The Becoming: Revelations (46 page)

Ethan braced his hands against the glass as the flaming missile he’d thrown smashed across the infected, the alcohol he’d previously thrown igniting in a whoosh of fire. Seconds later, as Brandt and Ethan fought to keep the doors closed in the crush of infected pressing against them, the grenades went off, crashing through the night with nearly ear-shattering force. The blasts broke several windows, sending glass showering to the floor. Ethan glanced at Brandt as the rush of flames from the burning alcohol set fire to the infected and their horrible screams rent the night air. “Well, if there were any infected who
hadn’t
gotten here yet, they’re sure on their way now!” he yelled over the sound.

“No fucking kidding!” Brandt replied. He planted a foot behind him, bracing himself more firmly against the door, the muscles in his arms bulging as he struggled to hold it closed against the infected that, despite the fires and explosions, still tried to get inside. Ethan wasn’t faring much better; the muscles in his own arms and shoulders strained under the onslaught from the other side of the door. The fire hadn’t caught the ones at the front, and he found himself momentarily uncertain as to what to do. He’d banked on the alcohol setting most of them aflame, but that hadn’t happened. “What now, Ethan?” Brandt prompted, as if reading Ethan’s thoughts. “You’re the one with the grand plan here! What are we going to do now?”

“When I say go, you five are going to run for the fucking escalators,” Ethan said, his words strained with the effort of holding the door closed. “I’m going to delay them for a bit while you head for the sixth floor.”

“Are you sure about this?” Brandt’s eyes met his. The look in them was serious; Ethan was sure it was the most serious he’d ever seen the man in the entire year he’d known him.

“I’m surer about this than I’ve been about anything in my life,” Ethan said breathlessly. He had to choke the words out past the lump forming in his throat. He turned away from Brandt and shoved against the door harder as he looked to Remy. She’d barely moved during the entire exchange, during anything he and Brandt and Cade had done for the past several minutes. Not since he’d talked to her. She stood stock still, her bolo knife in her hand, watching them—watching
him
—with wide, frightened eyes. Her eyes were so different from the ones with which he’d become so intimately familiar that, for a second, he thought he was looking at someone else entirely. Then he blinked, and Remy reappeared, still standing in the same position. He cut his eyes away from her, unable to bear the look she gave him. He didn’t have time to dwell on it, to second-guess himself or his decision. Instead, he turned to Brandt again.

“You ready?” he asked Brandt. He shifted his grip on the door, ready to step back, to let the door go and allow the infected to come in after him.

“Do we have a fucking choice?” Brandt replied, somehow managing to hold the door with one arm long enough to draw a gun from under his jacket.

“Not if you want to get out of this shit alive,” Ethan shot back.

“Thirty minutes, then?” Cade’s voice said to Ethan’s left. He didn’t look at her as he nodded.

“If I can.”

Cade seemed to find that acceptable, because she scooped Shae from the floor, ready to pass her to Brandt at a moment’s notice. Sasha moved closer to Remy, and Ethan called out to Brandt again.

“Ready?”

Brandt nodded, and almost simultaneously, they threw themselves back from the doors.

The infected rushed in.

When the first of the infected gained entry into the hotel, Brandt was already in motion. He lifted his right arm, aimed at one of the infected, and fired a single round directly into the man’s face, even as he swept the toddler from Cade’s arms and nestled her against his left side. The girl dug her fingers painfully into his shoulder, pressing down hard enough against his stab wound that Brandt felt woozy. He quickly shook it off. He had to; there was too much going on right in front of him for him to worry over something as inconsequential as an ache in his shoulder.

“Stick close to me!” he yelled to Sasha over the gunfire that erupted behind him. “Hold on to my belt, and don’t let go!” The girl was quick to obey. Smart kid, Brandt acknowledged. At least she listened when she was given orders. She was also surprisingly light on her feet as she sprinted alongside Brandt, keeping up with him as he followed Remy.

Remy led the way, Cade taking up the rear automatically. The younger woman ran like the hounds of Hell were biting at her heels. Brandt supposed that, in a way, they were. Her own personal hell had come to visit, and she seemed to be trying to outrun it in vain. She slammed into the glass doors leading into the tiled hallway so hard he thought she’d break them. Instead, she rebounded off them and grabbed the handle of one, flinging it open and diving through the entryway into the darkness beyond.

Twin bursts of gunfire erupted behind Brandt, and he risked a glance behind him as he and Sasha followed Remy through the door. Cade had turned in mid-stride to give Ethan a hand, managing to run backward several steps as she fired three shots at the infected flooding around Ethan. Brandt was thoroughly impressed at the skill she displayed; he’d never seen anyone move that fast
backward,
not to mention doing it while shooting a weapon. Cade darted forward to catch up with him as he moved through the doors. The sound of gunfire continued behind them in a staccato beat that let them all know Ethan was still alive.

“We’ve got to move faster,” Cade warned him breathlessly, releasing the magazine from her Glock in mid-stride and shoving it into a pocket. She withdrew another and, as they started up the escalators, jammed the fresh one into the weapon’s grip. “They were really making headway into the lobby.”

“Ethan?” Brandt prompted as he reached the top of the escalator.

“Still breathing, for now,” Cade replied. She pulled the slide back on the weapon to chamber a round. “I hope he manages to catch up with us.”

“I hope he doesn’t,” Brandt admitted. “I’m not particularly thrilled with the idea of watching him die again.” The words made him think of Remy, and he looked up suddenly, grabbing for his flashlight to shine it down the fourth-floor hallway in accompaniment with the one Cade had whipped out after reloading her sidearm. The young woman was nowhere in sight. “Where the fuck is Remy?”

Cade’s eyes darted over the hall, and she hissed through her teeth. “Shit,” she muttered. “I want to yell for her, but I’m not sure if it’s safe.”

“Should we risk it?” Brandt asked cautiously. As they slowed their quick jog down the hall, he tugged Sasha closer to him so he could protect her more easily if the need arose. The girl was more than willing to comply, thankfully, and he gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze as he squinted into the darkness around them.

Before Cade could answer, a figure appeared from the darkness. She lifted her gun, since Brandt’s hands were full with both a flashlight and a crying two year old, and pointed it at the short silhouette. Brandt took a quick step back, tugging Sasha with him, his shoulders tensed. Then he realized it was only Remy, and he blew out an explosive breath as Cade swore.

“Jesus, Remy, I almost fucking shot you,” she snapped to the younger woman. “Don’t get ahead of us again, got it? Stick close.”

“Whatever,” Remy muttered. “You guys coming? I scouted ahead. The stairwell is clear through the fourth floor and up to the fifth-floor landing. I can hear something on the sixth floor, though. There might still be more infected up there in the lobby.”

“And I don’t have any more grenades to clear them out the easy way,” Brandt said with a vague sense of disappointment.

“I really don’t think I’d let you use them if you had them anyway,” Cade countered. “Makes too much mess, and frankly, it’s too risky. If there are any up there, we’re just going to have to handle them manually.”

“Just take all my fun away, why don’t you?” Brandt retorted. A crash echoed from the third floor behind them. He startled and looked back instinctively. He couldn’t see anything, but the sound served as a great reminder that they needed to get moving again. He nodded toward the hallway ahead of them. “You two lead the way. I don’t have a free hand to do shit that’s remotely useful right now.”

Cade gave him a short nod and stepped forward, pulling Remy along by the elbow so she wouldn’t rush off without the rest of them again. Brandt drew in a deep breath and took Sasha’s hand, leading her with him. “You realize the hardest part isn’t going to be the sixth floor,” he said to Cade’s back as they moved to the stairwell door.

“Yeah, I know,” she muttered, easing the door open and shining her flashlight into the stairwell, checking over the path ahead of them despite Remy’s assurances that it was clear.

“We’re probably going to have a lot more trouble with the mall,” Brandt added. “Or rather, with the street just outside the mall.” He shifted his grip on Shae to bring her closer to him.

Cade grimaced and glanced at him, her pretty face drawn into a frown. “I’m
aware,
Brandt. I’m trying to take things as they come. If I think too far ahead, I’ll get distracted from what’s right in front of me, and then one or more of us will probably end up dead.”

“Good point,” Brandt acknowledged, watching as the woman hesitated before stepping through the doorway and into the dark stairwell beyond. Remy followed her as if she didn’t have a care in the world. She probably didn’t, Brandt acknowledged as he goaded Sasha ahead of him, bringing up the rear. As far as he was aware, Remy had stopped giving a shit about whether she lived or died around the same time she saw her family killed. Once he’d found out about her and Ethan, Brandt had hoped that Remy had found a new reason to care about living; it seemed her feelings for Ethan didn’t run as deep as he’d assumed, because her relationship with the man—and its aftermath—had only served to make her even
more
reckless.

He had just begun to step into the stairwell, handing his flashlight to Sasha to carry so he would have one arm free, when a shout behind him drew him back around. He reflexively reached for his Beretta and lifted it as he half-turned, shoulders tense, back straight, shielding Shae and ready to fire at the oncoming danger.

Thankfully, he didn’t get a chance to depress the trigger. He froze and lowered the weapon in surprise. “Bennett!” he exclaimed as the man’s form came into view. “I thought you said you were going to stay behind.”

“I also said I would catch up if I could,” Ethan corrected breathlessly. “You can’t get rid of me
that
easily, you know.”

“So I see,” Brandt said. He looked the man up and down thoughtfully, taking in his torn jacket and bloodied jeans, the sweat shining on his forehead and cheeks, and the stench of blood and smoke and alcohol around him. “Are you okay to …?” He trailed off pointedly.

“I can make it through the mall with you guys, I think,” Ethan said. Brandt had his doubts about that; the man looked ready to go under any minute. And, sadly, he didn’t seem totally aware of it.

Brandt nodded to Ethan, despite his trepidations, and looked down at Sasha. “Go up to the front and stick close to Cade,” he instructed. “Ethan, you walk right in front of me.” He didn’t add the “just in case” that danced at the tip of his tongue, though Ethan seemed to sense it. He nodded again and headed up the stairs behind Sasha, his hand grasping the railing tightly as he began to climb.

Brandt looked at Shae, who’d finally stopped crying and simply sat against him, her face streaked with tears and the odd hiccup shivering through her body. “Well, little chickie, I guess it’s just me and you for the moment, huh?” he suggested, giving her a reassuring smile and a pat on the back before moving to follow the rest of the group.

The six of them had made it to the sixth floor and fought their way through the straggling infected without much problem. They’d gone almost halfway across the lobby, heading for the walkway connecting the hotel to AmericasMart, when the pain in Ethan’s joints and the ache in his head became too much to bear. He stumbled and staggered sideways to one of the marble support columns littering the lobby, sagging heavily against it as he struggled to draw enough air into lungs that suddenly felt horribly compressed.

Just ahead of him, Remy slowed and turned, her eyes full of concern as she realized he wasn’t following the rest of them. “Eth? Are you okay?” she asked nervously, taking a step toward him.

Ethan felt like he couldn’t breathe. His chest grew tight, and his heart hammered wildly against his ribs. Despite this, despite the horrible ache settling into his joints, Ethan nodded and leaned forward to rest his hands against his knees. “Yeah,” he choked out. His voice sounded thick and heavy even to his own ears, his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth. He licked his lips and tried to generate enough saliva to moisten them, then looked at the others. “Anybody got any water?”

Brandt set Shae down beside Sasha and moved forward, freeing a bottle from his pack and twisting the cap off. He shoved the bottle into the other man’s hands, and Ethan drank so deeply that the sides of the bottle caved in. When he lowered the bottle, his hands were trembling, and he nearly dropped it.

“What’s wrong?” Cade asked worriedly, moving beside Ethan and resting a hand against his shoulder.

“I just need a minute,” Ethan replied hoarsely. He cleared his throat and resumed the position he’d previously held, his hands gripping his knees as he bowed his head. The ache in his muscles was becoming more pronounced, more insistently painful. If he closed his eyes and tried to focus on something else, all he could feel was the pounding in his head. He groaned and slid down the column to kneel on the floor, pressing the heels of his hands against his temples and clenching his teeth.