The Becoming (Book 4): Under Siege (17 page)

“Is that what I think it is?” he asked and
then, without waiting for an answer, “Where did you get it?”

“I stole it,” she admitted. “Right out of
Derek’s coat pocket.”

Dominic picked up the vial and shook his
head, half rising out of his chair. “You need to return this,” he
said. “This is important. Doc needs this.”

“No,
I
need it,” Remy said, rising
with him and reaching for the vial. Dominic held it out of her
reach. “Derek talked to me, okay? And I wasn’t happy with what I
heard.”

“No big surprise. I knew you wouldn’t be,”
Dominic said. “It’s a hard thing to swallow. But Doc knows what
he’s doing. And he’ll do what he’s got to do.”

“Yeah, I know the whole bullshit story he’s
got about running out of medicine and me building up immunity to
the little we have left,” she said. “And I know that he
thinks
he’s got to get me off the medicine and let me turn
before he gives me whatever that stuff in that vial is. But you
know what? I don’t have to stand for it. I still have a fucking say
in my own damned body, don’t I?”

“Not when it potentially puts people in
danger, you don’t.”

“Oh,
bullshit,
” Remy snapped. She
circled the table and snatched the vial out of his hands, holding
it tightly so he couldn’t take it back. “I am
not
going to
allow myself to become one of those
things,
” she continued.
She pulled her gun from its holster, holding it by the barrel as
she thrust the weapon toward him. “And if you insist on not helping
me, then you can fucking go ahead and shoot me now.”

The two glared at each other. Remy’s heart
hammered in her chest and fear raced in her veins as she tried to
gauge what he was going to do. He reached out and took the pistol
from her, and her hammering heart leaped, but instead of pointing
it at her, he merely turned it over in his hands before setting it
on the table. Then he took a step toward her. “What exactly are you
proposing we do?”

Despite herself, Remy felt a slow smile
spread across her lips, and she held the vial up so he could see it
again. “I want you to shoot me up with this shit so I can get
better. And I want you to do it before I turn, not after.” Dominic
studied her for a minute more, as if trying to guess how serious
she was, and as the silence between them ticked on, Remy’s nerves
grew more frayed, until she exploded with, “Dominic,
please
.
I wouldn’t ask anybody else to do this.”

Dominic blew out a breath and looked away
from her. “And why exactly did you ask me? As I recall, you don’t
particularly
like
me.”

“Maybe that’s why I asked you,” Remy said,
looking toward the gun he’d set on the dining table. “Because I
know you’re the only person here who will do what’s necessary if
this doesn’t work.”

“And to you, what qualifies as necessary?”
Dominic asked.

Remy looked him in the eyes. “A bullet in
the skull. It’s the only thing I’d ask for. I wouldn’t want to stay
like that.”

“I know you wouldn’t,” Dominic said. His
voice was as hushed as hers, and he didn’t look at her. Instead, he
stared across the room, not at anything in particular, as if
recollecting things that had happened in the past, perhaps his
involvement with Alicia Day. She couldn’t imagine what her request
was doing to him. Maybe she didn’t particularly care. It wasn’t
like Dominic truly
cared
about her, not like he obviously
had for the deceased Alicia.

Dominic blew out a breath and shook his
head. For a moment, Remy feared that he wouldn’t be willing to help
her. But she couldn’t do this alone, and she couldn’t wait, not
with the infected beating against the figurative door. She opened
her mouth to plead with him again, but he interrupted.

“I’ll try to help you. But Remy, I
don’t…what do you want me to do? How do you want me to do this?” He
huffed out another breath and added, “I’m not sure I even have a
syringe in my first aid kit yet.”

Remy’s heart sank; she hadn’t thought of
that. But then she remembered the small medical bag she’d shoved
into her backpack. She retrieved the pack from where she’d left it
by the kitchen door and set it on the table, unzipping it and
digging inside. She found the small black bag and ripped it open,
sliding a small syringe from one of the pockets inside. She pawed
inside another zippered pocket for the twenty-gauge needle. She
remembered when Derek had instructed her on how to put the syringe
together, telling her it was just in case she ever tried to use an
auto-injector that didn’t work. “Do you think you can work with
this?” she asked, handing him the two sealed tools.

Dominic took the two packages and studied
them closely, then tore them open. He attached the needle to the
end of the syringe, twisting it into place. Then he hesitated and
glanced toward the front entryway. “Does anyone else know you’re
here? That you’re going to do this?”

“No,” Remy admitted. “I didn’t tell anybody
any of this.”

Dominic took the vial from her and then,
with a shaking hand, slid the needle in through the valve on top.
He drew the fluid into the syringe, emptying the vial. He tapped
the side of the syringe with a fingernail and more expertise than
Remy expected. “Hold this,” he ordered, passing her the syringe. He
dug into her medical kit, found the latex tourniquet, and lashed it
around her bicep, just above her elbow. She watched as the veins in
her arm popped out, like thick blue lines drawn on her skin,
bulging outward. Then Dominic took the syringe from her, chose a
vein, and rested the tip of the needle against it.

“Are you sure you want me to do this?” he
asked, looking up at her.

She took a deep breath, steeled her nerves,
and nodded.

Dominic gently pressed on the syringe,
embracing it with three fingers around the plastic cylinder. The
needle slid into the skin and settled in the vein. Then, without
tearing his eyes away from hers, he found the plunger with his
thumb and pushed.

Brandt waited until the basement door swung closed
behind Kimberly and he heard her footsteps descending the stairs
before he left off his pacing and retreated to the dining table
where Cade sat. She still had her head in her hands, but she lifted
it a fraction to look up at him as he slumped into the chair
closest to hers. The moment his butt hit the chair, he felt tension
pour off him in a wave. He hung his head and let out a low groan. A
headache was starting to pound at his temples, an incessant throb
that wouldn’t leave him alone, brought on by the unceasing noise
from the infected outside coupled with the stress that sat on his
shoulders. He rubbed his eyes with the thumb and middle finger of
his right hand and looked at Cade. She stared at him, her face a
mixture of worry and stress.

“What are we going to do, Cade?” Brandt
asked, dropping both hands to the table with a thunk. “I refuse to
just sit here and wait for those things to get in, but I think I’m
at a total loss.”

“I’m not going to say that I didn’t predict
this was going to happen,” Cade agreed. “But I didn’t expect it to
happen so
soon.
”

“We’ll have to break out the contingency
plans, see if we can modify one to fit the problem at hand,” he
said. “But none of the plans allowed for short-term planning.
They’ll all take time to execute, and it’s time I don’t think we
really have.” He sighed. “I expected us to have some warning and
time to really
plan
, if we ended up with a mob coming this
way.”

Brandt fell silent, listening to the moans
of the infected outside the gates, which were barely a stone’s
throw from the main house. For the first time since they’d taken
over Woodside, he realized just how close he’d placed Cade to
danger by choosing the house nearest to the front gates. The
thought of those things getting in and attacking—and
killing
—Cade was too much for him.

“We need to evacuate,” Cade said, breaking
the silence that had settled over the dining area.

“But how?” Brandt asked. “The infected are
at the community’s only exit. We never finished planning out the
back exit. And we can’t stroll out the front gates without getting
everybody eaten.”

“No, but we can figure out how to stroll out
the back,” Cade said.

Brandt raised an eyebrow. “How do you
propose we manage that? Just climb over the wall? We have elderly
in this place. I hardly think they’re capable of doing that.
Besides, moving fifty people is going to be really risky and
noticeable.”

“Of course we can’t ask the old folks to
climb over the wall,” Cade said, rolling her eyes. “Not to mention
the pregnant women. I’m not the only one here who’s pregnant. And
even I’m not stupid or gutsy enough to attempt to climb over the
wall as pregnant as I am. No, I think we need to go
through
the wall, not over it.”

“And how are we going to do that?” Brandt
asked. “The wall’s not just made of wood. There’s wrought iron on
the other side of it. We’re not going to be squeezing out between
those bars anytime soon.”

“Look, I just know Dominic has a way he’s
getting in and out of the community, and it’s
not
through
the front gates,” Cade said. “I say we talk to him about how he’s
been leaving. Then we make plans to move the survivors out that
same route.”

Brandt rubbed his eyes again, tiredly. “Does
this mean we’re calling another committee meeting?”

“Probably, yes,” Cade said. “The more input
we get from others, the better. Maybe they’ll have ideas on the
finer details that will help us get all these people to
safety.”

“I hate meetings,” Brandt muttered, pushing
himself out of his chair. “See if you can round up the others. I’ll
go get Dominic. If he knows a way out of here, then he’ll need to
be at the meeting with the rest of us.”

Cade stood with him, stepping around the
edge of the table and stretching to press a light kiss to his
cheek. “Be careful out there, okay?” she said.

Brandt raised an eyebrow. “You’ve never been
worried about me being careful out there before,” he pointed
out.

“Yeah, but this time is different,” she
said. “This time, we’ve got the infected actively trying to get in.
The way our luck goes, you’ll still be out in the open when they
break through the gates and get yourself eaten. I’d like for that
to
not
happen.”

He smiled. “Believe me, Cade, you’re not the
only one.” He gave her a quick kiss on the lips and dropped a hand
to his hip in a habitual check for the presence of his Beretta and
spare magazines before heading to the front door.

As he headed for Dominic’s, Brandt was
struck by how calm, how
normal,
everything seemed. If it
weren’t for the fists pounding against the wall and gates, it would
have been easy to think that everything was as it should have
been.

Everything was still and quiet—
too
quiet. There was neither a bird in the air nor a breeze rustling
through the trees. There was no one in sight; everyone was locked
away in their homes like he’d instructed. Brandt glanced toward the
community’s front gates and saw Keith standing on his platform, his
eyes locked onto the hordes beyond the wall, his rifle in his
hands.

Brandt stepped onto Dominic’s porch and
knocked, scowling once again at the graffiti marring the house’s
front façade.

There was a long pause. No one answered the
door.

Brandt pounded harder, trying to rouse the
man he knew was inside—assuming he hadn’t slipped out of the
community again. When he didn’t get an answer, he decided to look
elsewhere. Anger and irritation surged through him. This was no
time for Dominic to pull a disappearing act.

He was halfway across the overgrown lawn
when the whistle split the air for the second time that day.

A burst of gunfire cracked the air. Brandt
swore and ran in that direction. He drew his Beretta even as he
moved. Another blast of the whistle guided him to the front
gates.

It’s too soon. It’s too fucking soon,
Brandt thought. They hadn’t even had time to make plans to evacuate
the community. The gates loomed in view, and Brandt skidded to a
stop, eyes wide, as he observed the scene.

Keith stood on the platform, firing his
rifle into the crowd beyond the wall. And lying on the ground just
inside the gates were three infected men, their bodies still
twitching from the bullet holes Keith had put in their heads.
Brandt raced to the platform’s ladder and climbed it rapidly. His
head barely cleared the edge before Keith was shouting at him.

“They’re coming over the gate!” Keith called
over the gunfire. “They started climbing over each other until some
of them reached the top and just spilled over. Those three down
there made it over before I could even move. I put them down before
they could do any damage.”

“Good job,” Brandt said, hauling himself to
his feet on the platform. He went to the edge and looked over,
watching as Keith shot down another of the infected that were
climbing each other toward the top of the wall. The infected woman
he’d shot tumbled straight down. She slammed into several others
and knocked them to the ground as she fell, landing on a pile of
corpses that Keith had already shot. Brandt couldn’t tell how deep
the pile was, but he didn’t like that they
were
stacking up.
“Shit, we’re going to have a problem,” he said. “And it’s probably
going to show up really soon.”

“What do you mean?” Keith asked, taking aim
at another climber. Brandt grabbed his arm, pushing his rifle down,
and pointed at the pile of bodies at the foot of the wall.

“Look at them,” Brandt said. “They’re doing
this on purpose. They’re building their ladder.”