The Becoming: Redemption (The Becoming Series Book 5) (10 page)

The smile on Jacob’s face that had appeared
when she’d agreed to go to dinner with him faded, and he leaned
closer to her, looking her over with an expression as critical as
the one he’d used when examining the slide under his microscope.
“There something you want to tell me about?” he asked.

Lindsey glanced toward the ceiling without
moving her head, a quick flicker of the eyes, indicating the camera
that was mounted in the corner of the room, watching their every
move. “You should come over to my apartment after work,” she said,
pitching her voice loud enough to carry to the cameras. Though she
wasn’t sure if they recorded sound, she acted as if they did. “We
can order in some takeout, watch some bad movies, and eat too much
popcorn.”

Jacob’s smile returned, lighting up his face.
“Sounds like a plan,” he said, giving her a playful wink, but his
eyes were serious. “This
doesn’t
count as the dinner you
promised me, so don’t try to weasel out of it.”

“I wouldn’t even
dream
of it,” Lindsey
said. She glanced at her watch—it was five a.m.—and scooped up her
Diet Coke can, took a deep swig of it, and dropped the rest into
the trashcan. “I need to get moving.” She stood and opened a desk
drawer to retrieve her purse. “Traffic is already going to be hell
enough without me waiting for the morning rush to start. You got my
research report from last night, right?”

“Yeah, of course,” Jacob said. “It’s on my
desk. I’ll go through it and check in on our test subjects, let you
know how they’re currently holding together.”

“Literally,” Lindsey muttered.

“Be careful going home,” Jacob said, “and
text me when you get there so I know you made it.”

That wasn’t an unusual request. Considering
the world they now lived in, where a virus could skip over into the
general population and spread like wildfire in the time it took to
complete a short drive home, tearing through the living and turning
them into aggressive, homicidal cannibals, it was typical for
friends and family to ask those traveling to let them know the
moment they arrived at their destinations. Lindsey patted the
pocket of her black slacks, where her cell phone was tucked.

“Will do. I’ve got it all charged up, and my
spare prepaid cell is still in my glove box. I’ll see you this
evening, okay?” She didn’t wait for Jacob’s response. She
shouldered her purse and stepped out into the hallway, letting the
door fall shut behind her. Her heels clacked on the tiled floors,
echoing rhythmically down the hall so anyone ahead would know she
was coming. Unconsciously, she took the turn that would lead her
past Michael Evans’s cell, hoping to catch a glimpse of the man who
had seemingly twisted the entire facility into knots just by his
presence.

Lindsey only partially got what she’d hoped
for. Ahead of her, she saw Major Bradford standing outside of
Evans’s cell as the two privates who had been tasked with guarding
the captive lieutenant led the shackled man out of his cell.
Another lieutenant that Lindsey didn’t know stood alongside them,
ready to do whatever was called of him. Immediately realizing what
was happening, she quickened her pace, striding forward to catch up
with the men before they took Evans topside.

“What are you doing?” she demanded when she
caught up with the soldiers.

Bradford barely glanced at her, signaling to
the soldiers to begin walking. “I’m taking him up to see the Wall,”
he said. “Not that I’m obliged to explain myself to you.”

“I asked you to wait until I’d evaluated him
psychologically before you did that!” Lindsey protested. She sped
up to keep pace with the group of men, mentally cursing herself for
wearing heels that day and leaving her tennis shoes in her car.

“I said I would take your opinions under
advisement, not that I agreed with them,” Bradford replied. Lindsey
almost growled under her breath, and her face heated up with a
bright red flush like it did in that awful way every time she got
angry. She could see Lieutenant Evans watching her with thinly
veiled curiosity, his eyes locked on her face. If she wasn’t
mistaken, she could make out a hint of recognition in his eyes,
even though before this, they’d never met in their lives. Maybe it
was the familiarity he obviously had with her sister that prompted
that expression.

“We don’t know what this is going to do
to—”

“Then come along and find out,” Bradford
snapped. “But if you do, you’re going to keep your damned mouth
shut.” Lindsey opened her mouth to protest—she was nothing if not a
contrarian—and Bradford stopped her. “Not a word or I’ll have you
shipped to a different facility so fast you won’t know what
happened.”

Lindsey almost mimed drawing an invisible
zipper over her lips, like she’d used to do as a child when she and
Cade had shared secrets with each other under cover of darkness,
when they’d clamber into each other’s beds and pull the blankets
over their heads and whisper to each other for hours, but she
caught herself. “May I go get my med kit in case we need it?” she
asked, thinking it would be smart to have some Haldol on hand in
case Evans reacted badly and needed to be chemically sedated.

Bradford looked at her, his eyes slightly
narrowed. He reminded her of a hawk searching for prey, a thought
that made her shudder. Finally, he gave her a shallow nod. “Go get
the bag. We’ll wait here. Two minutes.”

Lindsey turned back the way she’d come,
hurrying down the hall and to the labs as quickly as her
high-heeled shoes would allow. She ignored Jacob’s curious look,
tossed her purse onto her desk, and unlocked a drawer to pull out a
small red bag. She unzipped it and scanned the contents, seeing
several syringes, needles, and the sought-after vials of Haldol.
She zipped the bag closed again and spun on her heel, hurrying back
toward where the group of men was waiting for her, Bradford
practically glaring at his watch, counting the seconds until she
returned.

“Got it,” she said breathlessly, holding up
the red bag triumphantly. Bradford gave her an impatient look,
turned away from her, and beckoned to the gaggle of men to follow
him. He moved to the front of the group and led the way down the
long maze of hallways, heading for the exit door that would lead to
a set of stairs that ascended to the very top of the Wall.

Lindsey glanced at the prisoner as he
shuffled along with the rest of them. Evans looked wary, his dark
brown eyes darting from left to right, taking in every detail
around them, clearly making mental notes of everything he could.
The way he walked suggested that he expected something to crawl out
of a corner and attack him at any moment. Considering what he had
been living with for the past two years, his behavior was no
surprise. She wouldn’t be surprised if he was trying to plot a way
to escape at the first available opportunity. He’d never make it
out of the facility alive, at least not on his own. He seemed like
the type to die trying, regardless.

The group rounded the corner of the final
hallway. The exit door was ahead, its sign glowing a bright, steady
red. Beside it was a red and white sign that read, “STAIRS,” with a
cartoon of a white figure climbing an outline of a set of steps.
Bradford walked straight to it and swiped his badge through the
electronic sensor below the sign to unlock the door. He ushered
everyone through, holding the door for Lindsey last. He caught her
by the arm before she could begin to ascend the stairs on the other
side of the door. “On your guard, Dr. Alton. You should be ready
with that sedative sooner rather than later.”

Lindsey took note of the deep seriousness in
his eyes, and she wondered if he was starting to second-guess his
decision to use the shock-and-awe technique to get Lieutenant Evans
talking. She pressed her lips together and nodded. Then she brushed
past him to ascend the stairs, gripping her little red medical kit
in her left hand, a flutter of nervousness stirring in her
stomach.

The sun had sunk
below the tree line when Kimberly crawled out of the back of the
SUV she and Ethan had taken shelter in for the evening, yawning and
shoving her messy blonde hair out of her face. Her shoulders were
sore, and her entire body felt stiff from being crammed in the back
of a vehicle not meant to be slept in, let alone for
two
people to sleep in. She glanced at the SUV’s open back door at
Ethan, who was still asleep, lying on his side with his head
pillowed on his arm. She debated waking him up and decided against
it. There was no need to interrupt what rest he was able to get.
She stretched, grabbed her backpack, and shuffled her way through
the grass along the highway’s shoulder, heading for the tree line.
Her bladder was screaming at her, and she wanted to get her
business taken care of before Ethan woke up and wanted to hit the
road again. They still had a long way to go, and they couldn’t
waste one minute.

She and Ethan had been on the road for a week
now, walking for hours during the day, navigating the back roads
and county roads whenever possible to avoid the cleared highways.
Once things had started to get more congested and the county roads
started getting blocked up, indicating they were getting closer to
a city, they’d started avoiding traveling during the day, resting
in the backs of vehicles and trucks and moving during the night to
maximize their cover. That was how they’d found themselves in the
SUV they’d sheltered in earlier in the day, choosing the hotter
part of the afternoon to rest.

Now that the sun was set, they were going to
start traveling again. First, though, Kimberly needed to figure out
where the hell they were. She knew they were somewhere north of
Charleston, but she was unsure how far north. Regardless of their
exact location, just being north of Charleston meant they weren’t
making anything resembling good time. She was going to have to
figure out what was slowing them down and where they were at before
they started walking again so they could steer around any heavily
populated areas. The last thing she wanted was to walk right into a
mess of infected and lose the cure and her life.

When she finished her business and returned
to the SUV, Kimberly found Ethan awake, sitting on the edge of the
SUV’s cargo space under the shadow of the open back door. He looked
exhausted. He yawned and leaned forward to scrub at his face with
both hands.

“You look tired,” Kimberly commented as she
joined him at the car. “How do you feel?”

Ethan grinned. “Tired. And sore, like I’ve
been walking all day.”

Kimberly rolled her eyes. “Smartass.” She
reached past him to set her backpack in the cargo space and swatted
at him. “Scoot over.”

He shuffled over so she could climb up to sit
next to him. She snagged the map out of a side pocket of her
backpack and unfolded it enough to reveal the roads they’d been
traveling on the previous night and most of the day. After finding
Woodside on the map, she traced her finger along the roads they’d
walked, frowning as she studied the small print closely.

“What are you doing?” Ethan asked. He leaned
to look over her shoulder so he could see the map for himself.

“Trying to figure out where we are so I can
figure out where we need to go from here,” Kimberly replied. She
unfolded the map a bit more so she could see what was north of
them.

“Oh, that’s easy,” Ethan said. He pointed to
a spot on the map about twenty miles south of Ridgeville, South
Carolina. “We’re right here.”

Kimberly raised an eyebrow. “You sure?” she
asked.

“Pretty damn positive,” Ethan replied. “I saw
a sign earlier when we were walking, not long before we stopped to
rest. It was fallen over sideways, but I could make out that it
said Ridgeville, twenty miles.” He dragged his own backpack over
and unzipped it, digging around inside and pulling free a small box
of cereal, like the ones Kimberly’s mom used to buy for her and Avi
when they were kids. He offered it to her with a smile.
“Breakfast?”

“Sure, thanks,” Kimberly said, taking the
offered box. “Though you’re aware that it’s dusk, not dawn,
right?”

“I’m aware,” Ethan assured her with a soft
chuckle. “If we’re going to be primarily traveling at night, then
you could probably consider this our breakfast time.”

Kimberly swallowed a mouthful of cereal and
took a swig of water. “I know we’ve been doing it for a week, but
do you think it’s a wise idea? Traveling primarily at night?”

“We don’t have much of a choice, do we?”

“Well, technically, we do,” Kimberly said.
“We could walk during the day and sleep at night.”

“We could, but then we wouldn’t have the
darkness for cover,” he said. “This time of the month, we have a
full moon, so there’s plenty of light to see by without having to
worry about using flashlights to make ourselves more easily
noticed.”

“Which brings me to my
other
nagging
thought,” Kimberly replied. “Who exactly are we trying to avoid?
Other survivors, I’m sure, because they might try to take the
samples away from us if they find out that we have them. I think
it’s safe to assume that the military is still partially
operational, if the helicopters and the bombing were any
indication. Are we trying to avoid them too?”

Ethan scowled, rubbing a hand over his short
beard, thinking it over. “I don’t know,” he said. “They’re
obviously up and running. We don’t know what sort of mindset
they’re in and what kind of parameters they are operating under,
though. They could be under orders to shoot on sight, which would
run the risk of us getting killed before we’ve handed the samples
off and explained what they are and what they’re for.” He sighed.
“Then again, if they’re
not
under those kind of orders, they
could help us.”