Come on, let’s go,” she whispered. “The walkway’s this way.”

With those words, Ethan was led down the short hallway toward the lobby area. Kimberly stopped at the end of it, pressing flat against the wall and motioning for Derek and Ethan to do the same. Then she peered around the corner to see if the coast was clear before putting a finger to her lips and gesturing for them to follow her.

Ethan walked out into the lobby, keeping close to the wall, and heard Derek do the same. Kimberly led the way to the glass double-doors across the lobby; they were secured with a thick, heavy chain and padlock. Kimberly glanced behind them, making sure no one approached, and then slung her bag off her shoulder. She dug through it for a moment before pulling out a pair of heavy bolt cutters, and then she holstered her sidearm and set to work on the padlock holding the chain together. Ethan waited impatiently, constantly glancing over his shoulder, expecting the hammer to drop and send a bullet into his skull.

It was two long, agonizing minutes of waiting as Kimberly tried again and again to force the bolt cutters to slice through the padlock before, with a loud snap that made all three of them wince, the cutters sheared through the lock. Kimberly pawed at it, ripping it free and sliding the chain noisily from the handles. She dropped it all in a heap beside the door and then waved to Derek and Ethan.

“Let’s go,” she said urgently, sliding her Walther PPS from its holster once more. “Quickly. I can’t guarantee somebody didn’t hear that.” She nodded to Ethan and added, “It’s okay to get your gun out now. Just in case we need it.”

Ethan pulled his Glock from his bag as instructed. As he eased past Kimberly to enter the dark elevated walkway leading to AmericasMart, the woman caught his arm and offered him a familiar-looking hunting knife. “Here,” she murmured. “This was with your things. I don’t think Alicia wanted you to have it back, but it’s yours, so I brought it with me.”

Ethan took the knife, rubbing his fingertips over its smooth hilt and studying it almost sadly. It was Cade’s knife, and he suddenly, vividly remembered when he’d taken it from her the month before, when he’d promised he’d give it back, even with the firm belief he’d never see her again. He distinctly remembered the look in her eyes as she’d backed away from him and started up the fire escape like he’d told her to. It was a look he’d nearly forgotten, lost to the fog the virus had thrown over his mind, but the sight of the knife in his hand brought it all back into sharp clarity.

Kimberly’s hand on his arm brought Ethan back to focus on the here and now, on the very dangerous reality in which he stood. Derek was almost halfway down the walkway, waiting on both of them to join him. Ethan looked behind them as he tucked the knife into a side pocket of his bag. After another glance at Kimberly, Ethan darted into the lobby, snatched up the chain and padlock, and pulled the glass doors shut as he backed into the walkway.

“What in the world are you doing?” Kimberly asked, raising an eyebrow. Ethan wound the chain around the doors’ handles, looping it under and over and around, as he answered.

“Trying to make it that much more difficult for these fuckers to follow us,” Ethan said, breathless from the exertion of fastening the door shut. As he wound the chain around a final time, movement on the other side of the door caught his eye. He and Kimberly looked up simultaneously. Several of Alicia’s crew from the fourth floor had come to investigate the noise they’d made and were even now sprinting to the door, guns in hand, led by Dominic.

“Fuck, Ethan. Let’s go, let’s go,” Kimberly urged. She backed a step away from the door, her voice trembling, and reflexively lifted her Walther PPS to point it at the glass.

“Don’t shoot,” Ethan ordered, fumbling for the padlock. “We don’t know if the glass is bulletpro—”

The snap of gunshots met his ears, interrupting the rest of his sentence. The glass on level with his head chipped as the bullets struck. Ethan stumbled backward, nearly tripping over his own feet. Kimberly caught his arm, and Ethan regained his footing. He scrambled forward and grabbed the padlock as one of the men on the other side of the door slammed into it. Ethan was half-kneeling at the door, and he looked up into the man’s angry eyes as he shoved the lock into place. The lock wouldn’t hold for long—Kimberly had done too good a job damaging it for that—but it would hopefully delay their getting through the door long enough for the three of them to get away. Ethan grabbed his Glock and found his feet, catching Kimberly’s elbow.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Ethan said breathlessly. He and Kimberly rejoined Derek, and together, the three of them started their mad dash down the walkway to the next set of glass doors. Behind them, the men tried to break through the doors, and a surge of adrenaline burst through Ethan. “Kim, the bolt cutters,” he urged. He reached out for the tool and nearly ran right into the glass doors at the end of the walkway. She passed them to him and took up position behind him and Derek, aiming her sidearm down the walkway in case their pursuers broke through.

Ethan jammed the padlock into the cutters, and he and Derek each grasped a handle, pressing them together as hard as they could. The lock snapped easily with both men applying pressure, and Ethan unwound the chain and kicked the doors open. He pushed both of his companions through and then hauled the doors shut once again, winding the chain around their handles, just like he’d done with the other door. He glanced down the walkway as he worked, trying to see if the other men had broken through the first set of doors yet. It was impossible to tell in the near-total darkness on the other side of the glass. Ethan managed to get the doors secured and then nodded to Kimberly.

“Lead the way,” he said. “You know where we’re going better than I do.”

Kimberly gave Ethan a mock salute and led the two men into the dark shopping mall, walking briskly and assuredly into the darkness. “We’ll take the escalators down,” she said. At the thought of escalators, Ethan wrinkled his nose; he vividly remembered one of his last encounters with escalators in a mall, and it had been fairly messy, to say the least. “There are quite a few leading down to the bottom floors. We’ll just work our way down them. We’ve got to move fast. This is no time to drag ass.”

Chapter 35

Brandt slowed the Escalade to a stop and examined the highway before him, narrowing his eyes at the blockage that lay as far as he could see. Gray slept in the passenger seat, and Remy was engrossed in a book on her lap—where she’d gotten the book from, Brandt had no idea. He sighed and reached across the front seats, whacking Gray on the chest just hard enough to wake him up. Gray straightened, rubbing his eyes and squinting in the late-morning sun at the traffic jam and military-established road block in front of them.

“Where are we?” Gray asked, a faint tone of grogginess still in his voice.

“Coming up on the Atlanta city limits,” Brandt answered. He leaned forward in his seat and searched for a gap in the road block through which he could drive the Escalade. Despite conducting a careful search, he couldn’t see anything remotely promising, so he was forced to give up. He flopped back in his seat and turned the engine off. The quiet that followed was oddly heavy. “I hope you’re both ready to do some walking,” Brandt said to break the silence.

Remy breathed out heavily and punched something soft—probably the car’s leather seat—before tossing her book over her shoulder into the back of the vehicle. “I’m so fucking sick of walking,” she complained. “Just drive over it all.”

“You think I can do that and not trash the Escalade?” Brandt asked, even though he knew she hadn’t been serious.

Remy smirked and leaned over the seats to grab her backpack from the back. “I’m just not looking forward to walking through a traffic jam like that again. Not after …” She trailed off and glanced at Gray uncomfortably.

“You know, you don’t have to tiptoe around me and my feelings whenever something to do with Theo comes up,” Gray said. “I’m a big boy. I can handle it.”

Remy cleared her throat and nodded. “Yeah, well … after the last time we waded through a traffic jam like that and lost a member of our team. I’d rather not go through that again.”

“While I agree with you on that, we don’t exactly have much of a choice,” Brandt pointed out. “Not if we’re getting in there, tracking Cade down, and hauling her out. I, for one, have zero plans to turn this car around at this point, and I will go it alone if I have to.”

“Well we’re not going to let you go in alone,” Gray said. A note of determination was evident in his voice. “Isn’t that right, Remy?”

“I was not proposing that anybody go in alone,” Remy snapped. Brandt glanced at her in the rearview mirror and watched as she snatched up her bag, her bolo knife, and her Sig Sauer and slid sideways to the door. “Let’s get our shit and get moving.”

Brandt raised an eyebrow and grabbed his M-4 Carbine, then scrambled for his own door handle. He nearly fell out of the SUV in his haste to get out and moving. “Remy, don’t you dare get out of the fucking car by yourself in unsafe territory,” he admonished as he circled to the back of the vehicle. Gray disembarked from the SUV as he slung the rifle into a tactical carry, opened the vehicle’s back door, and retrieved the last two packs. “It’s a fantastic way to get your ass killed.”

“Yeah, like you care,” Remy muttered. She tried to keep her voice down, but Brandt caught her words regardless. He abandoned his bag and stormed toward her, grabbing her upper arms in a bruising grip and yanking her around to face him.

“Don’t you say that,” Brandt snarled. He leaned close to her face, almost looming over her. Her dark brown eyes widened in surprise. “Don’t you ever fucking say that! You think I’d have risked my life saving your ass in Biloxi if I didn’t fucking care?”

Remy stared at him for a long, silent moment, as if trying to assess how serious he was. When she finally spoke, her voice was hushed and strained. “Brandt, you’re hurting me.”

And with that, the spell was broken. Brandt pushed away from Remy with a nauseating mixture of anger and shame stirring in his stomach. He snatched up his bag and slung it over his shoulder before slamming the door shut. “Let’s go,” he said hoarsely. He didn’t look at them as he made sure he still had all his weapons on his person.

“Where are we going?” Gray asked. “Besides the obvious going-after-Cade part, that is.”

Brandt adjusted his pack securely against his body and began to walk. He didn’t look back to make sure Remy and Gray followed. He had no doubt that they would. “I want to check out the intersection of Central Park Place and Ralph McGill, like I said earlier. If it was Cade that got out there, maybe there’s some sign of her in the area.”

“And if there’s not?” Gray prompted, falling into step beside Brandt. Remy lagged a few steps behind, the expression on her face still hard and distant.

Brandt didn’t want to consider that possibility. “Then we go to the Westin and see what we can find out.”

“Those people want you dead or something,” Remy spoke up. Brandt glanced over his shoulder at her and raised an eyebrow. “How do you know they’ll let you walk out of there alive if you just go up and knock on the door?”

“I don’t know that,” Brandt admitted. He hiked his bag higher onto his shoulder and approached the concrete barricade that spanned the highway. He pulled himself up to look over it, checking for immediate dangers, and then hauled himself on top of it, muscles straining. He sat on it, one leg hooked over the other side. “But for Cade, I’m willing to take the chance.”

“You must really love her,” Remy commented. Brandt caught her hand and helped her onto the barricade. She straddled the top and added, “You know, to be so willing to throw your life away like that.”

“No, I just thought it’d be fun to knock her up and split,” Brandt snapped sarcastically, rolling his eyes. He offered Gray a hand and added, “Of course I love her. And we’ve had this discussion before. I don’t see the point in rehashing it again.”

Gray accepted Brandt’s offer of help, clasping his hand and letting the older, stronger man pull him onto the barricade. Remy made a face at Brandt and twisted sideways, dropping off to the pavement on the Atlanta side almost soundlessly. Gray climbed down to join her, but Brandt stayed on top of the barricade. He lifted a hand to shield his eyes against the brightness of the sun and squinted down the highway, trying to make out what lay far ahead of them.

“What’s on your mind?” Gray called. Brandt tore his eyes away from the horizon and looked down at the man. He slung his own legs over and slid off the barricade to join both of them on the ground level.

“Nothing. Let’s just get moving, okay?” Brandt brushed his pants off reflexively and grasped one of his pack’s straps tightly. “I’m not comfortable standing around here like this. I want to get into the city so we can find shelter before it gets too late. Night isn’t a good time to be out and about in a city like this.”

Chapter 36

Cade and her two newly acquired companions arrived at Isaac’s base in the early afternoon hours. The group he protected—the man refused to claim he was in charge of them, referring to the people as a cooperative—had made their homes in a five-story brick structure that, it turned out, had been an apartment building before the Michaluk virus took over the world. The doors and windows were boarded over on the lower floors, fastened securely shut against the infected that Isaac said frequently attempted to break in; the only way to get into the building was by the fire escape ladder fastened to the side of the building. As Cade climbed the ladder behind Jocelyn, she felt the stitches in her side pull painfully at her skin, and by the time she reached the top and slung her leg over the lip of the building’s roof, she was winded with the ache of her side and the strain of her climb. She sat down on the ledge and clasped a hand to her side, leaning over instinctively as she tried to breathe, even though she knew that position wouldn’t help her lungs open up.

Isaac joined her a moment later. He knelt in front of her on the roof’s graveled surface and touched her arm gently. “Are you okay?” he asked with visible concern. His forehead drew down into a deep frown.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” Cade tried to assure him breathlessly. “I just haven’t … you know, gone through that sort of exertion in over a month. Little bit more difficult hauling up a ladder like that than I expected.”

“Where have you been?” Isaac asked. He stood as Cade sat up straight.

“Bedridden, essentially,” Cade admitted. “Last time I was in Atlanta, I got shot. I’ve been recovering ever since. I was lucky Brandt would ev—”

“Brandt?” Isaac interrupted sharply. “Brandt … Evans?”

“Yeah.”

“You know him?”

Cade sighed. “Why is everyone I’ve come across so fascinated by Brandt? Trust me, nothing about him is that fascinating.”

“I have no idea,” Isaac admitted. “But I do know Alicia seems unnaturally interested in him, which you may or may not have already figured out.”

“Oh, believe me, I know,” Cade replied. She rose from her seat on the ledge and dusted off her pants.

“Care to share what you know?” Isaac asked. He cupped a hand around her elbow to steady her and led her to the rooftop access door through which Jocelyn had already disappeared. “Or is that privileged information?” When Cade hesitated, Isaac added, “It is privileged, isn’t it?”

“No, not necessarily,” Cade answered slowly. She frowned and followed Isaac into the darkness beyond the door. “I just know she wants Brandt, but I don’t know why. And she seemed … unusually interested by the fact that I’m pregnant with his child.” She heard Isaac stop short in the dark hallway as she finished, “I don’t know why she’s interested in that, either. Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” Isaac began walking again, and Cade hurried to catch up, since she had no idea where she was going. “I’m just … I’m a little confused. Alicia wanted Brandt, so she took you?”

“She only took me because Brandt wasn’t there at the time.” She studied his back as best she could in the darkness before adding, “And how do you know about Brandt anyway?”

“I have a brother named Derek,” Isaac explained. “Well, he’s my half-brother, but who counts halves anymore? He’s been with Alicia’s people almost since day one—I’m not sure why he hasn’t left her already—and he’s got a friend in there with him who’s been helping him inform us of Alicia’s every move since she started acting aggressively toward us. Derek’s probably more knowledgeable on the topic of Alicia Day than any of us. Anyway, not long after everything went to shit, he got in touch with me and said Alicia was really interested in this Michael Evans person. Derek hinted he knew why but said it was safer that I not know. He told me that Evans might be going by Brandt instead of Michael now, which is why I was surprised to hear the name. It’s a fairly unusual one.”

A flashlight flickered on beside Cade, and she blinked rapidly as its brightness left spots in her eyes. “Watch your step right here,” Isaac warned, taking her elbow again. “We’re at the stairs.” Cade turned her attention to making it down the staircase without falling as Isaac continued. “I’ve been very highly interested to know what Alicia wants with Brandt Evans. I suppose we’ll find that out this evening.”

“What’s going on this evening?” Cade asked. She gripped the staircase railing and felt sweat trickle down between her shoulder blades at the stuffy, humid air of the stairwell.

“Derek and his friend have escaped from Alicia’s compound at the Westin. They’re bringing along what, to my understanding, is a very important prisoner,” Isaac explained as they reached the next level. “Derek’s choice of words, not mine. One more flight down and we’ll be where we need to go,” he added. “We’ve got some lookouts scattered around the path between here and the Westin, and they picked up the three of them and passed on word that the escape was successful. Derek is bringing all the information he has. Maybe we’ll be able to put it to good use.”

“Any idea who these people are that your brother is bringing with him?” Cade asked.

“I don’t know them personally, no,” Isaac admitted. “Just two people he insists are trustworthy—his assistant and someone else. I’m just going to have to roll with that for now.”

“You know, for someone living in the situation you do, worrying over what Alicia is going to do next, it’s surprising you’re willing to trust so quickly,” Cade commented. She rested a hand against her side as her gunshot wound throbbed.

“Hey, he’s my brother. I trust him as a matter of course,” Isaac protested. He paused at the door on the third-floor landing, knocking and rocking on his heels as he waited for someone to answer. “Besides, if Derek says something’s true, then it tends to be true more often than not.”

“And when it’s not?”

“Then it’s simply because he was mistaken.” Before Isaac said anything else, the landing door was pushed open from the other side by a short man. Isaac didn’t bother to introduce Cade as he beckoned her forward. “Come on. There’s an empty room on this floor, I believe. I can get you some food and water, and there’s a clean place you can sleep. Maybe even a shower.” As she followed him into the hall, Isaac added, “What kind of guns you got?”

“A Beretta and a Glock, plus an FNH shotgun,” she answered. “But I don’t need ammo. I have enough to hold me over for now, and I don’t want to take what you probably can’t spare.”

“You have enough to last you until what?” Isaac asked pointedly. He stopped outside a door labeled 3C and tapped on it with his knuckle before resting his hand on the doorknob. “It’s pretty likely the ammunition will run out eventually. Especially with the way the bastards in the Westin take every fucking thing they get their hands on, the rest of us be damned.” Isaac’s tone was bitter as he pushed the apartment door open. “You can rest in here. I’ll send someone up with some dinner and a couple of bottles of water for you in just a bit. There’s also running water. Took us ages to get it going, and the water only comes in cold, but who’s going to complain about a shower?”

Cade gave Isaac a grateful smile. “Thank you,” she said. She stepped into the apartment’s entryway and faced him. “For, you know, all of this. Taking me in, even if just for a day or two. God knows I can use the rest.”

“You look like it,” Isaac acknowledged. “Get in there and get some sleep, okay? I’ll wake you up when my brother gets here, and then we can all have a powwow, find out what each of us knows, and maybe put it together into something coherent.”

“Sounds good,” Cade agreed. She gave Isaac another smile and retreated into the apartment, shutting the door behind her with a soft click. Once she was alone, she immediately tracked down the bathroom and turned on the camping lantern on the back of the toilet. She propped her shotgun against the wall near the bathtub and leaned into the bath, turning one of the knobs and watching as water spurted and began to spray, weakly at first but then gaining strength and power. She grinned happily and began to offload her weapons onto the counter by the sink.

It took several minutes to remove all the weapons and ammunition and to get her clothes off, and she didn’t spend very long under the water—it was far too cold—but after she washed her hair with shampoo from a bottle already in the shower, she felt a little more human than she had before. Once she’d dried and dressed, she scooped up her Kevlar vest, flannel shirt, and jacket, carried them and her bag and weapons to the bedroom, and dumped it all on the floor beside the bed. Then she collapsed face down onto the bed with a groan and knew no more.

“Cade. Cade.”

A voice intruded on Cade’s heavy sleep, and a hand touched her shoulder, jostling her gently. She moaned and rolled over, burying her face against her forearm in her desire to stay asleep, and swatted at the hand trying to shake her awake. Somewhere in the sleep-fogged haze of her brain, Cade realized it was Isaac trying to wake her. She flopped onto her back and dropped her hand onto her face, rubbing her eyes. Then she forced them open.

A dark figure loomed over her. As she blinked heavily, forcing her eyes to focus, Isaac backed off a couple of steps. “Sorry I had to wake you up. Hated to do it. You looked like you were sleeping so well.”

Cade pushed herself up onto one hand, rubbing her eyes again. She glanced toward the windows and saw that early afternoon had given way to late evening, and the sun was slowly setting, casting the room into shadow. Isaac held out a bottle of water to her, and she accepted it, taking a long swallow before she spoke. “So why did you wake me up? Is something wrong?”

“Oh no. Derek’s here,” Isaac said. “I told you that I’d wake you up when he got here.”

“Mm, yeah, that’s right.” Cade slid off the bed and felt at her tangled hair with a grimace. “I hate to ask, but do you have—”

Isaac held out a small travel bag in offering. “A hairbrush?” he finished. “There’s one in there. Unopened, if you’re worried about that kind of thing. Toothbrush and toothpaste too. Take some time, get yourself together, and meet us in apartment 2E.”

“One floor down?” Cade asked. She unzipped the bag and freed the hairbrush.

“One floor down,” Isaac confirmed. “See you in just a few minutes.”

It didn’t take Cade long to work the tangles from her hair and to brush her teeth and wash her face. She glanced at the Kevlar vest on the floor, debating whether or not she should wear it downstairs. Instead, she simply strapped the Glock to her belt, slipped an extra magazine into her pocket, and shrugged on her flannel shirt before she tucked her bottle of water under her arm and stepped into the hall. She made her way down the dark hallway and descended the stairs to the second floor.

The door to apartment 2E was propped open with a chair, seemingly inviting her in. Cade heard the low murmur of voices inside and hesitated. She wasn’t sure if she should interrupt, but Isaac had told her to come down here. She drew in a slow breath and shook off the odd hesitance she felt, a sensation unusual to her. She sidestepped the chair and entered the apartment.

As Cade entered the living room, the voices inside the apartment ceased. Isaac rose from the chair across from the couch. “Cade,” he greeted her with a smile. He motioned to the three people in the apartment with him. Cade’s blue eyes skimmed over a blond woman sitting on the windowsill as Isaac introduced her, lighting onto the older black man on one end of the couch—Isaac’s half-brother Derek, presumably—before settling onto the blond man at the other end. The man lifted his head to look at her. As their eyes met, the bottle of water Cade held slipped from her hand and thudded to the floor.

“Ethan?” Cade whispered. Shock invaded her body, flooding her limbs. She took a hesitant step forward. He rose slowly from the couch, extending a hand to her.

“Cade,” Ethan breathed in relief. He caught her hand in his own and pulled her close. Cade gasped and threw her arms around him, burying her face against his shoulder as he looped his own arms around her. They both stood like that, clinging to each other, Cade’s fingers digging into his shirt as she sobbed with relief into his shoulder. She clung to him, and she could only manage to dredge up one thing to say in her shock.

“Oh my God, you’re alive!”

Chapter 37

The intersection of Central Park Place and Ralph McGill Boulevard wasn’t what Brandt had expected, he realized as he took in the sight of the evening-lit street before him. He’d guessed they would see car wrecks, debris, and maybe even signs of infected, sure. He hadn’t realized they’d face a veritable pile-up of vehicles in the street, creating a potentially impassable wall in places. Brandt gripped his M-4 Carbine tighter and eyed the dark spaces around and under the vehicles, trying to see if any infected hid there. He didn’t see anything, so he slid his brown eyes to Remy and Gray, who stood close by.

“What do you think?” Brandt asked, even as a movement in the corner of his eye snagged his attention. He jerked his head around, ready to lift his rifle, but it was only a piece of paper pushed around by the breeze. He took a deep breath and tried to steady his racing heart, even as he shook his head ruefully; it was the second time in the past three days he’d been startled by a piece of paper of all things.

“I think I really don’t like this,” Remy admitted. Her eyes narrowed as she, too, examined their surroundings. She already had her bolo knife in her right hand, its tip pointed at the pavement.

“Me either,” Gray added. “It’s too quiet. Like the last time we came into Atlanta. That shit gave me the willies then, and it’s giving me double that this time.”

Remy smirked. “The willies?” she repeated, biting back a laugh. “Really, Gray?”

Gray gave the woman a sidelong look of annoyance. “Yes, the willies,” he said emphatically.

“My mamère would say this place gives me the fremeers.”

“Mamère? Fremeers?” Gray repeated.

“Oh, I forgot, you’re from Bumfuck, Mississippi,” Remy retorted, much to both Brandt and Gray’s amusement. “My grandmother. She still used all sorts of Cajun slang, right up to her death. I always liked some of it. Fremeers is basically when something makes you feel grossed—”

“Can we save the family stories for some other time?” Brandt interrupted. “I don’t think this is the time or place for a discussion on regional slang.”

Remy smirked at him. “So, fearless leader, what do you propose we do?”

“I propose we look for any sign that Cade has been here,” Brandt said. He took a step toward the jumbled mess of cars. “She might be somewhere out here, and she could be hurt. We have to act as if she is until we know otherwise.”

Remy gave Brandt a mock salute and split off from the two men, heading toward the right into the maze of cars. Brandt followed, cutting left, as Gray took the area around the center of the highway. Brandt focused on the cars before him, searching inside and under them one by one, hoping Cade had taken refuge inside one of them.

Brandt was so focused on his methodical search that he almost missed the sound of a nearby struggle. He’d leaned partially into a vehicle—a bad position to be in, really, but he’d spotted a knife inside and had wanted to get his hands on it—and nearly struck his head on the doorframe as Gray’s voice met his ears. Gray’s tone was hard and belligerent, not unlike the tone he used to take with Ethan. But this time, it had something more underneath it, a harder layer of anger more serious than anything he’d thrown at their deceased friend.

“Let go of her, you stupid bastard!” Gray shouted. Brandt heard the sound of a fist striking flesh, and Remy yelped in alarm. Brandt ducked lower, shielding himself behind the car, and taking a knee to get a glimpse of what was going on through the car’s dirty windows.

Brandt could just make out Gray as the younger man was grabbed by the back of his shirt and hauled off of a Hispanic man Brandt had never seen before; though Brandt couldn’t see Gray’s assailant, he had a clear look at the Hispanic man in question, who had his hands wrapped around Remy’s upper arms. Brandt gritted his teeth and clenched his fists as a surge of anger rushed through him at the sight of the infuriated yet helpless look on Remy’s face as she struggled to break free from the man’s clutches.

Remy growled wordlessly and thrashed in the man’s grip so violently she lifted herself off the ground. She braced her boots against a nearby car and pushed back hard, trying to throw the man off balance. He laughed, and another man came into view, his jet-black hair shining in the failing sunlight as he grabbed Remy’s legs. The two men swung her around and slammed her down onto the trunk of a car.

“We’ve got a fucking wildcat, guys!” the Hispanic man called over the steady stream of profanity coming from Gray’s mouth. Fist met flesh again, and Gray’s swearing ceased. “Alicia’s going to have a blast interrogating this one!”

At the mention of Alicia’s name, Brandt’s anger flared to a crescendo. But he remained still, gripping the car’s door handle with one hand; the other started to ease the barrel of his M-4 over the edge of the car. He had to stay calm. He had to bide his time, had to collect whatever information might be useful, and then had to get them out of there. And he’d have to do it with his mind steady and focused. There was no room for mistakes.

Remy lashed out with a foot and caught the black-haired man across the head with her boot. The man fell to the pavement, dazed. Remy lunged forward, trying to break free from her captors. The Hispanic man grabbed her by the shoulders and slung her to her knees on the pavement before striking her across the face with the back of his hand. Remy fell forward onto her hands with a groan of pain.

That was enough for Brandt. He couldn’t take any more.

Brandt lifted his rife and, in one smooth movement, rose from his hiding place and aimed it directly at the Hispanic man’s head. “Let them go,” he ordered, his voice steely. As the man turned to face him, Brandt adjusted his aim to point the barrel between the man’s eyes.

“I told you there was another one around here!” the man pinning Gray down barked out. “I told you I saw him!”

“I get the point, Craig!” the Hispanic man snapped. He put his own foot against Remy’s back, pushing her down on the ground, and then lifted his own gun to point it at Brandt in return. “And if I don’t let them go?” he asked, addressing Brandt. “What are you going to do?”

“Pull the fucking trigger.” A slight smirk tweaked at the corner of Brandt’s mouth. “And I don’t miss.”

“Yeah? What a coincidence, because neither do I,” the man replied.

A cool, round metal object pressed against the back of Brandt’s neck, right at the base of his skull. Brandt stiffened as he realized what it was. The object nudged firmly at his skin, and a woman’s voice, cold and hard, spoke up behind him.

“Put the rifle down.”

Brandt sucked in a slow breath and hesitated, his palms sweating against the rifle. He raised his eyes, and they met Remy’s. The young woman, pinned as she was against the pavement, looked infuriated, but Brandt could see the uncertainty and fear in her gaze. It churned up a sick feeling in his gut. He shifted his eyes to Gray, but the other man’s face was mashed into the pavement by the man who practically stood on his back, so Brandt couldn’t glimpse his expression and assess his feelings on the situation. He was sure they weren’t very good ones.

Brandt hesitated and glanced at Remy once more. Then he slowly lowered the M-4, letting it hang loosely in his hand. The woman behind him snatched the weapon from his grasp and slammed it onto the trunk of a car. She dislodged the Beretta from the holster at his hip and tossed it down to join the rifle before shoving at the back of his head with her own gun again.

“Move it,” she barked. “Now.” Brandt scowled and started forward to join Remy and Gray. “On your knees,” the woman ordered. Brandt sank to obey, gritting his teeth and looking to Remy again as she was dragged up to her own knees. As the woman behind him searched his belt for more weapons, removing whatever she found, Brandt’s mind scrambled to come up with a plan to get them out of the trouble in which they’d landed.

As the man on Gray’s back hauled him onto his knees, the woman circled around Brandt, and he finally got a look at his assailant. He took in her red hair and pale skin, and his eyes narrowed. “You,” he breathed, anger flooding into him again.

Alicia Day narrowed her eyes back at him and pointed her weapon at his head once more. “Hands on your head,” she said. Brandt grimaced and, seeing no alternative, obeyed. Alicia paced in front of him, her combat boots thumping the pavement; then she stopped and crossed her arms, pistol dangling from her fingers. Her posture was infuriatingly casual, and Brandt clenched his teeth in a vain attempt to suppress his anger. “Do you have any idea how fucking hard it is to find you?” she asked, almost snarling the words.

“Obviously not hard enough,” Brandt retorted. “Where is Cade?”

“I would think Cade Alton should be the least of your worries right now,” Alicia said.

Brandt gave her his best shit-eating grin. “She kicked your ass, didn’t she?” he asked knowingly.

“I hardly think that’s relevant.”

Brandt nearly laughed, but for the sake of Remy and Gray’s safety, he bit it back. “That means she did,” he said. “And judging by the size of the bruise on your face, she kicked your ass good.” Before Alicia could respond, Brandt shifted gears, hoping to throw her off track. “So what do you want with me? What’s so fucking important that you feel the need to antagonize my friends, threaten their lives, and kidnap Cade?”

Alicia ignored his question and looked to Remy, raising an eyebrow. Remy, for her part, shot Alicia the dirtiest look Brandt had ever seen on a person’s face. He was, admittedly, rather proud. “I thought we killed you.”

“Yeah, well, I’m like a fucking cat,” Remy snapped. “Nine lives, and I’m still on my first one.”

“More like a cockroach,” Alicia replied. “Disease-ridden and impossible to kill.”

The sound of a scuffle met Brandt’s ears. His eyes flickered from Alicia long enough to look past her. Gray had lunged toward Alicia at her words, and the man who’d guarded him dropped his gun as he grabbed Gray’s biceps and hauled backward, wrenching his arms back. The Hispanic man behind Remy swung his pistol around to point it at Gray, but Gray only had eyes for Alicia.

“You bitch!” Gray snarled. His voice was a harsh, angry growl. “Don’t you fucking dare talk about her like that!”

“I’ll talk about her however I damn well please,” Alicia said sharply. “And if I hear another word out of you, I’ll cut your fucking tongue out myself.”

Brandt’s eyes slid to Remy. She stared back at him. All four of their captors had their eyes on Gray, who, despite Alicia’s threat, was still calling the woman every unpleasant name he could think of and some Brandt had never even heard before. It was the perfect opening, Brandt realized. With Alicia’s attention diverted elsewhere, he could easily go for his KA-BAR knife, left forgotten in its sheath on his boot. He could try to take care of the redheaded problem standing with her back half-turned to him once and for all.

Knife at a gunfight. This wasn’t going to turn out well.

Remy’s eyes darted from Brandt’s to her breasts and then back, as if she were trying to tell him something. Brandt frowned. He didn’t think it was a great time to stare at Remy’s chest; he was sure under normal circumstances, he’d end up in severe pain if he were caught doing so. He scanned their captors again and tried to work Remy’s cryptic message out in his head. A flash of memory flipped through his mind. A slow smirk spread across his face, and he gave Remy a barely perceptible nod.

Brandt began easing his hand off his head, inching it toward the knife strapped to the outside of his boot. He sent up a silent prayer of thanks that he’d habitually kept it on his boot during the past year; it was much easier for Alicia and her people to overlook, as they had in this case.

Before Brandt moved his hand far enough to get the knife, however, Gray wrenched free of Craig’s grasp. The younger man lurched forward and snatched up Craig’s fallen pistol from the pavement. He brought it to bear, pointing it at the woman standing between him and Brandt.

“Gray, no!” Brandt shouted. He dropped his hands from his head and snatched at his knife.

He wasn’t fast enough.

A burst of gunfire erupted, both from Gray’s newly acquired gun and from Alicia’s.

Gray’s shot missed.

Alicia’s didn’t.

Gray was thrown onto his back by the force of the bullet that slammed into his torso.

“No!” Brandt cried again. He flipped the knife in his hand and lunged to his feet. He flung the weapon in Alicia’s direction as a desperate bid for distraction as he ran. The woman danced to the side to evade the blade. As she did so, Brandt tackled Remy, knocked her roughly to the pavement, and shoved his hand up her shirt. His fingers found the grip of the Ruger she’d stashed in her bra, and he ripped it free.

Still lying on top of Remy, shielding her with his body, Brandt lifted the gun. He squeezed off three shots in rapid succession. Two shots struck their marks; two of the men fell to the ground with bullet holes in their foreheads. The third round hit the Hispanic man’s shoulder, spinning him around and sending him staggering.

Brandt didn’t wait to see if the man was down. He swung the Ruger in Alicia’s direction, aimed it, and squeezed the trigger. The gun clicked. He swore and slammed the weapon to the pavement before hauling himself to his feet. He started after the woman, intent on killing her with his bare hands if he had to.

At the infuriated expression on Brandt’s face, Alicia turned on her heel and ran into the jumble of cars, disappearing from his sight.

“Brandt! Look out!” Remy shouted as Brandt took a step after Alicia.

Before Brandt could turn, an arm hooked around his neck and dragged him backward with almost throat-crushing force. A knife slammed into his left shoulder, its blade biting deeply into the muscle. Brandt grunted and slammed his right elbow back. It struck a skull, and as his attacker staggered back, Brandt ripped the knife free from his shoulder and spun. He lashed out with it, swinging his arm with all his strength and embedding the knife into the man’s chest. He heard the crunch of bone with the force of the impact. The man let out a shocked gasp and stumbled back. Brandt didn’t let him go far. He jerked the knife free from the man’s chest, pulled him close, and spun him around. Then, with a vicious swipe of his wrist, he tore the man’s throat out with the blade. Blood poured out across his hands. Brandt let the man go, and he fell to the pavement with a sickening gurgle.

Brandt didn’t wait to watch the man die. He glanced once more in the direction Alicia had run, but he abandoned any thought of pursuit as Remy called out his name.

“Brandt, help,” she said weakly. She knelt beside Gray, her hands pressed hard against his torso just below the right side of his ribcage. Blood leaked steadily between her fingers and stained her hands. Even as Brandt watched, Gray reached up with a shaky, bloody hand and brushed his fingers against Remy’s cheek, leaving a streak of blood on her skin. His hand dropped limply back to the pavement.

“Jesus,” Brandt whispered. He raced forward, slid to his knees on the pavement opposite her, and frantically examined Gray for further injuries. Gray’s eyes met his. They were wide, fearful, and full of pain. His skin was an ashen gray and damp with sweat. Brandt shoved Remy’s hands aside and pressed his own hands to the wound, applying the necessary pressure.

“How bad is it?” Remy asked, her voice trembling violently. “How bad?”

“I don’t know,” Brandt admitted. He hated how his own voice sounded: just as scared and uncertain as Remy’s. “I’m not a doctor. I can’t … There’s no way for me to be able to tell.”

Remy looked at Brandt, and her dark eyes widened. “Brandt, you’re bleeding,” she said softly. Brandt glanced at his shoulder. The adrenaline pumping through his veins had prevented him from feeling much of the pain, but blood spilled from the knife wound in his shoulder. Brandt shook his head and searched the shadows of the street as he slid his injured arm underneath Gray’s shoulders.

“Help me, Remy,” Brandt ordered. “Get their guns and any ammo they’ve got on them. Grab our weapons too. Quickly. We’re going to need them.”

Remy scrambled to obey. “Where are we going?” she asked breathlessly, collecting the weapons from the pavement.

“Out of here,” Brandt replied. He lifted Gray into his arms and then draped him over his left shoulder as gently as he could. He bit down on his lip as the man’s body pressed against the fresh stab wound, but there was nothing he could do about it; he needed his good arm free in case he had to use a firearm. “We need to get Gray to a safe place. I don’t know what I can do for him, but we’ve got to figure out something.” He held his hand out impatiently, and Remy slid his rifle onto his shoulder before she pressed one of the guns she’d recovered into his hand. Brandt glanced down and discovered it was, in fact, his own sidearm that Alicia had taken from him on her attack. He closed his hand around the weapon’s grip and nodded to her. “You’re on point. Just go where I tell you to.”

A noise echoed down the street behind him. It took Brandt only seconds to recognize the sound, and he sucked in a sharp breath.

“And we’ve got to hurry. The infected are coming,” he added.

Chapter 38

Alicia was infuriated. She was conscious of this fact, even as she fled the scene, knowing full well that the gunshots would bring the infected right to them. She knew how the infected worked. She understood the infected. It was one of the few constants in her life. Their predictability was what had helped her survive thus far; their predictability was almost comforting.

Alicia did not appreciate the wrench Michael Brandt Evans was insistent on throwing into the smoothly running gears of her life. She snarled as she climbed over a cherry-red Camaro with a smashed windshield and dented driver’s-side door panel, gripping a windshield wiper to help her up and over.

“Why can’t you just fucking cooperate?” she asked aloud. She wasn’t sure whether she was talking to herself or to Evans. But did it really matter? It was all going to shit, regardless of how hard she fought, how noble she believed her cause. It didn’t matter who was or wasn’t cooperative; they’d all be dead by the time someone decided the people left in Atlanta were worth helping.

Alicia’s lungs burned as she slowed to a stop nearly five blocks from her starting point. She turned, shading her eyes against the sun, and squinted into the distance. Evans had shot almost all her men, but he’d run out of ammunition before he got to her. And he hadn’t hit Cortez in a vital place. There was a chance … maybe …

Alicia checked her Beretta, counting the bullets she had left and verifying that the magazines she’d clipped to her belt were, in fact, still there. Satisfied that she was well enough armed for a quick trip back to the location of the fight, Alicia set out, more slowly and cautiously than she’d made her initial flight. Her weapon still in hand, she scanned her surroundings constantly as she moved. She didn’t relish the idea of being surprised by an infected person due to lack of attention. She wasn’t certain they’d actually kill her, but she didn’t want to take that chance.

It took Alicia nearly fifteen minutes to take a long, circuitous route back to the scene. By the time she’d arrived, Alicia had successfully evaded no less than fifteen infected drawn to the area by the sound of Evans’s gunshots. When she reached the scene herself, though, Alicia discovered she was far too late to save Cortez.

Cortez lay on his back, staring at the sky with empty, dead eyes that had already begun to cloud into their death haze. His throat gaped at her like a wide smile. His fingertips clawed at the pavement, shredding the skin and nails, leaving small bloodied streaks on the stone as he struggled to drag himself up. His skin was ashen, mottled, and splotchy with blood that no longer flowed through his veins.

Alicia’s eyes flickered to the other bodies nearby. None of them moved. They were far beyond resurrection, far beyond potential reanimation, well into their final deaths. That was a relief. She wouldn’t have wished this on anyone she knew. Assured that she wouldn’t be attacked by any of her former companions, Alicia took a step closer to the being that had formerly been Cortez, scanning the body for further injuries.

Her eyes narrowed.

Brandt had gotten careless. He’d killed Cortez, but in the process, he hadn’t ensured that the man’s spinal cord was completely severed. Cortez was like her and Ethan and the other thirty people at the Westin who fought the Michaluk virus living in their bodies. If any one of them died, then they would have to be put down, taking a bullet straight to the brainpan in order to prevent them from attacking others. Brandt should have known this. Brandt should have assumed that everyone with whom he crossed paths was infected, just like her. Just like Ethan.

Just like himself.

Cortez focused on her with his cold, empty, hungry stare. He bared his bloodstained teeth at her. His fingers skittered across the pavement and grasped at the ankle of her boot.

Alicia aimed her Beretta and squeezed the trigger.

Chapter 39

It hadn’t taken Brandt and Remy long to track down a reasonably safe location to take Gray. Remy had spotted it first, a fire-escape staircase leading to a window several floors above their heads, and once she’d pointed it out to him, Brandt led the charge up the staircase, Gray still slung over his shoulder. He’d nearly busted the window out in his haste to get it open and carried Gray inside, Remy right on his heels. As Brandt aimed his Beretta into the dim room, his eyes struggling to adjust to the lack of light, Gray groaned faintly. Brandt squeezed the younger man’s leg and gripped him tighter as Remy murmured beside him.

“Just hang on, Gray. We’re almost there.”

Brandt clicked his tongue against his teeth to get Remy’s attention and rocked his head to the side. Remy glanced in that direction and gave him a questioning look. “What is it?”

“I’m going to put Gray on that couch,” Brandt replied. He shifted the man against his shoulder and sucked in a sharp breath as another jolt of pain ran through his wound. “It’s getting to be too much to hold him like this. Fucking shoulder hurts.”

“What do you need me to do?” Remy asked.

“Check over the rest of the place and make sure we’re clear,” Brandt answered. He crossed the room and hooked his arm around Gray’s knees, flipping the man off his shoulder and lowering him to the cracked leather couch as gently as he could. Despite his efforts, Gray groaned as he was settled onto the cushions. “I’ll be right here if you need me,” Brandt added. He cleaned his hands of Cortez’s blood and pushed Gray’s jacket aside, lifting the younger man’s shirt away from the wound. As he heard Remy retreat to search the apartment, he sucked in a shocked breath.

The wound in Gray’s abdomen was perfectly round, an ordinary gunshot wound, just like others Brandt had seen during his military career. Just like the one he’d seen in Cade’s side the month before. But something about the wound before him now was just … wrong. Odd red streaks radiated out from the bullet wound into the uninjured tissue surrounding it, sprawling out into the rest of Gray’s body, as if the wound were …

“Oh fuck,” Brandt gasped. He jerked away from Gray, tumbling from his kneeling position to the floor and scrambling backward. His heart raced in his chest, and he slid up to one knee, crouching, watching the man on the couch for any sign of unusual alertness. The pain in his shoulder hammered insistently at his brain, demanding his attention. Brandt pushed it aside yet again and edged closer to Gray.

“Looks like we’re in the clear,” Remy announced as she came back into the living room. She stopped short and glanced between Gray and Brandt. “What’s wrong?”

“He’s … I think he might be …” Brandt tried. His voice caught, and he fought to swallow past the sudden dryness in his mouth. “Med bag,” he demanded. “I need it.” Remy hesitated, and Brandt added in a hard voice, “Now, Remy.” She took two quick steps forward and took the bag off her shoulder, passing it to him. He tore into it, pulling out fresh gauze pads and rolls of medical tape.

“Do you need help?” Remy offered cautiously.

Brandt put a hand out to stop her. “No, don’t come closer,” he barked. “Just … stay there. I’ve got it.” He ignored the frustrated expression on Remy’s face and slapped the gauze pad roughly onto Gray’s wound, covering the ugly red streaks. Their very presence scared the hell out of him.

“What is going on?” Remy demanded. Her voice trembled; Brandt recognized the fear in her tone, and he was forced to acknowledge the terror coursing through his own veins as he taped down the gauze. He tried to come up with a gentle, easy way to tell his companion the suspicions rattling around in his brain. There wasn’t one.

“He’s infected,” Brandt blurted out. “At least, I think he is. His wound …”

“Don’t you say that,” Remy said. Her voice was oddly muffled, and Brandt looked at her. She had a fist pressed to her mouth, her knuckles digging into the soft flesh. “Don’t you fucking even suggest it!”

Brandt rose to his feet and backed away from the young man on the couch. Gray’s face had taken on a ghastly pallor, his forehead and cheeks shining with sweat. “Even if he isn’t infected—and I might be wrong about that—I think the gunshot’s going to kill him.”

“Oh God,” Remy choked out. “You’ve got to do something. Please.”

“What am I supposed to do?” Brandt asked. “Listen to him.” He fell quiet, making Remy listen to the harsh, pained breathing struggling up from Gray’s lungs. “The bullet could be a gut shot, or it could have punctured a lung. There’s no telling what kind of damage it did. It wasn’t like the one that hit Cade last month. I don’t have the knowledge or supplies to deal with a wound like this. There’s no way. There’s just no fucking way.”

“He’s not dying!” Remy protested. She started toward Gray, and Brandt darted forward to pull her back. “Do something!” she yelled, struggling against Brandt’s tight grip. “Do something! Don’t just fucking stand there!”

“Remy, please, for the love of God, shut up,” Brandt ordered. He struggled to not throttle the woman, no matter how badly he felt she deserved it. “There is nothing we can do! Not now. The best I can do is put a fucking bullet in his head, and I’m not going to do that!” He slung the woman toward the recliner across the room, and she staggered into it, falling backward into its soft cushions. The action wrenched Brandt’s shoulders, and the stab wound released a fresh wave of blood and pain that nearly knocked him to his knees. “Don’t fucking move from that chair,” he ordered breathlessly, sinking onto the wooden coffee table. Thankfully, he had the presence of mind to position himself so both Remy and Gray were in sight. He dug back into the medical bag again as he added, “I’ll fucking kick your ass if you even so much as think about it.”

The room was silent after Brandt’s orders, save for Gray’s harsh breathing and Remy’s barely muffled tears. Brandt didn’t look at the woman as he unloaded his bag from his already bandaged shoulder and shrugged off his jacket. He shuffled out of his shirt and set it carelessly beside him. He worked quickly, his fingers clumsy as his hands shook from a combination of fear and adrenaline, taping a gauze pad over the wound and winding the rolled gauze around his shoulder as best he could to help immobilize it. The bandaging was messy, but he’d done far worse jobs in the past, he acknowledged as he twisted around a bit to make sure the wound was well covered.

Remy watched Brandt’s every move during all this, her dark eyes flickering over his torso and chest, likely taking in the many scars already decorating his skin. “What happened there?” she asked, motioning to a faint, oddly patterned trail of scars running along the right side of his ribcage. Brandt glanced at it before picking up his bloodstained t-shirt. He frowned at it and tossed it aside, opting instead to search for a fresh one in his bag.

“I was fourteen and at my grandfather’s place in north Georgia one summer,” Brandt explained tiredly. He understood what Remy was doing; she was trying to distract herself from the impending grief Gray’s death would bring. He gladly played into it. “Olivia and I were horsing around when we should’ve been helping repair the horse-pasture fences that had gotten messed up in a storm the night before. I was running and tripped. Fell right into a barbed-wire fence. It tore me up pretty bad.”

“That sounds painful,” Remy murmured. Her voice still shook with her grief. Brandt pointedly chose to ignore it and eased the clean shirt he’d found over his head.

“Believe me, it was,” Brandt admitted. He shifted his t-shirt to rest more comfortably against his shoulders and glanced at Gray. “He looks bad,” he commented. “Do me a favor and get me the thermometer. It’s still in my bag.” As Remy retrieved the requested item from Brandt’s bag, Brandt edged closer to Gray and gently pressed his fingers to the man’s sweaty ashen forehead. Just as quickly, he pulled them back, wiping them against the thigh of his jeans. “Never mind, Remy. It won’t tell me anything I don’t already know.”

“Which is?” Remy prompted. She abandoned the bag and moved closer, though Brandt was glad to see that she still kept her distance. He didn’t want to have to throw her across the room again.

“He’s burning the fuck up,” Brandt answered. “Very high fever.” He took his flashlight out and gently lifted the man’s eyelids, shining the light into them and flicking it away. “Pupils are fixed too.”

“So does this mean …” Remy trailed off. Her eyes darted to Brandt’s face as he shifted his own eyes to meet hers.

“He’s definitely infected, Remy,” Brandt confirmed softly. “He’s got Michaluk.”

“Are you sure?”

“Pretty damn positive,” Brandt said. “I’ve seen it too many fucking times to not be sure.”

“But … but how?” Remy asked. “How could he have gotten Michaluk? He hasn’t even been in contact with any infected today!”

“But he’s been in contact with me,” Brandt said, his voice strained.

Remy’s head jerked up, and her eyes were wide, almost terrified. “What do you mean?”

“I think he’s been in contact with my blood,” Brandt said. “He’s been … I put him over my shoulder. The one I was stabbed in. I didn’t think … I didn’t know … I just needed my right arm free in case I needed my gun. I didn’t …” He trailed off and shook his head, at a loss for anything further to say.

“I don’t understand,” Remy said in a near whisper.

“I don’t either,” Brandt said. He sat heavily on the table again and buried his face in his hands. “What if I’m wrong? What if Alicia’s telling the truth and I wasn’t in the control group?” he asked out loud. “What if I’m fucking contagious?”

“I don’t know, Brandt,” Remy said. “I think we have a more immediate problem. Like what are we going to do about Gray?”

Brandt shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“Well, we can’t just leave him like this!”

“I know.”

Remy bit her lip and looked away from Brandt with tears in her eyes. She studied the wall behind him, visibly trying to regain control of her emotions, clearly struggling with the task. Brandt pressed his own lips together and looked to Gray’s unconscious form sprawled out on the couch.

Gray’s eyes snapped open.

“Jesus!” Brandt gasped before he could stop himself. He grabbed Remy’s wrist and yanked her away from the couch as he fumbled at his holster for his sidearm. Remy let out a squeak of surprise and stumbled with the motion, whirling around to face the potential threat even as Brandt shoved her behind him. He ripped the Beretta from its holster and aimed it in Gray’s direction. He clutched it with both hands as the younger man slowly sat up, his eyes unblinking and his fingernails digging into the leather of the couch.

“Oh dear God,” Remy whispered behind him. Brandt didn’t look at her. He couldn’t. There was danger in front of them, danger wearing his friend’s body like a fucking suit. He had to stop Gray, had to shut him down before he hurt them or someone else. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Not in front of Remy.

Gray’s every movement was slow and deliberate, surprisingly coordinated for someone only just now dead, for someone in whom the Michaluk virus had only just truly begun to establish itself. He turned sideways, his feet finding the floor, and eased up to them. He took a slow, shaky step toward Brandt and Remy, resembling a newborn deer as it learned to walk, a fresh wave of blood leaking from his gunshot wound. Brandt pushed Remy farther back with his body as he took a matching step backward. Remy’s fingers gripped his bicep painfully. He sucked in a breath and adjusted his aim, pointing his Beretta at Gray’s forehead.

“Oh fucking hell, Brandt. Do something,” Remy whispered. Brandt tried to tune her out. He couldn’t stand the sound of her voice, not with what was in front of him.

“Remy, get out of here,” Brandt ordered, his voice low. He watched his former friend try to navigate around the coffee table, nearly falling over it. He swallowed hard. “Go back onto the fire escape. I’ll be out there in a minute. We’ve got to be ready to get out of here fast, because the sound’s going to draw more of them to us.”

Remy started forward to grab her bag, but Brandt shook his head and pushed her toward the window through which they’d entered the apartment. “Now. I’ll get the bags,” he said. Remy looked at him. Gray was almost around the coffee table. Brandt hoped the woman wasn’t going to argue with him; they didn’t have time for that right now. Thankfully, Remy didn’t seem inclined to argue. She gave him a short nod and slipped past him, walking briskly to the exit and sliding out to the metal staircase beyond.

Brandt hoped like hell she wasn’t going to watch what he was about to do.

The Marine lifted the Beretta a little higher, adjusting his aim to compensate for the distance Gray had covered, his heart racing. Gray made an odd face, baring his teeth and putting his hands out as if he sensed that prey was near, as if he were ready to grab Brandt and tear him apart. Brandt took in a deep breath and squeezed the trigger.

The bullet entered Gray’s forehead just above his left eye, leaving a neat circular hole. The man didn’t register any reaction with the impact of the bullet or when it blew out the back of his skull with a spray of blood and bone and brain matter. The bullet buried itself in the wall. Gray fell heavily to the floor.

Brandt stood like that, his weapon still raised, his body motionless, for several long heart-pounding moments. His breath felt rough in his throat. Once he was absolutely certain Gray’s body was no longer moving, Brandt lowered the gun and switched the safety back on, slowly sliding the weapon back into the holster. His fingers felt numb as he gathered their bags, settling them over his aching shoulders. He stepped toward the fire escape, but as he looked back at Gray’s body, he spotted the rosary the man had carried for the past year dangling from his front pocket. He snatched it and then retreated to the fire escape.

Remy waited for him there, her face shining with spilled tears as he ducked out the window. Brandt reflexively wrapped his arms around her, hugging her tightly, resting his chin against the top of her head as tears pricked at his own eyes.

It was just the two of them now. Despite Remy’s presence, Brandt had never felt so alone.

Chapter 40

Ethan hadn’t felt this happy in a very long time.

After Isaac had been reunited with his brother, he’d informed them that there was one more person he needed to get for the meeting before the discussion began. Never in his wildest dreams had Ethan expected Cade Alton to walk into the small apartment. He was sure Derek, Kimberly, and Isaac hadn’t expected him to dart out of his seat from the couch like he had.

And now he stood there, his best friend in his arms, holding her tightly with his face buried in her hair as she cried against his shoulder.

“Well, that’s one round of introductions we don’t need to make,” Kimberly said wryly. Ethan ignored her in favor of focusing on Cade, taking her face in his hands.

“How are you?” he asked softly. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

“I’m okay, Ethan. I promise,” she said. “My side got really infected for a while there, but Brandt and the others took good care of me, and now I’m as good as new.” She looked him over, her eyes lingering on the bandage that peeked over the collar of his jacket, and frowned. “I think right now, I’m more concerned about you.”

“I’m okay,” Ethan tried to say. “I’m … it’s a long story. Part of what we’re here to talk about, anyway.”

“Ethan, show her,” Derek spoke up from the other side of the room. “It’s probably the best way to get started on a discussion about all this mess.”

Ethan hesitated, the smile he’d worn almost constantly since Cade walked in falling away. He glanced at the doctor uncertainly before shifting his gaze to Cade. Her blue eyes were wide in confusion. He sighed heavily and stepped back from her, shifting his jacket off his shoulders. Kimberly stood and started forward as if to help him, and Ethan put a hand up to stop her. “No. I can do it,” he said, his voice strangled. She backed off, and he focused on unbuttoning the shirt he wore on top of his t-shirt, unfastening the cuffs to make it easier to slide the shirt off over his bandages. He made short work of the t-shirt and then stood there shirtless, his bandaged wounds on display for all to see.

“Oh God. What happened?” Cade asked. She took his arms in her cool hands and looked at the wrappings of gauze around them. Her eyes flickered over his shoulders and sides before she turned him around to look at his back. His cheeks flushed red, but with what emotion, he wasn’t sure.

“It was …” He trailed off as his voice choked, and he cleared his throat before continuing. “It was the infected. Last month. When I stayed back.”

“Oh my God,” Cade breathed. Ethan could see the shock and horror in her eyes. He hated that he was the one who put those feelings there.

“They … well, I don’t think you need to know the details, but it wasn’t pretty,” Ethan said. He skimmed his eyes over everyone in the room, one by one, hoping the ones he didn’t know wouldn’t draw their weapons on him, before finally saying to Cade, “I’m … I’m infected. With the Michaluk virus.”

Isaac looked up sharply. His brown eyes scanned Ethan’s body from head to toe. “How long?”

“A month, give or take,” Ethan answered. “The infection was passed on to me the same day we came into Atlanta.”

“But how are you still here?” Cade asked incredulously. He could hear in her voice the same shock and incomprehension that had plagued him in the days after the news had been broken to him. “How are you not like the infected outside?”

“Now that, I think I can answer,” Derek spoke up, drawing every eye in the room to him. All except for Cade’s. She kept her eyes locked onto Ethan, watching him closely. For what, Ethan wasn’t sure. Derek stood and paced across the room as he organized his thoughts. Ethan caught Cade’s wrist and tugged her to the couch, sitting down and making her settle beside him as the doctor continued.

“I first met Michael—that’s Brandt to you—in late November of 2008,” Derek began. “It wasn’t long after his parents died and left him and his younger sister Olivia in pretty dire straits financially. Olivia was in college, and Michael had gotten back to the States on bereavement only a few weeks before. He was desperate for money. The funerals had been expensive, his parents didn’t have life insurance, and he was neck deep in bills. On top of that, his sister wanted to drop out of college because she felt that funding her education was too much of a burden. Michael was determined that he’d see her done with school, so he accepted a $150,000 payment and signed on to the project in the first week of December.

“The test subjects were divided into three groups: A, B, and C. Michael was in group C. Alicia Day was in group B. Each group was tested with a different variant of the lab-altered pathogen we’d created. Group A was the control group, so they were given placebos. Out of all thirty test subjects—and yes, that includes group A—we only had two promising candidates: Michael and Alicia.”

“But what was the pathogen supposed to do?” Cade asked in mild exasperation.

“Do you remember what Remy suggested last month when we were on our way here?” Ethan asked. He glanced at the dark-haired woman beside him. Remy’s name nearly caught in his throat as he spoke it. Cade noticed, and her hand found his and squeezed it gently.

“You mean all that blathering about Kurt Russell when Brandt was giving us his mini science lesson?” Cade asked.

Ethan nodded. “Exactly.”

“Well shit,” Cade grumbled. “Why the hell would they want to do something like that anyway? What, the military men and women we already had weren’t good enough for them?”

“We were in the middle of a war on two fronts,” Kimberly explained. “Military recruitment levels were drastically down. A lot of people will join the military for the benefits, but they’re a lot less willing to do that when there’s a war going on.”

“The government was desperate to increase the strength, stamina, speed, and skill of the soldiers they already had, because they certainly weren’t getting enough enlistments to cover injuries and discharges of the ones already there,” Derek said. “I think they’d have done anything at that point. So when the potential benefits of this pathogen were discovered …”

“The government took over testing, took control of the pathogen, and ran with it,” Kimberly finished. “And they rammed it through to human trials as fast as they could.”

“We all see where that’s led us to,” Isaac muttered.

“And that’s where my involvement truly began,” Derek continued. “Despite the successes we saw in Alicia and Michael, the pathogen behaved differently in each of them. The pathogen made Alicia … aggressive. Very aggressive. Not quite the animalistic hatred you see in the Michaluk-infected out there,” Derek motioned vaguely toward the window, “but aggressive all the same. The baseline for it was there, most certainly. Alicia would get so … angry at the littlest things and turn absolutely violent. Not enough ice in her tea, the lights in her room were too bright, a nurse looked at her in a way that didn’t suit her, whatever. When it came to her, it was a constant battle, both on her part and on mine, to keep her aggression in check.

“Michael, though? Absolute model of perfection. He only experienced sickness for the first few days of testing as his body adapted to the pathogen’s intrusion. After that, he was perfectly fine, as if he’d never been sick. In order to keep the testing from being compromised, we told him he’d caught a virus at the onset of testing. We made out like we had postponed testing in order to treat what he had caught. In truth, though, the testing continued. By then, it was mostly monitoring, watching, and waiting to see what would happen.”

“And what did happen?” Cade asked nervously.

“Absolutely nothing,” Derek said. He sat on the arm of the couch beside Kimberly and clasped his hands loosely around his knee. Ethan thought he looked like a professor giving a lecture; the image suited Ethan’s perception of the man. “Like I said, Michael was the perfect model of what we wanted to achieve. Somehow, the version of the pathogen that had been introduced into his system … well, it certainly did something to him, because every single blood sample we took from him afterwards tested positive for the pathogen. But outwardly, he was asymptomatic.”

“So how did the virus get out, anyway?” Cade asked, her forehead wrinkling. Her grip on Ethan’s hand tightened, and he gave hers a comforting squeeze in return. He could imagine what she was thinking, how awful she probably felt as she learned about the things Brandt had never told her, the dangers he’d potentially posed to the rest of them for the past year.

“Excellent question,” Isaac agreed. “We all know the generally accepted and advertised story the government and media spread around. How accurate was it?”

“In every lie, there’s a fragment of truth,” Kimberly said.

“Calling it the Michaluk virus was a misnomer of … epic proportions,” Derek added. “If you wanted to be accurate in naming the virus after its originator, you’d have to call it the Day virus.”

“You’re shitting me!” Cade burst out in surprise. She half-rose out of her seat. Ethan tugged at her hand in an attempt to pull her back down. “You’re—that bitch—she started all of this? It’s her fault we’re living like this? Where’s my gun?”

“What do you need your gun for?” Ethan asked, pulling at her hand again.

“I’m going to hunt the bitch down and blow her motherfucking head off!”

“Whoa, whoa, Cade! Sit down!” Ethan ordered. He yanked more firmly at her hand and managed to successfully plant her ass onto the couch again. “We’re not going out about this half-cocked!”

“Who the hell said anything about half-cocked?” Cade snarled. “I’m always fully cocked, thank you very fucking much!”

Ethan blew out a heavy breath and shook his head. He was well aware of three sets of eyes on him and Cade, watching their exchange attentively as he tried to calm her down. He was tempted to tell them to get their entertainment elsewhere.

“Look, I was just as burningly pissed off about this a few days ago, when Derek and Kimberly laid it out for me, as you are right now,” Ethan admitted. “I wanted to wait for her to walk into the Westin and kill her sorry ass the minute she set foot inside it.”

“But you didn’t,” Cade pointed out, her tone accusing. “You could have stopped her then, and you didn’t!”

“I know,” Ethan said softly.

Cade slapped a hand against her denim-clad thigh and made a face at him. “It’s her fault Anna is dead! And Josie and Andrew! And every other fucking person we know!”

“Cade, believe me, I’m well aware of that.” Ethan didn’t need to be reminded of all he’d lost in such a short time. “But we need to bide our time. We need to be careful about this. And we need to find Brandt first. Because if we can’t find him, she’s our fallback option for a cure, and we can’t risk her death without having Brandt in our hands first.”

Chapter 41

To say Remy felt despondent was an understatement. Her eyes swam with tears as Brandt dragged her by her wrist down the fire escape’s stairs, his grip tight and bruising. She stumbled down the steps, her ears filled with Brandt’s nearly continuous swearing, and thought of her dead friend in the apartment above them. Somehow, through a titanic effort, she managed to not release the sobs threatening to spill up from her gut. To make that extra noise might bring the attention of the infected on the two of them, and she wasn’t willing to put them in that kind of danger.

Two of them? God, the thought was horrible. Just a year ago, Remy had been practically surrounded by friends. There had been seven people who had become as close as seven people could get. Even Ethan and Gray, despite their near-constant bickering, had considered each other friends. And now they were both dead. They were all dead, except maybe Cade, and Remy had no idea where to begin guessing the woman’s location. It was just her and Brandt. And despite the time she’d spent in the man’s company, he suddenly seemed large and frightening. Never had he appeared so imposing a figure as he did now, his forehead scrunched in a low frown, a look of intense concentration on his face as he led her along back alleys and through shop storage rooms, always on the alert for dangers to pop out of the woodwork at the prospect of a free meal.

Remy would be damned if she let anything touch her at that point. She wanted to kill all of the infected in the messiest ways she could think of. She especially wanted to kill the redheaded bitch who shot Gray. She wanted to torture her, to inflict horrible pain on her, before she plugged a bullet into the woman’s head. She wanted the woman to feel every ounce of pain this last death had caused in her heart.

Brandt slowed his brisk walk, drawing Remy’s full attention back to him. He staggered sideways against the alley’s brick wall, bracing his hand against it, and vomited violently on the pavement beside a dumpster, a low groan shuddering up from his gut. Remy hurried to him and rested her hand on his back, her eyes watching their surroundings. His hand found her other hand and clung to it, squeezing tightly as he coughed out the remains of his last meal.

“You okay?” Remy asked once he’d straightened and let go of her hand. His shoulders hunched, and he still breathed heavily as he wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Yeah, sorry,” he said. His voice was hushed, rough and hoarse. “I’m not feeling great.”

Remy immediately pressed the inside of her wrist against Brandt’s forehead. “Are you okay?” she asked again, her tone urgent as a surge of fear washed up in her gut. His skin felt abnormally warm, but she wasn’t sure if it was from their running or from … “Are you … you’re not infected, are you?”

“You already know my suspicions on that,” Brandt muttered as she dropped her arm back to her side. He wiped at his mouth again and rolled his shoulders, a flicker of pain crossing his face with the movement. Before she could comment on it, he continued. “We need to find a place to rest. And then we need to decide what we’re doing next.”

As they began walking again, Remy asked, “What are our options?”

Brandt led her across the street, both of them keeping low between cars to minimize the risk they’d be sighted. It was only after they’d entered the alley across the street that he continued. “The way I look at it, we’ve got two options,” he said. He stopped to look at a rusted red metal ladder. There was no staircase on this fire escape, just a ladder going straight to the roof. “First option is we can keep tracking Cade and hoping we find her sometime soon.” He grasped the bottom rung of the ladder, tugging on it as if to test its integrity.

“And that’s assuming she isn’t dead,” Remy said.

“Yeah. That.” Brandt cleared his throat again and released the ladder. “Our other option is to abandon the search for Cade and instead go to the Westin and kick Alicia Day’s ass across the fucking city.”

Remy looked back at the alley’s opening. She remembered the last time she’d been stopped in an alley like this; Cade had been lying on the ground bleeding, and Ethan had …

Remy shook her head, trying to dislodge the memories from the forefront of her mind. Now wasn’t the time to think on that. The last thing she needed was to crack emotionally—even more so than she already was—and get distracted in the field. Especially now that she thought she heard the faintest sound of shuffling footsteps near the alley’s entrance.

“Brandt?” she said uneasily.

“Yeah?”

“Is there a third option? Like maybe getting the fuck out of here?”

Brandt looked at her sharply, and his eyes darted past her to the alley’s mouth. “Fuck, you’re right,” he said, motioning to her. “Come on. We can’t go up this ladder. It’s stable enough for you, but I’m not sure it’ll hold my weight.”

“Shit,” Remy muttered. She drew her bolo knife from its sheath. She figured a silent weapon was better in this situation than a gun. “Which way?”

Brandt scanned the alleyway before pointing to the dark outline of a door near the back end. “Through there,” he ordered. “Flashlights out.” He hurried to the door and kicked it hard; the doorframe splintered as the door flew open, banging against the wall beyond. “Come on. Let’s get in here before the fucking infected find us.”

Remy twirled her knife in her hand and squared her shoulders as she adjusted her pack. “I’ll lead the way,” she volunteered. The irresistible temptation of adrenaline surged through her veins at the idea of possibly getting the chance to kill something.

The anger Remy had managed to tamp down for the time it’d taken them to get to this point reared its ugly head as she marched, straight-backed, into the darkness. Pulling her flashlight from the side pocket of her bag and thumbing the switch, Remy shone the light down the short hall they’d entered. There was nothing there, much to Remy’s disappointment.

Brandt entered behind her and shut the door. “We’re going to cut through here and go out the first exit we see,” he said as he secured the door behind him.

“Aw, Brandt, don’t take all my fun away,” Remy said. Despite the jest her words implied, her voice was hard and low, loaded with the determination toward slaughter that seethed in her brain.

Brandt cast a worried glance in her direction. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“Shouldn’t I be the one asking you that?” Remy asked pointedly. “You’re the one who managed to infect Gray just by blood contact.”

Brandt grimaced. “We haven’t confirmed that,” he snapped. “So don’t you even play like that.”

Remy shone her flashlight in his face and rested the flat of her blade against his shoulder. “And how exactly should I be playing, Brandt?” she asked coldly. Brandt swallowed as she leveled her gaze at him. “Do you remember what I said to you when we were on our way here?”

“You said a lot to me on our way here,” Brandt pointed out.

Remy pressed the knife a fraction more firmly against his skin. “You know what the hell I’m talking about,” she snapped. “I told you to give me a good fucking reason why I shouldn’t kill you.”

“And I told you,” Brandt replied. “Cade.”

“Maybe I don’t think that’s a good enough reason anymore,” Remy replied.

“And what the hell has changed between then and now?” Brandt demanded.

Remy snarled and slapped his left bicep with the flat of her blade. “You killed Gray!” she said, her voice rising in anger.

“I didn’t fucking shoot him!” Brandt protested.

“You might as well have!” Remy nearly yelled. “You took away any chance he could have had at surviving! You and your fucking … virus!”

Brandt stepped forward, looming over her. He batted the knife aside before backing her up until she pressed against the wall in an attempt to get away from him. His fingers wrapped around her upper arms, squeezing tightly. “It is not my virus,” he said. His voice was so low and his body so close to hers that Remy felt the words rumbling through his chest. “If I had known what the fuck they were really testing, I wouldn’t have gotten involved. Yes, I feel incredibly responsible for Gray’s death, just like I do for Nikola’s and Avi’s and Theo’s and, yes, even Ethan’s. It’s my fucking fault we’re in this situation, and if I could change it, I would. But guess what? I fucking can’t. So for the love of Christ, stop making me feel more fucking guilty than I already do. I can’t handle it. I’ve got enough fucking shit on my mind right now.”

Remy blinked, her anger momentarily forgotten in the face of Brandt’s self-loathing. It was quite possibly the longest speech she’d ever heard out of his mouth, and she wasn’t sure how to respond.

But what she did know was she most assuredly did not appreciate being pushed around by anybody. And that included the man attempting to threaten her.

“If you touch me again, I swear to all that’s holy—and a few things that aren’t—that I’ll break your fucking nose,” Remy warned. She pushed free from the cage of Brandt’s arms and lifted her knife again, wielding it and her flashlight before her. “Let’s move. The sooner we kick ass, the sooner we track Cade down. And the sooner I can get the hell away from you.”

Chapter 42

It took over two more hours for Derek to finish his explanation of events from the year before. He described the initial outbreak, the one that never made it to the papers or the evening news, the parts of it at which Brandt had only ever hinted when trying to tell Cade about what had happened. Derek talked about how Alicia had caught a cold that no one worried over until the following day, when lab technician Kevin Michaluk never showed up for work. How progressively aggressive Alicia had become, the pathogen inside her continuously mutating and adapting, influencing everything from her mood and behavior to her appetite. How the doctors in charge of her case decided to pull her off the pathogen due to the increasingly violent physical threat she’d begun to pose to the doctors and nurses and scientists. And how, once they were ready to cease testing, they got word of a viral outbreak outside the CDC’s walls, out in the city proper of Atlanta, with symptoms frighteningly similar to Alicia’s. And how they’d come to the horrifying realization that the pathogen had become viral, had become contagious, and had become virtually unstoppable.

The story Derek wove was like something out of the horror movies Cade hated so much. It made her feel queasy just thinking about it.

Something about the tale bothered her, though. As she rubbed at her eyes tiredly with a thumb and forefinger, it occurred to Cade exactly what was amiss.

“Wait, wait,” she spoke up, interrupting Derek for at least the fifth time in two hours. Every set of eyes in the room turned to her. “The Michaluk virus is one hundred percent communicable, right?” she asked, seeking verification as a nagging suspicion prodded at her brain.

“Yes, in my experience, the Michaluk virus has a one hundred percent infection rate when the pathogens from an infected individual’s blood, saliva, or other bodily fluid come into direct contact with the bloodstream or mucous membranes of someone who is uninfected,” Derek confirmed, sounding as if he were reciting from a textbook.

As Derek gave her a strange look, wondering why she’d asked about something everyone left alive already knew, Ethan muttered, “Means they can fucking spit in your eyes and you’d get the damned virus.” Cade didn’t want to think about that possibility.

“You’re … you’re absolutely positive about that?” Cade asked Derek carefully.

“Absolutely.” Derek paused and then added, “Why do you ask?”

Cade pressed her lips together and looked down, studying her fingernails; most were chipped, cracked, and broken. She dug them into her palms and closed her eyes as she debated what to tell them. She’d always kept her personal life personal, her private life private. She wasn’t one to talk about herself easily, and she most certainly wasn’t one to tell a room full of near-strangers the intimate details of her sex life. She blew out a heavy sigh, brushed a stray lock of hair from her face, and looked at Derek once more.

“And you’re absolutely sure that Brandt is infected?” she asked the doctor slowly.

“Positive,” Derek confirmed. “I gave it to him myself. Every test I’ve given him reflected positive.”

“Then how come I’m not infected?” Cade finally asked. In the ensuing silence, she forced herself to continue. “Over a month ago, on the way here to Atlanta, Brandt and I had sex. And I’m currently pregnant with his child.” Cade heard Ethan’s surprised intake of breath, but she shoved on. “By your own admission, I should be infected. But I’m not. Why?”

The silence that followed rested heavily over the five of them. Isaac sat in contemplative silence, while Derek rubbed at the graying stubble on his chin and pondered the problem before him. Kimberly merely sat, tapping a ballpoint pen idly against the back of her hand as her eyes danced from one person to the next.

Finally, Derek cleared his throat and spoke, his words slow and thoughtful as he pieced a theory together in his head. “Perhaps … perhaps the pathogen lies dormant in Brandt’s system, in an uninfectious state. Or perhaps whatever version Brandt has isn’t contagious, which would be the state we were aiming for in testing. This is all pure conjecture, of course. It’s something I’ll need to look into further once we manage to track Brandt down.”

“If Alicia doesn’t get to him first,” Ethan muttered.

“Yes, there’s that particular redheaded problem,” Derek acknowledged.

“It explains why Alicia was so interested in Cade, at least,” Kimberly said. “She knew you were pregnant, didn’t she?” Her eyes met Cade’s, and Cade nodded. “With it being Brandt’s child, if Alicia wasn’t able to get her nasty claws hooked into Brandt, then his baby would’ve been a perfect fallback option. Assuming, of course, that his seeming immunity has passed on to the child.”

“Fairly devious, but it does make sense,” Isaac agreed. A soft tap on the door drew the attention of all present. Isaac rose and went to it, speaking to someone on the other side before turning back to them. “If you’ll excuse me, I have something I need to take care of.”

“And on that note, I need some sleep,” Derek announced once Isaac pulled the door shut behind him. “I’m exhausted, and I want to take a nap before I look over my files about Brandt.” He beckoned to Ethan, much to Cade’s surprise. “Come on, Ethan. It’s about time for your meds.”

Ethan groaned, and Cade glanced at him, raising an eyebrow curiously. “Fuck, do you know how tired I am of getting poked and prodded?” he complained. He slapped his hands against his thighs and rose from his seat.

Cade looked at him with concern. “Do you want me to go with you?” she offered.

Ethan hesitated, and his fair cheeks flushed faintly. “I think I’d rather you didn’t,” he admitted sheepishly. “No offense meant. Normally, I’d say yes. But I need to get my bandages changed and …” He trailed off, giving her a helpless little shrug.

“And you don’t want me to see how bad it really is,” Cade acknowledged. “It’s okay. Really. I understand.” She caught his hand again and gave it a squeeze. “Go get your thing done,” she said. “I’ll see you after, okay? We can get caught up then.”

Ethan nodded and pressed a gentle kiss to her temple. “Yeah, we’ll get caught up before the inevitable ‘What the hell are we going to do about the shithole we’re in?’ powwow session,” he agreed. He straightened and, shirts and jacket in hand, retreated with Derek into one of the apartment’s two bedrooms. Cade watched him go. A touch of despondency hit her as the door shut behind the friend with whom she’d only just been reunited. She sighed and slumped back against the couch, covering her eyes with the heels of her hands.

“Tired?” a voice asked. Cade barely suppressed the startle that surged up her spine. She dropped her hands and looked to the other end of the couch. Kimberly sat staring at her, a touch of concern evident in her blue eyes. Cade had almost forgotten the other woman was there.

“I’m still trying to decide if I’m just tired or overwhelmed,” Cade said. She dropped her head against the cushions. “I’m just … I never expected to see him again. I had no idea that he was even still alive. And to walk in and just … see him like that–” Her voice cracked, and she fell silent. “I think I’m definitely overwhelmed.”

Kimberly moved down the couch to sit closer to Cade. “Are you okay? I know it can be pretty startling. I’m sure if Avi walked into the room right now, I’d be pretty damned overwhelmed myself.”

Cade raised an eyebrow. “Avi?” she repeated. “Avi Geller?”

Kimberly smiled. “You know, Ethan had the exact same reaction that you just did,” she said. “Avi Geller, yes. She was my sister, until Alicia Day had her gunned down because she found out Avi worked for the ‘other side’—the other side being Isaac’s people, of course—and thought Avi would bring you guys to Isaac instead of her when you came into Atlanta back in February. Which was the plan to begin with, and we thought Alicia didn’t know. But she did.”

“Damn,” Cade murmured. “I knew that shot wasn’t an accident.”

Kimberly gave her a sidelong glance. “I hear you got shot too.”

Cade shrugged. “I got lucky. If I’d been hit like Avi was, I don’t think I’d be sitting here telling you about it.”

“Considering the high-powered rifle Kyle used, you’re certainly right about that,” she acknowledged. She pushed her blond bangs out of her eyes and glanced at the closed bedroom door behind which Ethan and Derek had retreated. “I’m worried about him.”

“Who, Dr. Rivers?” Cade asked. “Or Ethan?”

“Ethan, of course,” Kimberly answered. “I think Alicia has messed him up pretty badly, though I don’t think you’ll ever hear him say that.”

Cade looked at her sharply. “What did she do to him?” she demanded, anger building in her again. Just the thought of what the woman could have done to Ethan was enough to put her teeth on edge.

“She hasn’t done anything to Ethan,” Kimberly said quickly, “at least not physically. But I think she’s been fucking with his mind. I know for a fact she’s been interrogating him without his knowledge.”

“How so?” Cade asked. She started to twist to look at Kimberly more fully. The movement caused a pang of pain to jolt through her side; she sucked in a short breath and instead settled on turning her entire body, tucking a leg underneath herself, facing Kimberly and waiting for her explanation.

“I think she manipulated him,” Kimberly said. “Alicia is a total master at manipulation and soft interrogation. She will use anything she thinks will get her way or will get the information she wants out of you. In Ethan’s case, she ingratiated herself with him. She let him believe she cared, that she was there to help him. She gained his trust and used dirty tricks like sex to get him to talk.” She blew out a breath. “The end result was that he felt comfortable enough to talk and talk and talk without paying attention to what he was saying. There’s no telling what he’s told her. There’s no telling how much of an advantage she holds over us, just through sheer knowledge.”

Cade thought back on the year before, the battle she and Brandt fought as they tried to get Ethan to trust their then-new arrivals Theo and Gray Carter. It’d been a never-ending fight, one neither of them had ever truly won; Ethan was not and had never been the type to trust people in such a short period of time. Cade had a very hard time reconciling what she knew of her best friend with what Kimberly told her. She shook her head, drawing her bottom lip between her teeth, before saying, “I just … I can’t see it. Ethan’s not the type to jump into something like that.” She snorted softly. “Hell, he and Remy danced around each other for seven months before anything happened between them, and even then they didn’t tell anybody about it. For him to just, well, jump in bed with someone he just met is … completely unbelievable.”

“Perhaps he’s changed since you last saw him,” Kimberly suggested. Her fingers tapped a rhythmic pattern on the cushion beside her.

“Perhaps,” Cade acknowledged. “Near-death experiences will do that to a person, I hear.”

Kimberly nodded and folded her arms over her chest, slouching lower in her seat. “And Ethan had a nearer experience to death than most,” she added.

Cade braced her nerves before she forced out the question that bumped at the forefront of her mind. “How close?”

Kimberly looked contemplative as she rubbed her fingers idly over her left bicep. “Well, most infected people at the Westin have only been bitten once, or they had the misfortune of having the Michaluk virus passed on to them through other means. Ethan … well, on his arms and shoulders alone, he was bitten four times. I don’t know about his legs, because I haven’t seen him without any pants on, but Derek tells me there are several bites there too. And that doesn’t include all of the scratches and scrapes on his back and sides either.”

“I had no idea it was that bad,” Cade admitted. Her eyes flickered to the closed door. “What about you? Are you …” She trailed off, unable to say the word. She hadn’t reconciled what she knew of Ethan with what she’d seen of the infected.

“Infected?” Kimberly finished. “Fortunately not. But I almost did end up that way about four months ago. I was out on a search for supplies with Dominic and some other of Alicia’s people. I got jumped from behind inside a restaurant. If Dominic hadn’t been there, I probably wouldn’t be here right now.” She paused, contemplating the door, before asking suddenly, “Are you really pregnant with Evans’s baby?”

Cade was taken aback by the sudden question, but she managed to cover it up and answer anyway. “Four pregnancy tests said I am,” she said smoothly.

“Are you sure it’s Evans’s?” Kimberly asked promptly.

Cade felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up as her anger and irritation made their reappearances. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” she snapped.

Kimberly put up her hands defensively. “Nothing! Nothing!” she insisted. “I didn’t mean it like that, not at all. I just wanted to make sure!”

“Yeah, whatever,” Cade muttered. She rolled her eyes and turned away from the woman, slouching against the couch once more as the bedroom door opened. Derek stepped into the room and beckoned to her.

“I’m done with him, and he’s asking for you, Ms. Alton,” Derek announced, wiping his palms off on the thighs of his pants.

“Oh thank God,” Cade drawled out. She realized too late how bad that sounded, and her face flushed as she pushed herself to her feet. “Not that your company hasn’t been absolutely stimulating,” she added to Kimberly, “but I really would like to see my best friend.”

Kimberly flipped her hand at Cade carelessly. “Don’t worry about it. I’d want to get away from me too after watching me stick my foot in my mouth.”

As Cade retreated to the dark bedroom, she heard Derek say, “Should I even ask?”

“Probably not,” Kimberly replied. The door swung shut behind Cade.

Cade stood in the darkened bedroom, blinking rapidly as her eyes tried to adjust. The curtains had been pulled securely over the windows, letting not even a sliver of light peek through, and the room was lit only by a flashlight standing on its end, the beam pointed at the ceiling. She shoved her hands in her pockets and fought the nervousness inexplicably stirring in her gut. She rocked on her heels and turned her eyes to the silhouette leaning over the bed, pawing through a familiar-looking backpack. Despite her trepidation, a smile crossed Cade’s face, and she eased up to him. After only a second’s hesitation, she wrapped her arms around him from behind and gave him as tight a squeeze as she dared to.

“I am so glad you’re okay,” she said. She rested her head against Ethan’s back for a long moment, listening to him breathe as she worked past the maelstrom of emotions that had plagued her since the discovery of Ethan’s survival. Tears pricked at her eyes again, and she closed them tightly. She didn’t want this reunion to echo the weepy one from earlier in the evening.

“I’m glad I’m okay too,” Ethan said, chuckling. He turned in Cade’s arms and swept her into a tight hug. Cade clung to him, her hands pressed flat against his bandaged back. “And I’m glad you’re okay,” he added, breaking the long silence that fell between them. “I’ve been so worried about you guys, all four of you, since that shit went down in February.”

“Well, obviously we’re fine,” Cade said. Her breath caught in her throat. “At least, I’m fine. I don’t know about … I’m not sure about … about …” She fell silent and rubbed both hands over her face helplessly.

“Remy,” Ethan finished. He released her and sat down on the edge of the bed. “I know. Kimberly and Derek told me what they’d heard. I’m not sure how they get their information, but I think it’s something to do with the people here.” He picked something up from the bedspread beside him. Cade recognized the locket he’d brought back from Memphis the year before, partially melted, sooty, and dangling from a broken chain he’d refused to replace. Cade hadn’t been aware he still had it.

“What are we going to do, Ethan?” Cade asked. She sank down onto the bed beside him and rested her elbows on her thighs. “This is … way bigger than I ever thought it would be.”

“I know, right?” Ethan murmured. He looked to the bedroom door. “And I’m worried. Those guys out there are underestimating Alicia. They think she’s not completely in control of herself, that she’s acting aggressively because of the virus. It’s … it’s way worse than that. I think she’s in complete control. Everything she does, she does with the full knowledge of how it will turn out down the road.” He heaved out a sigh, and when he spoke again, his voice was full of conviction. “What are we going to do?” he repeated. “We’re going to do what we have to do. We’re going to take the bitch down before she hurts anybody else.”

Chapter 43

Brandt sat with his knees drawn to his chest, his head bowed as he struggled to relax. It was hard with Remy sitting and staring at him across the dim hallway in which they hid, the look in her eyes as hard as it’d been when they entered the building. He clenched his jaw and dug his blunt fingernails into the worn knees of his jeans.

“You need to sleep. You’re exhausted.”

“I’m fine,” Remy said. “I’m not tired.”

“You’re acting like a bitch,” Brandt countered. “That means you’re tired.”

“Don’t presume you know me well enough to know how I feel.”

Brandt gritted his teeth and suppressed an angry snarl. “Damn it, Remy!” he snapped. “I’ve known you for a year. Stop acting like we just fucking met!”

“I feel like we just have,” Remy admitted. Something in her voice, something quiet and sad, drew Brandt’s full attention to her. He squinted at her in the dim light from the flashlight between them, wondering what was going on underneath that thick, wavy hair of hers. Obviously something bothered her, something far beyond Gray’s recent death. Instead of coping with it or talking about it, she’d clearly decided to just lash out at the nearest person. Which was fine, but considering Brandt was the only one present and the one getting the brunt of her ire, he was less than pleased about it.

“What do you mean?” Brandt asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Just that,” Remy said. She picked at a loose thread on the hem of her jeans. “You’ve hidden so much stuff from us that I can’t tell if you’re telling me the truth or not anymore. And I don’t like liars. Especially not the kind that are intentionally trying to deceive me.”

“I wasn’t trying to deceive you,” Brandt said, focusing his eyes on the floor’s white tiles. He couldn’t look at her; it made him feel vulnerable, and he hated that feeling. “I was trying to protect you. All of you.”

“From a danger you’re not even sure exists anymore,” Remy pointed out. “How do you know the government is still hunting you? Why would they waste their time anymore? For all we know, they’ve all been dead for months. I mean, did they ever come after us when you radioed for help at the Tabernacle last month?” She didn’t wait for Brandt to respond. “No, they didn’t. Because they have more important shit to do with their resources, and because they probably think that there’s no way for you to spill the beans anymore anyway.”

Brandt rolled his shoulders to work some of the stiffness out of them as Remy fell silent. A ripple of pain shot from his stab wound up through his neck and directly into his skull. He dropped his head against the sheetrock behind him and sucked in a slow breath through his teeth as he waited for the pain to subside.

Remy noticed and promptly asked, “Are you okay?”

Brandt ignored the question. “You make too much sense sometimes, you know that?” he said almost absently, his voice low as he focused on banishing the pain plaguing him. He drew in a breath and held it for a moment. When he let it out, it was harsh and ragged. Even in the dim light, Brandt saw the concern and disapproval on Remy’s face. “Don’t look at me like that,” he muttered.

Remy raised an eyebrow. “How else am I supposed to look at you?” she asked. “You’re hurt, and you’re doing a piss-poor job of hiding how much pain you’re in. Which, I might add, is doing nothing but ticking me off.” With an easy, smooth move, Remy grabbed her bag and swung herself across the narrow hall, settling down on her knees beside Brandt. She reached for his shirt collar, and Brandt swatted her hand away.

“Don’t,” he said defensively, inching sideways along the wall away from her.

“But you’re hurt!”

“I’m well aware of what I am,” Brandt replied. “Now stop.”

“But you’re bleeding through your shirt,” she protested.

Brandt blinked and looked to his shoulder. Just as Remy said, blood did indeed stain his shirt—fresh blood, judging by the shine of the liquid seeping into the fabric. He prodded at the wound, tugging the fabric away. The bandage with which he’d so awkwardly and painstakingly bound it had come loose, allowing the blood to flow again. He groaned at the thought of wrestling the gauze back into place on his own. But he had no choice; he refused to risk infecting Remy if he was contagious. It was a chance he could not take. He tugged her bag closer and pawed through it in search of the few medical supplies they had left. There was precious little, and Brandt hated that he had to use any of it. He pushed aside a few latex gloves and pulled the gauze and medical tape out again. Then he removed the layers of clothes over his torso and set to work on his bandages again.

“Do we still have that portable radio thing Gray always insisted on carrying everywhere?” Brandt asked, trying to distract his mind from the pain that jostling his wound caused.

“I think so,” Remy said. She scooped up the third backpack, the one neither of them had opened since their frantic dash from the scene of Gray’s death. She unzipped it and hesitated before dipping her hand inside. It took only a moment of rummaging—a moment in which Remy’s face took on an expression of intense concentration—before she successfully pulled a compact, battery-free crank radio from the bag’s confines. She studied it with as much intensity as she’d searched for it, and once it was cranked up, she thumbed the power switch.

Brandt hadn’t realized he’d leaned forward in anticipation until the hiss of static that greeted his ears made him sit back. Remy sighed and slouched against the wall beside him, fiddling with the frequency knob as Brandt finished bandaging his shoulder.

“Do you remember what station that report was broadcast from?” Remy asked, annoyance evident in her voice as she inched the tuner along its dial.

“It was somewhere in the three digits, I think,” Brandt said doubtfully. He tore a piece of tape free from the roll. “Not positive, but I think it might have been one-oh-one something.”

Remy spun the dial to the upper end of the frequency display, pausing periodically to listen carefully to the static. Finally, between the hisses and skips, a man’s voice broke through. After tinkering with the dial for a moment more, Remy cleared it up enough for them to listen.

… is your daily report of the conditions in the areas of Atlanta populated by the uninfected, a surprisingly cheerful man’s voice said over the airwaves. Bringing you the latest updates on the movements of the infected and those who sympathize with them so you don’t accidentally become someone’s dinner.

Brandt barely stifled a laugh. Remy wasn’t so lucky. She clapped her hand over her mouth to muffle the sound. Even as she laughed, there were tears in her eyes. Brandt scooted closer to her and, after only a second’s hesitation, put his arm around her and gave her a comforting squeeze. Remy offered him a grateful look as the man on the radio continued.

First in the news today is new information regarding the fight at Ralph McGill and Park Place yesterday, the man said. Brandt snatched the radio from Remy’s hands and turned the volume up a bit more. Last time we spoke to you, we reported that there had been a fight of some kind at that intersection. We can now confirm that Alicia Day and her crew were involved in a skirmish with the infected and that a woman, whose identity will remain undisclosed at this time, escaped Day’s custody and is now in a safe place with our allies.

“He’s talking about Cade, right?” Remy asked.

“He has to be,” Brandt said fervently.

—nother fight was reported by one of our lookouts at the same location just this evening, the man continued. No infected were immediately involved, though our sources report that an unknown man and woman fled the scene with a third, visibly injured man. None of them have been seen since. If you have seen them or know of their whereabouts, please report to Isaac Wright as soon as possible. If you don’t know where to find Mr. Wright, well, you’re not the droids we’re looking for, so don’t bother. The last part was delivered in a cheeky tone that made a slight smile quirk at Brandt’s lips.

In other news, there are reports of a growing number of infected gathering in the vicinity of Centennial Olympic Park. Now, I’m well aware that this is an area we normally do not visit due to its proximity to the Westin, but regardless, we’re going to suggest that you do what you can to avoid that area of the city until further notice.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, that’s all we’ve got for the moment, the young man’s voice added. Wasn’t much news today, but no news is good news, as the saying goes. We’ll be on air again tomorrow at our usual time. There was a click, and the man’s voice was replaced by a rush of static as the station went off the air.

Brandt grabbed his shirt and tugged it over his head, following with his jacket. “Well, I suppose that’s our cue to get some rest, huh?” he said, switching the radio off. “We’ll take turns sleeping while the other stays up and keeps watch. Fair enough?”

“Yeah,” Remy agreed. “But after sleep, what exactly are we going to do?”

Brandt glanced at the radio thoughtfully. “As much as I want to go after her, Cade is, by all reports, in safe hands right now,” he said. “It’s not what I want to do, but I’ve got to think of priorities and what’s likely to improve life for everyone involved.”

Remy sat up straight, looking intrigued, and began to pull her dark hair into a ponytail. “So does this mean we’re …?” she started to ask, her eyebrows rising to emphasize her question.

Brandt pulled himself off the tiled floor and began to collect his things. He double-checked that his Beretta was securely in its holster and fastened to his belt, and he slung his bag carefully over his right shoulder. The strap dug into the clawed skin, and he clenched his teeth for a second before continuing. “We’re going after Alicia and finding out exactly what the hell the bitch wants with me, on my terms,” he declared. “For tonight, though, we’ve got to get some rest. You’re going to stay right here and sleep the best you can for the next four hours, and I’m going to sit at the end of the hall. I’ll wake you in four hours, and we’ll swap out then, okay?”

Remy nodded and started to pack away her own belongings. When she reached Gray’s bag, though, she paused and rested her hand against its outside with an expression so sad that Brandt’s heart ached for her. He knelt and caught her face in his hands, making her look at him.

“Look, Remy, I’m sorry I’ve been such a dick today,” he said softly. Her eyes shone, and he stroked his thumbs gently over her cheekbones, hoping she wouldn’t start crying on him now. “It’s been a long few days, and I’m just … I’m overwhelmed. I’m taking it out on you, and that’s not okay.” He pressed a kiss to the center of her forehead before wrapping her in a tight hug. “I’m sorry,” he said, letting out a heavy sigh into her hair.

“I am too,” she said, her voice muffled by his shoulder. “I’ve been a bitch today. No reason I should’ve been snapping at you like that.”

Brandt smiled and squeezed her once more before letting go. “Get some rest, okay? I’ll be at the end of the hall if you need anything.”

Remy gave him a short nod, and Brandt rose to his feet again. He started back down the hall, retreating to the darkness to sit and wait and worry about what the future might hold for them.

Chapter 44

For the second time in recent memory, Ethan was awakened before sunrise and dragged into a planning session in which he wanted no part. He and Cade had stayed up late into the night, first talking about her pregnancy and the events of the past month, and then just lying silently on the bed before finally passing out from sheer exhaustion three hours before Isaac Wright knocked on the door to wake them up. Ethan hadn’t even been offered the luxury of coffee to help him wake up. His brain felt like it was knocking on his skull, insisting on being let out so it could go back to bed. He squeezed his eyes shut and forced them back open, struggling to focus on the map of Atlanta spread out on the dining table in front of the five people surrounding it. He glanced at Cade and gave her an uneasy smile.

Cade didn’t look like she’d fared any better than Ethan in the sleep department. She propped herself against the table, the heels of her hands braced against it, fingers hooked around the edge, her elbows locked in place. Her dark hair was disheveled, loose around her shoulders and tumbling in waves and loops down her back. Ethan thought it strange to see her without her hair pulled away from her face. It gave the woman an unusually soft look, offset only by the paleness of her skin and the dark circles under her eyes. She pushed her hair back over her shoulders and barely looked at him. All of her attention was focused on the two brothers at the end of the table, arguing between themselves as she, Ethan, and Kimberly waited for the meeting to get truly started.

“We can’t go after all those people, okay?” Isaac said in a low voice, his eyes focused solely on Derek. “You said there are over a hundred and fifty people in there. Where in the world am I supposed to put them? How am I supposed to feed them? Help them protect themselves? We barely have enough supplies for the thirty-four people who are here right now. I can’t take on one hundred and fifty more.”

“But we have to do something,” Derek protested. “We can’t just leave them there. There are completely defenseless women and children and the elder—”

“Children?” Cade interrupted, her interest piqued. “There are children there?”

“There are about forty, ranging in age from infant to eighteen,” Ethan confirmed. “They’re generally kept on the seventeenth floor. I’m not sure why Alicia insisted on separating the kids from the rest of their families, but that’s what she did.”

“I don’t know why either,” Derek admitted. “But we can’t just leave them there. If we’re going to go through with the plan to get those people away from Alicia, we can’t just capture or kill her and then walk away. If we’re going to save them, then we actually have to save them, not just leave them to fend for themselves.”

“I agree with that,” Isaac conceded. “But we can’t bring them here. There’s no room.”

“Then why don’t we take the thirty-four people we’ve got here to there once the dust settles?” Cade suggested. All eyes turned to her. “It makes sense, right? I mean, the Westin has, what, over seventy floors? That’s more space than we could ever possibly need. And though we don’t know what the food situation is actually like there—”

“Passable,” Ethan said. “There’s enough food for everyone for a month at any given point in time, assuming good rations are kept.”

Cade, thankfully, didn’t ask how he knew that information. “Okay, so the food situation is decent. All the more reason why we should take the people from here there.” She glanced at Ethan and gave him a tight smile before continuing. “Really, though, all the stuff you two are bickering about is inconsequential right now,” she said. “It can wait. The more urgent planning should be focused on what we’re going to do about Alicia Day and how we’re going to do it.”

“And, for that matter, how we’re going to get to her,” Kimberly agreed.

“We should sneak in, obviously,” Isaac said, his attention finally drawn away from his brother and to the map in front of him. Ethan was grateful the dispute had been set aside for the moment; the last thing he wanted to put up with was their planning session getting derailed by a bunch of brotherly bickering. “What can you tell me about the entrances into the tower?”

“Most of the entrances are sealed off,” Ethan answered. “I only know of the one entrance that Kimberly and Derek took me through when we broke out of there.”

“There are two entrances,” Kimberly corrected. “One of them is a little more accessible than the other. One of them drops off onto the street level right outside the Westin, and the other takes you into AmericasMart across the street. I think we can discount it, though. I’m sure it will be heavily guarded by now.”

“No, I don’t think so,” Cade said with a slow shake of her head. “That’s like locking the barn door after the horse has already run out. They might guard it, but not heavily. They have no reason to think you’d have any desire to come back.”

“If it was me, I’d guard the hell out of the door,” Kimberly countered.

Cade let out an explosive breath. “You’re not thinking right,” she protested. “You’re not thinking like her. Alicia Day is military, as far as my understanding goes. Therefore, she thinks like she’s in the military. She wouldn’t strategize the same way you do, wouldn’t do things the same way you would.” She pulled her hair back from her face, twisting it into a ponytail and holding it with her hand. Ethan smiled. There was the Cade he knew, attitude and all. “Quite frankly, it’s simple. So simple I’m amazed none of you have seen it yet. Considering she’s military, she’d think we would sneak in, that we’d organize a covert operation to get inside the Westin. I say we blow the fucking doors in and go in with guns blazing.”

“Element of surprise,” Ethan said with a slow nod.

“Wait, blow the fucking doors in?” Kimberly repeated. “How the hell do you propose we do that? It’s not like we’ve got any bombs or grenades or anything just lying around waiting for us to pick them up.”

“I’m sure there are grenades lying around in the military trucks all over this damned city,” Cade argued.

“Not if Alicia and her people have gotten to them first!”

“Ladies, please, please stop with the bickering,” Ethan pleaded. He held both hands up as he begged for the two women to chill out before the arguing derailed the conversation again. He turned to Cade, who looked only mildly irritated at Kimberly, and said, “Cade, you’ve been around Brandt more than anybody else other than me, right?”

“Right,” Cade confirmed.

“Okay, so remember that bomb he built in Maplesville for the staircase? The one he showed you how to work and how it was assembled?”

“Of course I do,” Cade said. “How could I possibly forget it?”

“Think you can make something based off that?”

Cade frowned. “If I had the materials, I might be able to come up with something, but there are no guarantees. I’m a sniper, and I’m not trained like Brandt is. It shouldn’t be too hard, though, right?”

“Theoretically,” Derek muttered. He tore a piece of paper from one of his spiral notebooks and passed it to Cade. “Write down what you need. I’ll see if I can convince Isaac to send people out for it.”

“So since you seem to know so much,” Kimberly said, not looking at Cade, “how do you propose we kill Alicia?”

“Kim,” Ethan said, softly but firmly. He grabbed her hand and gave it a squeeze, half in warning, half in reassurance, before dropping it.

“We shoot the shit out of her,” Cade said promptly. “What would be even better is if we can find a way to lure her out of the Westin, and then I could snipe her from one of the buildings nearby. I can’t count on us being able to do that, though. So put me out in front, get me in there, and I’ll drop her.”

“Thus relegating the rest of us to, what, backup duty? Guard duty? Bomb squad?” Kimberly asked in exasperation. “She killed my sister! I want to get my fucking gun in her face too!”

Cade turned on her, fists clenched at her sides. “Do you have any experience whatsoever in urban combat?”

Kimberly was forced to shake her head, conceding Cade’s point even as she moved closer to the table, as if she were ready to face the Israeli woman down. Ethan had no doubt that would be a bad move.

“Exactly. And I do,” Cade said. “I was fucking trained for this kind of shit.”

“So? I’m perfectly capable of pulling the trigger on a fucking gun!” Kimberly exploded. She started around the table, and Ethan followed her, catching the woman by the arm to keep her from going after Cade. “I’m just as capable as you of shooting a person in the fucking head!”

“You’ll only get in the way,” Cade muttered. She picked up Derek’s pen and began to write on the paper, her forehead scrunching in thought as she made her list of supplies.

“Get in the way? Get in the way?” Despite Ethan’s attempts to hold her back, Kimberly broke loose and darted to Cade. She pushed the other woman away from the table and goaded her back toward the kitchen counter. “What are you saying? Huh? That you’re the only person who’s allowed to have a little vengeance? That you’re the only one capable of taking her out?”

“I’m saying that I’m trying to save your life,” Cade snapped. She pushed Kimberly away and held her at arm’s length. “I don’t want anybody slowing me down, because I want to get in there, deal with her, and then get the fuck out of there with minimal loss of life.”

“Nobody is getting shot!” Derek suddenly exploded. He threw his arms out to his sides, palms out, as if signaling for everyone to stop and shut up. “Not if I can help it! We’re not going in there to kill her, not unless it’s absolutely necessary! We’re going in there to try to convince her to just stop. And maybe to help us. That’s it.”

“And that is good enough for me,” Isaac said. His voice was enough to break into the staring match between Cade and Kimberly. Kimberly looked away, her eyes traveling first to Isaac and then to Derek. The doctor gave her a short nod, and she backed away from Cade, going to him with a chagrined look on her face.

A long, heavy silence hung over them all, settling over their heads like a wet, suffocating blanket. Tension snapped and crackled in the room. Ethan drew in a deep breath and let it out, trying to dispel the odd, uncomfortable sensation it gave him, and finally spoke. “We should do this as soon as possible,” he said. “The sooner the better, because the longer we wait, the longer those one hundred and fifty people we’re doing this for are under Alicia’s control and the longer she’s got to search for Brandt. The thought sits badly with me.”

“Yet another thing I can get behind,” Isaac agreed. Cade moved to the table and scratched down a few more things on her list before holding the paper out to him.

“This is what I need, and I need it fast,” she said. “Some of it might already be around here. But it’d save a lot of time if you would send some of your people out to search around the trucks and find a grenade or two.” She grinned and winked at Isaac. “I’d definitely prefer a grenade. They’re much more satisfying and a lot less risky than a homemade bomb, especially since I’m more confident in how to use one of those.”

“We’ll see what we can do,” Isaac promised. He folded the paper and slipped it into the back pocket of his jeans. “We should come up with a Plan B though, just in case we can’t find all the supplies you’re asking for.”

Cade nodded in agreement. “Sure, but can we do it later? I’m exhausted, and I’m pretty sure Ethan and I need more rest before we charge in and blow the bitch’s world to hell.”

Ethan snorted. “I do love it when you talk tough, Cade. Makes me think of when we used to go out to the shooting range and you’d get pissed because you missed the target.”

Cade smirked. “Ethan, my dear, sweet big brother,” she drawled out, draping her arm over his shoulders and pulling him closer. “When will you learn that I never miss?”

Chapter 45

Watching Brandt work his military-style magic had been something Remy found absolutely fascinating. She’d never known anyone in the military before and had never seen a military-trained person do his thing—except for in the movies, of course. As Brandt made his way along the street, rifle in hand, eyes locked to their surroundings, he’d seemed like a whole different person. He’d led her through the tangled mess of traffic jams and garbage left behind the year before by the fleeing hordes of uninfected before the tide of the Michaluk virus. Remy was sure she’d caught a few glimpses of corpses in cars here and there; she’d quickly decided she didn’t want to think about what she had or hadn’t seen.

Brandt had snaked through the wreckage like a fox, sliding over cars with the ease of someone who did it every day, his every move almost silent. Remy had been impressed with the dexterity he’d displayed in swinging up into the back of a military cargo truck at one of the city’s many roadblocks, emerging minutes later with a spare magazine of ammunition for his M-4 Carbine and three grenades. Remy was sure the grenades would prove to be something she’d regret him finding.

Now, though, they sat on the rooftop of what Remy believed was a hotel, the morning sun shining down from a partially overcast sky as she sorted through the supplies in her and Gray’s bags. Brandt lay low on the roof, his elbows resting on the ledge surrounding the edge, a pair of binoculars pressed to his eyes as he studied the street running along the front of the Westin tower.

As she sorted the supplies into different piles, Remy glanced up at the skyscraper. It was perfectly round, and the sun reflected off the glass panes, making her eyes water in the brightness of the light. The building was larger than she’d imagined, so tall that if she tilted her head back to look at the top, she’d get dizzy. Despite the vertigo the building’s appearance gave her, Remy’s eyes were continually drawn to it, scanning up its sleek sides to the very top before quickly averting when her world began to spin. Brandt didn’t seem bothered by it; even through binoculars, he’d look up the tower’s sides and back down again, unfazed by the height. His lack of vertigo was enough to make Remy sort of jealous.

“Why exactly would a group of people choose to live in such a tall tower, anyway?” Remy asked, pulling a white t-shirt free from Gray’s bag. She shook it out and held it up to see how big it was and caught a faint whiff of Gray’s scent on the fabric, a scent that made a new wave of sadness wash over her. The shirt flapped in a sudden gust of wind, drawing Brandt’s attention to her.

“Put that damn thing down!” he snapped. His tone was vicious as he yanked the shirt from her hands and slammed it onto the rooftop. “Are you trying to get us caught or something?”

“No,” Remy snapped. She scooped the shirt up and twisted it into a tight roll, continuing her line of thought from the moment before and ignoring Brandt’s ire. “That place is huge. Why would you need something that big anyway? I mean, God, think of all the stairs.”

“Good Lord, I don’t want to,” Brandt admitted. He focused his attention back to the street in front of the skyscraper. “There’s a high chance we’ll be stuck climbing a good bit of them to hunt down Alicia. There’s no telling where she’s hiding in that damn place. Are you up for that?”

“Do I have a choice?” Remy pointed out. She slid the shirt into the bottom of her bag and started on the pile of medical supplies. It and the ammunition pile were by far the smallest; the medical supplies in particular looked almost forlorn. The lack of adequate supplies made Remy uncomfortable as she thought of all that could happen to them, but she pushed those thoughts aside and began to stuff what little they did have into her bag.

“Good point,” Brandt acknowledged. He turned his head and used his finger to adjust the focus on the binoculars. Remy finished packing her bag, putting the items she’d decided to not keep into Gray’s bag and setting it aside. She slung her own bag onto her back and crawled down the roof to join Brandt at the edge.

“You seen anything interesting?” Remy asked. She tightened her ponytail and inched closer to the edge to peer over.

“A couple of stray cats,” Brandt muttered. “That’s about it. There’s absolutely no movement down there. Not a person in sight, infected or uninfected. No guards, almost no animals, nothing.” Brandt lowered the binoculars. “There’s something wrong with this picture, but I can’t figure out what it is.”

“Do you think Duct Tape Boy back at the safe house lied about Alicia’s location?” Remy proposed. She pulled a bottle of water free from her backpack and cracked it open, taking a long swallow and offering it to Brandt. He waved the bottle off and returned the binoculars to his eyes.

“I don’t know,” he admitted in frustration. “I have no idea what to think about this. I’m not sure what I expected, but it certainly wasn’t absolutely nothing.”

Remy stretched out on her stomach and adjusted her pack so it rested more comfortably against her back. Then she took up where Brandt left off, searching for any sign of movement whatsoever on the ground level. As Remy squinted at the street below, her hand shielding her eyes from the sunlight, a movement between cars caught her attention. She leaned forward, trying to make out what caused it, even as Brandt took in a sharp gasp of air.

“Somebody’s coming down the street,” he told her, his voice hushed and urgent. “At a dead run. They’re headed in this direction.”

“And I think that’s an infected guy heading their way,” Remy said as she realized what she was looking at. Man or woman, she couldn’t tell at that distance. She grabbed Brandt’s arm and pointed out the infected. Brandt followed her arm with his binoculars, and his jaw clenched.

“The infected is going to intercept whoever it is that’s come out of that building,” he said. “It’s a black male, already injured, but I can’t make out much else.” He grabbed his rifle and backpack. “You any good with a rifle?”

“Not from very far away,” Remy admitted sheepishly.

Brandt thrust the rifle and binoculars at her and slung his pack onto his back, rising to his feet. “Cover me anyway. Just don’t shoot me. I’m going down to get that guy out of the line of fire.”

And then Brandt darted away from her, disappearing through the roof access door. Moments later, Remy heard a door open below and the sound of Brandt’s boots striking metal as he clambered down the fire-escape staircase attached to the side of the building. Remy quickly refocused her attention on the street, setting the rifle on the roof and putting the binoculars to her eyes. The world looked strange through the lenses, and it took her a moment to figure out what she was looking at and to adjust her line of sight accordingly.

The man below ran down the street with all the strength he possessed, looking over his shoulder periodically at the building he’d left. Remy took a second to follow his gaze, but there was nothing in sight, much to her disappointment. The infected was closing in on the man fast, though. Remy put the binoculars down and grabbed the rifle, resting it against the ledge and seeking the man out in the rifle’s scope. Once she’d found him, she sought out the infected coming at him from the side. To her horror, Remy realized the fleeing man had yet to notice there was an infected person even close to him. It seemed like the two were going to collide right there in the street.

Remy lifted her head away from the scope and checked to make sure a round was already chambered. She quickly relocated the infected man through the scope. She shifted the rifle just a fraction, settling the crosshairs onto the man’s torso. She thought maybe if she shot the infected man, the one who was uninfected would notice his presence and take appropriate measures. There was no way she’d manage a headshot from this distance. Before she could squeeze the trigger, Brandt burst into her line of vision, and she quickly slipped her finger out of the trigger mechanism so she wouldn’t shoot him. He leapt on top of a car and then off it, diving behind the vehicle and tackling the infected man to the pavement. There was a scuffle, and a knife flashed in Brandt’s hand, reflecting the sunlight as it came up and down several times.

Then Brandt was on his feet again, staggering up and grabbing the injured black man, tugging him in the direction of the building he and Remy occupied. He pointed, and the man seemed to understand and started to run more directly for the building, Brandt following close behind. Remy traced their path with the rifle, searching alongside and behind them for more infected, knowing that where there was one, typically there were far more. Much to her relief, Remy didn’t see anything further. She slowly sat back from the edge of the roof as she heard two sets of feet on the metal fire escape. Her shoulders ached, and she forced them to relax. She hadn’t realized she’d tensed up. She rolled them slowly and gingerly, massaging first one and then the other, as she tried to work the soreness out of them.

The door behind Remy swung open, and she started to turn as she spoke. “Man, Brandt, I am so glad I didn’t have to shoot this thing. It’s scary as shit.” The words had barely left her mouth before her eyes settled on the black man entering the roof just behind Brandt. She stiffened and rose to her feet so quickly it sent a dizzy spell through her head. She pushed it aside and lifted the rifle, pointing it at the man’s chest as he put a hand up defensively. “You.”

The man’s eyes went wide at the sight of Remy pointing the rifle at him, and he nodded his head slightly, almost imperceptibly. “Yeah, me,” he confirmed. Remy looked him over and noticed that his right arm was in a sling. She smirked, remembering how she’d plugged a bullet into his shoulder at the safe house.

“Dominic, isn’t it?” Remy prompted. She nodded toward him with a jerk of her chin. “How’s the shoulder? Painful, I hope.”

“Fairly so, yes,” Dominic admitted.

“Wait, do you two know each other?” Brandt asked, clearly baffled, as he broke into the tension between Remy and Dominic.

“We’ve made each other’s acquaintance before,” Remy said through clenched teeth. “He’s one of the bastards who broke into the safe house and took Cade.” She tightened her grip on the rifle, and Dominic stiffened.

Brandt turned on the man and took a step toward him. “You were involved in that?” he demanded. “You took my … you took Cade and forced her to go with you to God knows where? All because, what, you’re deluded into thinking you can get a cure out of me?” He took another step toward Dominic. “Newsflash, asshole. I don’t have one.”

“It’s not like that,” Dominic protested. He shook his head and took a step back. “It’s not like that at all! I was just following orders!”

“Yeah, that’s what the fucking Nazis said!” Brandt snapped.

“And your stupid orders almost got me killed!” Remy added vehemently. She adjusted her grip on the rifle and leveled the barrel on Dominic’s head. “Give me one damn good reason why I shouldn’t do the same to you!”

“Because I have information on a massive outbreak happening right now inside the Westin,” Dominic said promptly. Remy narrowed her eyes and lowered the rifle, though she kept it gripped tightly in both hands.

“How massive?” she asked. She struggled to keep her voice from betraying the shock and adrenaline running through her. Her hands trembled, and she clenched them around the rifle as she tried desperately to steady her nerves, even as they felt like they were attempting to rattle right out through her skin.

“Probably the biggest single-location outbreak since the Michaluk virus’s initial waves last year,” Dominic said.

“You’re lying,” Remy immediately and bluntly accused.

“No the hell I’m not,” Dominic protested. “It’s bad. It’s really fucking bad.” Something in the man’s voice clued Remy in that the man might actually be telling the truth. Didn’t mean she hated him any less, though.

Brandt moved between Remy and Dominic, much to Remy’s disappointment. “How bad? What is going on in there?” he asked, keeping his voice quiet and level. Despite that, Remy could hear the urgency in his tone.

“She had fucking infected hidden in the hotel. People who were living there who had gone missing over the past nine months, people who were infected and whose medications gave out on them,” Dominic said. Remy heard tears in his voice. “She let them loose, and they’re attacking everybody. Those who aren’t turned will be soon. And those who weren’t infected aren’t going to last much longer in there, if they’re not already dead.” He shook his head and gasped out, “It’s a death trap. The way she set that thing up? It’s going to herd the fucking infected right into the uninfected, and they’re all going to die. That tower is going to be the biggest biological hazard this world has seen in a year.”

“Jesus,” Remy whispered. “Are you serious? You’re telling me Alicia Day has intentionally created a major outbreak inside the Westin for the sole purpose of … what?”

“It’s a punishment,” Dominic said. He squeezed his eyes closed and shook his head. “She’s punishing them for escaping.”

“Stop being so fucking vague!” Brandt snapped. “Punishing who?”

“Last night, we had three people escape from the Westin,” Dominic explained, his eyes still closed as he pressed his fingers against his temples. “A doctor, his assistant, and a man who was on lockdown on the eighteenth floor. The man was infected with Michaluk, and he knew entirely too much about what was going on in the Westin. Alicia was still trying to decide what to do about him when Dr. Rivers and Kim Geller sprung him and got him out of there.”

“Why was this prisoner so important?” Brandt asked. “What’s so special about this prisoner that she would want to keep him locked up anyway?”

“Like I said, he’s infected,” Dominic said. “I don’t know the details. I might have been her handler, but she sure as hell wasn’t willing to divulge everything to me. I just know he was important. I don’t know why. But I also suspect he lost his importance about the same time Alicia tracked down where you guys were, and that’s why she had him locked up.”

“Us guys?” Brandt repeated, raising an eyebrow. Neither of them had offered Dominic any introductions.

“I’m not an idiot,” Dominic said. “I’ve seen your picture and read your file enough to know beyond a shadow of a doubt who you are.”

“And yet, while you have the advantage of knowing who we are, you have yet to explain who the fuck you are,” Brandt snarled. “And, for that matter, who the fuck Alicia Day is. Because contrary to everything she said last year, I never once believed, for one single second, that she was actually a member of the Marines or an MP. So what is she? FBI? CIA? DOJ? What?” When Dominic hesitated, Brandt added, “Explain. Now.”

When Dominic finally spoke, his voice was hushed, low and steady. “DIA,” he said simply.

Brandt took a slight step back in apparent surprise, seemingly knowing what in the world the DIA was. Remy wasn’t so lucky. She frowned and shook her head, gripping the rifle tighter. “What the hell is the DIA?”

Brandt cleared his throat and ran a hand through his hair. “I wasn’t aware it was that serious,” he said before glancing to Remy and answering her question. “The DIA is sort of like the CIA, but it investigates potential threats to military personnel and installations. They also infiltrate foreign militaries in some cases, in order to learn about their training methods and, ideally, their objectives. Among other things. That’s the best way I think I can explain it without confusing the hell out of you.” He turned back to Dominic and asked, “And what’s your relationship with Alicia? What’s her position in the DIA got to do with you?”

“I’m her handler,” Dominic said. “Or I was. I don’t think the DIA technically exists anymore, but considering Alicia’s current state of health and her participation in the testing of the initial pathogen, I’ve continued my work accordingly.”

“And what, exactly, was the DIA’s interest in Michaluk?” Remy spoke up, moving a few steps closer to the two men.

“The same as the military’s interest in the pathogen,” Dominic said. “Enhancement. That’s it. Alicia volunteered and was inserted into the program under the guise of an MP in order to receive the same testing the actual Marines were receiving.” His eyes flickered toward the looming tower behind Remy.

Brandt suddenly switched gears in his questioning, opting to bring it around to the original conversation. “So if everybody in the Westin is infected or will be soon, how did you get out? Are you infected?”

“No, I’m not infected,” Dominic answered. “You can look me over for evidence of that if you so desire. It’s nothing I haven’t been through before.” His dark eyes were serious and tired. “As for how I got out of there, she let me go. She gave me a chance to get out, and I took it. So I took the same route Kim, Derek, and Ethan took when they skipped out last night.”

Remy’s attention was piqued by the names Dominic rattled off. “Ethan?” she repeated, intrigued.

“Yeah, Ethan Bennett,” Dominic said with a short nod. “I’m sure you’re familiar with him.”

Remy sucked in a sharp breath of shock before she staggered over to sit against an air conditioning unit. “Oh my God,” she breathed. “Ethan is alive? But … but that’s not possible.”

“How is it not possible?” Dominic challenged. “I’ve been in contact with him at least once a day for the past month. Believe me, he’s alive.”

“But I heard him die!” Remy protested. “I heard him die while we were escaping. I heard …” She dropped the rifle on the roof carelessly and buried her face in her hands. She dug the heels of her hands against her forehead and fought desperately to breathe. “He’s supposed to be dead. He’s not … he can’t be like that. Not like the infected.”

“He’s not,” Dominic told her in a sympathetic, reassuring tone. “Well, he’s infected, but he’s not like that. He doesn’t try to kill people. He’s more like … more like Alicia, I think. He’s got the Michaluk virus, but the doctor he’s with is probably the only expert on this virus left alive in the entire world. He’s the one who’s come up with the medications the infected people take to keep from going homicidal.”

“So he’s alive?” Remy asked again, her voice even more incredulous. She couldn’t wrap her mind around it. Her throat felt like it was closing up, her lungs burning with effort as tears sprang to her eyes. She tried to suck in a desperate breath, but she couldn’t manage anything more than a faint whimper.

And then Brandt knelt in front of her and wiggled his hand underneath her pack so he could rub her back gently. “Remy, you’re hyperventilating,” he said in a low, soothing voice. “I need you to breathe, okay? Just close your eyes, relax, and breathe. In and out.”

Remy focused on the sound of Brandt’s voice, forcing herself to relax, forcing air into and out of her lungs as he murmured the instructions, until her lungs loosened and allowed her to breathe freely. Her hand found Brandt’s free one, and she clutched it tightly, digging her nails in as she buried her face against his chest and sobbed in a mixture of shock and relief.

Chapter 46

Cade rubbed at her eyes as she crouched in the back of one of the multitude of Army trucks parked around the city, chewing idly on a granola bar Isaac had given her. She hadn’t gotten as much sleep as she’d have liked the night before; over half of it had been spent painstakingly attempting to assemble a rather small bomb out of the odds and ends scavenged for her by Isaac’s people. In the end, she’d thrown a screwdriver across the room in frustration, and the bomb remained unconstructed. It was something that would have taken Brandt’s expertise to accomplish, and in that, they were sorely lacking.

Ethan took a knee on the tailgate beside her and scanned the quiet street. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“Keeping watch,” Cade replied through a bite of granola. She finished chewing and swallowed. “You know, the stuff we’re supposed to do so none of us gets killed.”

Ethan frowned and settled back on the tailgate, watching as she finished off her granola bar and checked over her weapons for the fifth time that morning. She had a lot of them stashed away on her person now, courtesy of Isaac taking up a collection of knives and guns and spare ammunition magazines for her use. As she worked, Cade felt his eyes watching her every move and, quite frankly, it bothered her.

“What is it?” Cade asked. She managed to keep the irritation out of her voice as she pulled the Glock from its holster. The Beretta still had no holster, so she’d taken to keeping it in her waistband. It wasn’t the ideal place to keep a gun, but it’d have to do.

“Are you genuinely not bothered by the idea of killing someone?” Ethan asked. He glanced at Isaac and Kimberly, who talked quietly, and Derek, who pored over papers and scribbled in a battered notebook. “You talk so casually about the possibility of having to kill Alicia. Like you couldn’t care less.”

Cade slapped the magazine back into the Glock and shook her head. “The way I see it, Ethan, she’s just another one of the fucking infected,” she said. Even she hated the coldness in her voice. “It’s just an added bonus that she’s the bitch who set the world on the path it’s on today.”

“It’s not too late to get the world off that path,” Ethan said. He looked across the street at the cars piled up there.

“I think I’d rather pull a Brandt and just blow the path up,” Cade muttered.

“Since when have you become so bloodthirsty?” Ethan asked, raising an eyebrow. Cade merely pulled the slide back on the Glock to chamber a round and then popped the magazine back out to add a bullet to it.

“Since that bitch killed Remy,” Cade bit out. “Since she threatened me and my baby and the life of my baby’s father.” She slammed the magazine back into the gun and grimaced. “That is why I want her dead.”

“This isn’t like you, though,” Ethan protested. “This isn’t the Cade Alton I know.”

“And what the hell would the Cade Alton you know do differently?” Cade asked, sliding the Glock into its holster. “What would she have done that I haven’t? Or what would she not have done that I have?”

“She certainly wouldn’t have gone out with the singular purpose of hunting down and murdering another human being,” Ethan replied.

Cade slammed her bag onto the tailgate. “Yes the fuck she would have,” she said harshly. “And she has before. What the hell kind of work do you think a sniper does? Sit on a box with a gun in her hand and look pretty? There might be a lot of jokes about ‘IDF babes’ and all that shit, but that doesn’t mean we’re fucking lawn ornaments or pin-up girls! We had jobs, and we did them above and beyond expectations, because we had something to prove. I took every assignment I was given without question, and I did a damn fine job of all eighteen of them. Not once did I miss a fucking target. And not once did I get caught. I was fucking good at it. So don’t tell me that the Cade Alton you knew wouldn’t have killed anybody, because she fucking damn well did!”

It took Cade a moment to realize that a hush had fallen over the back of the truck. She looked behind her and saw that the quiet conversation between Kimberly and Isaac had ceased; even Derek had torn his eyes away from his studies to look at her questioningly. She forced her gaze away from them, biting back the urge to snap for them to mind their own business, and refocused on the street, where more important things could have been happening.

“I only do what I absolutely have to do,” Cade said, dropping her voice so the others couldn’t hear, hoping they’d go back to what they’d been doing. “Just what needs to be done. Nothing more, nothing less.”

Ethan nodded and hooked his hands around his knee, not looking at her. “I know. I just don’t want to see you lose your humanity over this,” he admitted. “I don’t want to see you become like Alicia.”

“I’m not going to become like her,” Cade said. She wasn’t sure whom she was trying to reassure more: herself or Ethan. She shivered and rubbed her hand over her bare arm. “I’m sorry I yelled at you,” she added. “It’s stress. I’m not used to being in charge of this kind of stuff. I’ve been following Brandt for so long that I’ve forgotten what it’s like.”

“I understand,” Ethan said. He caught her hand and gave it a light squeeze. “We should get moving soon. I don’t want to wait too long. I want to get this over with.”

Cade nodded and stood, rolling her shoulders and adjusting her Kevlar vest. Since Isaac had opted to leave his own armor at the base, she was probably the most well armored of the group of five—if indeed a Kevlar vest could be considered “armored.” If she could have gotten away with it, she’d have left the heavy garment behind, but when Ethan had found out she had it, he’d insisted on her wearing it. So she was stuck.

After double-checking the fastenings on her vest, Cade faced the other three in the back of the truck, dropping off the tailgate to stand on the street. She instantly regretted the new position. The tailgate came up above her breasts, halfway to her collarbones, making her appear decidedly less imposing than she wanted. She blew out a breath before beckoning to the others. “Come on, let’s go,” she announced. “We’ve got to move if we expect to make it to the Westin within the next few hours.”

Cade turned on her heel, just barely seeing the grimace Kimberly gave her, and started to walk down the street. She didn’t bother to wait and make sure the others were, in fact, following her. There was bustling and thumping as the others grabbed their gear and disembarked from the truck. Kimberly’s quiet griping met Cade’s ears, but she shunted it aside and continued on.

Ethan caught up with Cade, and she glanced at him as he matched his pace with hers. “You know, you’re not exactly winning any brownie points with Kimberly back there by acting like this,” he said.

“I’m not trying to win brownie points with anyone,” Cade replied. “And I’m not here to make friends. I’m just trying to get us the hell through this alive.”

“If I had any say in it, I’d have made you stay back at Isaac’s place,” Ethan admitted. “You’re pregnant, and the thought of you running around doing risky shit like this makes me a little nervous.”

“I’ll be fine,” Cade assured him, though she gave him a smile, genuinely touched that he cared enough to say something. “I’m barely even a month and a half along. There’s not much there to be affected at this point.”

Ethan chuckled and tilted his head toward her, acknowledging her point. “Still, I want you to be careful, okay? I don’t want to have to be the one to break the news to Brandt if you get killed.”

“I think he’d have more trouble dealing with the fact that you were the one doing the telling,” Cade said with a soft laugh. “He still thinks you’re dead.”

Ethan ran his hand through his hair and smirked. “Yeah, I can imagine that would be a … very interesting discussion to listen in on.” He paused, studying the street around them. “Hey, Cade? Could you maybe … would you tell me what happened to Remy?” he asked hesitantly.

Cade’s step faltered, and she gave him a startled, wide-eyed look. “I … I wasn’t exactly there,” she stammered. “I mean, at the time, Alicia was having her assholes drag me out to the car and—”

“What did you hear?” Ethan persisted, his voice hard and tight. “How did she die, Cade? I need to know.”

Cade skirted a bicycle lying on the pavement and sucked in a deep breath. She let it out and shook her head. “There were … there were a lot of gunshots,” she finally said. She caught hold of a side mirror on a truck and stepped over the remains of a broken suitcase. “Enough that if they all hit her, then they definitely killed her.” She swallowed hard and added, in a soft voice, “I couldn’t do anything to save her.” She pressed her lips together and added, “I think she gave as good as she got, though.”

“What makes you say that?” Ethan asked, even as his tone indicated how heartbroken he was at the thought of Remy’s death.

“Because the two men Alicia left behind to take care of Remy were supposed to meet up with us that evening on the route back to Atlanta,” Cade explained. “They never showed up. Alicia was absolutely furious over it. I imagine Remy fought like hell and took them down with her. She’s never struck me as the type to just take whatever people threw at her.”

“That’s my girl,” Ethan said, his voice full of sad pride. “Always was a wildcat. Never took shit from anybody.”

Cade started to nod in agreement, but a flicker of movement in the corner of her eye made her stop short. She drew in a breath and turned, just in time to see no less than ten infected emerging from the ruins surrounding them, crawling and rising from under and behind cars and trucks and buses, intent on their position. Cade snatched her Beretta from the waistband of her jeans, flicked the safety off, and lifted it. She pointed it at the forehead of the nearest infected man, who quickened his pace as their eyes met. As she aimed, more infected swarmed from the shops around them, and she swore.

“Run!” Cade shouted to the others as she squeezed the trigger.

Chapter 47

“What are we going to do, Brandt?”

“I don’t know.”

“Come on. You’ve always got, like, a million plans rattling around in your head. You’ve got to have something this time.”

Brandt heaved a sigh and shook his head. “Remy …” he said simply, warningly, before letting his voice fall off. He ran his hands through his hair, grimacing at its length, and then resumed his pacing. Unfortunately, Remy felt the need to match him step for step, and not only that, she felt the need to do it alongside him. He glanced toward their newest companion, who—thankfully—did not seem inclined to pester him. Dominic clutched a can of soup, focusing solely on it as he ate, slowly and mechanically, straight from the can.

“What are we going to do about him?” Remy asked.

Brandt looked at Dominic again. The man still ate, holding the spoon awkwardly in his left hand as he hunched over, trying not to spill the soup. He glanced at them but turned his eyes back to the rooftop just as quickly.

“Do you think he was telling the truth?” Brandt asked.

“About Ethan?”

“About all of it,” he corrected.

“Why are you asking me?”

“Because you’re the resident mind-reader around here,” Brandt half joked.

Remy sighed, stopped beside him, and crossed her arms. “I want to say no,” she said, staring steadily at the man as he tried to eat. “Mainly because I really want to shoot the hell out of him.” She dug her fingers into the crooks of her elbows. “Sadly, though, I don’t think he’s lying. He seems to be genuinely honest about what he told us.”

“Including the ‘Alicia is a psychotic bitch’ part,” Brandt said. He let out a bitter chuckle, and Remy looked at him in concern. He glanced at the edge of the roof, and his eyes were drawn inexorably to the skyscraper. He averted his eyes and walked to the edge of the building, planting one boot against the ledge and leaning out just enough to study the street below.

Remy joined him a moment later, her arms still crossed as she followed his gaze. “Worrying about Cade?” she asked.

“You have no idea,” Brandt muttered.

Remy patted him on the shoulder. He batted her hand away. “It’ll be all right,” she said in an attempt to reassure him.

“No the hell it won’t be,” Brandt snapped back. “It’s not going to be okay. Nothing will ever be okay. I don’t even fucking know if I’m ever going to see her again. I have to work on the assumption that I won’t and make plans accordingly. If that was her they were talking about on that news bulletin, then there’s a chance I’ll never be able to track down where those people are staying.”

Remy sighed and opened her mouth to protest Brandt’s statement, but the pop of a firearm from somewhere nearby interrupted her. Brandt tensed and squinted down the street, trying to make out where the gunshot had come from. “You heard that, right?” Remy asked breathlessly. She didn’t wait for Brandt’s reply. Instead, she rushed to the side of the building, stopped at the edge, and looked down as she sought out the source. Even Dominic had risen to his feet, his food abandoned as he strode to Brandt’s left to search in that direction.

“Remy! Binoculars! Now!” Brandt snapped, holding his hand out as he caught sight of movement in the distance. Remy hastened to obey, slapping the binoculars into his hand. Brandt held them up to his eyes, aiming them toward what he’d seen and adjusting the focus. His eyes narrowed as he struggled to make out what he was looking at. He sucked in a breath as the information finally passed from his eyes to his brain, and he resisted the urge to take a step back.

It was a horde of infected, at least fifteen of them. But what had prompted them to swarm like that? Another burst of gunfire echoed in his ears, and he swung the binoculars forward, searching, scanning the crowd below.

And then he found them. Five people ran ahead of the horde, sprinting for all they were worth, their feet pounding the pavement as they dodged between cars and jumped over luggage. Their progress was slowed by the litter as they pelted frantically down the street. Brandt spied a woman at the back of the group, lithe and lean, wrapped in a black vest and wearing black heeled boots, her dark hair loose and flowing in waves and curls down her back. As Brandt watched, she turned, a gun in each hand, and opened fire on the infected. Brandt drew in a breath. He’d recognize that slim figure and dark hair anywhere.

“Fuck! It’s Cade!” Brandt yelled. He nearly dropped his binoculars in his haste to put them down. He slung the rifle off his shoulder and dropped to a knee, setting himself up to aim at the infected from his high perch. As he rested his elbow against the concrete and adjusted his aim, squinting through the scope, Remy joined him.

“What do you need me to do?” she asked. She grabbed the binoculars from beside him and scanned the street.

“Get your gun out. Fire three shots,” Brandt instructed. “We need to get their attention so they know where they’re going.”

Remy obeyed, rushing to the corner closest to the street down which the survivors were fleeing. She raised her handgun into the air, flipped the safety off, and fired three shots. Brandt watched as Cade—and he was positive it was Cade—turned, raised her gun, and fired a single shot into the air in answer as she continued to run. Her head swung from side to side as she checked the rooftops.

“Remy! Wave something! Get their attention!” Brandt ordered. He adjusted his aim, pinpointing a single infected man that was too close to Cade for comfort and squeezing the trigger. The man’s head exploded, and he fell back against the pavement, unmoving.

Brandt clenched his teeth and shifted his aim to the next infected person as the group of five skirted another vehicle and hit the sidewalk at a dead run. Remy waved a white t-shirt as if challenging a charging bull, running along the rooftop to direct them to the fire-escape staircase attached to the side of the building. Cade still brought up the rear, her guns still in her hands. Brandt managed a smile and fired another bullet into the skull of another infected.

The clamor of shoes striking the fire escape met Brandt’s ears, but Brandt didn’t let up his cover fire. He was determined to make sure the five made it onto the rooftop. When the roof’s access door burst open, Brandt ceased fire and set the rifle down gently, propping it against the ledge as he rose to his feet and slowly turned. His hands trembled and his heart raced in his chest as he watched in anticipation while the group hurried onto the roof, one after another.

A young woman with blond hair was in the lead, followed by a tall, muscular black man. Brandt had never seen either of them. Behind the man came a face that was shockingly familiar. Brandt was taken aback by the sight of the doctor who’d been in charge of his case, and he took a short step toward him. Before he could speak, his attention was pulled to Remy as she let out a loud, excited yelp. He looked to her and saw her rush toward Ethan Bennett as he stepped through the door, squinting in the midmorning sunlight. She flung herself at him, throwing her arms around his neck and clinging tightly to him. Brandt didn’t watch the reunion any further; he only had eyes for Cade.

The dark-haired woman stepped out onto the roof. She shielded her eyes with her left hand as her right still gripped one of the sidearms with which she’d shot at the infected. The other was holstered at her side. Her face was pale and damp with sweat. Strands of hair stuck to her skin; the rest tumbled in a tangled mass over her shoulders and back. Brandt strode forward, his boots thumping across the roof, and pushed past everyone else to go straight to her. He grabbed the woman by her wrist and pulled her close, crushing her against his chest as he wrapped her in a tight, wordless embrace.

“Oh my God,” Cade said. Her voice was muffled against his chest as she dropped her gun and returned his embrace. She clung to him, her fingers digging into his jacket. “Oh my God, you’re alive!”

“I’m alive?” Brandt managed hoarsely. He released Cade just enough to look her over, searching for injuries. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

“I’m not hurt. I’m fine,” she assured him. He cupped her face in his hands, tracing his thumbs over her cheekbones. He slid his hands into her hair and pulled her to him again. He looked over her head at the others. Ethan had his own arms wrapped around Remy as the young woman wept against his chest in relief. Brandt’s eyes met Ethan’s, and Ethan gave him a slight smile and a short nod.

“As touching as this reunion is,” the unknown black man spoke up, “we’ve got a mission to complete as soon as possible.”

Brandt didn’t let go of Cade as he looked at the man. “What kind of mission are you talking about? And, for that matter, who the hell are you?”

“My name is Isaac Wright,” the man answered. “I helped Miss Alton out just after she escaped from Alicia Day’s custody.”

“He’s okay, Brandt,” Cade said. She tugged away from him and looked at each of the survivors in turn. “He probably saved my life. And he’s dead set on seeing Alicia stopped.”

“Sounds like we’ve got similar goals,” Brandt acknowledged. “So I assume you guys have a plan?”

“Yeah. But, ah, Brandt?” Cade asked suddenly. She looked up at him, a frown gracing her features. “Where’s Gray?”

Chapter 48

It’d been a long two hours in which the group talked over each other, arguing as they attempted to exchange information, telling their stories from the past month and showing off new scars—both physical and emotional. There had been long moments of grief as Cade and Ethan learned of Gray’s death at Alicia’s hands, grief that was quickly put aside for the present. But despite the emotional turmoil of those two hours, Ethan still couldn’t describe the relief he felt at discovering that Remy was still alive. It far surpassed the feelings he’d experienced when Cade walked into the room at Isaac’s apartment looking tired and disheveled, but alive. Ethan had been heartbroken when he’d been told that Remy was dead, but he’d hidden the grief, shoved it far down, where it wouldn’t break free on its own. To have the young woman in front of him, alive and well and uninjured—it was something far beyond his wildest dreams.

Remy had spent the past thirty minutes telling everyone about what had happened in the safe house after Cade’s kidnapping. And after that, she’d talked only to Ethan, her voice hushed, quiet as she’d confessed to him the heartache and misery she’d experienced after his apparent death.

Now they sat quietly, their soft breathing the only sound between them, Remy’s hand clutching his tightly enough to hurt. Ethan didn’t mind the pain. He’d felt worse pain in the past month alone. He was just glad he felt it, especially from Remy.

“We need a plan,” Remy said. She was idly picking at the edge of the bandage around Ethan’s forearm. “We all want the same thing. Now how are we going to get it?”

Ethan looked across the roof at Cade and Brandt. They sat on the ledge at the edge of the building. Brandt had his back hunched, his elbows on his thighs, as Cade pushed the collar of his shirt aside to examine his shoulders, one after the other. He raised an eyebrow and, instead of answering Remy’s question, asked one of his own.

“What’s wrong with Brandt’s shoulders?”

Remy glanced at Brandt and Cade, watching them for a moment, before replying. “He got stabbed in one shoulder yesterday. We were attacked in a gas station on the way here, which was where he injured the other.”

“Ouch,” Ethan murmured. “I’d ask if he was infected, but I think I already know the answer to that.”

“Yeah, I think we all do.” She pushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear and gave him a smile, but the expression quickly fell away as she shifted her eyes back to Brandt. “I’m a little worried about him,” she admitted. “He’s acting differently.”

“So are you,” Ethan said quietly.

“I am?”

“Yeah, you are,” Ethan confirmed. “You’re … you seem older. And somehow a lot … angrier.”

“I am angry,” Remy admitted. She looked at her hands, picking at a broken nail. “I’m just so angry, Ethan. I just want to burn the fucking world down.”

“I think I know how you feel,” Ethan said. “But, Remy, you can’t let that anger consume you. You can’t let yourself turn into something that isn’t you. You can’t let it control you. Because that kind of person, the kind that would burn the world down, that would get so consumed by revenge, ends up destroying themselves instead of taking down what they set out to destroy. I don’t want that to happen to you. You’re better than that.”

“Very deep, Ethan,” Remy murmured. “You sound a lot like Gray. He tried to tell me the same thing before we left the safe house. About how I was a better person than all that.”

“Gray was a lot smarter than most of us,” Ethan acknowledged. “I’m sorry that he … that he fell.”

Remy nodded and looked away from him for a moment. Then she picked up the conversation as if they’d never stopped. “The fact of the matter is that’s how I am. I thought you knew that. Very … passionate. About everything.” She huffed out a breath. “You should’ve met me before all this shit started. I’d hope you’d have been intrigued by me, but something tells me you’d have been completely turned off by how insane I was.”

Ethan chuckled. “Well, that’d explain the tattoos,” he commented, brushing his hand against her right arm, where he knew a tattoo of a black dragon wound snakelike around her bicep. He was intimately familiar with every one of her tattoos: the song lyrics and musical notes on her legs, the dragon on her arm, the large, somewhat clichéd angel wings covering her entire back, the unfinished outline of a sparrow on her thigh. “I think we all have wild times in our lives where we do crazy shit like get tattoos.”

Remy smirked and glanced at Ethan. “You don’t have any tattoos,” she pointed out. “You must not have had a crazy period.”

“Oh, I had one,” Ethan admitted. “There’s a reason I know how to drive a motorcycle, and it wasn’t just because I thought it’d be a fun skill to pick up. I thought I was hot shit on that Harley.” Ethan laughed a little and added, “I just didn’t get any tattoos because I was a little too straight laced for that.”

“You? Straight laced?” Remy let out a gasp of mock horror, pressing a hand over her heart. “I’d never have guessed!”

Ethan chuckled and shook his head, draping an arm around Remy and giving her a squeeze. “Hey, a man has to keep some secrets, you know,” he joked. He pressed a light kiss to her hair and glanced in Brandt’s direction again.

In the time between then and the last time Ethan had looked at him, the Marine had risen from his perch on the roof’s edge. Cade still sat, looking disturbed as she shifted her eyes to the ground below, her fingers clenched around her knees. She was upset about something, but Ethan knew there was no chance of getting what it was out of her. She’d never been one to open up about what was bothering her, not even to him.

Brandt paced across the roof, moving closer to them so everyone could hear what he had to say. He rocked on his heels, shoving his hands into his pockets and clearing his throat, drawing the attention of all present. He didn’t look at them as he began to speak. “I’ve got a plan,” he announced. “At least, I think I do. But it’s not going to be a plan that everyone here will like or agree with.”

“Oh great,” Remy muttered. “Last time he said that, we ended up neck-deep in the shit.”

“He has a habit of that,” Ethan conceded. He grabbed her hand again and gave it a squeeze as he focused his attention on Brandt.

“Just … please keep in mind that this plan’s designed to minimize risk and casualties as much as we can,” he added. “I know everyone here has a bone to pick with Alicia Day. But we’re here to save as many lives as possible, as many lives that are a guaranteed save. Those in the Westin aren’t a guarantee, so we’re focusing on those that are. And yes, that includes members of this group.”

“So what’s the plan then?” Kimberly spoke up. Her eyes were riveted to Brandt as he stared at the roof fixedly. When Brandt finally looked up, instead of addressing Kimberly, he spoke to Isaac.

“Isaac, Cade tells me there are almost forty people in the apartment building you guys hide out in,” he started. “Ms. Geller, I want you and Dr. Rivers to go back to that apartment building.”

“What?” Kimberly exploded. “There is no way I’m going back like a dog with my tail between my legs!”

“Would you shut up?” Brandt snapped vehemently. Ethan raised his eyebrows in surprise, rocking back a few inches in the face of the man’s anger. “I’m not fucking risking Dr. Rivers getting killed by the infected. He’s too fucking important for that. He’s the only one I know of who’s even got a chance of coming up with a cure, and I don’t want that chance lost because I was stupid enough to take him into danger with me.” He paused for a few seconds and then continued through clenched teeth. “I want you and Dr. Rivers to get everyone at the apartment building together, get them packed up with their essentials, and do whatever you can to get them out of the city. Go east. Head for Hollywood, South Carolina. We’ll meet you there as soon as possible.”

“Why Hollywood?” Derek asked, crossing his arms. He didn’t appear argumentative, simply curious.

“We were hiding out there,” Brandt explained. “There were few infected in that area. It’s probably as safe as it’s going to get for now.” He cleared his throat again and turned back to Isaac. “You and Dominic are going after vehicles for us,” he told the man. “I want you to find something capable of holding at least six people. You’ll probably do well to find an SUV. Try to find one in good condition, with at least half a tank of gas. Bring whatever you find to the intersection of Spring and Baker. Guard the vehicle. We’ll meet you there.”

“What about the four of us, Brandt?” Ethan asked carefully. He glanced at Cade, and their eyes met as Brandt spoke again.

“We’re going into the Westin after Alicia, and we’re taking the bitch down,” Brandt said firmly.

Chapter 49

When Isaac arrived on the roof in the early afternoon to take her place on watch, Cade was dog tired. Her lack of sleep over the past several days had finally caught up with her, and she dragged herself to the roof-access door and stumbled into the darkness, venturing down to the floor where everyone else had commandeered hotel rooms. She had half a mind to just find a corner in which to curl up and pass out, but the other half of her mind wanted to find Brandt. She decided that sleep could wait a bit longer. She had some apologies to offer.

Cade stepped into the dark hallway and eased toward the end of it in the general direction in which everyone else had staked out rooms. She reached for her flashlight to help her eyes cut through the almost impenetrable darkness, but she stopped when she saw the familiar glow of an LED camping lantern shining out of one of the hotel room doors. She hesitated, pausing at the doorway and peering inside.

Brandt sat at a small round table in a hotel suite’s kitchenette. He slumped in the chair with his right arm resting on the kitchen table, some sort of band wrapped around his bicep just above his inner elbow. Derek sat in another chair close to him, leaning over Brandt’s arm and prodding at the crook of his elbow. Four small vials of blood were already on the table in front of Derek, and as she watched, he slid another vial inside the Vacutainer. The vial drew the blood from Brandt’s arm, filling quickly. Once it was full, Derek pressed a cotton ball to the inside of Brandt’s elbow and withdrew the needle, fastening the cotton down with a piece of medical tape. Brandt let out a heavy breath.

“I think this will be enough,” Derek said as he checked to make sure the vial was sealed. He put a piece of medical tape over the seal for added security. “Thank you, Brandt. Really. I might not be able to do anything for you, but you’ve possibly helped a lot of people out there.”

“I’m not doing it for all those people,” Brandt said. He unfastened the strap from his arm and massaged the limb. “I’m doing it for Cade and the baby. I’ll do anything to reduce the risks to them.”

“So why are you letting her go into the Westin if you care about her so much?” Derek asked.

“Because, even though I don’t want her to go, I wouldn’t trust anyone else to have my back,” Brandt replied. At his words, Cade couldn’t help the small smile that quirked at the corner of her mouth. “And because if I’m going to die, I don’t want it to be anywhere else but beside her.”

Derek began to pack the five vials into a small, foam-padded case. “I just don’t understand what’s so different about you and this virus. It’s like it’s bonded with you. You’re not even contagious.”

“Wait, I’m not?” Brandt sounded shocked as he lifted his head to look at Derek in surprise. “Then how did … how did Gray get infected? It had to have been the blood from that Hispanic guy.”

“Hispanic guy?” Derek’s brow furrowed as he snapped the case closed. “You mean Cortez?”

“I assume so,” Brandt said. He shrugged and dropped his hands to the table. “He was with Alicia. He tried to kill us.”

“What’d you do to him?” Derek asked quietly.

“Stabbed him in the chest and cut his throat.”

“That’d do it.” Derek sighed and tapped his fingers over the case’s lid. “Cortez was infected. Like Alicia. He was on medications to suppress the virus. If he died, and you got his blood on you and it got into Gray’s wound, then there is a high possibility that he became infected that way.”

“Oh God, that’s a relief,” Brandt breathed out.

Derek looked at him carefully in the dim light. “Look, just be careful, okay? All four of you. I can’t say whether or not this will be enough, and I want the option to come begging for more again.”

Brandt laughed. “You don’t have to beg, Derek. Hell, if Alicia had acted like a sane person, she wouldn’t have had to either. But she didn’t, so here we are.”

Derek smoothed both hands over the case. “I don’t know if it’s the virus or just her general temperament that’s got her acting like she’s been, but …” He looked up, and his words trailed off as he spotted Cade in the doorway. Busted, she gave the doctor a smile and stepped into the room with a nod to him.

“Hi,” Cade greeted the men. She shoved her hands into her pockets as she stood in the doorway, feeling awkward at the intrusion. “Sorry I interrupted. I can just …” She motioned to the door behind her, indicating that she’d leave if they wanted her to.

“No, no,” Brandt said, shaking his head. “Come on in. No worries. Derek was just leaving, right?” He glanced at the doctor.

“That I was,” Derek agreed. He scooped up his bag and slipped past Cade, disappearing down the hall into a different hotel room.

Cade stood in the doorway for a minute more, shifting from one foot to the other and scanning the kitchenette, pointedly avoiding looking at Brandt right away. When she finally did, she wasn’t surprised to discover Brandt still staring at her, patiently waiting on her to speak. She eased forward toward the table, but Brandt spoke before she reached it.

“Hey, can you get the door?” he requested. “I didn’t even mean to leave it open. I figure you might want some privacy.”

“Why would I want privacy?” Cade asked. She took a few steps back and pushed the door closed with her foot, then resumed her walk to the table. Once there, she spun a chair around and straddled it, resting her forearms against the back of the chair.

“I don’t know. Figured we haven’t really talked privately since we … reconnected,” Brandt said. He rested an elbow against the table, his head on his hand as he stared at her. “I figure we’ve got a lot to talk about.”

“We do?” Cade asked innocently. Nervousness stirred in her gut, though she knew, just by eavesdropping, that Brandt already knew what she had to tell him.

“Yeah, we do,” Brandt agreed. He gave her a smile, his eyes meeting hers, and added softly, “Like the baby?”

Cade sucked in a breath and let it out slowly. She shifted her hands to grip the back of the chair. “Yeah, like that,” she said. “I take it Remy told you?”

“Yeah, right around the same time she stuck a gun in my face,” Brandt said thoughtfully.

Cade snorted before letting out a burst of laughter. “Remy put a gun in your face?” she repeated in surprise.

“Yeah, she was pretty pissed off at the time,” Brandt admitted. “She wasn’t in a good place, I don’t think.” He sighed and sat up straight, picking lightly at the tape holding the cotton ball to his inner elbow. “How are you, Cade? I mean, really.”

Cade considered her words before answering. “I think I’m okay,” she said. “I’m a little scared, if you’d like me to be honest, but it’s not anything I can’t handle.”

“Yeah, I think I’d rather you be honest with me,” Brandt said. He pulled the tape free and wrapped it around the cotton ball. “I’m scared too,” he admitted. “I mean, this is serious. Really serious.”

“It is,” Cade said, nodding in agreement. “What’s going to happen if we fail? What if we don’t get to her?”

“Then we’ll be dead,” Brandt said simply, an odd amount of confidence in his voice, considering the subject matter. Cade saw right through it, though, and she studied him as she tilted her head to the side.

“You’re not as confident as you’re trying to sound,” she observed. “That’s a first. I figured you’d never have a moment of self-doubt. You’re always trying to be so … tough.”

Brandt raised an eyebrow, and a smirk spread across his face. “Are you teasing me, Cade?”

“Maybe.” Cade reached to the small of her back and slowly drew a survival knife from the sheath at the back of her belt. It was a short-bladed one Isaac had given her, but it would do for her purposes. She studied the blade, flicking her thumb lightly over the edge, testing its sharpness. Then she flipped it over, caught it by the blade, and offered it to Brandt hilt-first. “I need you to do me a favor,” she requested.

Brandt slowly took the knife from her. “Sure, anything within reason,” he agreed.

Cade slipped a hairband from her wrist and braided her hair, snapping the band around the end before pulling the tail over her shoulder so Brandt could see it. “I need you to cut this off.”

“You need me to what?” Brandt asked, his voice rising in pitch with surprise. “Cut your hair? But I like your hair!”

“Provided we survive this evening, it’ll grow back,” Cade said. “There’s a high chance we’ll walk into a bad situation and have to do close-quarters fighting. I don’t want to have another handle to be grabbed by.”

“Yeah, I get that, but … your hair,” he said forlornly. The disappointment he expressed at her decision to cut her hair off was, honestly, fairly amusing. Cade smirked as she waved the braid at him.

“Come on, Brandt. Get it over with before I change my mind,” she said.

“In that case, maybe I should drag ass until you do,” he joked, even as he slid out of his chair and moved to stand behind her. He took the braid into his hand and ran his fingers over the strands. Cade squeezed her eyes shut and held her breath as he slipped the knife underneath the tail and started to cut. She heard the strands break and snap under the assault from the blade, and she bit down on her lip as the blade broke through the last of the hair. Her shortened locks fell away to brush against the back of her neck. Cade reached up hesitantly to touch the strands that were left, her fingers feeling the coarse ends midway down the back of her neck. She let out a soft breath.

“How does it look?” Cade asked hesitantly, twisting around to look at Brandt. He still held the thick braid in his hand, winding it around his fingers.

“Ragged. It’ll need a trim,” he answered.

Cade shrugged and forced the fleeting sadness she felt over her hair out of her mind. “I’ll worry about evening it out later,” she said.

Brandt sank back into his chair, sliding the braid and knife across the table to Cade. She sheathed the knife and rested her hand loosely on top of the braid before looking at him. His expression was strangely uncertain, as if he wanted to say or ask something. He drew in a deep breath, reaching out for her hand, and forced the words out.

“Cade, are you … are you absolutely sure you’re pregnant?” he asked carefully. “I mean, is there any doubt about it whatsoever?”

Cade understood why he’d be so uncertain over it. After what he’d told her the month before, after the hell he’d gone through losing his first and only child and then looking divorce right in the face, she could grant him some level of uncertainty. She twisted the braid between her fingers and nodded slowly.

“Yeah, Brandt. I’m pretty certain of it,” she said. She let out a soft chuckle. “I took four pregnancy tests over the span of a day and drank practically an entire gallon of water. All the tests came back positive.”

“And the chances of a false positive across all four tests would be pretty damn low,” Brandt said. He mulled the news over, tracing his fingers slowly along the scar crossing Cade’s palm, before asking, “So what do you think about it?”

“Honestly, I haven’t had much time to,” Cade confessed. “We had only … I mean, it caught me by surprise. And before I got a chance to really process it, the shit with Alicia started, and it got shunted to the side in my mind in favor of survival.” She rolled her eyes. “God knows everybody else is fascinated by the news, though.”

“It’s because of me, isn’t it?” Brandt muttered. He sounded so bitter that Cade looked at him in surprise. He had his head in his hands, elbows resting on the edge of the table, his fingers plunged into his dark hair. “I don’t want people to hurt you just because of me. It’s not … I don’t want to see you hurt.”

Cade slid her chair around the table to sit closer to him. “I don’t care, Brandt. I can take whatever they throw at me.”

Brandt slammed his fist against the table, and Cade startled. “You shouldn’t have to,” he growled out. “That’s why I want to see the bitch dead. That’s why I want to look her in the fucking eyes before I pull the damned trigger. Because even if I die, she’ll never leave you the fuck alone.”

Cade dropped her head against Brandt’s bicep. She smoothed her hand down his muscular forearm to rest it on top of his hand. “I understand. She put me through hell. I want to see her dead too.” She hesitated and added softly, “I think we need to talk. About what happened before you left the safe house. When we … didn’t get along too well.”

“You mean when we fought,” Brandt murmured.

“Yeah. When we fought,” Cade agreed sadly. “We should talk about that.”

“Can we not?” Brandt asked. “I can think of a million other things I’d rather talk about than what we disagreed on a thousand years ago.” He rose from his seat and went to the hotel room door, easing it open and peering out into the hall. He stood like that for a moment, examining the exterior hallway, before he closed the door and bolted it, flipping the security latch closed. Then he stopped beside her, twisting the ragged ends of her hair between his fingers. “I hope it’s okay for me to do this.” He wrapped his hand around Cade’s wrist and tugged her out of the chair, pulling her to him. Cade stumbled at the sudden motion, but his free arm hooked around her waist to steady her before he pulled her tight against him and took her mouth in a deep kiss.

Cade let out an involuntary squeak of surprise at the suddenness of the kiss, and she returned it for only a moment before she pulled away to give him a look that spoke volumes of just how crazy she thought he was. “What the hell, Brandt?” she said, raising an eyebrow. “I thought we were going to talk?”

“Less talk, more this,” Brandt mumbled against her neck, nipping at her skin.

Cade tried to ignore the way her knees went weak.

“And here I was thinking we’d have a serious conversation for once,” she half-joked as Brandt steered her to the bedroom, tugging at the straps and clasps holding the Kevlar vest together. He stopped her by the bed and pulled the Beretta from the waistband of her jeans, depositing it on the bedside table. His dark eyes sparkled with mischievousness as they met hers.

“You must be entirely mistaken if you actually think I’m capable of being serious,” he said. He slipped his hands into her front pockets and dislodged the ammunition magazines from them, dropping them by the Beretta. “Must be some other guy you’re talking about.” His fingers found two more magazines in her belt and pulled them free, then slid the Glock from its holster and left it beside the Beretta.

“Oh yeah, can’t you see the line of men at the door?” Cade said with a sarcastic roll of her eyes.

“What, you think you couldn’t make ‘em line up?” Brandt asked. He pulled the survival knife free from its sheath and added it to the growing pile of weapons on the bedside table. “You’re fucking gorgeous, Cade,” he said, starting on her belt buckle. “Absolutely gorgeous. One of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen. I’m surprised I’m not having to fight off every guy that looks at you, because they’ve got to see it too.” He paused and raised an eyebrow, dislodging a knife with a blade even larger than the survival knife he’d already removed, slipping it out of the sheath she’d hidden in her jeans. “Geez, Cade, exactly how many guns and knives you got hidden on you?”

Cade laughed and took the knife from him, dropping it on the table and shrugging out of the Kevlar vest. “Why don’t you find out?” she suggested with a playful wink, all thoughts of serious discussions banished.

Brandt groaned. “I don’t know whether I should be intrigued or terrified.”

Cade laughed again and grabbed Brandt by the front of his shirt. “Maybe both,” she suggested. “Now get over here. We’ve got a few hours, and I don’t want to waste them blathering like an idiot.”

Chapter 50

Remy sat on the end of the bed in the hotel room she’d staked out, her legs tucked underneath her and her bolo knife resting across her knees. She smoothed the corner of an old t-shirt over its naked blade. The weapon didn’t necessarily need cleaning; it hadn’t been used against anything, living or dead, in over a month, and its blade was still pristine. Remy polished it anyway, mainly because it calmed her, helped her center her mind, helped her focus on the problem at hand and not on the ones further down the road.

Even if the problem at hand was a stupid one.

Ethan sat in a chair in an unlit corner of the room, partially veiled by the darkness around him. One leg rested against his knee, his hand loosely hanging over his mouth as he propped against it, the broken chain of his dead wife’s locket dangling from the fingers of his other hand. She felt his eyes on her, watching her as she worked on the knife.

“Are you sure it doesn’t bother you?” Ethan asked.

“Oh yeah. Of course.”

She was lying through her teeth.

“You understand?”

“Yeah.”

She didn’t. Not at all.

There was another pause, another heavy silence between them. Ethan didn’t move a fraction. Remy kept sliding the cloth along the blade. When Ethan finally spoke again, his voice was just as gentle as it had been when he’d broken the bad news to her just thirty minutes before.

“You’re lying.”

Busted.

“Fine. I’m lying. Whatever,” Remy muttered, fighting the urge to throw her blade onto the floor. Focus, focus, she repeated silently. She took a deep breath and forced herself to continue. “But what else am I supposed to do? Tell you all about how much it bothers me that you were sleeping with that crazy bitch? Tell you about how much it bothers me that we can’t be together? How much it scares me that you’re probably not going to get better, even with Brandt’s cure?”

“If he’s got one,” Ethan added.

“If he’s got one,” Remy conceded hoarsely. She cleared her throat. “I don’t want you to die. Again. It was hard enough losing you once and having to cope with that. Now you’re telling me I’m probably going to have to face it again.”

“Everybody has to die someday, Remy,” Ethan said gently.

“Oh, shove that philosophical bullshit up your ass,” Remy snapped. She flung the knife away from her; it bounced on the edge of the mattress and tumbled to the floor with a clatter. She ignored it and bit out, “How many women have to face the prospect of seeing their lovers die twice?”

Ethan barely flinched. Remy couldn’t make out a single flicker of reaction from him. That just made her angrier. “I can imagine not very many,” he said quietly.

“You’re damn fucking right ‘not very many,’” Remy snarled. His lack of emotion was infuriating. She slid off the bed and stormed over to stand in front of him. He still didn’t move, save to tilt his head back just enough to see her. “I’ve already lost almost every single person I care about. Don’t you fucking dare make me go through this again.”

“There’s nothing I can do to stop it, Remy,” Ethan said placidly.

Remy leaned down, resting her hands against the chair’s armrests and digging her nails into the fabric. She leaned closer, getting almost in his face, and said, quietly but firmly, “You can fucking fight it. Because I can’t take losing yet another person I love. I’d feed myself to a crowd of infected before I let that happen.”

That was enough to garner a reaction from Ethan. His facial expression didn’t change, but a wave of sadness flooded his eyes as he stared up at her. “Gray’s death must have really fucked you up, huh?”

“Irreparably,” Remy said without hesitation. “Fucking breaking point. I can’t take any more.”

Ethan sighed and slowly, deliberately set the locket on the table beside him. His hands found Remy’s wrists, and before she could utter a sound of protest, he tugged her into his lap and wrapped his arms around her in a tight hug. “I’m so sorry, Remy,” he said quietly. She closed her eyes as the words met her ears. “I just want to prepare you for what I see as the inevitable. I didn’t intend to upset you or set you off. I just … I can’t keep taking these medications forever. And I don’t know what’s going to happen when I can’t use them anymore.”

“Well, you won’t hit that point if I have anything to say about it,” Remy said stubbornly. “Because that doctor guy out there—”

“Derek,” Ethan interrupted.

“Yeah, whatever,” Remy said flippantly. “He’s going to come up with a cure for that virus, and he’s going to be world famous and save us all. And then you’ll be healthy and get to help start the world over. And then maybe I can kiss you again and not have to worry about getting infected in the process.”

“Oh, so that’s your ultimate goal, huh?” Ethan said in a soft, teasing voice. Remy rolled her eyes and jabbed him in the ribs.

“Not just that,” she protested. “I have other goals too, you know.”

“And those would be?”

“Absolutely none of your business.” Remy smirked and added, “Yet.” She started to slide off Ethan’s lap, but he hooked his arm around her waist, locking her into place.

“Tell me,” he demanded, looking at her with deviousness in his eyes.

“Hey, what was that you said to me on the roof?” Remy asked, smirking with mock thoughtfulness. “Oh yes, I remember. A girl’s gotta have some secrets.”

Ethan laughed. “Oh come on, that’s just plain mean,” he protested. “There should be a law against a woman using a man’s own words against him.”

Remy’s smirk widened into a grin, but before she could respond, there was a soft knock at the door. She stiffened, and almost at the same instant, Ethan’s wristwatch let out a chirp. He sighed and rolled his eyes, dropping his head back against the chair. “What? What is it?” she asked as the person at the door knocked again.

“That’s probably Dr. Rivers,” Ethan said. He glanced at his watch and jabbed at it to turn the alarm off. “It’s about time for my meds and to get my bandages changed and shit.” He tapped her lightly on the thigh, indicating that she should get up. Remy sighed and slid off his lap, dragging herself to the end of the bed and slumping onto it again. She retrieved her bolo knife from the floor and dusted it off with the discarded t-shirt again as Ethan stood. He ran a hand over her hair as he passed on the way to the door, and she couldn’t help the smile that ghosted across her lips.

“Ethan,” Remy spoke up. Ethan turned to look at her, a note of curiosity in his eyes. She suddenly felt shy as her eyes met his, and she resisted the urge to duck her head and break their gazes. “Do you … I mean, can I stay here? Do you mind if I stay?”

Ethan hesitated and glanced to the door as another knock echoed through the room. Then a slow smile spread across his lips, and he nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, sure. You can stay.”

Chapter 51

The soft beep of his watch right next to his ear woke Brandt from his deep sleep. He lifted his head from his pillow and jabbed at the button on the side of the watch, silencing the alarm before squinting blearily at the watch face. It was mid-evening, he discovered, not much longer before he, Cade, Ethan, and Remy were to set out on their own branch of the mission while the others attended to theirs. He and Cade had managed to sleep the remainder of the afternoon away.

Brandt eased onto his back slowly so he wouldn’t wake Cade, and he looked at the woman in the dim light filtering in through the windows. She lay on her right side, her back to him, still deep in sleep. Brandt brushed his fingers down her spine, trailing them over her skin until the sheet would allow him to go no farther, as he thought over the words she’d said just a couple of hours before.

“I lied.”

Two of the sweetest words he’d ever heard.

Cade’s back looked so naked without the long curtain of hair she’d always had hanging over it. He’d never get used to the short hair. He hoped it really was a matter of practicality and safety and that she’d been serious when she said she would grow it back out. Cade shifted in her sleep as his fingers left her skin, but she didn’t wake up. Good, he thought. He shifted closer to her and pressed a light kiss to her bare upper arm. Let her rest while she can.

A soft knock on the hotel room’s door drew Brandt’s attention away from the woman before him. He sighed and rolled his eyes, debating simply ignoring whoever was at the door, before he gave up and slid out of bed. He sorted through the scattered clothes on the floor before finding his boxers and jeans; after pulling them both on, he forced himself to the hotel suite’s main door.

Brandt was only mildly surprised to discover Ethan standing on the other side. The expression on his face proclaimed the man ready to set out for battle—far more ready than either Brandt or Cade was. He looked Brandt up and down with a quick scan of his green eyes before asking, “Uh, you guys ready to go?”

Brandt simply raised an eyebrow and looked down at himself pointedly. He was shirtless and shoeless and, for that matter, weaponless.

“Stupid question,” Ethan acknowledged. “Mind if I come in?”

Brandt stared at him and considered his request. He thought of Cade back in the bedroom, asleep and similarly unclothed, and his own desire to crawl back into bed with her, and almost told Ethan no. He caved, though, indicating with a slight swing of his head to the kitchenette behind him that the man could enter. Ethan slipped past Brandt and stepped inside, looking around the suite curiously as Brandt shut the door.

“Where’s Cade?” Ethan asked as soon as the door clicked shut.

“Still asleep. Keep your voice down,” Brandt said, his own voice still hoarse with sleep. He sat down heavily in one of the kitchenette’s chairs, rubbing both hands over his face in a vain effort to wake up. “Got anything to eat? I’m starving.”

Ethan set his backpack on the table and dug through it, pulling four protein bars free and sliding them across the table to Brandt. He froze as his eyes landed on Cade’s braid, still lying on the table. He picked it up. “Is this …?”

“Cade’s hair?” Brandt finished for him. “Yeah, it is.”

“Geez, she cut it off?” Ethan sounded incredulous. “That’s … wow. I’ve never seen her with short hair. How does she look?”

“A little weird,” Brandt admitted. He set two of the protein bars aside for Cade before tearing into a third. “But I think that’s because I’m just not used to it.”

“I can imagine.” Ethan watched Brandt eat for a moment before speaking again. “How are you feeling?”

“About what?” Brandt asked. He pushed his hair back from his eyes as he looked up at Ethan.

“I mean your health,” Ethan clarified. “In general. How do you feel?” He hesitated and then asked, “What does it feel like for you?”

It took Brandt a moment to realize what Ethan meant. “I barely notice it,” he admitted. “It’s like it’s not even there for me.”

“Lucky,” Ethan muttered. He stared at the table, shifting his pack to the floor beside his chair, before adding, “I feel it all the time. Like it’s lurking there, waiting for me to drop my guard so it can pounce. I lose my temper so easily now. And I can’t remember shit like I used to.” He blew out a soft breath. “I can’t even remember exactly how I met Nikola or how Theo died. I mean, I remember I met Nikola in Memphis, but I don’t remember how. And I know Theo’s death had something to do with Cade, but I can’t remember …” He trailed off and looked away.

Brandt nodded. “Yeah, Derek told me about that. About how you couldn’t remember where we were going after Atlanta.” He paused and studied the protein bar’s wrapper, crinkling the cellophane between his fingers. “You know, you not being able to remember probably saved Cade’s life.”

“How so?” Ethan asked curiously.

“Well, if you’d told Alicia where we were at the earliest opportune moment, and if she’d come after us then, Cade wouldn’t have survived, not with that hole in her side. She came … pretty close. Pretty damn close. If Alicia had come along when Cade was like that, if she’d dragged Cade to Atlanta when she was still sick from her infection, I don’t think Cade would have made the entire trip alive.”

“Jesus, I hadn’t thought of that,” Ethan admitted. “I was so desperate to find you guys and link up again that I didn’t even consider …”

“It’s okay,” Brandt said. “You didn’t know about Alicia or what she wanted to do. That’s not your fault.” The sound of footsteps in the bedroom met his ears, and Brandt squinted to the door before rising from his chair. “I’ll be right back,” he said to Ethan before retreating to the bedroom.

When Brandt stepped into the bedroom, he found Cade sitting on the edge of the bed as she dressed. Her movements were sluggish with exhaustion. She looked up as he entered the room, and a tired but beautiful smile spread across her face. “Hey,” she greeted him. She tugged her customary tank top over her head.

Brandt grinned and sat down beside her, pulling her close and stealing another kiss. “Ethan’s here,” he told her. “Did you sleep well?”

“I slept all right,” Cade said. “I kept waking up. Anticipation and all that. Ready to get this shit over with.” She ruffled her hand through her shorn hair, emphasizing the bedhead that was already there, and looked startled when her hair came up shorter than she was accustomed to. She laughed ruefully. “I really need to get used to that,” she said. She retrieved her socks and boots and started to put them on. Brandt watched as she zipped the knee-high boots, covering her calves with the tough leather, before he spoke up.

“We leave in about forty-five minutes, when it starts to get dark,” he said. They’d decided on that tactic earlier that afternoon, when they’d discussed the merits of going in at dusk or during the bright daylight. Though the idea of stomping around in the dark didn’t appeal to Brandt, he could see the logic in it—while it would make it difficult for them to see the infected, it would make it equally difficult for the infected or anyone inside the Westin to see them. “Are you ready for this?”

“Brandt, I was born ready,” Cade said confidently. She rose from the bed gracefully, and Brandt’s eyes followed her as she picked up her Kevlar vest and strapped it on, following with her belt, holsters, and sheaths. She methodically checked her weapons as she fastened and belted them to her person. She looked like she was getting ready to go to war. In a way, she was.

It wasn’t long before they joined Ethan in the kitchen, Brandt finally fully dressed, his own weapons strapped on. Cade made a beeline for Ethan and wrapped her arms around him in a tight hug, kissing his forehead lightly. “You ready?” she asked simply.

“As ever,” Ethan replied. He poked her in the side of the neck with a smirk. “Nice hickey.”

Cade swatted at Ethan’s hand and gave him a look, even as her cheeks colored a red that somehow emphasized her beauty. “Shut up, you,” she said as she let go of him.

Ethan smirked wider. “Remy and I hammered out the gist of a plan for us in the Westin. Nothing complex.” The four of them had already delineated tasks once they were inside the Westin; Ethan and Remy would be going after the seventeenth floor, where the children were, to see what they could find, while Cade and Brandt tried to track down Alicia. “Seems like shit changes in this city on the drop of a dime.”

“That it does,” Cade agreed. She flopped into a chair, and Brandt slid over the two protein bars he’d saved for her. She attacked them vigorously as she continued. “Brandt and I have a plan too, though most of it involves just winging it until we get into the Westin itself.”

“Only you two could fail to come up with a firm plan and still manage to pull out of everything alive,” Ethan half-joked. Cade grinned, and even Brandt managed to crack a smile, despite the pre-mission jitters beginning to roll through his stomach.

Among this group, this was the first major expedition Brandt was leading since the near-disaster of Remy’s rescue the year before. The guilt of nearly getting Cade killed during that attempt still weighed heavily on his conscience, though he knew she no longer held it against him—if she ever truly had in the first place. What would happen if he turned this trip into an unmitigated catastrophe? What would happen if he got Cade killed, if he failed to find Alicia?

While Brandt didn’t like the idea of screwing up the mission, he didn’t want to even consider the idea of Cade’s death. Imagining the possibilities was too heart-rending.

Because Brandt knew that a world without Cade in it was a world in which he wasn’t willing to live.

Chapter 52

Cade’s boots barely made a sound as she eased down the fire escape behind Brandt, Remy and Ethan following close behind her. Being outside at dusk without any lights to guide them was unnerving; there wasn’t even any moonlight to pave their way to the Westin. But the four of them had agreed before they’d set out that lights were inadvisable, and they were sticking to that. Cade forced a slow breath into her lungs and dropped to the ground, raising her Beretta in a two-handed grip as her boots met the pavement.

Brandt was already moving to the mouth of the alley into which the fire escape had dropped them. Cade stopped several yards short of him to provide backup as he peered around the corner, checking the situation on the street beyond. Ethan and Remy moved up behind her, standing so close that she could hear one of them breathing. She resisted snapping at them to back up, instead focusing on the man before her as he lurked in place for several long, slow heartbeats. Then he retreated, tapping Cade’s shoulder unnecessarily to get her attention.

“I only see one infected on the street at the moment,” Brandt murmured, his voice barely audible. Cade leaned closer to hear him better. “The others that followed you guys on your way here must have already scattered. We need to take him down before we move on. As quietly as possible.”

“No guns unless absolutely necessary,” Ethan agreed, his lips barely moving. “Any ideas?”

“Plenty, but they’ll get our asses handed to us,” Brandt said. He handed Cade his rifle and then dropped his hand to his belt, drawing a wicked-looking knife Cade hadn’t known he even had. She smirked slightly as his eyes met hers. “Wait here. I’ll be back.”

Cade raised an eyebrow and nodded, easing back half a step to stand with Remy and Ethan. She watched anxiously as Brandt crept back to the end of the alley, knife in hand. He slipped around the corner and onto the street. Cade motioned to the other two, putting a finger to her lips, and then hurried forward quickly and quietly. She knew Brandt had told them to stay put, but she’d be damned if she didn’t watch what was about to happen.

By the time Cade reached the end of the alley, Brandt was already halfway into the street and closing in fast on the infected man. The man seemed oddly distracted and unfocused, unlike the infected with which Cade had previously dealt in the city. Maybe he didn’t see an easy meal nearby, she theorized. Or maybe he was into the second stage of the virus, the reanimation stage, and therefore not in solid control of his mental faculties. Ultimately, though, Cade didn’t really care how the infected acted when dinner wasn’t around. She wasn’t there to study them; she was there to avoid them or, if that wasn’t possible, to kill them before they killed her. What she cared more about at the moment was Brandt, who was only feet away from his intended target.

As Brandt raised the knife, prepared to strike, the infected man turned and spotted him. A muffled gasp escaped Remy’s throat, and Cade barely suppressed her own. The man opened his mouth to make that ugly snarling sound the infected all seemed to make when sighting prey. Ethan gripped Cade’s arm hard enough to bruise, as if he expected her to run into the street. She tried to shake his grasp off even as she watched the scene, wide-eyed, and raised her gun, just in case Brandt needed her help.

The infected man extended his arms, reaching for Brandt, his fingers hooking into claws. Brandt dove forward and put his shoulder into the man’s gut, tackling him as if he were playing football. He drove the man down to the cracked pavement. Then his knife came up. He slammed the blade into the infected man’s throat, silencing any opportunity the man might have had to make any noise.

The infected man made a gurgling sound as blood surged into his mouth. He tried to claw at Brandt’s face, but Brandt easily batted the man’s hands aside. He ripped the knife free and grabbed the sides of the man’s head. With a sharp, savage twist, the man’s neck snapped, severing the spinal cord; the man went limp on the pavement. Brandt wiped his blade clean on the edge of the dead man’s shirt and slipped it back into its sheath before rejoining the three of them, only slightly breathless from the encounter.

“Come on. Let’s go,” Brandt breathed, beckoning them into the street. Cade followed without question, leading the other two, still impressed with what she’d witnessed just moments before. She’d always known Brandt had been trained to fight like that, but she’d never actually seen such a high level of stealth with her own eyes. He’d displayed such skill taking down that single target that she had no doubt he’d be fine once inside the Westin.

Brandt led them across the street, slipping sideways between vehicles as he aimed for the sidewalk on the far side. Cade squinted into the dark, trying to make out any oncoming dangers. She wondered if setting out on this mission after dark was a bad idea, especially considering the cloudy sky above. She glanced up, hoping the clouds would dissipate soon, that they’d allow the moon’s light to break through and help them at least that much. Instead, a pulse of lightning lit up the clouds. The last thing she wanted was a rainstorm, but as a low rumble of thunder shook the air, the sky seemed determined to make the trip to the Westin that much more miserable. Cade pulled even alongside Brandt with a grimace, glancing only momentarily at the pair that brought up the rear.

“Sounds like a thunderstorm’s coming in,” she murmured.

“Yep, I noticed,” Brandt muttered. He stepped onto the sidewalk and looked in either direction before beckoning to the three of them. They formed a small four-person huddle on the sidewalk to hear him. “Shortest way is to the left. We’ll cross Carnegie and into this stupid little park thing they’ve got shoved randomly in the middle of the intersection,” he instructed. “If we cut alongside that and follow the curve of it along Spring, we’ll hit the intersection at Spring and Andrew Young. Then Ethan can show us where we can get into AmericasMart and work our way up.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Cade agreed. “You’re familiar with this area. Lead the way.”

Brandt gave them a short businesslike nod and set out toward Margaret Mitchell Square. Cade, Ethan, and Remy followed obediently in a single-file line. Another rumble of thunder shuddered through the night. Cade still couldn’t see much of anything on the street level. But she couldn’t miss the Westin, towering over them as far as her eyes could make out in the descending darkness. The top of the tower was invisible in the haze dropping from the oncoming storm. A hard gust of wind pushed up her back, and she tensed as the air brushed against the back of her bared neck.

“You okay?” Ethan asked in a hushed voice. He followed her gaze to the tall building looming over the street.

“I’m fine. I just want to get this shit over with,” Cade muttered. With one last glance to either side of her, she darted across the street and into the shadow of the trees in the small courtyard. The Marine had already disappeared into the darkness there, and Remy and Ethan scrambled to follow. They reached the two of them, slightly out of breath, as Cade ducked under a tree at the corner of the courtyard to study the building without being seen.

“You act like you’ve got a plan,” Remy commented, raising her voice just enough to be heard over the growing rustle of wind through tree leaves.

“Actually, I have no idea what the hell I’m doing,” Cade admitted sheepishly. She pushed strands of her shortened hair out of her face and edged around the tree, trying to get a better look at the Westin. Cade imagined she could already hear the snarls of the infected and the screams of the uninfected inside the skyscraper. She shunted the thought aside; the last thing she needed was to conjure up sounds that weren’t there and psych herself out for the inevitable confrontation with Alicia. “I’m just winging it.”

“Isn’t that how most of our plans tend to go?” Brandt asked with a slight smirk. He emerged from underneath the trees and headed for the curving street separating them from the building. Cade drew in a breath and followed, Remy and Ethan close behind. She skirted around a couple of smashed cars and crossed the street, heading for the side of the building where Brandt already waited impatiently.

“You guys move too slow,” Brandt teased, glancing up at the wall against which he was pressed.

“No, you move too fast,” Cade retorted. She leaned against the side of the building as Ethan and Remy reached the sidewalk. Ethan squinted at the building across the street, and she followed his gaze.

“That’s AmericasMart,” Ethan told them softly. “Not far inside the front entry is a bank of elevators, and the stairwell door is right by it. We’ll go up to the third floor, where the walkway is that leads right into the Westin’s sixth floor. It’s where we came out when Kim, Derek, and I escaped.”

Without waiting for the others to voice any agreement or disagreement with his plan, Ethan took the lead and hurried down the street to the intersection, disappearing under the awning covering the front doors of AmericasMart. Cade grimaced at his back and sighed, rolling her eyes as Remy started after him.

“Race you to the third floor?” Brandt suggested with a mischievous smirk as he took a few steps toward the mall. He didn’t seem bothered in the slightest by Ethan charging ahead.

Cade shook her annoyance off and glanced at Brandt, her own smirk spreading across her face. “Why? I’ll only beat you,” she joked, even as she headed forward to join her two friends inside the building.

Chapter 53

Brandt’s thighs and calves burned with an oddly pleasant feeling of exertion as he finally reached the third floor of AmericasMart. Ethan and Remy waited at the stairwell door as he stopped halfway up the flight and reached down for Cade’s hand. The climb up the dark stairwell had been relatively easy for him, Ethan, and Remy, but Cade had begun to have trouble with the stairs halfway up, when an ache had settled into her side where her gunshot wound still healed, and he’d been forced to assist her whenever she would accept his help. But they’d made it. As he took Cade’s hand and physically picked her up, swinging her onto the steps with him, Brandt couldn’t help but be at least a little proud of their progress thus far. They’d only encountered one infected person, and Brandt had managed to put him down with minimal fuss and noise. He only hoped their luck would continue. He suspected it wouldn’t.

Once Ethan pushed the stairwell door open and the four of them emerged into the mall itself, the whumps of their shoes on the tiled floors echoing through the structure, Brandt slid a small flashlight from his pocket. He fingered the switch to the on position and shone it over their surroundings.

“I thought we agreed no lights,” Remy hissed through her teeth as she stopped beside him, glaring in the light from his flashlight.

“That was before we got in here,” Brandt murmured. His voice echoed off the tile floors and marble walls, amplifying his words, bringing their volume almost to the level of his normal speaking voice. “We’re in unfamiliar territory, walking into an unknown situation. I don’t want to get jumped in the fucking dark.”

“Makes sense,” Cade said. She caught Remy’s shoulder and tugged her back, out of the confrontational stance in which she stood. “Now which way, Ethan?”

Ethan led the three of them to the set of double doors he’d told them about. The thick chain he’d wound around their handles was still in place. “This way,” he instructed. He walked briskly to it and began to free the broken chain from the door. Brandt passed Cade his flashlight and gave Ethan a hand, and moments later, the chain fell to the floor with a clank.

“Come on,” Brandt whispered to the two women. “No words. As quiet as possible.” He emphasized his point by putting a finger to his lips. Then he and Ethan pulled the doors open and stepped through them. Cade switched the flashlight off.

The narrow walkway leading to a second set of doors was empty. Not that Brandt had expected anything to be there; this was likely the last truly safe zone through which they’d pass before their entrance into the hotel, where they’d probably face far more than they were actually prepared for.

It took less than thirty seconds to traverse the hallway, crouched low to avoid being seen through the windowed sides. Cade fell in behind Brandt, Ethan taking the lead, with Remy bringing up the rear as they made their way to the other end. The doors were barricaded in a manner similar to the other set; unlike with the others, though, several bullet holes spider-webbed across the glass. Cade took in a sharp breath, and Brandt glanced at her questioningly.

“They shot at you?” she whispered to Ethan. Even in the dim light, Brandt could see the anger in her blue eyes.

“Yeah, something like that,” Ethan replied distractedly. He dislodged the padlock from the chain and set it aside.

“Stupid bastards.”

“Precisely.” Ethan unwound the chain from the door handles as slowly and quietly as he could. Once it too was free, he set it aside and dug something from the backpack he wore, holding it up so they could see. It was one of the three grenades Brandt had found in the truck he’d searched the day before. A smile brushed Brandt’s lips as he took the weapon from Ethan and grasped one of the door’s handles.

“You guys all ready?”

“About as ready as I can possibly get,” Remy said. She drew her bolo knife from its sheath. Despite the firmness of her voice, though, Brandt could hear a quaver of nervousness in her words. Cade, for her part, held up her Beretta and gave him a short nod.

“We’ll be fine,” Brandt said confidently. “We’re going to track that bitch down and collect any survivors and make it out just fine.”

“I know,” Cade said.

Ethan grabbed the other door’s handle and gave Brandt a short nod. They simultaneously pulled the doors open, and the four of them stepped inside.

Just as Brandt suspected, there were infected in the sixth-floor lobby. What he had not expected, however, was so many. There were at least thirty infected spread out across the lobby, and their attention riveted on the four survivors as they moved through the doors. Ethan let out a startled gasp, and Brandt couldn’t help the curses that exploded from his mouth.

“Fuck!” Brandt snapped. He gripped the grenade in his right hand and grabbed Cade’s arm with his left. “Back out! Now!” As soon as the words left his mouth, he ripped the pin from the grenade. Cade and Remy were quick to obey, backing out into the walkway, Cade’s boots squeaking on the marble floor. Ethan and Brandt retreated with them, Brandt still clutching the grenade, squeezing the lever with a grip so tight his hand started to cramp. Once he felt they were clear enough, Brandt released the arming lever and rolled the weapon across the floor into the midst of the infected. As soon as it left his hand, Brandt grabbed Cade and spun around, kneeling and shielding her body from the detonation, even as his foot lashed out to kick the door shut behind him.

The explosion was short, quick, and violent. The pressure change in the air shattered the doors’ glass, which showered over the four of them. Thankfully, none of them was struck by any shrapnel from the grenade. Brandt barely waited for the debris to finish settling before he was on his feet once more, his Beretta out and aimed into the smoky dust clouding his vision.

“So much for any element of surprise we might have had,” Cade muttered.

“Aw, come on, Cade,” Remy protested. “I’m sure Alicia’s somewhere in here, pissing her pants in surprise right now. Wouldn’t you be?”

“Touché,” Cade conceded. She lifted her own Beretta, gave Brandt a short nod, and moved back into the lobby, confidently and quietly. “Let’s do this shit, yeah?” She disappeared into the cloudy haze settling over the lobby, and several quick bursts of gunfire rattled out as she fired on the infected still standing. Brandt nodded to Ethan and Remy shortly.

“You two bring up the rear,” he said. “You’re going to the seventeenth floor, right?”

“Right,” Ethan confirmed. “Where should we meet after this? The third floor? It’s the top level of the parking garage and opens out onto the street. Hardly anybody went down there when I was here, so there shouldn’t be many—if any—infected there.”

“Works for me,” Brandt said. He strode into the lobby, following Cade. His eyes sought out and locked onto her silhouette as she moved farther ahead of him. Another pop rang out as she aimed her firearm and took down another infected. The last thing Brandt wanted was to mistake her for one of the infected and accidentally shoot her. As Brandt moved farther into the lobby, Ethan and Remy broke left, heading for a bank of elevators on that side of the lobby, and Brandt was left alone for the first time.

The floor beneath Brandt’s boots was slick with blood and the bits of flesh the grenade ripped free from the infected horde, and each step he made crunched with shattered glass from the doors, windows, and chandeliers. His boot bumped something in the haze, and his eyes darted to the floor. A faint twinge of nausea bit at his gut as he saw a hand, shrunken and bloody and unattached, lying at the toe of his boot. He reflexively swept it aside before focusing his mind once again on the task at hand.

Brandt realized he’d lost sight of Cade and bit back another curse, this one of exasperation. He couldn’t see any infected still standing, even as the fog began to clear, and he debated calling out to her. There was a chance he’d distract her in a moment when it would be critical that she not be distracted. He had to do something, though. He opened his mouth to call out, but before he got any words out, a gunshot and a thud nearby made him lift his rifle into a firing position. But then Brandt spotted Cade and hesitated.

Cade had made it all the way across the lobby, taking a brisk pace to the door indicating the stairs near another bank of elevators. Brandt hurried to join her, nearly slipping in the blood splattered on the floor. Cade barely looked at him as he returned to her side, too intent on easing the stairwell door open quietly, on making as little noise as possible. Brandt recognized the look on her face; she was in the zone, the space to which he himself often retreated when on a mission, where emotions and stresses and worries were shoved aside in favor of accomplishing the intended goal.

“What’s the story?” Brandt murmured. She pulled the door fully open and propped it there with a metal trash can. It tried to slide shut at first, but then the can caught, and the door gave up the fight and stayed open.

“We’re heading down,” Cade said. “Remember what Ethan said. Her quarters are on the fourth floor. We should start there.”

“What’s the guarantee she’s still on that floor?” Brandt asked pointedly. He didn’t wait on Cade’s response. “There is no guarantee. We need to be prepared to check higher up.”

“I’m aware of that,” Cade grumbled. She faced him, looking oddly combative, and froze. She grabbed his jacket and hauled him aside. “Move!” she barked out. Brandt scrambled to obey, and the gunshot Cade fired next to his head made his ear ring. He staggered into the stairwell, nearly tripping over the bottom step of the stairs leading up, and turned to face the danger, raising his M-4 again.

Cade followed him into the stairwell, her gun pointed at the infected that had appeared seemingly out of nowhere, moving almost silently—frighteningly so. Brandt had never seen infected move so stealthily, and certainly not in such a large group. Even as he lifted his gun, Brandt scanned the crowd, estimated it to be around fifteen strong. He didn’t bother to fire a single shot. There were too many. They couldn’t fight them off. He grabbed the back of Cade’s jacket before she squeezed the trigger and dragged her from the doorway as he backed down the steps.

“Come on! There’s too many!” Brandt said. He stumbled blindly down a few steps, hauling Cade with him. She finally got the gist of what he was doing and started down the stairs with him at a breathless run.

“What are we going to do?” Cade asked, panting as she descended the stairs behind him.

Brandt reached the fourth-floor landing and paused, sweeping the next set of stairs leading down to make sure it was clear. He didn’t look at her as he went to the edge, grasped the railing, and looked to the floor above, trying to gauge whether the infected were making their way down the stairs. In the distance, somewhere in the hotel, he heard a single gunshot. He pushed the sound out of mind; he had more important things to worry about.

“We’re going to find the bitch, fast,” Brandt said. “And then once we’re squared away with her, we’re going to get the hell out of here before those infected figure out how to get down the stairs.”

“Or up,” Cade added. She, too, was at the railing. But instead of looking up, she’d chosen to look down into the darkness below. If he focused his ears, Brandt could hear the very distinct sounds of at least a few infected below them. “Fucking surrounded. We don’t have much chance of getting the hell out of here,” she said softly. “And Remy and Ethan are probably walking into a damned death trap up there.”

“Then if we’re going to die, we have no reason to not make sure we find Alicia,” Brandt said. He grabbed her hand and gave it a squeeze, then released it and went to the stairwell door. He wrenched it open, immediately swinging his rifle up to sweep the hallway as he drew his flashlight out and shone it down their path.

The short hallway leading to the fourth-floor lobby was cluttered with tables and chairs lining the walls at every available space between conference room doors. Brandt eased inside, the flashlight in one hand, rifle against his shoulder; he eyed the dark spaces beneath the tables warily. Cade slipped in beside him, letting the door swing shut as she studied the hallway. She, too, took in the tables littered with papers, her eyes narrowing as she slipped past him and progressed down the hallway. She paused beside one table, looked at a large paper taped there, and sucked in a sharp breath.

“Brandt,” she said with a flick of her fingers. Her tone was stricken, which only made Brandt less inclined to approach. But he went to her and shone his flashlight onto the table.

Brandt was startled to see his own handwriting staring back at him. He blinked in surprise and leaned closer to make sure he was actually seeing correctly. He most definitely was; it was his handwriting, scribbled in the margins of a Georgia map, a very familiar-looking map that took him scant seconds to place.

“So this is what happened to it,” Brandt murmured as he smoothed his hand over the paper. “I wondered where it disappeared to.” He looked at Cade and caught a glimpse of her quizzical expression. “It’s the map Ethan and I were working with. That’s why it’s written all over. We were making notes about where we should or shouldn’t go, marking roadblocks and traffic jams I knew about, whatever came to mind. It’s probably how Alicia found us in the end. Once she got her hands on this, it was like there was a neon sign over our heads that said, ‘Hey, we’re right here!’”

“Do you think Ethan gave this information to them?” Cade asked. “Do you think he helped them voluntarily?”

“I don’t doubt it in the slightest,” Brandt admitted. “But I think if Ethan had known what Alicia was like, he’d have done everything he could to stop her or at least delay her taking any action. He genuinely thought he was on the right side on this one. Road to Hell, good intentions, all that shit.”

Cade traced her fingers along the paper, lightly touching a place bearing Brandt’s cramped scrawl. “Poor Ethan has always been a bad judge of character,” she said. “No idea how he ended up becoming a police officer.”

Brandt started to reply, but before he got a word out, Cade let out a sharp cry and pitched forward. She put out her hands to catch herself and fell gracelessly against the table. Her palms slid across its top and ripped the map, and her Beretta skittered across the table and dropped between it and the wall. Even as she fell, Brandt turned, raising his rifle to point it at the new threat he hadn’t heard coming on the carpeted floor. His rifle was kicked from his hand in mid-turn, and a boot slammed into his stomach, driving the air from his lungs and dropping him to his knees. A knife slipped between his chest and the strap of his rifle, and the strap was sliced through. The rifle tumbled to the carpet.

Brandt pressed a hand to his stomach and struggled to breathe, even as he scrambled for his gun, which lay on the carpet, nearly in reach.

A booted foot came down on top of the weapon, effectively blocking his attempt.

Brandt slowly looked up at the figure standing above him. He stared down the barrel of a Beretta M9 handgun similar to his own, pointed directly at his face. It was held in an easy grip by a familiar redheaded woman.

“It’s about fucking time you showed up,” Alicia Day snarled.

Chapter 54

Remy’s nerves felt like they were about to vibrate through her skin as she stood guard beside Ethan, her back to the gate behind her, her bolo knife grasped in her sweaty hand. She trembled as she squinted through the darkness of the lobby, hoping none of the infected would notice her or Ethan. The man in question knelt on the floor beside her, nearly lying down, as he worked at the lock on the security gate pulled over the hotel bar’s entrance. Remy personally thought the short detour was the epitome of stupidity; they didn’t have time for this, not with people possibly dying eleven floors above them! But Ethan had insisted, had pushed on it until she couldn’t say no, not without risking him going alone.

“Almost got it,” Ethan whispered below her, mostly to himself. Remy didn’t bother responding to his statement, knowing it wasn’t necessarily intended for her. Instead, she straightened her back and squinted into the darkness again.

It hadn’t been long since she and Ethan had split off from Brandt and Cade. The other two had disappeared to the right, on their mission to seek out Alicia Day. Remy and Ethan were intended to search for and rescue any survivors they could. But even with this mission in mind, Remy could still remember Brandt’s words to her, spoken earlier in the day, while Ethan napped, the promise he’d forced out of her. The one that tore her heart in two whenever she thought on it. If Ethan shows any sign of turning into one of the infected, any sign of the medication wearing off whatsoever, you pull the fucking trigger on him. Promise me, Remy.

Remy wasn’t sure she could do it.

She glanced at Ethan. He still worked at picking the lock with two slender screwdrivers, twisting and jabbing in an intricate manner that she wouldn’t claim to understand. She returned her eyes to the scenery around them. Still nothing moved. Another gunshot rang out on the other side of the lobby, but it wasn’t followed by any more. Remy hoped that meant the other two were okay and had only been threatened by one of the infected and not a mass of them.

“How much longer?” Remy asked hoarsely. A flicker caught the corner of her eye, and she turned, instinctively brandishing her knife.

“Just a minute more,” Ethan promised.

Remy located the source of the movement when she turned her head to the left. She drew in a sharp, startled breath at the sight of infected. There were at least ten, and they were headed straight for the two of them.

“Want to make that just a few seconds, Eth?” Remy snapped. She stepped forward to meet the infected, even as she warned, “We’ve got company.”

Ethan glanced up from his work, and his eyes widened. “Shit, shit, shit,” he chanted emphatically. He worked more frantically at the lock, not worrying about the noise he made anymore.

The infected were closing in fast. Remy knew Ethan wouldn’t get the gate opened before they got there. So she did the only thing she could do.

With a short step forward, Remy raised her knife and lashed out, turning sharply to the right. The blade caught the nearest infected man across the face, splitting his nose and cheeks wide open, and he went down in a splatter of blood. Remy gritted her teeth and reversed her swing, bringing the knife back around to attack a second infected person. With a two-handed grip, she slashed at a woman, embedding the knife’s sharp blade into the side of the woman’s neck, ripping it free, and slamming the blade into the woman’s chest. The blow wouldn’t kill the woman; Remy wasn’t so stupid as to think that. But the goal wasn’t total death and dismemberment. Remy only wanted to slow them down long enough for Ethan to get the damned gate open.

“Hurry the hell up!” she barked out to him. She slashed at another infected man and missed him by centimeters. “Get that gate open! Now!”

“What the hell do you think I’m trying to do?” Ethan snapped back. There was a squeal of metal against metal behind her, and Ethan called out breathlessly over the fray. “Got it!” Remy barely listened as she lit into another enemy, slicing and hacking at his hands and arms. A hand, disconnected from its owner’s body, fell to the marble floor with a sickening wet sound as Remy’s blade struck home. She kicked it into the crowd and, despite Ethan’s shouted, triumphant statement, she kept fighting, slashing at the infected with everything in her. “Remy, come on!” Ethan yelled impatiently.

Remy started to turn, but a hand closed around her right forearm, the one that grasped her bolo knife. She swore and yanked her gun from its holster, spinning and pressing the barrel against the forehead of the infected woman that grabbed her. She squeezed the trigger.

The snap of the gunshot was surprisingly loud as the sound ricocheted and magnified against the marble flooring, even as blood and other matter Remy didn’t want to think about fanned out from the infected woman’s head in a spray. Remy swore again and wrenched herself backward toward the gate. Ethan was already on the other side, holding the gate open two feet off the floor; clearly, he’d simply rolled underneath it once he’d managed to get it open. Remy slung her bolo knife underneath the gate and grasped the bottom of the flimsy-looking barrier. With one last glance at the infected surging toward them, she swung herself under the gate, flattening her body to clear the two-foot space. Once she was in, Remy twisted, walking her hands over each other and using her full body weight to slam the gate closed, even as she gained her footing again. She scrambled to her feet, panting, and she and Ethan both stumbled back from the gate. It took her only seconds to recover her knife, and then they just stood there, wide-eyed, watching as the infected on the other side flung themselves at the gate.

“Shit,” Ethan hissed.

“My thoughts exactly,” Remy muttered. While Ethan had the gate covered, she turned on her heel to check out the rest of the small restaurant they’d entered. It was a bar more than a restaurant, full of small, round two- and four-seater tables and booths. A large menu board behind the bar listed an assortment of alcoholic and nonalcoholic drinks and included a noticeably bigger advertisement for fresh oysters. Remy raised an eyebrow as Ethan spoke up.

“Ah, an oyster bar,” he said. He winked at Remy and added jokingly, “Think they got any fresh ones?”

Remy wrinkled her nose, shuddering with disgust, and glanced at the infected. They shook the gate with their hands, shoving it with their bodies. “If I had to choose between eating oysters of any kind and running into a horde of infected with steak sauce all over my body, I’d choose the infected,” she said. She snagged a serving cloth from a table and wiped the blood from the blade of her knife, following Ethan farther into the bar.

“Wait, you’re from New Orleans and you don’t like oysters?” Ethan asked, raising an eyebrow and stepping behind the bar.

“I had an awful experience involving a raw oyster and a bad bet when I was a child, okay?” Remy said in exasperation. “And just because my family is of Cajun descent doesn’t mean we shotgun raw seafood. Now what was so important that you felt the need to detour from our assigned mission to come in here?”

Ethan picked up a glass bottle and held it up for her to see. “This,” he said, slinging his backpack around to set it on the counter. He unzipped it and started grabbing bottles, stuffing them in his bag as rapidly as he could, arranging t-shirts he’d already cut into strips around them to keep them from getting broken.

“Wait, you threw us on a detour and possibly stuck us in a trap so you could grab a bunch of whiskey?” Remy demanded incredulously.

“I thought you were the one who’d been around Brandt too much,” Ethan said pointedly.

“I have not,” she protested. “I think you’ve gotten me confused with Cade.”

“Do I have to remind you about the stove in Maplesville?”

Remy smirked. “That was just a rare moment of creative ingenuity,” she proclaimed. “These are for Molotovs, aren’t they?” A grin split her face. “Aw, Ethan. Brandt would be so proud of you.”

Ethan snorted and stuffed a few more bottles in his bag before zipping it shut. “Who said I got the idea from him?” he asked. He shouldered the bag and settled it close to his body. “Don’t let me do something stupid that will get these bottles busted. I don’t want to end up smelling like an alcoholic hobo.”

Remy bit back a laugh as he circled around the counter and headed for a door in the corner of the bar. A sign of a little stick person climbing cartoon stairs was stuck to the wall next to the door. “I don’t think they call them hobos anymore,” she pointed out as Ethan paused at the door and checked over his Glock.

Ethan let out another undignified snort. “I don’t think they call them much of anything anymore.” He grasped the door handle and wrenched the door open, quickly stepping through and swinging his flashlight and gun around, searching the stairwell for any immediate dangers. When he didn’t see anything, he beckoned to Remy. “Come on, babe. Let’s get this shit taken care of.”

Remy smirked at the nickname and slithered into the stairwell, her newly cleaned bolo knife grasped firmly in her hand, the sound of the infected on the other side of the security gate still echoing in her ears.

Chapter 55

Cade Alton was seeing red, and it had nothing to do with Alicia Day’s hair color. She caught her balance against the edge of the table and eyed the woman, watching how she held her firearm, how it was pointed right at Brandt’s face, how tight her grip was on the weapon, how her finger rested loosely against the trigger. Cade gritted her teeth and backed up quickly, careful to keep her boots from making a sound on the carpeted floor. Her hands found the metal folding chair at the end of the table, and she eased it closed, hefted it into both hands, and took two brisk steps forward. Gripping the chair tightly, she swung it with all her strength and slammed it into the woman’s back.

Alicia staggered forward with the force of the blow. At the same time, Brandt brought his arm up and slammed his fist against Alicia’s hands, knocking her weapon to the floor. It tumbled across the carpet and disappeared into the darkness under a table.

Alicia caught herself on the tables to either side of her before she fell. She righted herself with a grace that Cade had only ever seen in Remy. Before Cade could react, Alicia twisted and lashed out with a foot. Her booted foot struck Brandt across the face as he reached for his sidearm, and knocked him flat on his back. Once he was temporarily out of commission, Alicia faced Cade with a grimace.

“Well, if it isn’t the bitch who caused me so many fucking problems,” Alicia snarled.

“If it isn’t the bitch who just took a cheap fucking shot like a coward by kicking me in the back of the knee,” Cade retorted. She slid easily into a defensive position, struggling to not be the first to launch an attack against the woman.

“Too bad I didn’t take a fucking cheap shot in your damned skull,” Alicia said. She raced forward and swung her fist in an arc, aiming for the side of Cade’s head. Cade put her own arm up and blocked the strike. A pang of pain shot through her forearm as Alicia’s knuckles struck her skin. She would have a bruise there in the morning.

Cade didn’t take the time to worry about her arm, though. Instead, she stepped forward, meeting Alicia head-on. She twisted her arm around and grasped the woman’s wrist, hauled her forward, and slammed her own fist into the woman’s nose. Cartilage gave under her fingers, and a spurt of blood accompanied the punch. Alicia staggered backward as blood poured down her upper lip and chin. The grimace twisting her face was made worse by the blood.

Alicia didn’t bother saying anything. She didn’t even cry out in pain at the strike. She only retaliated.

In a move that Cade found frightening, if only because of its speed, Alicia leaped onto a chair and then onto a table. She took three quick steps and kicked out. Her boot struck Cade’s chest, sending her stumbling back and falling to the floor as the pain of the boot’s impact radiated through her sternum. The air rushed from her lungs, and her head bumped the carpet hard enough that, for a moment, she saw stars.

Thankfully, the knock on her head wasn’t quite enough to distract her from Alicia’s next attack. Even as she struggled to get air flowing back into her lungs, Alicia launched herself off the table at Cade. Cade rolled flat on her back and kicked out with both feet. Her boots connected with Alicia’s midsection, and she pushed up, flipping the woman over her head and slamming her heavily to the floor.

Alicia uttered a low groan as Cade rolled to the side and climbed to her hands and knees before regaining her feet. She steadied herself with a hand against a table and pulled her Glock from its holster. Alicia still lay on the floor, conscious but her chest heaving, as if Cade had returned the favor of knocking the air from her lungs. She took a slow step toward Alicia as the other woman let out another groan.

Cade bumped the woman’s leg with the toe of her boot. “Don’t fucking move,” she ordered breathlessly. “But I suppose that goes without saying.”

Alicia’s eyes slid open, and she glared at Cade hatefully. Then she struck out again, her foot hooking behind Cade’s knee and pulling. Cade’s leg was jerked out from under her, and she toppled backward. The back of her head struck the edge of a table, and she yelped as she tumbled to the floor, stunned. Her Glock skittered out of her hand.

Alicia came into her line of view moments later, stepping over her and picking the dropped weapon up from the floor. She studied it for a moment before aiming it down at Cade’s face. Cade blinked at her stupidly. Her brain felt hazy, and the back of her head hurt like hell. She couldn’t get her thoughts together, couldn’t force her limbs to cooperate with her brain, couldn’t tell herself to move. She groaned and squeezed her eyes closed as Alicia pulled the slide of the Glock back—unnecessary, really, because Cade had already chambered a round. It was obviously meant to intimidate. And, frankly, it was working.

Cade forced her eyes open and looked up the barrel of her own gun.

“Stop right the fuck there!” a voice yelled. “Drop the fucking gun, or I swear to God I’ll drop you.”

Alicia froze, her eyes narrowing, as she looked up at the owner of the voice. Even Cade managed to tilt her head back, and just like that, a grin split her lips. Brandt stood near the spot where Alicia had knocked him out just a few moments before. A slow trickle of blood oozed down the side of his head and shone in his dark hair. His hands gripped his M-4 Carbine tightly but confidently. And his eyes held a hardness that Cade had never before seen in them, a hardness speaking of a catalog of awful things he wanted to do to Alicia for daring to threaten Cade’s life. Alicia seemed to sense the danger she was in; she moved the Glock from Cade and aimed it instead at Brandt as the Marine spoke.

“I’m going to give you one fucking chance,” Brandt said, his voice low and cold. He didn’t loosen his grip in the slightest on his weapon.

“One fucking chance to what?” Alicia bit out.

“One fucking chance to save your damned life,” Brandt snarled. Alicia tensed almost imperceptibly, but from her position on the floor, Cade couldn’t help but notice. As Brandt barked out his next statement, Cade slowly eased her hand underneath herself, slipping it down to the small of her back. “I want to know why the fuck you decided to do this.”

“Because somebody fucking had to!” Alicia replied. She tensed further, adjusting her grip on the weapon she’d pilfered from Cade. Cade held her breath as her fingers brushed the pommel of her survival knife. Almost there, she thought. Knife in a potential gunfight. Fucking brilliant. “You’ve got the cure! You’re supposed to save everybody!”

“Why didn’t you ask me like a sane person?” Brandt said, his voice rising in frustration. “Why didn’t you just fucking ask? You think I would have said no if you’d sat down and explained shit? Instead, you just come the fuck after me and kidnap Cade and endanger her life and mine and everybody else’s, and you fucking killed my friend, all because you decided to have a fucking psychotic break!”

“I’m not fucking psychotic!” Alicia yelled back viciously, glaring hatefully at Brandt. “Don’t you fucking dare call me that again!”

“Because of you, a good man is dead, Alicia! All because he dared to want to help a friend!” Brandt snarled. “So do not fucking tell me what I can and can’t call you! You’re fucking garbage if I want you to be!”

Alicia’s grip tightened on the Glock. Cade wasn’t sure if Brandt could see that from where he stood. She hoped he could. She inched her fingers farther down, wrapping them slowly around the hilt of the knife, and then just lay there, listening, as Brandt took several deep breaths and tried again.

“Alicia, you could still be of some use to people,” he said, his voice shaking slightly with his anger. “You could help people. You’ve got Michaluk in you too, and they were able to use you to develop the medications that helped the people here. There’s got to be some good still left in you.”

“I’m not going to be a guinea pig for those assholes!” Alicia shouted. “I’m not going through that shit again!”

She lifted the gun higher, as if adjusting her aim to point it more fully at Brandt’s head. Cade tensed as she saw the woman’s finger flex on the trigger.

It was now or never.

Cade rolled quickly away from Alicia, simultaneously ripping the knife free from its sheath on her belt. She swung it around as she moved, and buried the blade to its hilt in Alicia’s thigh.

Alicia cried out in pain and staggered backward. Her finger jerked reflexively on the trigger, and a bullet discharged with a bang into the wall just above Brandt’s head. He ducked instinctively, even as Cade scrambled to her feet and darted toward him.

Alicia didn’t wait to see what they would do next. As Cade faced her, the woman broke right, flung a door open, and dove inside at a fast limp. She slammed it shut behind her. Cade swore and staggered to the door, trying the knob and finding it locked.

“Fuck!” Cade exploded. She kicked the door in frustration and rattled the knob uselessly. “She’s going to get away!”

“Not from the fourth fucking floor she won’t,” Brandt pointed out. He pulled Cade away from the door and took her face in both his hands, looking her over carefully. She stared back at him and tried to appear confident and unperturbed, but the pain in her newly acquired bruises was beginning to set in. “Are you okay?” he asked seriously, touching a sore spot on her cheek.

“About as good as can be expected,” Cade admitted. “Now can we bust that bitch’s ass already?”

Brandt gave her a mock salute and knelt to look at the door’s lock. Then he rose, placed the barrel of his M-4 near the lock, and fired into it twice. The lock shattered under the onslaught of bullets, and Brandt put his foot to the door to kick it open. It swung open only a couple of inches before stopping short with a heavy whump. It took Cade a moment to realize that Alicia had thrown the security lock on the door. Brandt growled under his breath and put his weapon to the doorframe where the base of the lock was screwed into it. He nudged Cade farther back, much to her annoyance, closed his eyes, and turned his head away before squeezing the trigger two more times. The doorframe around the lock exploded with the impact, and with another hard kick, the door flew open and banged against the wall beyond.

A single gunshot snapped out. The bullet embedded itself into the wall behind Brandt, just barely missing his head. Wordlessly, reacting to the danger without even realizing it, Brandt lifted his rifle and squeezed the trigger three times in rapid succession.

There was a thud inside the room. And then silence.

“Please tell me you just ended this,” Cade murmured in the silence that followed. She eased toward the door, afraid she’d get shot if she stepped into the doorway. Standing in the doorway like he was didn’t seem to faze Brandt. She took that as a good sign, moving to stand beside him.

“I don’t know,” Brandt admitted. “Let’s find out, yeah? Then maybe we can get upstairs and give Ethan and Remy a hand. By now, they probably need it.”

Chapter 56

Remy and Ethan walked straight into trouble almost as soon as they reached the fifteenth-floor landing. As they ascended the landing’s final steps, Ethan reaching for the door handle to pull it open to assess the hallway’s status, a figure darted from the darkness of the steps above him with surprising speed and tackled him. Ethan slammed into the stairwell railing with bruising force and tilted backward. As he flailed an arm, grasping for the railing to prevent himself from toppling over it, Remy let out a yelp of alarm that echoed through the entire stairwell, alerting every infected being within earshot of their presence. She lunged forward, heedless of her own safety, and reached past the large infected woman clinging to Ethan. She grabbed a fistful of his shirt and pulled him back, away from the railing and his potential death.

As Remy hauled on him in a desperate bid to save his life, the infected woman grabbed Remy’s arm and, before Ethan could do anything to prevent it, clamped her broken teeth onto Remy’s forearm. Remy howled in pain and jerked back, even as Ethan grabbed the infected woman from behind and dragged her back, away from Remy. He hooked his arm around the woman’s neck and twisted her around, wasting no time slamming her face to the floor. He braced his boot between the woman’s shoulder blades and put a bullet into the base of her skull.

Ethan shone his flashlight up the stairwell. Not seeing any more immediate threats, he turned to Remy instead, his heart hammering wildly in his chest. The young woman leaned heavily against the railing, her hand clasped tightly to her right forearm, a pained expression on her face.

“Are you bit?” Ethan asked bluntly. He strode toward her to see her better in the light from his flashlight. When she didn’t offer an immediate response, he asked more firmly, “Remy! Are you bit?” Without waiting for an answer, he grabbed her hand and jerked her arm toward him, examining the sleeve of her brown leather jacket, hoping, praying the dead woman’s teeth hadn’t broken through the fabric. His heart lurched when he saw the two fresh holes punched in the sleeve, one of them neat, the other torn around the edges. Blood beaded at the edges of the fabric. Ethan swore under his breath and shoved the jacket sleeve up to her elbow. Two puncture wounds, one shallow, the other deep, decorated her otherwise perfect skin. Ethan let go of her arm and swung his pack around, digging into a pocket inside it with trembling hands.

“That was stupid, Remy,” he admonished as he freed a bottle of rubbing alcohol from the bag. “Absolutely fucking stupid.”

“You needed help!” Remy protested. Her voice cracked, but Ethan didn’t deign to comment. He simply broke the seal on the alcohol bottle, glaring at her the whole time.

“You should have let me fall!” he snapped. “That would have been infinitely preferable to this!” He lifted the bottle over her bare arm and started to tilt it. “This is going to hurt.” He upended the bottle’s contents over her arm, and she let out a whimper of pain as the searing liquid splashed its way into the wounds. Ethan dropped the emptied bottle onto the landing and dug back into the bag.

“Am I infected?” Remy asked weakly, in a voice laced with pain.

“Maybe,” Ethan admitted as he gazed into his bag. Derek had given him four auto-injectors of medication before they’d set out on their respective missions; it was supposed to be enough to get him through the process of taking care of business here and then meeting up in South Carolina. But none of them had anticipated this scenario. Ethan had assumed that if the infected got their hands on any of them, the victim would end up dead. He fingered the four auto-injectors hesitantly, knowing what he’d have to do.

If he wanted Remy to survive, if he wanted to give her an opportunity to live, he would have to give up his own chance.

Suddenly, it all opened up before him, everything he’d forgotten coming back in a rush of memory and feeling: his life before the Michaluk virus had taken it all away; his wife’s sacrifice to save others in the flames of the hospital; the helplessness and despair he felt when she’d died; the closeness he’d developed with Nikola, with Brandt, with Theo, and yes, even with Gray. And with Remy. Especially with Remy.

He remembered Nikola’s death as if experiencing it all over again. And Theo’s decision to end his own before the virus took his identity away from him. Avi, cut down too soon. He couldn’t imagine allowing Remy to walk into a death like that. He couldn’t reconcile the concept of her and death in the same sentence. He hadn’t been able to when she’d been mistaken for dead. And he wouldn’t be able to now.

This was why he’d survived. It was all so clear to him now.

Was it worth giving up his own survival in order to attempt to ensure hers?

“Of course it is,” Ethan said out loud.

Remy gave him a confused look. “What?”

Ethan yanked three of the auto-injectors from his bag and ripped the caps off of all of them. He didn’t hesitate, didn’t wait for Remy’s permission to administer the drugs. He simply grabbed her arm, pulled it to him again, and slammed one of the auto-injectors into the flesh right above her wounds, dispensing the medication into her body. He dropped to a knee to stick a second one into her right thigh, and then he straightened, wielding the third. “This one’s really going to hurt,” he warned her. He took her chin in his hand and tilted her head to the side. He jabbed the third auto-injector into the side of her neck.

“Ow!” Remy protested once he’d withdrawn the third auto-injector. “What the hell did you put in me?”

Ethan looked at the three spent cartridges for a moment before he released them, letting them tumble over the railing. Far below, they clattered to the floor.

“Drugs. To keep you alive,” he said shortly, trying to not dwell on what he’d just done. After wrapping one of the t-shirt strips from his bag around her arm, tying it securely, he beckoned to her and started up the stairs to the sixteenth floor. “Come on. We’ve got to move fast. We need to get this done and get you to Derek as soon as possible.”

Remy started up the stairs behind him. “But what if I’m not infected?” she asked. “Won’t the drugs fuck me up if I’m not?”

“You probably are,” Ethan warned her. As terrible as it sounded, he hoped she was. Then he wouldn’t feel as if he’d just wasted his own life for nothing. “But if you weren’t, the drugs wouldn’t hurt you. I know that much, but please don’t ask me to explain it. I’m a cop, not a pharmacist. Besides, all this talking is slowing us down.”

Remy made a face at him, but he ignored it and kept climbing, aiming for the next floor. “Slowing us down? What the hell, Ethan?” she muttered. “I got fucking bit, and you expect me to be all cool and casual about it?”

“You’re cool and casual about everything else, aren’t you? Besides, last month, you were perfectly fine with the idea of dying at the hands of the infected,” he pointed out.

“Doesn’t mean I want to become one,” Remy muttered.

Ethan stopped outside the seventeenth-floor door and put his hand on it, leaning close to the door and listening carefully. Even as he listened, trying to gather the status of the situation inside the hall beyond the door, Ethan’s eyes kept flicking to Remy, watching her, trying to gauge how she felt. Her eyes still shone with worried tears, obviously terrified of what would become of her, her future, her fate. Ethan didn’t need to be a master of reading body language to know and understand that; he’d been there himself just over a month before and every day after that.

Nothing stirred on the other side of the door. Nothing Ethan could hear, anyway.

Ethan wordlessly extended his hand to the young woman standing several steps below him. Remy stared at it for a long, silent moment before she grasped it firmly.

“If I’m going to die, I want to do it kicking some ass,” Remy said, swiping the back of her hand quickly over her eyes, “not sitting in some stinking stairwell crying like a little girl.”

Ethan pulled her close to him and pressed a rough kiss to her forehead. “That’s my girl,” he said hoarsely. He released her and grasped the door handle again. “Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” she said. She sounded so much like Cade as she uttered the words that Ethan fought to not do a double-take. Instead, he pulled the door open, swung his flashlight up, and aimed his gun into the hall as he darted inside, Remy following close behind. The door fell shut with a loud bang, and the two found themselves facing a crowd of children of all ages, clustered around a single door midway down the hall.

Ethan was suddenly hesitant to move forward. He didn’t like the look of the children in the hall. He didn’t like how they were gathered at that one door. He didn’t like the looks on their faces. He didn’t like how they turned to face him and Remy, their eyes locking onto them with singular intent.

And he most certainly didn’t like how, as they noticed the presence of the two people near the stairwell door, they all began to run and shuffle in their direction.

“Fuck,” Ethan gasped as he took a short step back, pressing Remy toward the stairwell door.

“Ethan,” Remy said, her tone worried. “Fucking children?”

“Let them come to us,” Ethan said, breathless as adrenaline flooded his veins. “There might be more kids behind that door, ones that need help. We’ve got to let them clear it.”

“You know, that doesn’t exactly make me feel better,” Remy admitted. Ethan didn’t look back at her; he refused to take his eyes off the mass of infected children coming toward them. “What are we going to do, Eth?”

“What we have to do,” Ethan said in a carefully neutral tone. He lifted his Glock and, as much as he hated to do it, opened fire.

Chapter 57

Brandt’s head ached, but he didn’t allow the slow, throbbing pain nagging at his brain to distract him as he eased into the room, his gun out, his eyes struggling to penetrate the oppressive darkness around him. Alicia was in there somewhere. He knew it instinctively, just as he knew that at least one of his bullets had found its mark. He strained his ears, relying on one of his better senses when his eyesight was useless. He heard Cade’s soft breathing behind him, her boots brushing against the carpeted floor. He didn’t want to imagine how sore she would be if they made it until morning, especially after the beating she’d taken at Alicia’s hands.

A pained intake of breath nearby drew Brandt’s attention to his right. He looked in that direction and grabbed for Cade, tugging her closer to him. “Flashlight,” he said in her ear. “You still got one?”

“Yeah, here,” Cade breathed back. She slapped a small flashlight into his hand, and he wrapped his fingers around its cool metal casing.

“Be ready,” Brandt warned simply. He didn’t have to voice anything else. He and Cade were so in sync now that he knew she’d understand exactly what he meant.

“Always,” she murmured back.

Brandt found the switch on the flashlight and flipped it on. The bluish-white light spilled into the room, bringing everything in its path into sharp focus. He slowly edged to the right and shone his light in that direction. The first thing the beam lit on was a smear of blood on the otherwise clean cream-colored carpet. He followed the drips and smears and found Alicia at the end of the trail, sitting against a door leading to another attached conference room. A red smudge was on the white door near the knob, as if she’d tried to escape to the next room before giving up. She looked at Brandt, her face shockingly pale, her eyes shadowed and full of pain and defeat. Cade’s Glock lay near her right hand, and Cade’s knife still stuck out from her leg.

Brandt knelt in front of her and picked up the firearm, passing it to the Israeli woman lurking behind him. Then he rested his forearms against his thighs and watched Alicia silently.

“If you’re going to kill me, hurry up and fucking do it,” Alicia said, her voice tired and weak.

“You could help us, you know,” Brandt said, offering her another chance, despite his inner reluctance to do so. “You could come with us. I’m sure we could use your help. You could give us a hand with the cure. You could—”

“No, I can’t,” Alicia interrupted. She glanced down, and Brandt followed her eyes. She had a hand pressed to her stomach, trying desperately to stanch the bleeding, but even Brandt could tell there was no hope for her. Two of his bullets had found their marks, and she was bleeding profusely from both wounds. “Michael … Brandt, please,” she begged. He looked back at her face and saw tears swimming in her eyes. “Please don’t let me be like those things. I know I’ve made mistakes, but don’t … don’t let that happen to me. Please.”

“I won’t,” Brandt said automatically. It wasn’t even something he had to think over. If he let her die and come back, if he let her reanimate and become something even he was scared of, then he wouldn’t be able to call himself a decent human being. “But Alicia, why did you do all this? Why did you go to all these … these extremes? What was the point?”

Alicia began to cry silently, twin trails of tears making their ways down her cheeks. “It wasn’t what I meant to do,” she managed to say. “It wasn’t—it was that fucking virus. It did stuff to my head, and I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t control myself. It was like I was trapped in myself and seeing myself do all these things, and no matter how loud I screamed, I couldn’t make myself stop. I can’t take this anymore. I never meant for this to happen.”

Brandt took her bloodied hand and squeezed it tightly, wordlessly. Her words were so similar to the ones Ethan had uttered before this mission that it was almost frightening. He hoped Ethan wouldn’t turn out like this.

“I’m sorry about your friend,” Alicia said. Her voice was noticeably weaker, her breathing more labored. “He was so brave. He just wanted to help … oh God, all those people.” She squeezed her eyes closed and grasped Brandt’s hand more firmly. “I’ve killed all those people … the children …” A fresh wave of tears flowed. “Tell Ethan I’m sorry. Tell everybody …” She trailed off, her breath hitching in her throat. “Brandt, now. Please,” she whispered. Then her head fell gently back against the door, and she was still, her hand slack in his, leaving Brandt with more questions than answers, questions he’d now never have answered.

He let go of her limp hand and rose to his feet, gripping his rifle tightly, as if seeking reassurance from its presence. He slung the rifle over his shoulder and drew his Beretta. He exchanged a look with Cade, and almost simultaneously, they lifted their weapons, pointing them at the redheaded woman slumped against the door.

“Are you going to let her turn?” Cade asked quietly. “Are we going to wait until—”

“No,” Brandt interrupted. “I gave her my word. I won’t break it now.” He checked his gun, made sure the safety was off and he had ammunition, and then he adjusted his aim to focus it on Alicia’s head. “Together, on three,” he said. “One.”

Cade glanced at him and gave him a short nod. “Two,” she said, her voice still hushed.

“Three,” Brandt finished. As he said the word, both of them squeezed their triggers.

As disgusting as it seemed, the spray of blood and bone across the white door behind Alicia was morbidly and grotesquely beautiful in its own way. Perhaps it was because of what it represented, what it meant: that all of Alicia’s shit was over with, that the direct threat she’d posed to the rest of them was gone. Brandt slowly lowered his weapon and let it hang loosely at his side, forcing a slow, steadying breath out through his nose. He didn’t realize he was shaking until Cade pressed a hand to his forearm, giving it a gentle squeeze and wrapping her fingers around his wrist. “Come on,” she said in a soft, husky whisper, tugging at his arm. “Let’s go. We’ve got other work to do.”

Even as she said this, the muffled, distant sounds of gunshots above them rang out in the air, shattering the uneasy silence in the room. Brandt closed his eyes for a moment, forcing in another breath before nodding. “Yeah, let’s go give Ethan and Remy a hand. Sounds like they might need it.”

Cade gave his wrist another squeeze and turned to leave the room, and as Brandt moved to follow, his flashlight’s beam swept over the rest of the room. He stopped short, and his eyes widened in surprise. “Holy …” was all he managed before trailing off.

Cade looked to see what he was surprised at, and a smile spread across her own face as she beheld the arsenal of weaponry spread across the conference table in the center of the room. “Oh, man. Are we going to have fun with this or what?”

Chapter 58

Tremors rocked through Remy’s body as the last of the infected children thumped to the carpeted floor. Her eyes welled with tears as she stood there, gun still grasped in both hands, horrified sobs threatening to break free at any moment. Her chest hurt, and she realized she was holding her breath. She let it out explosively, nearly dropping her gun from her shaking hands as Ethan turned to her and took her face in his hands.

“Are you okay?” he asked, his eyes meeting hers. Remy looked deep into his green eyes and struggled to find something, anything to say, and she saw the same horror she felt reflected in them. She suddenly felt weak, lost and confused and uncertain of what to do. Where she stood wasn’t anything like what she’d expected when they walked in the Westin. She hadn’t expected to face the idea of shooting a group of children, infected or no. She hadn’t expected to fear for her own survival—something she’d never cared about before. She hadn’t expected to wonder if she’d live past the mission in the hotel, if she’d succumb to the Michaluk virus that might or might not have been coursing through her system.

She’d always mouthed off about how she wasn’t afraid to die, how she’d always known she’d fall at the hands of the infected, fighting them in revenge for what they’d done to her family. She’d lived a life driven by the idea of vengeance, of slaughtering the infected wherever she found them. But now, surrounded by dead children she’d helped kill, Remy questioned whether her goal, her decision to instigate a lifelong war against the infected, had been a right one.

It wouldn’t bring her family back. It wouldn’t return her mother to her, or her stepfather. It wouldn’t bring back her baby sister. It wouldn’t bring back Ethan’s wife. It wouldn’t bring back Cade’s niece or boyfriend. It wouldn’t bring back Theo or Gray or Nikola or anyone else who’d died at the hands of the infected. It wouldn’t bring back anybody.

Remy had the sinking sensation she’d become the very thing she hated so much.

She was suddenly, overwhelmingly consumed by a fear of death.

“Remy!” Ethan snapped for the second time that evening. “Focus! We have to get moving!”

Remy shook her head, not in refusal but in a vain attempt to rattle the thoughts from her brain. Now, standing in this hotel, wasn’t the best time to dwell on and regret her past actions and motivations. She could save that for later. She forced another breath into and out of her lungs before finally speaking, her voice trembling with an excess of emotion.

“Okay, what now?” she asked.

Ethan waved his gun carelessly toward the other end of the hall. “Let’s go find out what’s on the other side of that door,” he suggested. “I’d ask if you’re feeling up to it, but you don’t really have much of a choice. I need backup, and you’re the only option I’ve got.”

“No, no, I’m okay,” Remy tried to assure him. She slid her bolo knife free from its sheath, gripping it tightly in her hand and feeling a pang of pain radiate through her forearm, through the bite wound in her flesh. She tried to take comfort in the weapon, in the hands that had held it before hers: family she’d never known, extending back through the years. “I’ll be okay. I have to be.”

Ethan clapped her gently on the shoulder and motioned with a hand. “Just don’t look down if you can help it,” he instructed. “Keep your eyes on me. I won’t let you fall.”

His last sentence seemed so loaded with double meaning that Remy’s breath almost caught in her throat again. She swallowed it down and nodded, trailing behind him, obediently keeping her eyes locked onto his back as he’d instructed her to do. She ignored everything around her, everything that made her surroundings so horrifying: the blood on the walls, the stains on the carpet, the bodies of the children on the floor. Despite all that she’d seen over the past year, even Remy could recognize that this would have topped the list of the most disturbing scenes she’d ever witnessed. The scent of rot and decay—a scent always there but somehow adapted to and ignored—was already becoming more pervasive. Ethan’s broad shoulders were a much more pleasant sight than anything else in the hallway.

It took only a few more minutes to reach the door around which the now-dead children had clustered. If Remy strained her ears, she could make out the sound of someone—maybe even a child—inside the room, crying. She pushed past Ethan to the door, trying the knob. The door was locked, and she grimaced and knocked on it firmly with her knuckles.

“Hello? Is anybody in there?” she called through the door.

“Remy,” Ethan hissed. She glanced in his direction and saw he wore a grimace. “Not so fucking loud.”

“Well how else am I supposed to make myself heard?” she asked pointedly, knocking on the door again. “Hello?”

A small-sounding voice called out from the other side of the door, meek and terrified. “Are the monsters gone?” a little girl asked, the words shaking and trembling.

“Yeah, honey, they’re gone,” Ethan replied, even as he shifted his gaze over the hall, watching for movement. “Can you unlock the door? We need to get you out of here.”

There was a rustling on the other side of the door and then the sound of a lock snapping open. A long pause followed before the door swung open, and a small black girl with wide brown eyes peered out of the crack, her expression wary and fearful as she looked first at Remy and then at Ethan. A tiny smile crossed her face. “I know you,” she said. “You’re Mr. Bennett.”

“And you’re … is it Shae?” Ethan asked, much to Remy’s surprise.

The girl shook her head. “That’s my sister. I’m Sasha.” She opened the door wider, and Ethan took a step toward her. She didn’t look much older than eight, Remy observed, though she handled herself with a surprising amount of poise, making Remy think of someone much older. “Mama left and didn’t come back,” Sasha explained. “And then all the screaming out in the hall started, and then all the other kids were trying to get in to us. I locked the doors like Mama always told me to, and we hid under the bed.”

“You did good, sweetheart,” Ethan said in an oddly sweet voice Remy had never heard from him before. “Where’s your sister?”

“Still under the bed.”

“Go get her. We’re going to get you out of here,” Ethan said. Sasha looked at Remy doubtfully, and Ethan added, “This is Remy. She’s cool. She’s a friend of mine and is here to help.”

Sasha still looked doubtful, but she nodded and unlatched the security chain, stepping back to let them both in. Remy let Ethan take the lead, and together they stepped into the hotel room in which two children and their mother had spent the past months of their lives.

It wasn’t quite what Remy had anticipated. She’d expected the people here to be living quite comfortably, especially considering they’d been staying in what used to be a five-star hotel for the duration of their trials—or at least since Alicia Day had picked them up. Instead, the first thing that hit her was the stench. It absolutely stank in that hotel room. It was a combination of garbage, sweat, food, and inadequate ventilation. It was a smell that brought horrible memories to the forefront of Remy’s mind, sending her back to when she was sixteen and in New Orleans, when the floodwaters came and sent her entire family—too poor to flee and left to their own devices—scurrying for the only refuge they had: the Superdome. People there had lived like animals, had seemingly lost all sense of civility and humanity. It seemed that same condition had begun to take hold here. It wasn’t the children’s fault, not at all. Humans just weren’t meant to live like this, stuck in such secluded areas with no place to safely go. Her heart hurt for them.

Ethan had dropped to his knees and was trying to coax a small, frightened toddler out into the open when Remy heard a noise in the hallway. Ethan heard it too; his head jerked up and banged against the underside of the bed. He let out a pained grunt and turned to tell Remy to check it out, but she was already moving, sliding to the door and leaning at just the right angle to see into the hall beyond without exposing herself. Her shoulders ached with how tense they’d become, but she chose to ignore it as she spotted two shadowy figures near the stairwell door at the opposite end of the hall from where she and Ethan had entered. She stiffened even more, and then, as her eyes focused on and recognized the figures, she let out a laugh.

“Shit, I was wondering when you two would show the hell up!” she said joyously as Cade and Brandt approached. Her happiness at seeing them alive and well was quickly stifled when she caught a glimpse of the blood matted on the side of Brandt’s head and Cade’s swollen jaw. Not to mention the looks in their eyes. Something bothered them, something that overshadowed the victorious fist-pumping she’d have thought they would have done upon reuniting with them. She raised an eyebrow but, instead of commenting on it, settled on asking, “Either of you guys hurt bad?”

“Nothing we won’t recover from,” Cade replied flippantly. Remy skimmed her eyes over the woman again and realized she was loaded down with guns and knives and ammunition magazines, far more than she’d brought on the mission. Brandt was similarly outfitted. Remy raised an eyebrow, but before she could form any words, Cade added, “We found a lot of goodies in Alicia’s room. Figured we’d take what we could, because we can use it. And hell, I found my rifle too!” She held the weapon up triumphantly, a smile crossing her face as she showed it off. “You guys okay?”

Remy hesitated and glanced at Ethan. He shook his head at her slightly, almost imperceptibly, before going back to trying to get the little girl from under the bed. She turned back to Cade and answered, “Yeah, we’re fine. Few sticky spots getting up here, but nothing we couldn’t handle.”

Cade nodded vacantly, and Remy looked to Brandt. The older man stared down the hallway, no doubt at the abnormally small bodies littering the carpet. He didn’t look at her as he said, “Sticky spots, huh?”

“Something like that.” Remy tried to not let her disturbed feeling over what they’d done show, and she faced Ethan again. He’d coaxed the toddler from under the bed with Sasha’s help, and he picked the girl up and settled her against his hip before nodding to the door.

“What do you say we get the hell out of here?” Ethan suggested, extending his free hand to Sasha. She took it, clutching it tightly. “I’m tired of looking at this place.”

“Where are the others?” Cade asked, her eyes shifting to the blond man behind Remy. “Don’t we need to look for—”

“There are no others,” Remy warned softly, slipping past her into the hall. “This is all we’ve found.”

“My God,” Cade whispered in horror. “All of them?”

“Unless you want to pick through what’s left of them at the end of the hall,” Remy said irritably, “then yeah, that’s it.”

“Fuck,” Cade breathed.

“Let’s go out the way Cade and I came in,” Brandt suggested. “Then we won’t have to take the kids back through the … the mess.”

“We should hurry too,” Remy said, glancing at the watch on her left wrist. “We’ve already been in here going on forty-five minutes. Isaac and Dominic aren’t supposed to wait longer than an hour.”

“I know that,” Brandt muttered impatiently. “Look, me and Cade will take the lead and deal with anything coming at us from the front. Remy, you’re in the back. Ethan, stay in the middle with the kids.” He looked at them again, and his eyes met Remy’s. For the briefest of moments, she could have sworn he gave her a look that said he knew everything about what had happened while she and Ethan were separated from them, and her stomach flipped over. Brandt didn’t say anything further, though. He just motioned to them all and headed down the hall, tugging Cade with him and making for the stairwell door.

Chapter 59

Descending fourteen flights of stairs under normal circumstances was difficult enough, but Cade now faced the prospect of doing so while still aching from her encounter with Alicia and with two small children in tow. Easier said than done, most certainly. Difficult, especially in the darkness clouding the stairwell, but not impossible. Besides, she had Brandt at her side, and while she wasn’t going to say she needed him there—she had enough skills to do this on her own, after all—she certainly felt more confident with his assistance.

The descent to the third floor took longer than Cade would have been happy with in any other situation. On the eighth-floor landing, they ran into several infected, and Cade and Brandt were forced to fight them back, killing them as quickly and quietly as they could. Another floor after that, the older of the two little girls grew so tired of climbing down stairs that she nearly fell, so Brandt picked her up and carried her the rest of the way, leaving Cade to take care of any more infected in their vicinity. Cade had no problem with the new arrangement. She could feel some aggression working through her veins, brought along for the ride with the adrenaline that hadn’t left after her fight with Alicia, and she really needed to work it out before it impaired her judgment in a more serious situation.

Unfortunately, after her and Brandt’s mini-adventure on the eighth-floor landing, Cade didn’t run into anything else that needed to be put down to clear their path, though she caught the noise of infected somewhere beyond the door leading to the fifth floor. The group bypassed the door in favor of the third floor, with every intention of exiting on the street level. Cade’s side ached with exertion as she reached the bottom of the escalators that dropped her off on the street level. She immediately raised her newly recovered Galil rifle to scan over the tiled hallway in which she stood. It was, thankfully, clear of any sign of infected, and Cade let out a slow breath of relief before motioning to the others.

“Come on,” she said, keeping her voice low in an abundance of caution. “Looks clear. I think we’re okay for now.”

The others descended the escalators fairly quickly, and the small group hurried down the hall to the tiled lobby area facing the street. As they fanned out to check the exits, Brandt set Sasha down, rolled his shoulders, and headed for the glass doors to see how they were fastened shut. Ethan staggered from the dark hallway behind Cade, shoved the toddler he carried into Cade’s arms, and then stumbled to the valet desk and sagged heavily against it. Cade watched in alarm as he made his way around the desk awkwardly, then hunched behind it and vomited loudly enough that it drew the attention of everyone present.

“Remy, watch the kids,” Cade ordered. She set the toddler down with her sister and hurried to the desk. With every step she took, her boots made soft clicking sounds in time with her heartbeat. Within seconds, she was at Ethan’s side, her hand on his back as he coughed and heaved into a trash can out of sight of everyone else. “Eth, are you okay? What’s wrong?” she asked, leaning down to look into his face as he wiped the back of his hand over his mouth and closed his eyes.

“Street’s fucking blocked!” Brandt called out as Ethan opened his mouth to answer. “No way out this way.” Cade flicked her eyes up at him, and they met his across the lobby. Brandt’s forehead wrinkled as he frowned deeply, but he didn’t say anything further. Ethan straightened and wiped at his mouth again, his own eyes glancing to Brandt before he looked at Cade. His face was pale and sweaty, and he looked winded. He set his backpack on the valet counter and started to empty it of alcohol bottles and strips of white cloth.

“You’ve got to get everybody out of here,” he told Cade. His hands shook violently, and he nearly dropped a bottle of whiskey as he pulled it from his bag. He barely looked at Cade as he started to pull the caps off of the bottles.

“Shouldn’t that be ‘we’?” Cade asked uneasily. “Ethan, what are you doing?”

“Not we,” Ethan said. “You. You and Brandt and Remy need to get the girls to safety. I don’t …” He swallowed hard and took a long, impulsive drink from a bottle. Cade raised her eyebrows, despite the nervousness stirring in her gut. “I don’t have very long,” he finally said. “Not very long at all. I’ve got … the medications are wearing off. I don’t have any more.”

“Wait, Derek gave you four—”

“I gave three of them to Remy,” Ethan interrupted, keeping his voice low. “She got bit, and I—”

“She got bitten?” Cade exploded, her voice rising. All motion from the others ceased. Remy looked at her, wide-eyed and terrified, as Cade added in a shout, “Remy, get your stupid ass over here right—”

“Shut up, Cade!” Ethan yelled back. He slammed a bottle of liquor on the counter. The thud echoed through the entire entryway. “Just shut the fuck up and let me finish, okay?” He took several deep breaths before speaking again. “You’ve got to get her out of here. You’ve got to get her to Derek fast. Exertion makes the medications wear off faster. I gave her three days’ worth of drugs to hold Michaluk off, but she’s been fighting, so with that and the run you guys are about to make … she’s got maybe two days. You need to get her to Derek as fast as possible.”

“What about you?” Cade persisted.

“There’s not … not enough time,” Ethan said. He still didn’t look at her as he began shoving cloth strips into the bottles. “Not for me. Not with only one auto-injector left. You need to take it.” He pulled the medication dispenser from his bag and tried to push it into her hands. Cade resisted at first, but Ethan was so insistent that she gave in and took it, closing it into her fist. “You need to keep it with you and use it on Remy only if you absolutely have to. Don’t let her become one of them. One of us. Whatever.”

“What about you?” Cade asked again, taking in a slow, shuddering breath.

“I’ll be fine.” His promise rang hollow, even to Cade’s ears. “You can run pretty fast, right?” he asked suddenly.

“Well, I’m no marathon runner, but I can get going at a pretty good clip when the occasion calls for it,” Cade said. Her eyes narrowed slightly. “Why do you ask?”

“You’re going to need to,” Ethan explained. “Here’s my plan. Brandt said there’s a mess of those shits out there. I can almost guarantee you there is. I think the sound of us shooting in here drew that crowd of infected that had been gathering in Centennial to here. I’m willing to bet there’s dozens out there. Problem is, the minute you guys hit the street out there, they’re going to be on top of you. So basically, we need a way to create a diversion. I’m going to distract those sons of bitches while you get the hell out of here. Get to the sixth floor, cross the walkway, and go through AmericasMart. Get to the car. Do not wait for me. Or …” He hesitated, and something like hope flickered through his eyes as he looked up at her. He blinked, and the look vanished just as quickly as it had appeared. “If you wait, do not wait longer than thirty minutes, okay? If I don’t show up in thirty minutes, you leave. If you’re put in danger before that thirty minutes is up, you leave. No exceptions, no questions. If I can make it there in thirty minutes, I’ll be there. To … to say goodbye, if nothing else. If I’m not there, just go. I’m not worth putting you and the others at risk. Not in the slightest.”

“I’d argue the point, but I know you’re not going to listen,” Cade said, even as her heart raced in her chest. She sucked in several deep breaths and impulsively pulled him to her in a tight hug. “You be careful, okay?” she said softly. “Don’t let them have you if you can help it. I’d love for my baby to meet his or her uncle sometime.”

“Not going to happen, Cade,” Ethan said as he hugged her back just as tightly. “Not enough meds to get me to South Carolina. But the thought’s nice.”

Cade pressed her lips together and shook her head, forcing herself to let go of him. She cleared her throat, determined not to cry, and shifted her gaze to Brandt. He didn’t look the slightest bit confused at the exchange. Like always, he seemed to know exactly what was going on without having to be told. Cade drew in a shuddering breath and focused on Ethan instead, trying to come to terms with the possibility that this might be the last time she saw her best friend.

Ethan’s eyes flickered up again, scanning over the other four people in the lobby before returning to the task at hand. None of them seemed willing to approach after the audible outburst between them. He stripped the cap off another bottle and wedged a cloth into it. His gaze drifted across the lobby again. Cade followed it and realized he was staring at Remy. “Fuck,” he whispered. “Definitely not something I want to do.”

“What is?” Cade asked quietly.

“Leave her. Again.” Ethan’s eyes didn’t leave the young woman. “Brandt told me how messed up Remy was after last time. This won’t help. But still.” He sighed heavily and tore his gaze away from Remy. “How many men get to say they died twice to save the people they loved?”

Tears pricked at Cade’s eyes, and she quickly banished them. “Hey, don’t talk like that,” she scolded. “You’ll be fine.”

“If you say so, Cade.”

“Well, at least let me pretend, okay?” She glanced up and realized Brandt was approaching. The look on his face was tight, worry lines creasing his forehead as he stopped in front of them and leaned against the valet counter.

“If we’re going to do something, we need to do it soon,” Brandt said, his voice hushed. “I definitely don’t like what I’m seeing outside. There are more infected out there than I could possibly begin to count. I don’t see how we’re going to make it past them, outside the grace of God Himself.”

Cade shook her head and murmured, “Ethan’s got a plan. It involves us running and him staying behind. Again.”

“Figures,” Brandt muttered. Ethan’s cheeks flushed at Brandt’s criticism. Brandt didn’t comment further; instead, he picked up one of the alcohol bottles and examined the label absently. “So when does the plan get put into motion?”

“As soon as possible,” Ethan answered. “I don’t have all that long myself. So we’ve got to get moving soon.”

“And your plan entails …?” Brandt prompted. He raised an eyebrow as he looked from the bottle of rum he held to examine Ethan thoughtfully.

Ethan waggled a bottle underneath Brandt’s nose. “Let’s just say I’m taking a cue card from your stack and leave it at that, okay?”

Brandt snorted and set the bottle onto the counter. “So long as you don’t get any of us killed, I don’t care what you do. I’m sure the world could use a few less infected in the way of its recovery.”

Ethan nodded and dug into his backpack, emerging with a pair of sturdy bolt cutters and handing them to Brandt. “Kimberly gave me these to use in case we needed them. When I give word, I want you to cut through the padlock holding the chain on the doors. The doors won’t stay closed for long after that, but we don’t intend for them to. I’m going to lob some Molotovs into them to spread them out and maybe kill a few while I’m at it. When I say go, you guys need to run for it, up to the sixth floor and down the walkway into AmericasMart, back the way we came. Don’t even worry about me. I’ll catch up if I can.”

Cade struggled past the reminder of Ethan’s impending death, and her eyes flickered up to Remy. The younger woman was attempting to entertain the two girls they’d found, trying to distract them from the horde outside. It appeared, however, that she was failing spectacularly, as the younger of the two began to cry again. Cade shook her head at the helpless look that crossed Remy’s face and sighed, thumping her hand against the counter.

“Okay, Brandt, you’re going to help keep up with the kids,” Cade said. “Carry the little one—”

“Shae,” Ethan interrupted.

“Carry Shae,” Cade continued with a deferential nod to Ethan. “The older one—Sasha—she can run on her own. Just make sure she keeps up.”

“And what, exactly, are you and Remy going to be doing while I’m playing kid-rustler?” Brandt demanded.

Cade gave him a slow smirk. “Why, making sure the path stays clear, of course.”

Ethan sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “Shit. I don’t like this,” he muttered as he dropped his hand back down and set the bottle he held onto the counter. “Not much of a choice, though, right?” He started for the end of the counter with a shake of his head and muttered, “I need to talk to her,” before making a beeline for Remy. Cade and Brandt both watched him go, and Cade bit back a sigh.

“Think his plan’s going to work?” Brandt asked, leaning against the counter and watching her closely.

“Do we have any other options?” she asked pointedly.

“Nobody’s presented any other options,” Brandt replied.

“That’s because there are no other options,” Cade said, her voice hushed. She watched Remy and Ethan move away from Shae and Sasha. The two girls stood forlornly in the middle of the small lobby, Sasha hugging the toddler as Ethan talked to Remy in a voice that didn’t carry across the lobby.

“Hey, look,” Brandt started after a long silence. “I don’t … I don’t want to end up like those two,” he finally said. Cade gave him an odd look and raised an eyebrow.

“What do you mean?”

Brandt fidgeted in a way that Cade found adorably appealing, and she leaned against the counter, almost reveling in his discomfort. He slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled something out, palming it and taking a deep breath, trying to steady himself, before pressing the object into her hand. Cade felt a small, cold piece of metal in her palm, but Brandt didn’t lift his hand for her to see what it was. “Look, I just … I was going to do this after Gray and I got back from our supply run in Hollywood, after you were feeling better. Alicia sort of pre-empted that plan. And we had our argument, and I just …” He huffed out a breath, and Cade raised an eyebrow.

“What are you driving at, Brandt?” Cade asked. “You know I don’t like it when people beat around the bush.”

“I know, I know.” Brandt shook his head and said bluntly, “We’re going to be parents. There’s no getting around that, right? So we should start, I don’t know, acting like parents.” He took his hand away, and Cade raised her eyebrows in surprise as she saw he’d pressed an antique gold band into her hand. “Just think about it, okay? And if we get out of this shit, we’ll talk about it.”

Cade barely stifled the smile that attempted to cross her face. “Brandt, are you seriously proposing to me in the middle of a zombie apocalypse?”

“Hey, life doesn’t stop just because people started getting up and eating other people,” he protested. “And they’re not zombies. They’re just really violent people infected with a really nasty virus who want to eat our faces off.”

Cade laughed softly and closed her fingers around the ring. “I seem to remember another time you said something similar,” she said with a smile, slipping the ring into her pocket.

“Glad to know you find the things I say memorable.”

Before Cade could form a reply, Ethan’s voice reached her across the lobby. “Let’s get this shit over with,” he said, his tone resigned as he strode back to the counter to gather some of the bottles. Remy’s dark eyes were red rimmed, and she refused to look at any of them as Ethan added, “I don’t want to spend so long debating when it’s a good time for me to die that what medications I’ve got left in me wear off before we make a move.”

Chapter 60

Ethan wouldn’t lie; he was more scared than he’d ever been in his life. Even as he carried his armload of liquor bottles closer to the front doors, he imagined he felt the Michaluk virus in his veins, spreading and activating throughout his entire body, slowly taking control of him. He tried to not focus on it. He had more important things to worry about, things staring him right in the face, demanding his attention. He set the bottles at his feet and held the bolt cutters out to Brandt.

“Would you do the honors?” he offered with the smallest of smirks. Even he was surprised by the casualness in his tone and mannerisms. Especially since it didn’t match what he felt inside.

Brandt took the bolt cutters and stepped toward the door. “So how are we doing this?” he asked as he positioned the padlock between the bolt cutters’ blades.

“We’re going to torch as many of the mother fuckers as we can before we haul ass up the stairs,” Ethan said. “We don’t need them coming after you when we walk out the front door of AmericasMart. It’s right across the fucking street. No way they won’t notice us. Brandt, while they burn, you and I are going to hold the doors shut for as long as we can and let them fucking roast.”

Brandt raised an eyebrow and looked to Ethan, even as he grasped the handles of the bolt cutters more securely, prepared to squeeze them together. “You seem to have thought this over pretty hard,” he said. “Impressive, especially considering we haven’t been in this situation all that long.”

“You bet your ass I’ve thought it over,” Ethan said. He glanced at Remy; she refused to look at him, instead keeping her eyes locked onto the front doors. She was still pissed off at him. He could hardly blame her for that. He looked away from her before he started to feel too much regret over what he was about to do. If he dwelled on it too much, he knew he’d falter, and then his friends might not survive. That was, quite frankly, unacceptable.

“Well, let me know when you’re ready,” Brandt said. He shifted as if bracing himself against the oncoming assault from the infected. They had already noticed Ethan’s small group from their side of the doors and had begun making their way toward them. Ethan knew that the doors wouldn’t hold for long. He also knew he refused to let the infected come after them on their own terms. They were going to do so on his.

Ethan squared his shoulders and looked at Cade. She stood in front of the two children, with her rifle in hand, and the determination in her eyes was so strong and so familiar that he felt an ache settle in his chest. He gave the woman a short nod and forced his attention back to the door, hefting one of the glass bottles and testing its weight. “Brandt,” he said, his voice tight and strained. “Do it.”

Thankfully, Brandt didn’t hesitate. He gripped the handles of the bolt cutters and squeezed them with a grunt. The snap of the cutters shearing through the padlock echoed through the lobby, and Ethan startled involuntarily. He cursed himself silently and lifted the bottle as Brandt pulled the chain away from the doors. And then the doors burst open, and the infected swarmed toward them, trying to get inside.

“Ethan!” Cade yelped behind him. “This is a bad fucking idea!”

Ethan ignored her, swinging the bottle of vodka in his hand toward the infected. The bottle smashed across the faces of the nearest infected in a shower of clear liquid and glass, and the infected fell back a few inches before surging forward again. Ethan took the momentary lapse in their advance to grab another bottle and throw it over their heads. It shattered against the pavement beyond.

A burst of gunfire broke out behind him. Ethan didn’t bother to turn around as he heard the wet, meaty slap of flesh against the floor. Cade was behind him, and he knew she wouldn’t let the infected get to the children as long as she breathed. Instead, he concentrated on throwing his bottles into the crowd. Brandt caught on quickly and scrambled to help, until all that remained was the largest bottle, its rag still hanging from the top like a flag of surrender. But surrender was far from Ethan’s mind. He patted his pockets, searching for something with which to light the rag, before he swore out loud. He couldn’t believe his own stupidity. He’d come up with a workable plan, and he’d forgotten the most important part.

“Brandt! I need a light!” he called to the other man, even as he continued to search his pockets as if one might magically appear where one hadn’t been before.

Brandt’s hand disappeared into his pocket, and a second later, he flipped his wrist at Ethan. Something silver spun through the air, and Ethan snapped his hand out and caught it before realizing he’d done so. His fingers closed around the warm metal, and he glanced at it. It was an expensive-looking silver-plated Zippo lighter with “U.S.M.C.” engraved on both sides. Ethan flipped the lighter open and ran his thumb over the flint wheel. It lit on the first try, but before he put the flame to the rag, Brandt stopped him.

“Wait, I have an idea,” Brandt said urgently, swinging his bag around and digging into it. A shot rang out, and an infected man dropped to the floor right in front of the Marine. He barely noticed.

“Better be a fucking good one,” Ethan snapped. He reached for his own weapon as a hand grasped for his face. He batted it aside with a firm swat of his fist.

Brandt held two grenades in his hands like strange, demented-looking pieces of fruit. Ethan’s eyes widened. “You take the middle. I’ll handle the sides,” Brandt instructed. “If we’re lucky, we’ll have about ten seconds to get the doors shut again before the world out there goes to hell.”

Ethan grimaced and touched the flame to the rag. It quickly caught, and he hauled back to throw it into the crowd of infected. “I thought the world was already in hell!” he said to Brandt. He threw the bottle out, as hard and as high as he could. As it arced over the growing crowd of infected, Brandt ripped the pins from the grenades, released the arming levers, and threw them, one left and the other right. The two men moved fast, grabbing the doors and shoving them closed, pinning them there with only the strength of their bodies.

Ethan braced his hands against the glass as the flaming missile he’d thrown smashed across the infected, the alcohol he’d previously thrown igniting in a whoosh of fire. Seconds later, as Brandt and Ethan fought to keep the doors closed in the crush of infected pressing against them, the grenades went off, crashing through the night with nearly ear-shattering force. The blasts broke several windows, sending glass showering to the floor. Ethan glanced at Brandt as the rush of flames from the burning alcohol set fire to the infected and their horrible screams rent the night air. “Well, if there were any infected who hadn’t gotten here yet, they’re sure on their way now!” he yelled over the sound.

“No fucking kidding!” Brandt replied. He planted a foot behind him, bracing himself more firmly against the door, the muscles in his arms bulging as he struggled to hold it closed against the infected that, despite the fires and explosions, still tried to get inside. Ethan wasn’t faring much better; the muscles in his own arms and shoulders strained under the onslaught from the other side of the door. The fire hadn’t caught the ones at the front, and he found himself momentarily uncertain as to what to do. He’d banked on the alcohol setting most of them aflame, but that hadn’t happened. “What now, Ethan?” Brandt prompted, as if reading Ethan’s thoughts. “You’re the one with the grand plan here! What are we going to do now?”

“When I say go, you five are going to run for the fucking escalators,” Ethan said, his words strained with the effort of holding the door closed. “I’m going to delay them for a bit while you head for the sixth floor.”

“Are you sure about this?” Brandt’s eyes met his. The look in them was serious; Ethan was sure it was the most serious he’d ever seen the man in the entire year he’d known him.

“I’m surer about this than I’ve been about anything in my life,” Ethan said breathlessly. He had to choke the words out past the lump forming in his throat. He turned away from Brandt and shoved against the door harder as he looked to Remy. She’d barely moved during the entire exchange, during anything he and Brandt and Cade had done for the past several minutes. Not since he’d talked to her. She stood stock still, her bolo knife in her hand, watching them—watching him—with wide, frightened eyes. Her eyes were so different from the ones with which he’d become so intimately familiar that, for a second, he thought he was looking at someone else entirely. Then he blinked, and Remy reappeared, still standing in the same position. He cut his eyes away from her, unable to bear the look she gave him. He didn’t have time to dwell on it, to second-guess himself or his decision. Instead, he turned to Brandt again.

“You ready?” he asked Brandt. He shifted his grip on the door, ready to step back, to let the door go and allow the infected to come in after him.

“Do we have a fucking choice?” Brandt replied, somehow managing to hold the door with one arm long enough to draw a gun from under his jacket.

“Not if you want to get out of this shit alive,” Ethan shot back.

“Thirty minutes, then?” Cade’s voice said to Ethan’s left. He didn’t look at her as he nodded.

“If I can.”

Cade seemed to find that acceptable, because she scooped Shae from the floor, ready to pass her to Brandt at a moment’s notice. Sasha moved closer to Remy, and Ethan called out to Brandt again.

“Ready?”

Brandt nodded, and almost simultaneously, they threw themselves back from the doors.

The infected rushed in.

Chapter 61

When the first of the infected gained entry into the hotel, Brandt was already in motion. He lifted his right arm, aimed at one of the infected, and fired a single round directly into the man’s face, even as he swept the toddler from Cade’s arms and nestled her against his left side. The girl dug her fingers painfully into his shoulder, pressing down hard enough against his stab wound that Brandt felt woozy. He quickly shook it off. He had to; there was too much going on right in front of him for him to worry over something as inconsequential as an ache in his shoulder.

“Stick close to me!” he yelled to Sasha over the gunfire that erupted behind him. “Hold on to my belt, and don’t let go!” The girl was quick to obey. Smart kid, Brandt acknowledged. At least she listened when she was given orders. She was also surprisingly light on her feet as she sprinted alongside Brandt, keeping up with him as he followed Remy.

Remy led the way, Cade taking up the rear automatically. The younger woman ran like the hounds of Hell were biting at her heels. Brandt supposed that, in a way, they were. Her own personal hell had come to visit, and she seemed to be trying to outrun it in vain. She slammed into the glass doors leading into the tiled hallway so hard he thought she’d break them. Instead, she rebounded off them and grabbed the handle of one, flinging it open and diving through the entryway into the darkness beyond.

Twin bursts of gunfire erupted behind Brandt, and he risked a glance behind him as he and Sasha followed Remy through the door. Cade had turned in mid-stride to give Ethan a hand, managing to run backward several steps as she fired three shots at the infected flooding around Ethan. Brandt was thoroughly impressed at the skill she displayed; he’d never seen anyone move that fast backward, not to mention doing it while shooting a weapon. Cade darted forward to catch up with him as he moved through the doors. The sound of gunfire continued behind them in a staccato beat that let them all know Ethan was still alive.

“We’ve got to move faster,” Cade warned him breathlessly, releasing the magazine from her Glock in mid-stride and shoving it into a pocket. She withdrew another and, as they started up the escalators, jammed the fresh one into the weapon’s grip. “They were really making headway into the lobby.”

“Ethan?” Brandt prompted as he reached the top of the escalator.

“Still breathing, for now,” Cade replied. She pulled the slide back on the weapon to chamber a round. “I hope he manages to catch up with us.”

“I hope he doesn’t,” Brandt admitted. “I’m not particularly thrilled with the idea of watching him die again.” The words made him think of Remy, and he looked up suddenly, grabbing for his flashlight to shine it down the fourth-floor hallway in accompaniment with the one Cade had whipped out after reloading her sidearm. The young woman was nowhere in sight. “Where the fuck is Remy?”

Cade’s eyes darted over the hall, and she hissed through her teeth. “Shit,” she muttered. “I want to yell for her, but I’m not sure if it’s safe.”

“Should we risk it?” Brandt asked cautiously. As they slowed their quick jog down the hall, he tugged Sasha closer to him so he could protect her more easily if the need arose. The girl was more than willing to comply, thankfully, and he gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze as he squinted into the darkness around them.

Before Cade could answer, a figure appeared from the darkness. She lifted her gun, since Brandt’s hands were full with both a flashlight and a crying two year old, and pointed it at the short silhouette. Brandt took a quick step back, tugging Sasha with him, his shoulders tensed. Then he realized it was only Remy, and he blew out an explosive breath as Cade swore.

“Jesus, Remy, I almost fucking shot you,” she snapped to the younger woman. “Don’t get ahead of us again, got it? Stick close.”

“Whatever,” Remy muttered. “You guys coming? I scouted ahead. The stairwell is clear through the fourth floor and up to the fifth-floor landing. I can hear something on the sixth floor, though. There might still be more infected up there in the lobby.”

“And I don’t have any more grenades to clear them out the easy way,” Brandt said with a vague sense of disappointment.

“I really don’t think I’d let you use them if you had them anyway,” Cade countered. “Makes too much mess, and frankly, it’s too risky. If there are any up there, we’re just going to have to handle them manually.”

“Just take all my fun away, why don’t you?” Brandt retorted. A crash echoed from the third floor behind them. He startled and looked back instinctively. He couldn’t see anything, but the sound served as a great reminder that they needed to get moving again. He nodded toward the hallway ahead of them. “You two lead the way. I don’t have a free hand to do shit that’s remotely useful right now.”

Cade gave him a short nod and stepped forward, pulling Remy along by the elbow so she wouldn’t rush off without the rest of them again. Brandt drew in a deep breath and took Sasha’s hand, leading her with him. “You realize the hardest part isn’t going to be the sixth floor,” he said to Cade’s back as they moved to the stairwell door.

“Yeah, I know,” she muttered, easing the door open and shining her flashlight into the stairwell, checking over the path ahead of them despite Remy’s assurances that it was clear.

“We’re probably going to have a lot more trouble with the mall,” Brandt added. “Or rather, with the street just outside the mall.” He shifted his grip on Shae to bring her closer to him.

Cade grimaced and glanced at him, her pretty face drawn into a frown. “I’m aware, Brandt. I’m trying to take things as they come. If I think too far ahead, I’ll get distracted from what’s right in front of me, and then one or more of us will probably end up dead.”

“Good point,” Brandt acknowledged, watching as the woman hesitated before stepping through the doorway and into the dark stairwell beyond. Remy followed her as if she didn’t have a care in the world. She probably didn’t, Brandt acknowledged as he goaded Sasha ahead of him, bringing up the rear. As far as he was aware, Remy had stopped giving a shit about whether she lived or died around the same time she saw her family killed. Once he’d found out about her and Ethan, Brandt had hoped that Remy had found a new reason to care about living; it seemed her feelings for Ethan didn’t run as deep as he’d assumed, because her relationship with the man—and its aftermath—had only served to make her even more reckless.

He had just begun to step into the stairwell, handing his flashlight to Sasha to carry so he would have one arm free, when a shout behind him drew him back around. He reflexively reached for his Beretta and lifted it as he half-turned, shoulders tense, back straight, shielding Shae and ready to fire at the oncoming danger.

Thankfully, he didn’t get a chance to depress the trigger. He froze and lowered the weapon in surprise. “Bennett!” he exclaimed as the man’s form came into view. “I thought you said you were going to stay behind.”

“I also said I would catch up if I could,” Ethan corrected breathlessly. “You can’t get rid of me that easily, you know.”

“So I see,” Brandt said. He looked the man up and down thoughtfully, taking in his torn jacket and bloodied jeans, the sweat shining on his forehead and cheeks, and the stench of blood and smoke and alcohol around him. “Are you okay to …?” He trailed off pointedly.

“I can make it through the mall with you guys, I think,” Ethan said. Brandt had his doubts about that; the man looked ready to go under any minute. And, sadly, he didn’t seem totally aware of it.

Brandt nodded to Ethan, despite his trepidations, and looked down at Sasha. “Go up to the front and stick close to Cade,” he instructed. “Ethan, you walk right in front of me.” He didn’t add the “just in case” that danced at the tip of his tongue, though Ethan seemed to sense it. He nodded again and headed up the stairs behind Sasha, his hand grasping the railing tightly as he began to climb.

Brandt looked at Shae, who’d finally stopped crying and simply sat against him, her face streaked with tears and the odd hiccup shivering through her body. “Well, little chickie, I guess it’s just me and you for the moment, huh?” he suggested, giving her a reassuring smile and a pat on the back before moving to follow the rest of the group.

Chapter 62

The six of them had made it to the sixth floor and fought their way through the straggling infected without much problem. They’d gone almost halfway across the lobby, heading for the walkway connecting the hotel to AmericasMart, when the pain in Ethan’s joints and the ache in his head became too much to bear. He stumbled and staggered sideways to one of the marble support columns littering the lobby, sagging heavily against it as he struggled to draw enough air into lungs that suddenly felt horribly compressed.

Just ahead of him, Remy slowed and turned, her eyes full of concern as she realized he wasn’t following the rest of them. “Eth? Are you okay?” she asked nervously, taking a step toward him.

Ethan felt like he couldn’t breathe. His chest grew tight, and his heart hammered wildly against his ribs. Despite this, despite the horrible ache settling into his joints, Ethan nodded and leaned forward to rest his hands against his knees. “Yeah,” he choked out. His voice sounded thick and heavy even to his own ears, his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth. He licked his lips and tried to generate enough saliva to moisten them, then looked at the others. “Anybody got any water?”

Brandt set Shae down beside Sasha and moved forward, freeing a bottle from his pack and twisting the cap off. He shoved the bottle into the other man’s hands, and Ethan drank so deeply that the sides of the bottle caved in. When he lowered the bottle, his hands were trembling, and he nearly dropped it.

“What’s wrong?” Cade asked worriedly, moving beside Ethan and resting a hand against his shoulder.

“I just need a minute,” Ethan replied hoarsely. He cleared his throat and resumed the position he’d previously held, his hands gripping his knees as he bowed his head. The ache in his muscles was becoming more pronounced, more insistently painful. If he closed his eyes and tried to focus on something else, all he could feel was the pounding in his head. He groaned and slid down the column to kneel on the floor, pressing the heels of his hands against his temples and clenching his teeth.

“Ethan?” Remy’s voice said to his right. She sounded stricken, shocked and afraid. He only shook his head at her and swallowed back the bile threatening at the back of his throat.

“Ethan, now is not the time to be playing around,” Brandt said above him. Ethan found it in him to flash a raised middle finger in Brandt’s general direction. No one else seemed to find it amusing.

“Come on, Eth, he’s right,” Cade said. She squeezed his shoulder again. “We’ve got to get going. We’ve got to get the girls out of here.”

“No, you do,” Ethan managed. He was nearly panting as he spoke, and he squeezed his eyes shut even tighter. It was becoming harder and harder to draw in a breath, and his chest felt even tighter as he slunk down the rest of the way to the floor, dropping his head back against the column. “You need to get out of here. Now. No time to argue. Just go.”

There was a sensation creeping up underneath the pain and the panic starting to envelop his mind. It was a sensation that he knew would have frightening consequences if his friends remained.

“But Ethan—” Cade started to protest.

“Go!” Ethan yelled, even as he felt the sensation wrap fully around his mind, even as he felt his breath slowing, his heart slowing, his mind slowing. He groaned faintly and shook his head, fighting it desperately, trying to give his friends the chance to get out of there.

He couldn’t be responsible for their deaths. He just couldn’t.

Despite his pleas for them to leave, no one made a move in that direction. He clenched his teeth and pushed back against the anger beginning to hammer at his brain, even as he started to feel himself fade. Remy was speaking, the low hum of her voice tickling at his brain, and Cade and Brandt’s voices joined hers. But he couldn’t make out what they were saying. The words were all a blur, all a humming drone at the back of his brain.

Ethan dropped his head back against the column again, closing his eyes as he drew in another slow breath.

When he opened his eyes again, he was no longer Ethan Bennett.

Chapter 63

Remy had knelt in front of Ethan as Cade and Brandt bickered between the two of them. Brandt was all for grabbing the children and hauling ass without Ethan. They were spending too much time arguing about what to do, and he didn’t think they could risk waiting around. The longer they stayed in one place, the sooner they would be noticed by the infected. The infected weren’t stupid; eventually, the ones from the higher floors would find their way down to the sixth floor—and Brandt didn’t want to be there when that happened.

“He’s really sick,” Cade protested as she glanced in Ethan’s direction. Brandt could see the frown that graced her features as she took in the man’s rapidly deteriorating condition. “I just don’t think he should be left alone. Not like this. What if he needs someone to … someone here with him to help him if he turns?”

“He told us to go,” Brandt pointed out in frustration. “He doesn’t want us to loiter around here any longer than I do. Our priority isn’t Ethan. It’s the kids. We need to get them out of here and head for the fucking mall and get to Baker and Spring before Dominic and Isaac assume we’re all dead and get the hell out of there themselves.”

“I just …” Cade looked at Brandt helplessly, and for a frightening second, Brandt thought he saw tears in her eyes. He caught her hand and gave it a squeeze before dropping it.

“I know,” Brandt said. “It’s going to be okay. This is what he would want us to do. This is what he just told us to do. We’ve got to do what he asked and get the hell out of here before we run out of chances.”

Cade sighed and nodded shortly, visibly burying her grief as she turned away from him and moved toward the two children to prepare them for the hopefully quick trip across the walkway to the mall. As Brandt stepped away from Ethan to join her, Remy let out an ungodly shriek that echoed off the walls and ceiling and floors and rattled its way right into his brain. Brandt froze, his back stiffening as the familiar sound of an infected person shook through the air at almost the same time as Remy’s shriek. Brandt whirled back around, pointing his gun wildly behind him.

Remy lay on her back on the cold marble floor, her Sig Sauer in one hand, both hands braced against Ethan’s chest, struggling to hold him at bay. Ethan clawed at her arms and grasped at her face, drawing blood from her arms and carving deep, bloody furrows into her cheeks and neck. He bared his teeth and snarled at her. He looked so far from the Ethan that Brandt knew that he couldn’t help but think that Ethan was gone for good. Despite this thought, though, Brandt shoved his Beretta into its holster and ran forward to grab the man by the shoulders and haul him backward, dragging him bodily off of Remy. Remy scrambled backward on the floor without getting up, aiming her gun wildly at Ethan as Brandt wrestled with the man thrashing violently in his arms.

Brandt hooked his hands underneath Ethan’s arms and wrenched them backward, pinning them behind him even as he struggled to keep Ethan from breaking free of his grasp. Cade stood frozen, protectively blocking the children from Ethan’s view as she aimed her rifle in his and Brandt’s direction. Remy still lay on the floor, her eyes wide and horrified, blood running in rivulets down her arms and neck and face to drip onto her chest and the floor, the trembling weapon in her hand still pointed at her former lover. Brandt gritted his teeth and twisted his body around, swinging Ethan about and throwing him to the floor. He pinned the man face-down against the marble and nearly sat on his back as he grasped his wrists and pulled them back hard, holding the other man’s arms behind him with all his strength as Ethan continued to wrestle to break free.

“Cade!” Brandt barked out, fighting past the strain of maintaining his grip on Ethan as he looked to the woman. The sound of her name seemed to shake her free from her frozen state, and she nodded to Brandt to indicate for him to continue. “Get over here. Get in my backpack and get the fucking duct tape out of it.”

Cade moved to comply, even as she asked, “What’s the duct tape for?”

“I have an idea,” Brandt replied simply.

“Damn you and your ideas,” Cade muttered. She unzipped the pack on Brandt’s back and pulled free the silver tape he’d requested. “Why do you have duct tape anyway?”

“Why not have duct tape? It’s good for just about anything.” Brandt shifted his hands to Ethan’s forearms and held them tighter. “Wrap some around his wrists. Now. I can’t hold him much longer.”

“Wait, what?” Cade sounded aghast at Brandt’s order. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“We’re taking him with us, okay?” Brandt snapped back. “Tape him. Now.”

“But he’s infected!” Cade protested. “He’s not … there’s nothing we can do for him! Why are you doing this?”

“Duct tape his fucking hands together and I’ll give you a fucking good reason why,” Brandt said, trying to keep his voice steady. Ethan thrashed violently underneath Brandt, and Brandt was nearly thrown off him. He dug his knee more firmly into Ethan’s back and barked, “Do it, Cade!”

Cade hesitated again, then swore and obediently moved forward, planted her boot gently but firmly against Ethan’s back between his shoulder blades, and started to wrap the tape around his wrists. “I hope whatever the fuck you have planned, you know what you’re doing,” she bit out as she looped the tape securely around the man’s wrists several times. “And I hope it’s something good, for that matter.”

“It is,” Brandt assured her, letting go of the man’s wrists and taking the tape from her. She continued to hold Ethan down while Brandt moved to the man’s ankles and mimicked Cade’s actions, taping his legs together to restrict the man’s mobility. “Derek’s going to come up with the cure, right?” he said. He grabbed the back of Ethan’s head by his hair and pulled his head off the floor, holding his jaw shut as Cade slapped a piece of tape over his mouth. Brandt then took the tape from her and wrapped it securely around Ethan’s head several times to make sure he couldn’t get his teeth into any of them.

“We hope,” Cade grumbled. “Who’s to say he’ll ever be successful?”

“My point exactly,” Brandt replied. Once Ethan had been reasonably secured, Brandt stood and grabbed the man by his belt, lifting him off the floor and slinging him over his shoulder. The action seemed to be enough to set Remy off; she darted off the floor and grabbed at Ethan’s leg. As she met Brandt’s eyes, he couldn’t help but think she looked like a victim in a horror movie, what with the blood still trickling down her cheeks and neck.

“What the hell are you doing?” she demanded. “You can’t possibly be planning to let him stay like this!”

“Yes the hell I am,” Brandt replied, pushing her aside and striding toward the walkway. He motioned for the other four to follow him. “Derek is going to develop a cure. How the fuck are we supposed to know if the cure works unless we have someone to test it on?”

“You told me to put him down if he turned! And now you want to turn him into a guinea pig?” Remy protested. She darted after Brandt and punched him in the shoulder. A sharp stab of pain rocked through his shoulder and upper arm, and he nearly dropped Ethan. He gritted his teeth and pushed past the pain, stepping into the shadowy walkway attached to the mall beyond.

“Yeah, Remy. That’s exactly what I want to do,” Brandt said. “You think I want to do this? You think I want him like this? No the fuck I don’t. But if Derek comes up with a cure, there is no one else on this planet that I’d rather have cured than Ethan. After everything he’s done for us, it’s the least I can do for him.”

Brandt didn’t bother to wait for any response Remy could muster. Nothing she said would change his mind. He refused to entertain the idea of killing Ethan, not without at least making an honest attempt to save his life. Cade seemed to agree with Brandt’s thought process, because she snapped at Remy, “Take the girls. I’ll take the lead.” She brushed past Brandt to lead the way down the walkway without another word.

The walkway was still secure and uninhabited, despite the fact that they’d left the doors on either end open while inside the hotel. Regardless of the apparent security of their surroundings, Brandt was far from at ease as he followed Cade, his grip on Ethan tight to keep him from thrashing off his shoulder. The infected had an uncanny ability to pop out of the woodwork the moment a person let his guard down, and Brandt hated being caught unawares.

Cade paused at the end of the walkway as a flash of lightning lit up the walkway’s interior. Brandt glanced at the ceiling instinctively; he’d almost forgotten that a thunderstorm was rolling in—he hadn’t even heard the thunder or seen the lightning while inside the Westin, with more pressing problems in his face. Even Cade’s eyes flickered momentarily skyward as thunder rumbled, low and loud, throughout the structure. Brandt glanced at Remy; she seemed totally unperturbed by the coming storm or the possibility of infected attacking. She had eyes only for Ethan.

Brandt didn’t want to imagine what sort of look Ethan gave her in return.

“What’s the story, Cade?” Brandt prompted, taking a few steps in the woman’s direction and shifting Ethan against his shoulder.

“Looks clear,” Cade said. “But we are a few floors up. It’d probably be pretty damn wise to keep the noise to a minimum once we get in there, just in case.”

“Agreed.” Brandt looked at Remy again and ordered, “Pick up Shae and carry her. She can’t run like the rest of us.” He moved to the side of the walkway and peered down. He could see the infected below, those who hadn’t flooded through the Westin’s now-opened doors. The exit from AmericasMart was behind the infected. Brandt didn’t want to think about the risk they’d be taking just by stepping through those doors.

Cade joined him a moment later. “We’re going to have to move fast,” she murmured.

“Very fast,” Brandt added. “Fuck, we could use at least one more person to keep an eye on the kids.”

“Do I need to remind you that that was your job?” Cade said, keeping her voice low. “Now you’ve taken it upon yourself to do this,” she emphasized the word with a firm pat on Ethan’s leg, “and now we’ve got our hands fuller than full.”

“If it comes to it, I can carry Shae on my right,” Brandt offered. “I don’t think she’ll be too happy about being so close to Ethan, but at this point, he can’t hurt her, so she’s just going to have to deal with it.”

“You know what, I think I’m going to take you up on that offer,” Cade said. She whistled sharply between her teeth and beckoned to Remy. “Give Shae to Brandt,” she instructed. “You’re going to lead with me. We’ve got to make sure we clear out anything in our paths and keep the kids safe.”

Remy passed Shae to Brandt, and as he looked at the young woman, Brandt saw the familiar fire that seemed to invade her gaze whenever she faced the prospect of going into a fight. It was always the same: a dose of anger, hatred, and ferocity that was downright frightening, especially when coupled with the blood on her face that she hadn’t bothered to clean off. Once she’d offloaded the little girl, she drew her bolo knife from the sheath on her belt and wielded it before her with no small amount of determination. Brandt almost felt sorry for whatever crossed her path.

Almost.

Then they all stepped forward, and the darkness of the mall pressed close around them. Brandt’s back and shoulder muscles stiffened instinctively. He was all for racing through the mall as quickly as they could. Cade and Remy seemed to share his sentiments, because they moved at a pace so quick that, loaded down as he was with Ethan and Shae, Brandt could barely keep up with them.

The mall was darker than Brandt liked. Not that there was anything he could do about it. The darkness unsettled him, and he couldn’t hear past Shae’s sniffles or the low grunts Ethan let out as he struggled against Brandt’s grip on him. His best senses had been temporarily robbed from him in the darkness, and he felt nervousness stirring in his gut. This wasn’t his idea of a good time.

They were in the stairwell on the second floor, racing as rapidly and silently as they could for the street level, when Brandt caught a flutter of movement in the corner of his eye. He stiffened and grabbed Sasha by the wrist, swinging her around him to the side closest to the railing and twisting to protect Shae as a man lurched out of the shadows and tackled him. Overbalanced with the impact, Brandt went down, falling on top of Ethan with a grunt. He flailed, trying to push himself up enough to get to his gun, still holstered at his hip and now pinned beneath him.

The infected man that had tackled him threw himself on top of the pile. Brandt swore and slung Shae out of the way, sliding the toddler across the tiled landing in Remy’s direction. At the same time, he braced a hand against the man’s chest and pushed up, trying to get the man off him. “Cade! Give me a hand here!” he yelled.

Before Cade could start in his direction, Sasha ran toward him and swung the flashlight she held with all the strength she had in her seven-year-old arms. The metal flashlight struck the side of the man’s head, and though it didn’t do much to injure him, it threw him off balance enough that Brandt was able to get his foot underneath the man and push up, shoving him off and to the floor beside him. Then Brandt rolled, took a knee, and lifted his rifle from its tactical carry against his chest.

Three shots echoed through the stairwell, two from Brandt’s rifle and one from Cade’s. The infected man twitched once and then was still.

“You okay?” Cade asked in the ringing silence that followed. She dropped to a knee beside Brandt and looked into his face. Her blue eyes were hard with worry, and she reached out as if to take his face in her hands. He leaned back and caught her wrists to stop her.

“I’m fine. Check on Sasha,” he ordered. “We need to get the hell out of here. No time for this.” He didn’t wait for Cade’s reply. Instead, he scooped Ethan off the floor and returned him to his shoulder, then beckoned to Remy. “Give me Shae.”

“Are you sure? I can—” she started.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Brandt persisted. “I’m fine. I can handle her. She barely weighs anything.”

Remy nodded and passed the girl over, and Brandt settled her once again against his hip. He nodded to Remy, indicating that she should take the lead, and tugged Sasha closer to him. And then, as one, they started down the stairs again, shaken by the attack but pressing forward regardless.

It didn’t take long for the small group to make it to the ground level, where they were greeted by the blessed sight of only a few infected milling around on the street. By Brandt’s quick calculations, there were maybe ten infected outside—not a small number, but definitely not something they couldn’t handle.

“Doesn’t look too bad, does it?” Remy spoke up. She rested a hand against one of the doors and peered through the glass, squinting past the cracks and the dust and the dirt to study what lay beyond.

“Assuming it stays that way,” Cade muttered. “And with the way our luck goes … well, let’s just say I’m not holding my breath.”

“Me either,” Brandt agreed. Ethan bucked against his shoulder, causing Brandt to nearly drop him. “We might want to make this quick. I’m not sure how much longer I can handle holding Ethan like this.”

“Yeah, and I think the infected have spotted us,” Remy warned. “They’re moving this way, and the crowd is getting bigger.” There was a small, exhausted tremor under her voice as she spoke the words. Brandt looked at her with concern.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “How are you feeling?”

“Really tired,” she admitted. “And my arms and face hurt. But I’ll be okay. Just going to want a very long nap after this. Maybe sleep for a day or two.”

“What about infection-wise?” Cade spoke up. “How’s that feeling for you?”

“Mildly queasy, but nothing I can’t live with.”

Brandt still didn’t like how Remy sounded, but despite that, he nodded to her. He was more intent on getting all of them out in one piece. He’d worry about Remy’s health after they’d reached the relative safety of whatever vehicle Isaac and Dominic had tracked down.

He only hoped the two men hadn’t given up on them in the time between their departure and now.

Remy pressed her hand against the door again, and everyone present seemed to take a deep, steadying breath in unison. Then she finally pushed it open and stepped through the door to the sidewalk beyond.

Almost as soon as her boots met the brick and concrete, the infected turned fully toward them, certain of their next meal. They started in the group’s direction, first at a slow pace and then quickly speeding up. Several of them made that horrible snarling noise the infected made when prey was present, and Ethan tried to echo it in the back of his throat, despite his mouth being taped shut. Brandt gritted his teeth and moved out the door, Cade following him briskly.

“Which way, Brandt?” Remy yelled as she wielded her knife before her, ready to attack.

“Right! Go right!” Brandt ordered, coming up behind her and goading her forward with a short nudge to her back. Remy lifted her knife and, before Brandt or Cade could stop her, charged directly into the mass of bodies coming toward them, blade swinging furiously. Brandt swore under his breath and, not seeing any other options available to him, ran after her, the children and Ethan in tow. He knew Cade was right behind him and would follow without question, even if she didn’t agree with the action.

As he plowed forward, chasing after Remy, Brandt realized that this was the most nervous he’d felt in the entire time the Michaluk virus had wreaked havoc on the world. Sure, he’d been involved in mass attacks before. He was no stranger to risking life and limb in fights with the infected.

But this was something wholly different. This was something more dangerous, more risky: to charge into a horde quickly growing into the dozens without even the courtesy of body armor, bringing along a duct-taped infected man, a pregnant woman, and two totally defenseless children. It was sheer fucking madness.

But it was the only chance they had to get out of this alive, especially with the way the infected blocked the sidewalk—the clearest path available to them.

Remy tore through the infected ahead of him and the children, her blade flashing in the lightning that illuminated the sky above them. As she hacked at heads and shoulders and limbs, working to clear a path through them, she looked like an avenging angel with the expression of righteous anger on her pretty face. She fought with the fury of a woman who was highly pissed off. Brandt had no desire to get anywhere near her while she was so enraged.

The shrieks of the infected were almost deafening. The idea that they were crying out in what sounded like pain was disturbing; the thought that they could even feel pain—something Brandt had never even considered—bothered him. But Brandt forced himself forward, trying to not dwell on that very human aspect of what he considered so inhuman.

Brandt’s heart hammered wildly in his chest as he tried to follow Remy through the crowd. Cade’s rifle fired behind him in a staccato beat, and hands grasped at his jacket. Brandt pulled Shae closer to his chest as Cade shot one of the infected close to him. The bullet struck the man in the shoulder, spinning him away, but then another was there to take his place almost immediately.

“We’ve got to get the hell out of here!” Brandt yelled to Cade over the sounds of the infected and the loud crash of thunder that rent the air. Sasha gripped his coat tighter as she moved closer to him, holding her flashlight as if she were ready to hit anything that came close to her. “There’s no way we can hold out like this! We’ve got to get the kids out of here!”

“We’re trying, Brandt!” Cade yelled back. Brandt glanced at her and couldn’t miss the desperation in her eyes. “There’s only so much we can do! I don’t know about Remy, but I’m getting tired. I’ll be happy so long as this doesn’t get any worse!”

As if on cue, another rumble of thunder shook the air, and the sky split open. The downpour that had built all evening finally dropped onto them, soaking them to the skin within moments and eliciting a stream of swears from Cade.

“You just had to open your mouth, didn’t you?” Brandt shouted, even as he started to run faster. Cade scrambled to keep up, raising her rifle to shoot into the infected again.

Brandt had nearly lost sight of Remy in the time he and Cade had had their discussion, and it took him several heart-stopping moments before he spotted the young woman in the nearly empty street, where the cars had cleared. She was still chasing down any infected in sight rather than sticking with fighting off only the ones blocking their paths. Cade and Brandt raced to join her, but before they reached her location, three infected ganged up on Remy and took her down to the pavement.

“Remy!” Cade shrieked over the thunder and rain that covered the sound of Remy’s impact with the pavement. She started in the younger woman’s direction.

“Cade, no!” Brandt said. “You can’t! I need your help! I can’t manage the kids and keep the infected off me at the same time!”

Cade looked torn, and she glanced between Brandt and Remy before firing a bullet at a woman grasping for Brandt. “Fuck!” she shouted in frustration. She whipped in Remy’s general direction and fired at the remaining infected converging on her position until the magazine ran dry. Then she slung the rifle onto her shoulder and swung the shotgun off her back, racking a round and firing the weapon into the crowd. “Come on!” she said to Brandt, grabbing the sleeve of his jacket. “We’ve at least got to try!”

Though the idea of running straight at the infected certainly didn’t appeal to Brandt, he knew Cade was right. The remaining members of the group had been through entirely too much together for them to just run away and leave Remy to the infected. They had to try to save her.

Cade brought the shotgun up to aim it into the crowd closest to Remy, ready to fire again and take down as many as she could from a distance before she closed in to try to fight them off. Before she managed to fire off a shot, though, the squeal of tires on pavement caught their attention. Brandt tensed, his shoulders squaring and his back stiffening, and looked in the direction of the sound.

A pair of headlights bore down on them. The vehicle to which they were attached squealed to a stop mere feet away from them. A familiar voice shouted from it.

“The cavalry has arrived!”

It took Brandt scant seconds to recognize Isaac Wright’s voice, and relief flooded his entire body. He let out a triumphant shout and darted to the vehicle, hauling Shae and Sasha with him. “Thank Jesus you’re here,” he said. He set Shae down and flung the back passenger door open to shove the two kids inside as Cade covered him. “Remy’s in trouble. She needs a hand.”

“I’ve got it!” Dominic said confidently. Despite his injured shoulder, he climbed from the vehicle and accepted the sidearm Cade offered him, then ran in the direction she pointed. As he disappeared into the rain, Brandt called to Isaac.

“Open the back door. I’ve got to put him in,” he said, shifting Ethan on his shoulder to indicate the “him” to whom he referred.

Isaac frowned and pulled the door-release lever. “What the fuck is wrong with him?”

“Trust me, you don’t want to know,” Cade answered. She moved to help Brandt, pushing the back door fully open and helping him shift the man off his shoulder and into the empty cargo area. As Cade covered the vehicle, Brandt clambered in after Ethan to shelter from the rain. Remy and Dominic appeared within moments, running to the SUV, Remy’s hand clenched on Dominic’s uninjured arm. Her clothes were torn, her hair was disheveled and pulled free from its hairband, and she was covered with blood—both her own and others’—and other things Brandt didn’t want to think about. But she was in one piece, which was far more than he’d hoped for. He let out a relieved breath as she and Dominic climbed into the vehicle, Remy in the back seat with the kids, and Dominic in the passenger seat in the front. Cade swung herself into the cargo area with Brandt, despite the cramped quarters, and pulled the door shut with a heavy whump.

“Come on, get moving!” Brandt called to Isaac. The other man pushed the gearshift into drive. “We’ve got to get out of here. Take whatever cleared roads you can to the east. We have to rendezvous with the others in Hollywood as fast as possible.”

As the SUV started down the street, rapidly accelerating, Cade looked at Brandt, her eyes meeting his in the dim light inside the vehicle. She looked exhausted, a little scared, but also somehow relieved. Brandt broke his gaze from hers and closed his eyes, letting out another slow breath before opening them again. She reached out and took his hand, and he clutched it tightly, determined not to let go. No matter what happened.

Epilogue

Three Months Later

Cade stood on the front porch of the newest safe house the remains of their group had staked out, leaning against the railing with a mug of warm tea in her hands and squinting across the yard. The early summer sun bore down on the men and women who labored in a yard across the street, digging up and turning over the soil, working to get everything prepared for the first plants they were going to attempt to grow. It wasn’t hard to pick Brandt out in the group, laughing and joking with a couple of other men as he jammed a shovel into the ground. Even from where she stood, Cade could see the bulge of his muscles as he lifted the shovel and turned the dirt over, dumping the shovelful back onto the ground. She scanned the yard. It wouldn’t be long before they had an entire yard turned up for planting. She relished the thought of fresh vegetables; after nearly a year and a half of running and hiding, she was tired of eating out of cans.

Brandt seemed to sense Cade’s staring, because he stuck his shovel into the dirt and turned toward her. He smiled and lifted a hand in greeting. She returned it, taking a careful sip of her tea, and rubbed a hand lightly over her growing stomach. She was over four months along now. Barring complications, she’d have her child in November. There could have been worse times to have a baby, she mused as she set her tea mug on the porch railing and started for the steps. Like in the middle of July, having to fight against discomfort and heat without the benefits of air conditioning. The thought wasn’t pleasant.

Before she made it down the three steps leading to the cracked path attached to the sidewalk, a voice spoke up from the front entryway behind her.

“Mrs. Evans?”

It took Cade a few scant moments to realize she was being addressed. It’d only been a week since the small ceremony performed in the living room of one of the houses the group of forty-four had claimed in a gated community outside of Charleston, South Carolina. Cade still wasn’t used to her new name; she figured it would come to her more easily with time, but that time definitely hadn’t arrived yet.

Dr. Derek Rivers stood in the doorway of the house Cade and her closest friends—including the doctor, Kimberly Geller, and Dominic Jackson—had claimed as their own, his fingertips tapping nervously on the doorframe as he watched her. She glanced one more time in Brandt’s direction before retreating back to the shade of the porch, stopping in front of the doctor and giving him a tentative smile.

“Dr. Rivers,” she greeted him warmly, retrieving her mug from the porch railing. “Is everything okay? You usually don’t come down here like this.”

“I needed a little fresh air,” he admitted. He eased onto the porch and sat on one of the lawn chairs that had been placed there. “Kimberly’s upstairs with Ethan. I figured it’d be okay if I stepped out for a few minutes.” He leaned forward in his chair and studied the activity across the street. “Wow, they’ve really made some headway on that, haven’t they?”

Cade tossed the remains of her tea out across the yard and leaned against the railing, folding her arms. The ceramic mug dangled loosely from one hand. “I know you didn’t come all the way down here to talk about the community’s agricultural attempts,” she said pointedly.

Derek let out a soft chuckle and sat back in his seat again. “I make myself that obvious, huh?”

“Glaringly.”

Derek chuckled again and scrubbed a hand slowly over his graying beard. He suddenly looked aged, every single one of his fifty-seven years showing in his face. Cade almost took a step toward him, but then he spoke. “Ethan is awake,” he told her. “Has been for about three hours now.”

Cade’s mouth went dry. She wished she hadn’t tossed out the tea. “Is he …?”

“I think it took,” Derek said with no small amount of pride in his voice. He deserved to be proud of himself; he’d worked hard to find the cure for the Michaluk virus. Whether or not it worked with Ethan Bennett would be the definitive answer to the question of whether he’d succeeded. “He’s very weak and incredibly malnourished. I think the next few days are going to be really touch-and-go. I should warn you that he’s so weak, there’s a chance his body might just give out on him before he gets well.”

Cade felt her heart freeze up, but she managed to ask shakily, “So what’s the bad news, Doc?”

Derek gave a wan smile at her lame excuse for a joke and slouched in his chair. “I think if he makes it through the next couple of days, he’ll be fine.”

Cade nodded, and both of them fell silent for several thoughtful minutes. When she finally spoke again, her voice was tight, and she had to clear her throat before she could get her question out. “So what’s next, Derek?”

“I think Miss Angellette,” Derek said. “Though I’m not sure how this cure will work for someone who hasn’t … fallen completely under, so to speak. I don’t know how the medications she’s already on will interact with the cure. Hopefully, it won’t prove to be a fatal case of trial and error.”

“She’d do it regardless of the risks,” Cade said. “She doesn’t care about risks. She wouldn’t let that stop her.”

“I know, and that’s a little worrisome,” Derek admitted. “I’m concerned about the effect Michaluk has had on her mind.”

Cade looked at him sharply. “You don’t think she’s turning out like Alicia, do you?”

“Oh no, no,” Derek tried to reassure her quickly. “Just that she’s a little … melancholy, I think. She spends a lot of time on the roof alone.”

“She did that before you met us, when I was sick with an infection,” Cade said. “At least, that’s what Brandt tells me, anyway. That she’d hide on the roof to get away from everybody and think.”

“Do you know what her plans are if the cure works for her?” Derek asked. There was a note of curiosity in his voice as he reclined further and looked up at her. Cade averted her eyes from his and shrugged slightly.

“I don’t know. That’s not something we’ve discussed,” she said evasively. Really, she didn’t think it was Derek’s business what any of their future plans were; she didn’t know him well enough to trust him enough to divulge things to him yet. She believed she’d become at least as distrusting as Ethan had once been.

Cade brushed her bangs out of her eyes and looked across the yard at Brandt for another moment before she cleared her throat and spoke again. “Look, I think I need to get inside,” she said. “It’s hot out here, and it’s making me feel a little queasy.”

Derek seemed to go further on the alert with Cade’s words. He sat up straighter and gave her a concerned look. “Are you okay?” he asked. “Do you need anything?”

Cade waved him off. “I’m fine, I’m fine,” she said. “I just need more shade, maybe more tea.” She didn’t wait for Derek to reply. Instead, she turned on her heel and strode into the house, letting the shadowed air inside cover her like a cool blanket. She dropped her mug off in the kitchen sink and headed for the stairs, determined to hunt Remy down and give her the latest news on Ethan’s condition.

Remy was in the first place Cade checked: the bedroom she’d staked out as her own for the past three months. She stood beside the bed, shaking out a fitted sheet to spread over the bare mattress, a frown gracing her face. Cade stopped in the doorway and watched her for a second, trying to determine if it was safe to enter, before she tapped two knuckles lightly against the doorframe. Remy startled and turned, giving Cade a tight, compressed semblance of a smile before returning to her work with the sheet.

“Hi,” Cade greeted her. She took a couple of steps into the room to lean against the wall. “You need a hand?”

“No, I’ve got it,” Remy muttered. She climbed onto the mattress to hook the sheet over the top edge of it.

“So, ah, Ethan’s awake,” Cade said, deciding not to hedge around the reason she’d come there. Remy seemed completely indifferent to the revelation, which suggested to Cade that she’d already heard the news. Cade sighed and crossed her arms, cupping her elbows in her palms. “You still plan to leave?”

“Yes,” Remy said. She snapped the end of the fitted sheet around the foot of the mattress. “Nothing that’s happened—or not happened—in the past three months has changed my mind on that.” She smoothed both hands over the sheet and grabbed the flat one, shaking it out. “Just waiting on Derek to wrap things up with Ethan so I can take my turn.”

Cade pressed her lips together and watched how Remy avoided her gaze. Rather than mention it, she merely asked, “Where do you plan to go?”

“Somewhere,” Remy said. “Anywhere but here.” She flung the sheet out from her and let it drift down onto the bed. “Dominic has some family up in Pennsylvania he wants to try to find. I might just go with him.”

Cade raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Dominic? I thought you hated Dominic.”

Remy shrugged and tossed a blanket haphazardly onto the bed. “Shit changes,” she said, her voice a bit coarse. “So do people, for that matter.” She glanced through the bedroom door to the closed one just across the hall. “I can’t be around him. Not after …”

“Not after seeing him like that for the past three months?” Cade suggested gently.

“Not after he tried to kill me,” Remy corrected. The scars from Ethan’s attack marred her features, stripping away part of her natural beauty.

Cade nodded in understanding and let her arms drop to her sides. “Are you going to come back some day?”

“I might. I don’t know yet.”

Cade sighed and moved to the younger woman, hesitating only a second before wrapping her into a tight hug. Though she’d never been one for displays of affection, for once, the gesture didn’t make Cade uncomfortable. “Just be careful, okay?” she requested as Remy returned the hug. “You’re like a little sister to me, and I don’t want you to just disappear and never come back.”

“When I get my shit settled, you’re never going to be able to get rid of me,” Remy said with a little laugh. “Besides, I’m not leaving for at least three more days. You’re not quite rid of me yet!”

Cade gave her another squeeze before letting go. “Just don’t randomly take off in the middle of the night, okay? Not unless you’re on a mission to piss me off, that is. Because then I’ll just track you down and smack you with a shoe.”

Cade’s Journal

July 3, 2010

It’s been three months since the hell we fought through in Atlanta, Georgia. We fought, some of us died—but we accomplished what we set out to do. We stopped Alicia Day.

And yet, I feel no real sense of victory in writing that.

To say Alicia Day was pretty messed up is probably an understatement. She made absolutely terrible decisions, decisions that cost many people their lives. But, in the end, Alicia was just as much a victim of the Michaluk virus as the rest of us. If not more so.

The virus was controlling her, altering her instincts and her behaviors, making her take actions she normally wouldn’t have. The virus was behaving in exactly the same way as it did in every other infected person roaming the world. The only difference was that Alicia still had her conscious mind, her human mind, competing with the virus’s effects. It wasn’t all Alicia’s fault, any more than it is the fault of those others who are infected—they’re only reacting in the way the virus tells them to. Nothing more.

The danger didn’t end with Alicia’s death. The infected didn’t magically disappear when Brandt and I fired those two bullets. They’re still something we have to live with, something we have to guard against. Alicia wasn’t the only threat. But she was a threat, and I believe even she recognized that in the end.

Those of us who survived—there were forty-four in all—found a place to establish what we believe to be the first real community in the southeast, inside a gated housing development outside of Charleston, South Carolina. In the past couple of weeks, we have begun experimenting with agricultural ideas, toying with what to grow and where to grow it. A few scavenging groups even found several hens—next up is, by all accounts, a rooster. I personally would like to see some cows, for the milk, but I’m not holding my breath.

In other news, Derek seems to have done his job. The moment we returned from Atlanta, he treated Remy to the best of his ability and then moved on to his research. Just last week, he achieved what I had begun to believe would never be achieved: he found a cure for the Michaluk virus. And Alicia was right: it had been in Brandt’s blood all along.

Brandt may have saved us all. Just like I knew he would.

As Cade wrote the last words in her journal entry, Brandt finally came in from his work across the street, dripping with sweat from the heat of the sun. He retreated to the bathroom to clean up, and when he returned, he flopped backward on the bed with a low groan. “I feel like I’ve been run over by a herd of sheep.”

Cade raised her eyebrows and looked up from the notebook in which she’d been scribbling by the light of the camping lantern. “A herd of sheep?” she repeated. She slipped her pen into the notebook and slowly closed it, setting it on the table and shifting to face the man sprawled on the bed.

“Yes, sheep,” Brandt confirmed. He pushed himself up into a sitting position and leaned back against his elbows. “I helped with the digging today—I know you saw that. And I walked the perimeter to make sure the fence was still secure and the guys patrolling it were okay for the night shift tonight.”

“And what else did you do?” Cade asked curiously, smiling as she propped her chin in her hand, resting her own elbow on the arm of the chair.

“And that’s pretty much it,” Brandt said. He slid off the bed and knelt onto the floor at her feet, reaching out to lightly touch her stomach. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m feeling … I’m feeling like I really want to go see Ethan,” Cade admitted. “Since he’s awake now. I want to make sure he’s okay, see how he’s doing. But I don’t want to go alone.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m a little scared of what I’ll see,” Cade confessed, ducking her head slightly. She didn’t think she’d have been able to tell anyone else in the house that and not have to worry about getting a scoffing reaction. Brandt would understand.

The man lifted a hand and gently ran it over her hair before rising to his feet and offering the hand to her. “Come on, then. Let’s go see how he is,” he agreed. Cade gave him a grateful smile and took his hand, lacing their fingers together as she rose from her chair. She let Brandt lead her out into the hall and several doors down to a closed bedroom door. They paused outside of it and listened carefully before Cade reached for the doorknob.

The man in the bed resembled Ethan, but only vaguely so. What Cade could see of the figure under the blankets was horribly thin, almost gaunt; to say he was “malnourished,” as Derek described it, was an understatement of epic proportions. Cade couldn’t bring herself to move forward, couldn’t force her feet to take the steps that would propel her to her best friend’s bedside. She turned her head to look to Brandt, seeking … she didn’t know what. Comfort? Reassurance? The courage to take the few steps between her and the bed? Brandt squeezed her hand and gave her an encouraging smile before dislodging his hand from hers and gently pushing her forward. As she took that first stumbling step, a soft voice from the bed spoke up, breaking the silence in the room.

“Cade?”

He might not have looked much like the friend she’d known for eight years, but Ethan certainly sounded like him. Cade drew in a fortifying breath and moved forward, sliding to her knees beside the bed. She found his thin hand with her own and took it carefully.

“Fuck, Ethan,” she murmured, brushing a stray lock of hair from his eyes. “You look miserable.” She hesitated, her hand tightening just slightly around his, before she repeated the question Brandt had asked her only moments before. “How are you feeling?”

Ethan turned his head toward her and smiled. “Like I’m going to be okay.”

Acknowledgements

A novel is never written in total isolation, and The Becoming: Revelations is certainly no exception. So I have to take a few moments to say thank you to a few people who helped make this happen.

First, my family and friends: parents and sisters, for their never-ending love and support. I’m incredibly lucky to have you all.

To Permuted Press and Jacob Kier: many, many thanks for not only taking a chance on my books, but for dealing with my random-ass emails over the past two-plus years.

To my editor, Stephanie Gianopoulos, for helping me refine and improve on the manuscript during the editing phases.

Loads of thanks to my beta readers (you know who you are) for your own help and support with the book’s development.

To the Indie Writers Unite (IWU) and the Insiders: you’ve been there since literally the beginning, and you’ve offered help with everything large and small and gave encouragement whenever I needed it, and I can’t thank you enough for that.

To Rhiannon Frater and Dana Fredsti: holy cow, ladies, what can I say? You two are so amazing and supportive and helpful, it’s ridiculous. I firmly believe I would probably flounder without your help and advice, and I can’t thank you enough for it all.

And, lastly, to my readers: Thank you all. And keep an eye out for more adventures involving the crew from the Becoming series! As they say, this isn’t the end; it’s only the beginning of the end.

About the Author

Jessica Meigs is the author of The Becoming, a post-apocalyptic thriller series that follows a group of people trying to survive a massive viral outbreak in the southeastern United States. After gaining notoriety for having written the series on a variety of BlackBerry devices, she self-published two novellas that now make up the first book of the series. In April 2011, she accepted a three-book deal with Permuted Press to publish a trilogy of novels. The first of the trilogy, entitled The Becoming, was released in November 2011 in paperback, eBook, and audiobook formats. It was also named one of Barnes & Noble’s Best Zombie Fiction Releases of 2011 and Best Apocalyptic Fiction Releases of 2011 by reviewer Paul Goat Allen.

Jessica lives in semi-obscurity in Demopolis, Alabama. When she’s not writing, she works full time as an EMT. She enjoys listening to music and spends way too much time building playlists for everything she writes. When she’s not traveling or writing or working, she can be found on Twitter @JessicaMeigs, on Facebook at facebook.com/JessicaMeigs, and on Goodreads at goodreads.com/JessicaMeigs. You can also visit her website at www.jessicameigs.com.