The Becoming (Book 4): Under Siege (5 page)

“Are you sure you can even make it down the
stairs?” Kimberly asked, sitting down beside him again. “Downstairs
is a pretty long way off, considering. And you haven’t done much in
the way of exerting yourself in the past several months.”

“I’m a lot tougher than I look,” he said.
“Trust me, a
lot
tougher. If I wasn’t, I don’t think I’d
have survived the attack in Atlanta or being fully infected for
four months.”

“I know,” Kimberly agreed. “You’re one of
the strongest people I’ve ever met. Honestly. I don’t know anyone
who could have handled what you’ve dealt with and come out still
sane in the end.”

A slow smirk crossed Ethan’s lips. “Who said
anything about me still being sane?”

Kimberly laughed and shook her head. She
stood and offered him her arm. “Well, Mr. Possibly Insane, come on.
Let’s get you looking a little less hobo and then get you
downstairs so you can yell at Derek. Then we can sit on the porch
while you get a look at some of what everyone in Woodside has been
working on.”

When Dominic stepped outside the main house, he
finally felt his shoulders loosen and his back muscles relax. He
fought the urge to slump against the door that had just clicked
closed behind him. Instead, he focused on the street ahead. He
didn’t look forward to the walk to his own house, located in the
most remote corner of the gated community, far from everyone
else’s. The walk would take him past too many of the other
survivors’ homes and the inevitable dirty looks he knew he’d
receive as he passed. He wasn’t an idiot. He held no delusions
about his status in Woodside. Save for the two little girls that
Ethan and Remy had saved, he was the only survivor of the Westin
and of Alicia Day’s regime—a regime that had victimized the very
people who now lived in Woodside, even if only through deprivation
of supplies.

Dominic had never appreciated the
implications of “guilt by association” until he came to live in
Woodside. Here, guilt was a permanent state of existence.

He had the idea to head for Philadelphia
three months after they’d secured Woodside. He’d wanted to leave on
the premise of searching for his family, but in truth, he’d wanted
to get away from the lobbied hate. And he hadn’t wanted to go
alone, which was why he’d accepted Remy’s offer to go with him.

Except Dr. Rivers hadn’t given her the cure
when he said he would, and now they were stuck, waiting in stasis,
until something was done about the infection swimming in the young
woman’s veins. He knew she was getting just as impatient as he was
to leave, even though he still hadn’t figured out exactly
why
she’d want to go with him, considering she didn’t appear
to like him. He supposed he was a means to an end for her; it
wasn’t likes she had to deal with what he went through every
day.

Dominic made it halfway down the block
before someone yelled out behind him.

“Hey, wait!” the voice called.

Dominic’s shoulders stiffened again, tensing
as if he expected a blow, and he didn’t turn around. Maybe if he
pretended like he hadn’t heard the shout, whoever had done the
yelling would go away. “Hey, Dominic, wait!”

Dominic let out a heavy breath and turned on
his heel, expecting to see one of the other Atlanta survivors
coming at him with something sharp or otherwise deadly—there were
weapons
everywhere
in Woodside, simply as a matter of
practicality, and it wouldn’t be the first time it had happened—but
he was surprised to see Remy Angellette instead. As hard as he’d
been thinking, his mind hadn’t registered whose voice it was. She
was on the roof of the medical house’s porch, waving at him as she
tried to find her way down. Dominic rolled his eyes and moved back
toward the house so he could call up to her.

“What the hell are you doing up there?” he
asked. He watched as she moved to the edge and shimmied to the
right, climbing down the rose trellis on the side of the porch like
one would a chain link fence. “And, for that matter, how’d you even
get
up
there?” he asked as she dropped to the grass. She
staggered, and he caught her elbow to right her as she regained her
footing.

“Climbed out the window,” she explained,
pointing to the open second story window before turning her focus
back onto him. “Where are you going?”

“Home,” he said. “To try to get some sleep
before I have to get up and take watch on the wall tonight. It’s my
shift.”

“Mind if I join you?”

“On what, watch or sleep?”

Remy snorted and shrugged. “I don’t know.
Either. Whatever.” She glanced back at the medical house, and a
sheepish expression came over her face. “I’m just tired of looking
at them,” she admitted. “I need some company other than
theirs.”

Dominic frowned and turned on his heel,
starting back in the direction of his own house, and she scrambled
to catch up with him. “I thought you didn’t like me,” he said as
she matched his brisk pace with her own. Reflexively, he slowed
down; the fact that she was infected niggled at the back of his
brain and reminded him that she wasn’t supposed to over-exert
herself. “I mean, you acted pretty pissed off at me earlier.”

“And I’m sorry about that,” she said. “I was
in a bad mood. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. I just need
some company. Somebody
different.
” She grinned suddenly.
“Besides, I haven’t been out to your house yet.”

“Nobody has,” Dominic replied. “I don’t let
anybody in there. Don’t think I’m going to change my stance on that
just for you.”

“Hiding something?”

“No, I’m just a very private person,” he
corrected. He could just see his house in the distance, the windows
shuttered, the entire house locked down against the possibility of
invasion, both from the infected and the uninfected. It was his
fortress, his sanctuary from the ridicule of Woodside, perched as
far away as he could get from the rest of their miniature
civilization. He wasn’t sure he was willing to violate his space
with the presence of another, no matter how much he liked the fire
in her brown eyes. “Aren’t you supposed to be on bed rest or
something?”

Remy looked suddenly uncomfortable and more
than a little annoyed. “Fuck bed rest, and fuck Dr. Rivers and his
fucking rules,” she muttered. “If he isn’t going to help me, then
I’m not going to make life easy on him.”

Dominic couldn’t help but chuckle. “Have you
ever made life easy for anyone?” he asked. He didn’t wait for her
answer; he merely beckoned her to continue walking with him. “Come
on. Maybe I’ll cave and let you sit on the porch or something.”

Remy grinned. “Well, that’s a start, at
least,” she agreed. “Eventually, I’ll negotiate myself into the
living room.”

“You think.”

He and Remy arrived at his house nearly ten
minutes later, sitting in its overgrown yard at the far end of the
block, underneath equally overgrown trees that shadowed the
dwelling from most of the sunlight. It was a reasonably plain
two-story, the white paint weather-beaten and starting to peel. The
windows on both floors had been boarded over. The front façade of
the house was unadorned, save for the word “traitor” that had been
spray painted across the door and the exterior siding in large and
looping red letters. He glanced at Remy as they drew closer, and he
felt suddenly self-conscious as she got a look at the vandalism. He
cursed himself for not painting over it, though he was sure that
he’d left it up in an effort to punish himself for being on the
wrong side of everything in Atlanta and for his misguided loyalty
to Alicia.

“What happened here?” Remy asked, climbing
the front porch’s wooden steps for a closer look. “Who did
this?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. He took the
steps two at a time to join her on the porch.

“Yes it does.”

“
No,
it doesn’t,” he insisted. “Trust
me. Just drop it. I’m just going to paint over it and leave it
be.”

Remy looked like she wanted to argue but
didn’t. Instead, she turned and leaned against the siding by the
door, blocking his view of the “or” spray-painted there. She folded
her arms over her chest and watched him for a minute, much in the
same way he’d watched her earlier in the day when she’d been
throwing supplies around in the dining room at the main house. “So
you’re just going to put up with this?” she asked, rocking her head
back as if she were indicating the word on the wall. “You’re just
going to let these people walk all over you?”

“I don’t have much of a choice in the
matter,” Dominic replied. “I owe these people. Everything I’ve done
since Michaluk broke out has antagonized them and put their
survival at risk. The least I can do is keep my mouth shut now that
the status quo has changed.”

“I wasn’t aware that there even
was
a
status quo,” Remy said.

“There is. And compared to me, you’re part
of the larger portion of it.” He sighed and shoved his hands into
his pockets, standing there under her scrutiny for a long moment,
before flicking his eyes toward the side of the house. The wall
that enclosed the community loomed there, mere feet away from the
side of the building, casting the entire yard in shadow. He pressed
his lips together and then nodded and motioned toward her. “Move
over, let me get inside,” he said. “I want to show you
something.”

“Is it something good?” Remy asked.

Dominic rolled his eyes and nudged her
sideways, opening the front door and leaning inside. He grabbed the
rifle he kept propped beside the door, scooped up the extra
ammunition magazines from the table alongside it, and tucked them
into his pockets. He added a sheathed machete to the belt he
already wore, and then pulled the door shut once more. “Follow me,”
he instructed.

“Where are we going?” Remy asked, the
intrigue in her voice clear.

“Just hush and follow me,” Dominic repeated.
He started for the side of the porch, climbing over the railing and
dropping down onto the half-dead flowerbed on the other side. He
turned to help Remy over the rail and asked, “You’ve got weapons,
right?”

“I always have weapons,” Remy said as she
grasped his shoulders. He wrapped his hands around her waist,
silently marveling at how slim she was, and had to force himself to
let go once her boots were planted on the old mulch.

“What kinds?”

“My Sig Sauer, my Ruger, and my bolo knife,”
she said, clearly confused.

“Spare ammo?”

“Of course. Why? Where are we going that
requires guns and knives?”

Dominic shook his head and motioned for her
to follow him. He started to walk along the side of the house,
heading for the backyard and the wall beyond it. “You’ll see.” He
hesitated and then asked, “You trust me, right?” She gave him a
surprised look. “I mean, you know I’m not going to intentionally
take you into something that would be certain to get you killed,
right?”

If it were possible, that statement made
Remy look even more intrigued than before. “Oh, you’re taking me
somewhere
awesome
, aren’t you?”

Dominic chuckled. “Maybe,” he said. Then he
fell silent, wading through the grass to the back wall around the
community. He looked around, checking to make sure they weren’t
being watched, and then knelt and pulled free two metal spikes from
the dirt. He set them aside and grasped the boards, swinging them
to the side.

When the community’s leaders had decided
that the best course of action was to board over the wrought-iron
fencing surrounding the community and build a thirty-foot wall,
Dominic had immediately planned an escape route, wanting his own
unmonitored path into and out of Woodside. It had taken nearly a
month to remove three of the iron fence’s bars and fashion a
swinging door from a section that could be secured in place when
not in use. Dominic didn’t regret the time spent creating it. The
escape hatch kept him fed and supplied. He refused to accept any of
the stores collected for the survivors’ communal use and went out
three times a week to search for whatever he needed and to hunt
small animals for fresh meat. He could and did fend for
himself.

He glanced at Remy as he held the swinging
door open and saw the look of appreciation and admiration in her
eyes. “Wow, did you make this, Dom?” she asked, stepping forward
and sticking her head through to look out. He felt a flutter of
warmth in his chest at her nickname for him, and he watched as she
gazed out into the wooded area beyond the fence, a small smile on
her face. “I’m impressed. This
is
awesome.”

“You said you were tired of the same people.
I figured you were also probably tired of the same sights,” Dominic
said. “So I thought I’d take you out with me while I grab some
supplies. There are a few things I need to dig up.”

Remy grinned, stepped toward him, and threw
her arms around his neck. “Oh my God, Dom, thank you!” she
exclaimed, squeezing him tightly, her body pressed fully against
his in unselfconscious joy. He hesitated and then slid one arm
around her slender waist and gave her a light squeeze before
stepping back from her embrace. The hug had left a warm feeling in
his chest, and he felt lighter than he had in a long time.

“This is our secret, okay?” he added,
sliding through the gap and holding a hand out for her. She slipped
her hand into his and ducked through. “Don’t tell anybody I did
this. Brandt would probably run me out on a rail if he found out I
took you out without permission.”

“Not a word.”

By the time Ethan and Kimberly reached the bottom of
the medical house’s stairs, Ethan’s legs and hips were aching, and
he was beginning to wonder if he was up to dealing with so much
exertion. He’d been holed up in the same room, with only the bare
necessities of movement, for months, and just getting up and going
down the stairs was more than he’d done in a long time. Despite the
ache, he was proud of himself for toughing it out and making it
this far. There was an easy chair near the center of the living
room, maybe ten feet to his left; he longed to sit in it for a few
minutes, to rest and catch his breath, maybe massage the deep aches
in his legs. But he knew the moment he proposed sitting down,
Kimberly would decide that he’d had enough exercise for one day and
would get Isaac or Brandt to haul him back upstairs to bed, and
they would probably carry him like an invalid all the way. He had a
burning desire to avoid that humiliation at all costs. So tough it
out, he would.