The Becoming: Ground Zero (21 page)

As Remy climbed to her feet, she saw Theo helping Avi out through the back window. Gray was in the process of climbing out of the window through which Remy and Cade had crawled. As they dragged themselves out of the wreckage, Brandt headed for the side of the road, climbing the steep embankment to examine the highway. After Remy cast one more glance at Gray, she started to scramble up the slope after Brandt, slipping and sliding on the rain-slickened grass, starting to shiver as the water soaked through her clothes.

“What did we hit?” Remy asked Brandt breathlessly as she reached the top. She was covered in mud, grass stains, rain, and sweat, and she grimaced as she ran a hand over her sleeve, attempting to scrape mud off her clothes. She shielded her eyes from the rain as she, too, glanced in either direction down the highway.

“Almost hit that roadblock,” Brandt said over the rumble of thunder. He pointed to a large concrete barricade that was now behind them, the type of barricade normally used along the sides of bridges on highways. It had been erected across the entire highway, blocking traffic from both directions. Several large military trucks were parked around it, a few Humvees backed against the barricade itself. Barbed wire lined the top of the barricade, and despite the year that had passed, it still looked sharp and potentially deadly. “We hit that truck there.” He pointed to the truck in question, illuminated in the flash of lightning that preceded the next burst of thunder. It was one of the Humvees; its front passenger door was bashed in from the impact of the van.

“Why is that roadblock even
here?
” Remy asked in exasperation, raking her wet hair out of her eyes and off her face.

“Because we’re in Georgia now,” Brandt said somberly.

Before Remy could formulate a reply, an agonized cry rang out behind them. It was anguish, despair, and lament rolled into one mash of heartache. Remy turned, brandishing her knife instinctively, prepared to fight off any threat that came at them. She squinted into the darkness, but she couldn’t see anything immediately in their vicinity, not through the darkness and the rain. Her eyes shifted to the dead van below her and Brandt as her brain registered the sound. It had sounded almost like …

“Ethan,” Remy breathed out.

Remy gripped her knife in her right hand, wielding it as a precaution, and began to slip and slide her way back down the embankment. Brandt was right on her heels, following her down the hill as he too realized that something below them was amiss. “Ethan!” Remy shouted as she came closer.

Cade sprinted to her, boots splashing through the puddles, and caught Remy by the shoulders. “Don’t go over there, Remy,” Cade warned breathlessly. She shook her head frantically, trying to keep Remy from moving closer.

“Fuck that!” Remy snapped. She whacked her hand firmly into the other woman’s ribs, jostling her aside before she ran to the van. As she approached and saw the scene at the front of the van, she stopped short. Her boots skidded on the slick grass, nearly sending her in a short fall to the mud below, but she quickly caught her balance, her eyes wide as she stared at the tableau before her.

Ethan knelt in the wet grass by the broken passenger window. The side of his head was wet with blood and rain, and his clothes were equally smeared with dirt and mud and grass. Even as Remy watched him, a trickle of blood worked its way down from his temple to his jaw, but he was heedless of the injury he’d suffered as he hunched protectively over something—no, some
one.
Remy swallowed compulsively and took a few steps closer. Her eyes lit on the battered red Converse sneakers that the figure in the grass wore.

Nikola.

Even as the realization struck Remy’s brain with the violence of a baseball bat, Theo knelt beside the teenager, sliding his hands over her cheeks and face, holding a wrist near her nose, feeling at her chest and stomach. Ethan spoke to Theo in a broken, pleading voice. “Theo, help her,” he said, his voice trembling with emotion. Even as he said this, Theo leaned down and blew two quick breaths into Nikola’s mouth.

Theo pushed Ethan roughly away with his free hand before he began to press both hands down hard onto Nikola’s chest. It was then, as Ethan backpedaled away from Nikola, that Remy got a glimpse at the young girl’s face. The expression there told Remy everything she needed to know. The teenager’s eyes were wide, staring blankly at the sky, her mouth slightly opened. Nikola wasn’t moving, even as the rain fell onto her pale, exposed skin. Remy covered her mouth with her hand and let out a soft, choked sob.

“No. No, not Nikki,” Remy murmured, her voice trembling violently.

Ethan was beside himself as Theo stopped compressions and blew two more breaths into Nikola’s lungs, her chest rising and falling with each puff. Then Gray was on his knees beside Nikola, blocking Remy’s view, and he and Theo began to work frantically yet rhythmically, trying desperately to save the girl’s life. It was several long, anxious minutes before Theo pulled away and gently checked for a pulse, pressing two fingers to Nikola’s neck. As Gray continued the chest compressions, his wheezing breaths audible as far back as where Remy stood, Theo slid his fingers gently along either side of Nikola’s neck. As he did so, the girl’s head lolled oddly to the side. Something about the way her head rested on her neck seemed wrong to Remy, seemed somehow obscene, somehow
not right
.

Theo shook his head slowly and reached across Nikola’s body, stopping Gray with a gentle touch of his hand against the other’s forearm. He wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand and didn’t look at Ethan. “Eth, I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

“Don’t fucking tell me you’re sorry!” Ethan shouted, in sharp contrast to Theo’s solemn tone. “Just help her!”

“There isn’t anything I can do,” Theo said. His voice sounded strangely calm, almost empty. “She’s dead, Ethan. She’s gone.”

“She’s not fucking dead! She can’t be dead! Do something!” Ethan begged. The desperation was heavy in his voice, and it made Remy’s heart hurt. She closed her eyes and turned away from the scene, but she couldn’t escape the growing argument as she stood in the rain, her head bowed, the water running down from her hair into her eyes to mask her tears.

“There isn’t anything I
can
do, Ethan! Nothing!” Theo exclaimed, his voice rising in volume and desperation. “Her neck is broken! There is
no way
we can do anything without hospitals and surgeons and all kinds of medical shit that we don’t have!” He ran both hands through his hair and rose to his feet, shaking and struggling to maintain control. “She’s fucking
gone
. She’s not
dying;
she’s
dead,
Ethan! There’s nothing left to save!”

Ethan visibly deflated at Theo’s words, slumping sideways against the van as Theo stared at Nikola’s body in silence. Remy sucked in a heavy breath and struggled to stop her tears. She had to be the strong one. She had to help keep the group together; she had to help keep
Ethan
together. He would need her later.

Nikola was dead. Nikola was
dead
. How could this have happened? They’d never lost a member of the group before. Remy shuddered and squeezed her eyes tighter. She couldn’t grasp the loss of the young girl; she couldn’t wrap her mind around it. She turned away from the others once more and pressed her fist to her mouth, biting down on her knuckles to suppress the sob threatening to escape.

Remy felt a pair of strong arms loop around her, and she opened her eyes to see Gray standing before her. He gave her a tight, comforting hug, rubbing her back as he gazed over her shoulder. Remy guessed he was keeping an eye on Ethan, even as tears swam in his eyes. Remy blinked rapidly to banish her own. Gray always seemed to know exactly when she needed him, and he was always there with a hug and a smile and reassuring words.

As Remy studied Gray’s drawn, tired face, a commotion erupted behind her. She turned just in time to see Ethan get to his feet, grab Avi by her upper arms, and slam her against the overturned van. “This is all your fucking fault!” he yelled, leaning close to her face and gripping her biceps so tightly that his fingers and knuckles turned white. “It’s your fault Nikki is fucking dead!” The rest of the group stood frozen, watching with varying degrees of horror as Ethan pulled Avi from the van a few inches and slammed her against it once more. “If you hadn’t gotten us on this damned stupid-ass project, we wouldn’t be in this fucking van in this fucking state, and Nikola wouldn’t be fucking dead!”

Remy started forward at the same time Brandt did. Together, they caught Ethan by his forearms as he slammed Avi against the van for a third time. Remy held no love for Avi, but she thought it best to stop Ethan before he caused the woman any irreparable damage.

“This is your fucking fault!” Ethan shouted as Remy and Brandt hauled back on the older man, managing to pull him away from Avi. “Where’s my damned gun? I’m going to shoot that fucking bitch!”

Theo’s head jerked up as he heard Ethan’s words. He straightened and pointed at Ethan emphatically as he snapped orders at Brandt. “Get him the fuck away from here before he does something we’ll all regret.”

Remy tightened her grasp on Ethan’s forearm, tugging gently to encourage him to come away from the van. She expected Ethan to fight against the grip she and Brandt had on him. But instead, Ethan simply went limp, sagging in their arms and letting out a pained, strangled sob. Remy’s tears surged forth at the sound of one of the strongest men she knew so heartbroken, and she couldn’t hold them off.

“Brandt?” Remy asked softly, silently begging the older man with her eyes to take care of Ethan in her stead. She couldn’t promise she wouldn’t break down if she tried.

Brandt nodded in understanding and slid his hands under both of Ethan’s arms, taking the man’s weight off of Remy. “Come on, Ethan. Let’s go check out these trucks and see if we can find some shelter from this rain, okay?”

Ethan didn’t seem to want to go, but he walked with Brandt anyway, staggering as he covered his eyes with his hand. Remy watched the two men climb the embankment, away from the wreckage of the van. Once both men were out of sight, Remy turned to the remaining members of the group.

“So, what now?” she asked shakily, looking to each of their shell-shocked faces.

Cade sank down to sit heavily on the muddy embankment after Brandt and Ethan’s departure. She rested her forehead in her hands and brought her knees to her chest, digging her heels into the mud as she fought back tears and tried to make sense of what had happened. How could everything have gone so bottoms-up in such a short time? In the few days since Avi had shown up on the scene, it seemed like the entire world had gone to shit.

Cade was embarrassed to admit it, even to herself, but she really wanted Brandt right then. She needed a hug, almost desperately. But Brandt was at the top of the embankment somewhere, attempting to calm Ethan down, to bring the older man back from his homicidal rage—something Cade should have been doing—so Cade was forced to comfort herself as best she could.

It was, obviously, not working.

Someone plopped down in the mud beside Cade. She lifted her head from her hands to see who’d joined her in her self-imposed mope-fest. It was Theo, and he looked almost as miserable as she felt. “You okay?” she asked softly. She shifted her eyes to the tree line and let out a slow, calming breath. She had to be strong, if not for Theo’s sake, then for her own.

“I feel like shit,” Theo admitted. His voice was just as quiet and solemn as Cade’s. He stared down at his hands, curling his fingers slowly until his hands were wound into tight fists. Cade stared at his slowly whitening knuckles, and she swallowed hard, loosely dropping her hands to rest against her knees.

“I think we all do.” Cade lifted her head and twisted to study the top of the embankment, as if she could see the two men somewhere above. “Do you think we need to check on them? I haven’t heard anything at all, and it’s starting to worry me.”

Theo shook his head and let out a heavy sigh laced with quiet desperation and sadness and even a bit of fear. “No, I don’t think so,” he said. “I think Ethan just needs some time to cool down and grieve. He’s blaming himself for this, regardless of what he said to Avi. She was just a convenient target. He thinks it was his fault; he
was
the one who wrecked the van, after all. In all technicality, it is. But at the same time, it’s not. I mean, shit happens. Sometimes that shit is the worst thing you can imagine, and that’s what happened in this case.” He sighed again and hung his head. “I just hate that it had to be Nikola who paid the price.”

Cade sat quietly, processing what Theo said. He was right, and she knew it. But that didn’t make her any more comfortable with the idea of her best friend and her … whatever Brandt was to her now so far out of her sight. Especially now that they’d officially entered the most dangerous state in the world. And it didn’t make her feel much better about how to handle Ethan if even Theo felt it was partially Ethan’s fault that Nikola’s body lay still and silent and cold beside the van.

“You did good, taking control of the situation back there,” Cade finally said. She looked to Theo again, squinting at the blond man through the slackening rain. “The rest of us … I think we were in shock. And you just stepped right up and did what Ethan should have been doing. And you did it well.”