The Becoming (Book 4): Under Siege (35 page)

“He’s gone,” Dominic said.

“
What?
” Cade said, starting down the
porch steps. It felt like she’d been punched in the gut, and she
fought to not throw up. “Brandt’s
dead
?”

“No, no, no,” Dominic rushed to add. “He’s
gone. They took him. The military took him into custody.”

“
What for?
”

Dominic lifted his hands to his sides in an
exaggerated shrug. “Does it look like I know? Either way, we’ve got
a shit storm coming down on our heads, and we need to move!”

“To where?” Isaac asked.

“Get to my house,” Dominic said. “There’s a
way out through the wall next to it. Remy knows the way. We should
split into two groups to make us less noticeable.”

“What about everybody else?” Cade asked,
looking back toward the house, as if she could see through it to
the others beyond. “We need to help them, don’t we?”

Even as she asked that, the sounds of
gunfire and screaming met their ears, and Cade clapped a hand over
her mouth. Sadie looked like she was about to throw up, Jude looked
horrified, and Derek, Isaac, and Dominic just looked pissed. Remy,
though, she looked blank, like she was completely impassive to what
was going on in the rest of the community, and the expression on
her face—or lack thereof—disturbed Cade almost as much as the
apparent slaughter going on elsewhere.

Dominic cleared his throat and spoke up
then, breaking her out of her thoughts. “I think…I think it might
be too late for the rest of the community.”

It hadn’t taken long to split them into two groups,
Cade, Isaac, Remy, and Sadie in one group and Dominic, Keith, and
Jude in the other. Jude wasn’t sure he liked the arrangement—he
never liked being separated from his sister, since she was the only
person he knew who could interpret for him and act as his
mouthpiece.

He understood what Dominic had been doing
when he’d divided them up the way he had—he’d put the strongest or
most skilled with Cade, since she was not only pregnant but in
labor—but just because he understood the logic didn’t mean he
agreed with it.

At least he had Keith with him in his group.
He had gotten to know the man a little bit when they’d chatted on
the watch platform and in the darkened living room. While he hadn’t
known him long, Jude still considered him a friend.

The other group was long out of sight, and
in an effort to keep them additionally safe, Dominic had opted to
lead them on a different route to his house. The others had headed
for the back of the community furthest from the gates, taking the
darker, less likely to be noticed route, and Dominic had led them
toward the front of the community, where the vast majority of the
action was taking place. Jude felt it was a suicide mission.

The wall loomed high above their heads as
they crept, single file, through its shadow. Dominic led the way,
and Keith brought up the rear. Bodies lay everywhere, mostly of the
infected variety, though Jude recognized a few faces very vaguely
from the group that had been gathered at the gates when he and
Sadie had arrived. He didn’t know those people, but he still
couldn’t deny the pang of sadness in his chest at their deaths,
even as he wondered how they’d lost their lives. They still
clutched weapons in their hands, mostly of the melee variety, and
their faces wore wide-eyed expressions of shock and pain. He looked
past the bodies, out into the community proper, and watched as a
squad of soldiers kicked the door in on one of the houses and
rushed inside. Moments later, screams erupted, and he could just
make out the bright flash of guns firing through the open doorway
and the small cracks between the boards over the windows.

Jude turned away from the sight, sick to his
stomach by what he’d just witnessed. He didn’t even realize he had
tears running down his face until Dominic brought them to a halt,
crouching behind a low hedge to assess the path ahead. “Are you
okay?” Dominic asked him in a low, almost frantic tone. “You’re not
hurt, are you?”

Jude shook his head and touched his chest,
then pointed toward the houses beyond them. Dominic followed his
gaze and then nodded in understanding. “Yeah, it hurts for me too,
kid,” he acknowledged, then signaled to them both to lean closer.
“Listen, this is the hard part,” he said in a voice that barely
carried. “Not only will we be heading out into the open while we’re
crossing the street, but we’ll have infected coming in on one side
and soldiers on the other.”

Jude wanted to ask him why he’d brought them
this way if it was so damned dangerous, but he couldn’t. So
instead, he listened closely, hoping the man had a plan for the
next few minutes. Lord knew
he
wasn’t exactly the world’s
best strategist; he usually left a lot of that up to his sister,
who was much better at critical thinking.

“We’re going to take this one at a time,”
Dominic continued. “I’ll go first and cover you two, since I have
more experience at this sort of thing.” He pointed to where the
hedge broke at the edge of the street and continued again across
the street. “We’re aiming for that spot right there,” he said.
“Once you’re in the street, for the love of God, don’t stop for
anything. Understood?”

Jude nodded and gave him a salute, and he
heard Keith breathe out a, “Yeah, got it.”

“Good. Let’s go.” Then Dominic was off and
moving, ducking low to minimize his profile. He held his pistol in
a two-handed grip. That was when Jude realized it: this man was
former military. He could tell by the way he moved, the fluid way
he half-ran in a crouch, his head turning from one side to the
other, as if he were constantly monitoring his surroundings. Jude
could never hope to replicate the man’s moves so easily; he’d
probably fall on his face if he tried.

Then it was his turn to move, and despite
his awkwardness, he attempted to jog across the street in his own
half-crouch, trying to move as smoothly as Dominic had, but he kept
tripping over the dead bodies that littered the street and over his
own feet. His breath rasped painfully in his throat, making his
perpetually sore throat hurt even worse. He focused on the path
ahead of him.

Suddenly, a soldier was coming at him,
pistol raised and aimed right at his head. All Jude had in his hand
was his aluminum baseball bat, and he had only a second to curse
himself for not having his gun out of its holster. He raised the
bat and swung it hard. The bat connected with the man’s gloved
hands hard enough to let out a crack, knocking his pistol to the
ground. Jude lunged for the gun the man had dropped, but before he
got to it, the report of a rifle rang out, and blood exploded from
the side of the man’s neck.

“
Holy shit,
” Jude mouthed, stumbling
back a step from the corpse and tripping over another one. He fell
backward, sprawling in the street, and grimaced as he felt blood
soak into his shirt. Then Keith was there, hauling him to his feet
and shoving him toward the other side of the street.

“Come on, Jude, move,” he ordered, nudging
him forward again.

But rather than go in the direction Keith
indicated, Jude lunged toward the soldier’s corpse. He scooped up
the man’s pistol and pulled the spare magazines on the man’s belt
free. Then he scrambled for the man’s knives, rifle, and rifle
magazines.

“Jude!” Keith said.

Jude ignored him and stuffed the newly
acquired weapons into his backpack, put the rifle on his shoulder,
and then straightened. He was about to motion for Keith to follow
him when he noticed the radio on the man’s belt. He snatched it,
unhooked the earpiece from it, turned it off, and clipped it to his
own hip before he nodded to Keith. He raced across the street,
feeling more confident after he’d stripped the soldier of
everything useful. When he reached the curb and practically skipped
into the hedge, Dominic clapped him on the shoulder.

“Nice job, kid,” he said.

And Jude wondered for just a second if the
man was being sarcastic, but when he looked up at him, all he saw
was admiration in his eyes.

“That was a gutsier move than a lot of kids
your age would have made.”

Jude gave him a one-shouldered shrug and
motioned for him to lead the way. Dominic nodded, and they started
back on their journey toward the exit. Jude glanced back to make
sure Keith was still bringing up the rear of their trio before he
followed the larger man, feeling more confident than ever
before.

Now all he had to do was find his sister
before anything happened to either of them.

As Jude, Keith, and Dominic made their way toward
Dominic’s house, Sadie and the other three had already arrived
without incident. They marveled when Remy showed them the exit that
Dominic had constructed. Now, they stood in a clearing, not far
from the woods, waiting for the other three. Cade panted as she
struggled through another contraction. But Sadie didn’t care
anything about that. No, all she cared about was her brother, who
hadn’t made it to the woods yet, and could have been, for all she
knew, dying inside those damnable walls without her there to help
him.

“Please tell me again
why
you people
thought it would be a good idea to put Jude with the
other
group?” Sadie asked, not bothering to turn and look at the others
who had gathered around Cade.

“We had to split the group up,” Remy said
from somewhere behind her. “And that meant some people were going
to be in the other group that we might not like being separated
from.”

“Yeah, but if I’m not there with him, then
please explain how anyone is going to know what Jude is
saying
!” Sadie burst out. “Seriously, none of you knows ASL,
do you? Because if you don’t, then that means that if my brother is
in trouble or needs anything, he has
no way
to even
ask
for it if I’m here and he’s
there
.” She jabbed
her hand emphatically toward Woodside’s wall, a dim shadow in the
darkness under the trees.

There was a crunch of feet against
underbrush, and then Remy was at her elbow, her dark eyes narrowed
in anger. “What, you think we did it on purpose? It’s just the way
shit fell, okay? He’ll be fine. He’s with Dominic, and if anybody
can watch out for him and keep him from getting killed, it’s Dom.
Besides, you two seem like you handle yourselves around the
infected just fine, from what I’ve seen.”

“That’s totally beside the point,” Sadie
argued. “
I
need him here. Okay? I can’t do this without him.
I don’t even want to
imagine
trying to do this without him.
He is literally all I have left in this world, and I don’t want to
even
think
about having to sludge through this shit of a
world without him. If he gets dead because of you people, you’re
all dead, because I’ll kill you. And then, after I kill you, I’ll
kill myself because there’d be no point in continuing on after
that. Got it?”

“What, you think none of us has someone like
that?” Remy retorted. “Mine is in that group too! I’m sure Keith
means something to someone out there! And God, don’t even get me
started on what Cade’s going through! She’s popping out a kid,
and
her husband has, by all appearances, been taken captive
by the fucking
military
! So
stop
playing like you’re
the only person here who risks losing something or someone you
love, okay? You are not in any way more special than the rest of
us.”

“I never said I was more special than anyone
else!” Sadie protested. “I just—”

“You just think your needs and worries are
more important than anyone else’s,” Remy said, but this time her
voice didn’t have the same angry irritation that it had had before.
There was a moment of silence between them, and then Remy added,
“It’s okay. Really. I’m being a bitch. Hell, I should be applauding
the fact you’ve managed to hang onto your sibling like you have.
There are way too many brothers and sisters who have lost their
brothers and sisters, and it’s…such a rarity to find someone who
hasn’t. The last two I knew, one of them died to save Cade while
the other one died trying to save me.”

It was then that Sadie realized what was
underneath Remy’s voice, why she was so angry at Sadie’s
protestations about them being separated. It was guilt. The woman
felt guilty because of those brothers she’d mentioned dying and her
involvement in it. Before she could say anything reassuring or even
remotely comforting, there was a rustling in the underbrush behind
them, and Sadie whirled around, drawing her pistol and her machete
simultaneously, aiming the pistol into the trees as she squinted,
looking for the oncoming danger.

Sadie nearly let out a sob of relief when
she saw three familiar figures slipping through the trees, Dominic
in the lead with her brother just behind him. She returned her
machete to its sheath and ran toward him, holstering her pistol as
she ran, and threw her arms around him in a tight hug. “Oh God, I
was so scared they were going to come out of that community and
tell me you’d gotten eaten by something or shot by someone,” she
said, her voice muffled as she buried her face against his neck and
squeezed him more tightly. “Are you okay? Please tell me I didn’t
miss the memo that you got eaten by something or shot by
someone.”

Someone touched her shoulder, and she turned
to see Keith standing behind her. “I don’t think he can tell you
anything with his hands mashed between you like they are,” he said,
his voice gentle, even as he smiled at her.

Sadie pulled back from her hug with Jude and
looked him over, checking for visible injuries. Her heart nearly
stopped when she saw blood soaking the back of his t-shirt and
Kevlar vest. She reached out as if to touch it.