The Becoming: Revelations (25 page)

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!”

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.