The Becoming (10 page)

Lisa didn’t reply. She simply continued to sit oddly upright and stare at Cade with a strange look in her eyes. “Lisa?” Cade asked.

Ethan twisted around in his seat to look at the silent woman. As Cade looked forward out the windshield again, Lisa lunged forward from her seat, a horribly familiar almost-snarl erupting from her throat. An image of Andrew flashed through Cade’s mind. She started to turn her head, but Lisa’s arm hooked around her throat, stopping the motion. Cade let out a strangled cry as her head was jerked back hard against the headrest of her seat. Lisa’s forearm pressed down against her throat, cutting off her breath.

Cade instinctively grabbed Lisa’s arm with both hands. She pulled desperately at Lisa’s arm as fingernails dug into the back of her neck. The Jeep swerved violently. Cade was forced to let go of Lisa’s arm with one hand to grab the steering wheel and get the car back in control. Cade managed to wedge her fingers between her throat and Lisa’s arm and push the limb away enough to gasp out, “Ethan, stop her.”

Ethan sat in the passenger seat, eyes wide, in shock at Lisa’s sudden attack. Cade’s words were all he needed to prompt him into action. Ethan grabbed Lisa’s arm and tried to pull her away from Cade. He pried at her elbow and wrist with both hands and pulled with nearly all his strength. But he was unable to dislodge her grip. Cade opened her mouth and tried to suck air into her lungs as her head swam. She clawed Lisa’s skin as Lisa’s nails dug more firmly into the back of her neck. Cade’s skin broke with a sharp stab of pain.

Cade took her foot off the gas as Ethan hauled on Lisa’s arm again. The pressure on Cade’s throat eased slightly. Taking the opportunity, Cade slammed both feet down on the brake pedal. Everyone in the car lurched forward. Lisa slammed into the back of Cade’s seat with the action, and her grip loosened enough for Cade to take a single deep, precious breath. Ethan yanked on Lisa’s arm again as her grip loosened, and her arm came away from Cade’s neck with the awful sound of bone snapping. Ethan growled and shoved Lisa into the back seat once more.

Cade coughed harshly and grabbed the steering wheel with both hands. Lisa lunged toward her again as soon as her back hit the seat. Cade punched the gas pedal again to throw Lisa against the back seat more firmly. Lisa caught her balance almost immediately at the faster speed. She grabbed a fistful of Cade’s dark hair and pulled hard. Cade yelped as her head hit the headrest once more, and her eyes watered in pain.

“Get her the hell off of me!” Cade yelled. Her head tilted backwards with the force of the pressure Lisa put on her neck. Cade fumbled blindly between the seats and tried to locate the handgun she’d stashed in the console earlier. She found it and pointed it awkwardly in Lisa’s general direction. “Get this bitch off of me before I shoot her!”

Ethan grabbed Lisa’s hands and tried to pull them from Cade’s hair. Cade waved the gun in the woman’s face in an attempt to scare Lisa off of her. It didn’t work, though, and Cade gasped as Lisa hooked her arm back around her neck and squeezed her throat again. The broken bones in Lisa’s arm dug into Cade’s throat. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Cade wondered how the woman could continue to attack her with what would under normal circumstances be an agonizing injury. Ethan snatched the handgun from Cade’s hand and pointed it at Lisa, firing a shot into Lisa’s right shoulder.

Cade was deafened by the gunshot. She barely heard Lisa’s snarl as the shot loosened her grip on Cade’s throat and threw her back against the seat. Lisa turned her eyes to Ethan and bared her teeth at him. Ethan recoiled against the dashboard. Cade finally managed to get the SUV onto the side of the road, and the Jeep sprayed gravel as she slammed on the brakes. Lisa lurched toward Ethan, and Cade shoved the gear-shift into park and unfastened her seatbelt. She turned to face Lisa, kneeling on the seat, and fumbled for anything she could get her hands on that resembled a weapon.

Before Cade could find anything, Ethan raised the gun and pointed it at Lisa. “Back off!” he barked. He aimed the weapon directly at her head. “Sit the fuck down now! That’s an order!”

“I don’t think she’s going to back off, Ethan,” Cade said. Her voice was hoarse; just talking made her throat hurt. She rubbed at the sore skin and muscles where Lisa had grabbed her and winced at the pain.

Even as Cade spoke, Lisa proved her right when she dove toward them once more. Ethan grimaced and adjusted his aim before he squeezed the trigger. The bullet slammed directly into Lisa’s forehead and threw her back against the seats. She sprawled there limply and didn’t move.

Cade covered her ears belatedly as the echo of the second gunshot in the enclosed space of the Jeep magnified itself and made her ears ring. Ethan muttered something under his breath that Cade couldn’t hear. She leaned back against the steering wheel, panting. She felt dizzy, and as Ethan watched Lisa’s body guardedly for any sign of movement, Cade leaned forward to rest her head against the seat.

“Oh my God, what the fuck,” Cade said breathlessly. “I’ve got to get out of this fucking car.” She pulled on the door handle as bile rose in her throat. She cursed as she found the door locked, and she slapped at the unlock button before she threw the door open and staggered into the fresh air outside.

Cade’s stomach roiled as she stumbled away from the Jeep. She leaned over and vomited into the tall grass at the side of the road. A car door shut, and a moment later, Ethan was at her side. He rubbed her back soothingly as she coughed and wiped at her eyes.

“Here,” Ethan said. Cade lifted her head to see him holding one of his t-shirts out to her. She accepted it gratefully and used the hem to wipe her lips, then shoved the stick of gum he handed her into her mouth. “You okay?”

“I don’t know,” Cade admitted. She chewed the peppermint gum furiously to get the acrid taste of bile out of her mouth. Cade refused to look in the direction of the car; the thought of getting back inside of it made her cringe. “Did we just kill her?”

“Yeah, we did. But I don’t think it was really Lisa in there. You know what I mean?” He smoothed his hand over Cade’s dark hair. “That woman wasn’t acting anything like Lisa. Lisa wouldn’t have tried to kill you, and Lisa wouldn’t have pulled that bullshit and gotten herself shot.” He paused and turned back to Cade, his face serious. Cade knew by his expression that he was about to suggest something she wouldn’t like. “We need to get the body out of the car.”

“Should we call the police?” Cade asked. She finally stole a reluctant look back at the vehicle. She was surprised at how normal it appeared sitting at a slant on the side of the road. Cade had expected it to look dark and sinister, to bear some evidence of the events that had transpired inside of it on its outsides. As she stared at the Jeep, a van sped by on the highway with a roar of its engines, but it made no move to slow or stop.

Ethan hesitated as he thought her question over. Then he shook his head slowly. “No. They have enough to worry about right now. Just … trust me, okay?” he urged. He put his hand gently against her back. “We need to get her out of the car, and then we need to get to Gadsden and make sure my mother is okay.”

It didn’t take Ethan long to move Lisa’s body out of the Jeep’s back seat. He laid her body out as gently as he could on the passenger side of the vehicle so she couldn’t be seen from the highway. He covered her with a blanket before he moved back to the car to scrub the blood out of the seat. Cade waited on the side of the road, her back to the blanket-covered body and the Jeep. Her shoulders were so tense that Ethan could see her stiffness even from where he stood.

Ethan ran his hand through his hair, pushing the blond strands away from his eyes as he scrutinized the darkened interior of the Jeep. It looked like he’d gotten as much blood as would be possible out of the seat, but the faint scent of the metallic liquid hung in the air. Ethan wrinkled his nose in disgust and took a step back from the opened door. Something told him that he and Cade were going to end up driving to Gadsden with the windows rolled down, despite the chill starting to bite into the air around them.

“How’s it coming?” Cade called from her spot at the side of the road. She stood with her arms wrapped around her as she watched traffic pass along the highway. Ethan felt another pang of worry. He knew that this wasn’t the first time the Israeli woman had been involved with a killing. It wasn’t the first time for him, either. Their histories had put them in the occasional situation where they’d been forced or ordered to pull the trigger. Somehow, though, this time felt different. This time felt more like murder, despite the threat Lisa had posed to them. Perhaps it was the fact that Ethan had known her in life that made her death so difficult for him to wrap his mind around.

Ethan stepped away from the car, leaving the back passenger door open, and walked over to Cade. He stood beside her in companionable silence for a moment and watched the traffic roll by. He wondered where all the people were going, where they thought they could escape to as the entire southeast crumbled around them. North? East? West? Ethan knew it was only a matter of time before whatever caused this chaos spread to other cities—and possibly even other countries.

Ethan let out a weighty sigh and shook himself free from his thoughts. He hooked his arm around Cade’s shoulder, pulled her close, and gave her a gentle squeeze. “I think the car is about as clean as it’s going to get,” he told her.

Cade leaned into Ethan’s side. She stared off across the highway blankly as they stood side by side. She finally broke the silence that had settled over them like a thick blanket. “What are we going to do?” she asked.

“Head out to Gadsden, like we planned,” Ethan said. He leaned his head against hers and squeezed her again. “And when we get there, we’re going to make sure Mom is okay. After that, we’re going to hole up and not think about anything for a while. A long while, if I can help it.”

“And after that?”

Ethan breathed out again. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it, okay?” he said. He looked back at the Jeep and tugged at her arm as he took a step away from her. “Come on. We need to get moving. I’ll drive for a while.”

Ethan could sense the gratitude in the look Cade gave him even in the darkness around them. She pulled away from him and circled the Jeep to the passenger side, stepping delicately around Lisa’s blanketed body to climb inside. Ethan considered not moving on until the highway was clear of cars. But that could take hours, and he didn’t think they had hours. Resigning himself to the likelihood that someone would see Lisa’s body on the side of the road at some point, Ethan climbed into the driver’s seat. He put the Jeep in gear and headed down the highway once more.

Cade and Ethan traveled in silence for over two hours, the radio the only sound between them. As they listened to the frantic reports of riots spreading out from the limits of the major southeastern cities, Ethan dialed his mother’s phone number repeatedly, but he kept getting the operator informing him that his call could not be completed.

Ethan swore as the operator’s mechanical voice spoke into his ear again. He slammed the cell phone down into the console between the seats. “Fucking phones are down,” he grumbled as Cade gave him a questioning look.

Cade pushed her windblown hair out of her face and rolled up her window halfway. She pulled her leather jacket tighter around herself with her free hand. “Can’t get in touch with your mom?”

“No, and I’m worried,” Ethan admitted. He slowed the Jeep as he approached the end of a very long line of glowing tail-lights. “The radio’s mentioned—”

“Birmingham,” Cade finished. Gadsden wasn’t very far from Birmingham in the grand scheme of things. It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that the escalating violence had reached the city in which Ethan’s mother lived, and they were both fully aware of it. “I know. I heard.”

Ethan fell silent once more as nightmarish thoughts swirled in his head. He had no idea what he was going to find once he and Cade reached Gadsden, but he had a creeping suspicion that it would be something he wasn’t going to like. He tightened his grip on the steering wheel and glanced at Cade. She had picked up his cell phone and had begun to scroll through his contacts list, her ice-blue eyes focused intently on the small LCD screen.

“Have you tried sending a text message?” Cade asked. She started to type with one of her thumbs on the phone’s small keypad. “Sometimes if the network is overloaded with voice calls, it’s easier to get a text message to slip through.”

Ethan’s cheeks flushed with heat as he shook his head. He was honestly embarrassed that he hadn’t thought of that. “No, I haven’t,” he said with a healthy dose of chagrin. “My mother doesn’t have a text messaging plan. I’m kind of in the habit of not sending them to her.”

Cade continued to peck out her message on Ethan’s phone. “Well, I’m sending her one. We’ll worry about the whole ten cents it will cost her later, okay?” She smirked as she finished the message and hit the send button. She flipped the phone closed and set it back in the console before looking out the windshield at the cars ahead. “Is there any way we can get around this damned traffic? I don’t feel comfortable getting stuck in it. God only knows what will happen with so many people around.”

Ethan grabbed the map book from the dashboard where he’d tossed it and flipped backwards through it to examine the map of Alabama. “We’re over the state line now, aren’t we?” he asked. He squinted through the windshield and searched for a road sign to give him a hint of their location.