The Becoming (36 page)

“After you, my dear,” Brandt offered with a gentlemanly wave of his hand. He pushed the heavy mahogany desk closer to the window and tossed the remainder of the rope out. Cade leaned to look down as the rope fell. It went slack far below, falling about ten feet short of the sidewalk, but the difference was manageable.

Cade drew in a slow, deep breath as a cold gust of air blew in against her. The scent of rain was on the wind, and she turned her gaze up to the clouds above. They were dark and ugly. Lightning flashed in them like strobe lights at a nightclub. Cade blew out the breath she’d drawn in and then turned her back to the window. Brandt put a hand on her shoulder.

“You’ll be fine,” Brandt said again. Cade nodded and balanced at the edge of the window. She braced her feet against the metal bar and kicked away broken shards of glass as they stuck into the rubber soles of her boots. She looked behind her as she grasped the rope, and Brandt added, “Push off hard. Clear the building as best you can.” He grabbed the rope to help steady it.

“Might as well get this over with, right?” Cade said with false confidence. She bent her knees and pushed off from the window frame before she could second-guess her decision. Her stomach somersaulted as she flew out into the empty air, and she clenched her teeth as nausea threatened to well up in her throat. The only sensations she could feel were the wind against her back and face and the rope sliding between her cloth-covered fingers. Then the rope caught tight as she grasped it firmly in hand, and she swung back toward the building like a pendulum. She stuck her feet out, and her boots slammed hard against the metal beams dividing the windowpanes with a thud.

The impact shook Cade’s entire body. Before she could get a good foothold on the window frame, her boots slipped, and she was suddenly hanging free. The only things that held her up were her tenuous grip on the rope and the rope itself that cut into her right thigh and waist. She twisted her hand into the rope, looping it tightly. She gritted her teeth as it cut into her fingers and the wound in her palm. Blood stained the white cloth around her hand. She forced herself to relax as her body thumped against the windows.

“You okay?” Brandt called. Cade didn’t dare look up as she rested her forehead against the cold glass. Her entire body trembled from the adrenaline and the terror she’d felt at falling. She scrambled her feet against the glass and managed to brace them on the pane once more as she recalled her training. She finally looked up and focused on Brandt’s worried face as he watched her from the broken window above. She somehow managed to give him a thumbs-up as she shifted and started to walk slowly backwards down the glass, one careful step at a time. Brandt gave her a reassuring smile that made her feel marginally better.

Cade made it to the bottom of the rope five nerve-wracking minutes later. She dropped the ten feet from the end of the rope to the sidewalk easily. As her feet touched the ground, she wanted nothing more than to drop to her knees and kiss the concrete beneath her feet. But Cade didn’t have time for such ridiculousness. She drew her weapon from its holster and stepped aside to make room at the bottom of the rope. She put her back to the building and scanned the street around her for any infected. She was in a dangerous position, exposed and alone on the street in the falling darkness.

The street seemed reasonably clear, though; with the exception of a couple of infected on the sidewalk across the street that hadn’t noticed her yet, there weren’t any anywhere near her. Cade glanced up at the sky as a couple of raindrops fell onto her shoulder. She swore softly, her words covered by the rumble of thunder. Of all the times for the storm rolling in to choose to start dropping its rain, it had to be right then, when Brandt had a rope to climb down.

A loud crash and several gunshots burst out above her head. Cade froze. She swallowed hard and squinted at the broken window above her head as the rain started to come down more earnestly. She tightened her grip on her gun as another three shots came from the office above.

Then suddenly Brandt was there. He grabbed the rope and slid down it like a monkey on a vine, as if it were second nature. He didn’t bother to swing out from the building as he walked backwards down the glass, his boots barely touching the surface in one step before he had taken another. Cade was impressed by his speed and his willingness to perform a borderline free fall from five stories up.

Brandt’s boots hit the sidewalk beside Cade with a bone-jarring heaviness. Cade took a quick step back as he landed. “You okay? What happened up there?” Cade asked. Thunder boomed overhead and nearly took her words from her.

Brandt flexed his hands, working his fingers for a moment as he held them up to look them over in the darkening gloom. Angry red stripes scored his palms and fingers. Cade winced in sympathy pain at the thought of the rope grinding against bare skin. It didn’t seem that her tank top idea worked very well when Brandt practically flew down the side of the building. “They got into the room right about when you hit the ground,” he said. He dropped his hands and fumbled for his gun. His fingers didn’t seem to be working right, so Cade pulled the gun from its holster and handed it to him wordlessly. “They broke the fucking door right down. I didn’t have time to get the rope around me before I had to go.” He glanced up at the window and muttered, “Fuck, that hurt.”

“Would have hurt worse if the rain had really started by the time you got down here,” Cade said, even as the patter of the rain intensified. Then it seemed as if the bottom of the clouds opened up, and a sudden heavy downpour of water fell from the sky and soaked them through within seconds.

“Kind of like that?” Brandt called over the rain. He grabbed Cade’s wrist and tugged at it as he started down the street. “Come on, we’ve got to get going. A block or two this way and we’ll start hunting for a car or a truck or
something
with keys.”

Cade followed him down the sidewalk. She did her best to keep her eyes on their surroundings, but the rain pouring into her face made it difficult. She wiped at her eyes and kept close to Brandt as he strode rapidly down the street. Her knee gave a twinge of protest with every step she took, but she ignored the pain and pushed ahead.

They were a block and a half away from the office building within minutes, despite the rain still beating down on them and the erratic thunder crashing right overhead. Cade swallowed hard as she glanced at the sky before she moved alongside and then ahead of Brandt. His adrenaline was running low, judging by the hunch of his shoulders and bend of his back. Cade patted his shoulder as she moved past him to take point.

“Start looking for a car we can use,” Brandt said. Cade shook her wet hair back from her face and nodded in acknowledgement. She went to the first car that looked easy enough to maneuver out of its tight spot. Brandt passed her his flashlight, and she shone it into the passenger compartment. There was no sign of keys in the ignition, so she shook her head and moved on to the next likely candidate.

After Cade checked the fifth promising car on the street, Brandt making noises of exasperation as they were forced to pass it over like the last four, a bright light ahead of them drew her attention. Cade squinted as it moved closer and closer, accompanied by a low roar. She lifted her gun and pointed it into the light, backing up a few steps. Brandt grabbed the back of her jacket and pulled her behind him to shield her body with his own. Cade realized, belatedly, that the blinding lights were headlights and the roar was the sound of a vehicle’s engine.

“Cade! Brandt! Come on, get in!” a familiar voice shouted from the other side of the light. Cade put up a hand to try to block the light and see who it was. As the voice called out her name again, she sucked in a shocked breath.

“Ethan?” Cade gasped. Joy flooded into her, and she stumbled past Brandt. She hurriedly limped toward what she now knew was the Jeep, her knee aching and her wet hair falling into her face as she jogged toward her best friend as fast as she could. When she reached him, Cade flung her arms around Ethan’s shoulders as a desperate sob of relief welled up in her throat. Ethan gripped her in return, his arms wrapped around her waist and his fingers twisting into the leather of her jacket as he held her tightly.

“Fuck, you’re a mess,” Ethan said in Cade’s ear. He grabbed the back door and opened it for her. “You okay? Are you hurt? Either of you?”

Cade clambered into the back seat. She knew they didn’t have much time for happy reunions outside on the street in the rain, not with the infected close by. Brandt joined her from the other side of the Jeep a moment later, and Cade buckled her seatbelt as she answered. “My knee and hand, and maybe Brandt’s hands too,” she said.

Ethan shut his door and put the Jeep in reverse. He backed up with a squeal of tires before he whipped the vehicle around and started back the way he’d come. Cade looked at the passenger seat, and another grin split her face when she saw Theo there, twisted around in his seat, watching her with concern. “Theo! You guys made it!” she exclaimed. “Where are the others?”

“They’re at the house,” Theo said. “Ethan showed up today, and we came back to get you two.”

“Thank God you’re all okay,” Brandt said fervently. Cade nodded in agreement and turned around in her seat. She looked back at the office building in which she and Brandt had spent the past three days. The time there hadn’t been too bad; if it weren’t for the lack of supplies, she wouldn’t have minded staying there longer. The company had been great—once she’d gotten over her irritation at him getting them stuck in the office building to begin with. She’d found a new best friend in Brandt who she hadn’t known had lurked in him.

And now she trusted him with her life, completely, totally. He’d pulled her out of sticky situations twice, and he’d helped take care of her and she of him. People had to earn her trust, and Brandt had, twice over.

The office building receded into the distance behind them and disappeared when Ethan took a left turn. Brandt laid a reassuring hand against her back as she watched, wide eyed. She turned to give him a soft, grateful smile.

As Cade looked into Brandt’s dark brown eyes, she thought that maybe they were going to be okay.

The Becoming
couldn’t have happened without the endless support of several people, who I feel it necessary to take the time to thank here.

Massive thank you’s go out to my parents, who tolerated me hogging the kitchen table and the couch in turns while I wrote and revised my book and for encouraging my attempts at being a writer; in addition, thank you to my younger sister Stephanie, for listening to me babble about my plot lines and giving me suggestions accordingly. And a special thank you to my older sister Amanda, not only for being born but for saving me from the fire ants when I was a baby, so I could be here to write this today.

Thank you to my best friends Janet and Jennifer for likewise listening to my ideas and for tolerating my general anti-social behavior while I worked on the book.

Thank you to my coworkers Sandra and Vonciel for their patience while I bounced story ideas off of them and for their enjoyable talks and recommendations for books and movies they thought I’d like.

Thank you to my beta readers Scott Baker, Heather Lindskold, and Michelle Haag for being the best beta readers anyone could ask for. Your hard work, insight, and help has been invaluable, and I look forward to your questions and commentary on books two and three.

Thank you to the folks at the Indie Writers Unite! facebook group for your entertaining questions, commentary, debates, and articles. Your group has proven a great way to pass the time during writing breaks, and I think it’s a group that I’m going to stick around in for quite some time.

Many, many thanks to Jacob Kier at Permuted Press for taking a chance on a new author and offering me an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. Even though I seriously thought your email was a bad April Fools’ joke, I am so glad I replied and didn’t dismiss it, because if I had, I wouldn’t be where I am today.

Thanks to Stephanie Gianopoulos for being a fantastic editor. Your help has enabled me to keep an eye out for writing problems I wasn’t even aware I had, and your commentary and questions and compliments always managed to put a smile on my face during the stressful process of editing a novel. I can only hope you’re willing to stick around for the other two books in this trilogy, because I know they’ll be that much better for it.

And lastly, thank you to Kevin Michaluk and the crew at CrackBerry.com. If it hadn’t been for your seemingly innocent question during a podcast, the story would never have taken the direction it did, and I doubt I would have ever finished it. I owe you a massive amount of gratitude, and I can only hope you enjoyed (and continue to enjoy!) the abuse I put “you” through in the process of this trilogy.

Jessica Meigs lives in Demopolis, Alabama. When she’s not writing, she works part-time as a retail accountant and part-time as an EMT-Basic.
The Becoming
is her first published work.