The Becoming: Revelations (27 page)

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.

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.

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.