The Becoming: Revelations (43 page)

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.

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?
”

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.”