The Becoming (Book 4): Under Siege (31 page)

“Yeah, I can make it,” Remy said, and while
she sounded confident and assured, she didn’t sound boastful for
once. “I’ll be fine. I can get over there, check on Cade, get some
supplies for us, maybe take some over to them while I’m at it, and
then get back over here. Hopefully before Brandt wakes up and
wonders where I’m at.”

Dominic nodded again, trying to think over
her plan—as sparse as it was—and look for holes in it. But he
couldn’t think past the mental image of Remy making it halfway
across the courtyard and the infected suddenly turning on her and
killing her where she stood. Which was why, when she turned to go
through the trap door, he reached out and caught her by the wrist,
pulling her toward him. She gasped as her body collided with his,
and then he caught her face in his hands and tilted it up.

The kiss he pressed to her lips wasn’t
anything passionate or elaborate; he didn’t have time for that.
Instead, it was a simple kiss, chaste, just lips against lips. “Be
careful,” he requested as she looked up at him with wide, surprised
eyes.

“Of course,” she replied. She still stared
at him, not stepping away, as she asked, “What was that for?”

Dominic shrugged and dropped his hands from
her face. “I just wanted to be able to say I’d done it once in my
life.”

Remy smiled and squeezed his hand. “Maybe
you’ll get to do it again sometime,” she said before stepping away
from him and heading for the trap door.

“Really?” Dominic called after her.

Remy slid through the opening and looked
back at him from the top rung of the ladder. Her smile widened, and
she winked. “Count on it,” she promised, and then she descended the
ladder and disappeared from view.

Several hours passed, and Cade felt every minute of
them slide by her, heightening her anxiety over where Brandt was.
She’d spent a good portion of the past several hours lurking in the
window of the second-floor bedroom that she and Brandt shared, a
night-vision scope clutched in her hand, searching the crowds
almost frantically for some sign of her husband, alive or dead.

In her heart, she knew he was alive. He
had
to be. She just had to find him; that was all. And then,
if he was in any trouble, she had to plan out a rescue mission.

The sound of heavy footsteps met her ears,
and then Isaac spoke. “Any luck?” he asked. He knew what she was
doing; he’d figured it out the moment she’d taken up residence on
the uncomfortable chair in front of the window, the moment she’d
taken her night-vision scope out of her bag. She wondered if he
thought it was futile, but she was afraid to ask.

Cade sighed and shook her head. “No,
nothing. Just a bunch of stinking corpses.”

Isaac frowned and grabbed another chair from
the other side of the room. He placed it next to hers and sank down
on it with an exhausted sigh. “Anything I can do?”

“Develop psychic powers and get in touch
with Brandt to make sure he’s okay and to find out where he is?”
Cade suggested, and even as she said it, the barest of smiles
tugged at her lips.

“I’m glad to see that you at least have a
little of your sense of humor,” Isaac commented. He reclined in his
chair, rocking it on its back legs. He watched her closely. “He’s
okay, you know,” he finally said after a long silence. “Brandt’s
never been the type to sit back and let himself get killed. He’s a
fighter, and he’s a good one. I have no doubt he’s somewhere
safe.”

“God, I hope so,” Cade murmured. “I couldn’t
stand it if he wasn’t.” She leaned over and grabbed her water
bottle from the floor beside her chair. She twisted the cap off and
took a slow sip. “I’m ready for this to be over. I don’t care how
it ends anymore. I just can’t take the stress.”

The silence fell again, as heavy as before.
Cade returned her water bottle to the floor and took up her search,
propping her elbow against the windowsill for support as she
shifted her gaze from one wasted face to the next. It was like a
slideshow of horror below, a mix of wounded and desiccated and
rotted faces, ugly faces, ex-people that she knew would kill her
and everyone she knew. The thought almost made her piss
herself.

Speaking of…

“Hold this,” Cade ordered, shoving the scope
into Isaac’s hands. He looked at her in confusion as she levered
herself to her feet.

“Where are you going?” Isaac demanded,
concern creasing his forehead.

“A girl can’t pee without getting the third
degree?” Cade retorted, raising an eyebrow. Isaac grinned and let
out a laugh, holding both hands up in mock defense.

“Sorry, my mistake,” he said. “I thought for
a moment there you were about to go out and do something stupid.
Next time, I won’t bother to think.”

“Yeah, you do that,” Cade said with a half
grin, and then she turned and headed for the bathroom, feeling like
she was waddling every step of the way. She’d definitely been
sitting down for too long, she decided as she opened the bathroom
door. She would have to remember to get up a little more often, if
only to stretch her legs.

Cade was just about to close the bathroom
door when she felt a warm, wet dampness against the inside of her
leg. She reached down to press a hand against her inner thigh and
wrinkled her nose.
Oh God, I’ve finally done it,
she thought
with no small degree of embarrassment.
I waited too long, and
now I’ve pissed myself.
Then a thought occurred to her, and her
eyes widened. “Oh hell,” she said out loud, her voice echoing
against the bathroom walls.

“Everything okay in there?” Isaac called.
“You didn’t fall in or anything, did you?”

“No,” Cade replied, though she wasn’t sure
which question she was answering. She cautiously sniffed her
dampened fingers and frowned. It didn’t smell like urine; it didn’t
really smell like much of anything, which told her everything she
needed to know.

“It’s too early. It’s too early,” she said
out loud, almost chanting the words, as if that would change the
upcoming events. “Please, not
now
.”

“What is it?” Isaac’s voice called through
the door, laden with the concern he’d clearly not shed yet. Good
thing, too; Cade was going to need some concern to match her
own.

She went to the door and pulled it open. She
looked up at him with wide, almost frightened eyes. “Isaac, I need
you to go get your brother,” she said, keeping her voice as calm
and steady as possible.

“Why? What’s wrong? Is something wrong?”
Isaac asked, his questions rapid-fire.

“Yeah, maybe,” Cade said. She swallowed hard
and cleared her throat before she added quietly, “I think my water
just broke.”

Isaac’s eyes widened. “Oh, hell,” he
said.

“My thoughts exactly,” Cade commented
wryly.

“Oh,
hell
.”

“
Your brother,
” Cade said again, more
emphatically, hoping to knock him out of his shock.

“It’s too soon, Cade,” Isaac said. “You’re
barely eight months along. It shouldn’t be coming
now
.”

“I know.”

“This is the
worst
time for
this.”

“I noticed.”

“What are we going to do?”

Cade gritted her teeth and nearly yelled,
“Go get your brother, Isaac!
Now
.”

That seemed to do the trick. Isaac took a
step back from her, moving in the direction of the bedroom door.
“Derek. Right. I’ll go get him now. You just…” He made a settling
motion with his hands. “Stay here.”

Cade rolled her eyes. “As if I have
somewhere else to go?” she said, but Isaac was already clomping
down the stairs as he went in search of his brother. When the sound
of his boots faded from her hearing, she went to the dresser to
fetch a fresh set of clothing. Her hands shook as she pulled free a
clean pair of sweat pants. She wadded them up in her hands and
breathed in deeply.

She’d read the books that the supply team
had so thoughtfully scrounged up for her, and she had some idea of
what to expect. But those books had been written for a world where
there were doctors aplenty and hospitals to go to when one’s water
broke. In the books, wonder-drugs were given via epidural to dull
the pain. There was none of that now. There was only the sheer luck
of having Dr. Derek Rivers present in Woodside. But if anything
went wrong, there would be no drugs, no machines, nothing at the
compound to help her if she needed it. Only Derek’s wits and
medical know-how.

“If the women in biblical and medieval times
could do it, so can I,” Cade said with a determination and
confidence that she didn’t really feel.

It would be so much easier if she had Brandt
beside her! She scowled at the thought as soon as it crossed her
mind. Since when had she become so weak that she thought she had to
have Brandt by her for every little thing? She had always prided
herself on being tough, strong, and independent; she’d spent seven
years in the Israeli Defense Forces honing not only her fighting
skills but her mindset, strengthening both until she felt like she
had been forged from steel. It had been long, arduous work, and
she’d always been pleased with the results. And now, here she was,
acting like she
needed
a man. What had changed?

“You fell in love like an idiot, that’s
what,” she muttered. “And look where it got you: knocked up, moony,
and about to shove a baby out in the middle of the fucking zombie
apocalypse.”

There was a soft tap at the door, and she
turned, sweat pants still in hand, to see Derek in the doorway.
Isaac stood a few feet behind him. “Hi, Cade,” Derek greeted,
giving her a tight smile that didn’t come close to reaching his
eyes. “Isaac tells me that you believe your water has broken?”

Cade nodded but didn’t say anything. She
wasn’t sure she could manage words right that second, not as the
full weight of what was coming started to crawl its way into her
brain.

Derek either didn’t notice or wasn’t
inclined to comment on her silence, because he turned to Isaac and
said, “Can you give us a few minutes alone, please? And make sure
we’re not disturbed.”

“No problem,” Isaac agreed, and he gave Cade
a reassuring smile before leaving the room and closing the
door.

Derek blew out a breath and slowly turned to
face her again, looking her up and down, taking in the sight of her
wet pants and nervous expression. “Okay, Cade, so let’s talk about
what’s going on with you for a few minutes, shall we?”

Remy stood in the rec center’s kitchen, wondering
not for the first time what she thought she was doing. What the
hell had she been thinking, offering to go out into the thick of
things and wade right through the infected? It was suicide, pure
and simple. And while she would be the first to admit that she was
too reckless, she wasn’t exactly
suicidal
.

But the infected weren’t the only things
that made her regret her decision to try walking right through
them. No, Dominic Jackson seemed to be doing everything in his
power to add himself to the list of regrets.

She stared almost emptily across the
kitchen, her fingers pressed against her lips, as she thought back
on the kiss he’d given her on the rec center’s roof. It hadn’t been
the most spectacular kiss she’d ever received from a man, but
somehow Dominic’s simple kiss had been the most passionate, the
most intense kiss she’d ever received. That one act, combined with
the look in the man’s eyes, had told her everything she needed to
know about exactly how he felt.

Remy shook her head and started to gather
her long hair into a ponytail. Then she braided it and curled it
into a coil on her head. Now it would be harder for the infected to
grab. Not that she expected to be grabbed, not after their behavior
earlier. Regardless of whether they would do her harm or not, the
feeling of their cold, clammy hands in her hair would still be
creepy as hell. She wished she had long sleeves to wear, but her
other clothes were still at the medical house.

“Nothing doing,” she muttered, and she
shouldered her bag and turned to go. She stopped short as she
caught sight of Dominic standing in the doorway between the kitchen
and dining area, that same look of concern still marring his
features, stirring up an odd flutter in her belly. “Is everything
okay?” she asked. “I mean, aside from the obvious.”

“Brandt’s fever has spiked,” Dominic
reported. “He’s up to one-oh-three.”

“Shit,” Remy breathed.

“If you can make it into the medical house
and get some medicine for this, that might be a really good idea,”
Dominic said. “Maybe even a higher priority than checking in on the
others.
They
are safe for now, but if Brandt’s fever keeps
going up, it could kill him.”

“Yeah,” Remy said, pressing her fingers to
her lips again, this time in horror as she tried to imagine what
things would be like with Brandt dead. The thought gave her
chills.

“Are you getting ready to head out?” Dominic
asked. She nodded, and he added, “Just…like I said earlier, be
careful.”

“I will,” she assured him. “I’ve got my bolo
knife and my guns. And I’ve got my confidence and good looks.” A
grin spread across his face at the terrible joke. “I’ll be
fine.”

“Good.” He nodded toward the back door that
Ethan and Kimberly had come through earlier. “I checked things out
from the roof, and the back of the building is the clearest. Your
best chance of getting through them probably starts there.”

“Thanks.” Remy took a half-step towards him,
the thought of returning his kiss with one of her own crossing her
mind. But no, that would feel too much like goodbye, and this
wasn’t going to be goodbye. So she just hitched her backpack higher
up on her shoulders, gave him a soft smile, and said, “I’ll be
right back. Don’t go anywhere without me.”