The gunshot echoed through the trees, and Gray flinched against Remy as it met their ears. He stopped walking and covered his eyes with his hand, bowing his head and taking several deep, shaky breaths. Remy could tell he was struggling to keep control of himself. She hugged Gray again, not sure exactly what to do. Despite Theo’s words, she’d never been through anything quite like this. When her family died, it had been brutal and messy, but with the exception of her mother’s death, she hadn’t been there for any of it.
That was a lot different from hearing a gunshot and knowing that your last remaining family member had just died.
To Remy’s surprise, Gray jerked away from her as she tried to hug him. He gave her a cold, hard look and sped up his walk. “Don’t fucking touch me,” he hissed.
“Okay, okay.” She shook her head and dropped back to walk with Cade instead.
“Hey,” Cade said as the younger woman let her catch up. Cade had her rifle in her hands again, and she watched the area around them more attentively than ever before.
“You okay?” Remy asked, pulling her bolo knife out. Just in case. It never hurt to have some semblance of preparedness.
“I think I’m just shaken up,” Cade admitted. “It’s not every day I get grabbed by one of the infected, and it’s happened twice in the past week alone. Definitely not my best week.”
“It’s not a very good week for any of us,” Remy agreed. She twirled her knife idly and sighed. “We’ve lost two people in a matter of days. That’s something I never thought I’d see happen.”
“Before we left Maplesville, Brandt told me he thought we’d all be dead before we got out of Atlanta,” Cade said, frowning. “He thought there wasn’t much hope of us getting out of there. He said the same thing back at the hotel the other day.”
Remy hesitated and said, “I’m thinking the same thing. Well, I thought it, anyway.”
Cade raised an eyebrow and glanced at Remy before returning her gaze to the trees. “Really?”
“Yeah. This shit stresses me out, makes me do shit I normally wouldn’t do,” Remy admitted, twirling her knife again.
Cade didn’t look at her. “Like sleep with Ethan?”
Remy gaped at her. Cade knew about that? How in the world …? “How the hell did you find out about that?” she demanded.
Cade shook her head, smiling. “I know all, Remy. You can’t hide anything from me.” Remy’s eyes widened, and Cade’s smile turned into a smirk. “I’m kidding, Remy. Ethan told me about it earlier. And I would’ve figured it out with the way he looked at you around lunchtime anyway.” She paused before adding, “And he told me how long it’s been going on too.”
“Oh God,” Remy groaned, feeling her cheeks heat up at Cade’s scrutiny. “I wouldn’t normally … I mean, I didn’t really mean to—”
Cade turned on Remy. The look in her ice-blue eyes stopped Remy in mid-step. “If you ever think about hurting him, you’ll have to answer to me. And you know I won’t hesitate to kick your ass,” she threatened. “If you regret what you did, you better pretend you don’t. The last thing Ethan needs is to get his heart broken on top of his grief over Nikola and Theo.”
Cade’s mention of Theo was enough to sober Remy, and she looked away. She surprised even herself as her eyes filled with tears. “Jesus, Cade, what kind of person do you think I am?” she asked shakily, keeping her eyes on their surroundings, refusing to look at the older woman beside her. “I’m not a cold-hearted bitch. Just because I want to kill all of the fucking infected in this world doesn’t mean I don’t have a heart. I care for him. You have no fucking idea how much. I just don’t see the point in beginning a relationship, considering the world we live in.”
“That doesn’t mean you can’t still love someone, even if you’re not planning on having an actual relationship with them,” Cade pointed out. Remy sensed that Cade was no longer talking about her and Ethan. She followed Cade’s eyes and saw that they were locked onto Brandt’s muscular back. He led the group down the highway, keeping their pace brisk, his shoulders straight and tense.
“So … you and Brandt?” Remy couldn’t help but ask. The temptation to fall back on her old teasing was too great to pass up. Cade gave Remy a sharp look and punched her bicep. Remy bit back a yelp and rubbed her arm. “What was that for?”
“Oh, you know what it was for,” Cade said darkly. She took Remy by the shoulder and gently shoved her ahead. “Get back where you’re supposed to be. We should be in Douglasville soon, and we need to be on alert.”
“We need to find shelter for the night,” Ethan said, dropping back to talk with Cade and Remy. Remy gave Ethan a small smile, and he returned it. His green eyes were bloodshot, and Remy realized that he’d been crying. The thought was nearly enough to choke her up. “We can’t travel after sunset, and we need time to track someplace down.”
“We’re not stopping in Douglasville,” Brandt said, joining them. Avi followed Brandt over, sticking close to him and looking around warily. Gray, for his part, simply stopped in the middle of the road and stood there, making no move to approach them. “It’s too dangerous. It’s larger than Villa Rica, and there was a massive outbreak there within days of the one in Atlanta. It was one of the first suburbs outside Atlanta to get wiped out by Michaluk.”
“So we need to stop before we get to Douglasville, then?” Avi spoke up. They all looked at her. Gray continued his studious examination of the road ahead. “But there’s no place here to stop, no shelter at all! It’s all trees and highways and cars.”
“We’ll have to make it to the other side of Douglasville before sunset,” Brandt said. “And it won’t guarantee our safety. There are stores and houses and little suburban towns and shit almost all the way from here to Atlanta.”
Ethan started to take the crumpled map of Georgia out of his pocket. “Is that possible?” he asked. “I mean, Douglasville is bigger than Villa Rica, like you said. I don’t know if we can move across the whole city in an hour.”
Brandt ran a hand slowly over his face and back through his hair, letting out a heavy sigh. “We have to try, okay?” he said. “We can’t get caught outside in the dark with the infected. It’s too hard to guard your asses when I can’t see everything around us.”
Remy looked around thoughtfully, taking stock of their surroundings. She spotted a dark blue minivan ahead of them, and an idea sprang to mind. “Why don’t we find a car or two to hide in for the night?”
Ethan waved his hand toward a couple of the vehicles around them. “Be my guest, babe. I personally am not game on sleeping in a car that probably has or had a dead body in it.”
Remy cringed at his words and wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Yeah, good point,” she conceded. She edged closer to the others, gripping her bolo knife tighter.
“Hey, guys?” Gray called out. Their eyes turned onto him, surprised that he’d spoken, but he didn’t return the look. “Any of you know how to drive a motorcycle?”
“I do,” Brandt said. Cade and Remy both nodded, and even Ethan looked as though his curiosity were piqued.
“I drove one when I was younger,” Ethan said. “And I taught Cade. I used one last year when I went back to Memphis, remember? Why do you ask, anyway?”
Gray didn’t answer; he simply pointed off the right side of the road. Remy’s eyes followed Gray’s finger, and a wide grin spread across her face at the sight of the orange-and-black Harley-Davidson sign looming over the highway.
“Oh fuck, Harleys,” Remy said almost dreamily. “I fucking love me some Harleys. I have one back home … had one. I had one back home, and my mom hated it. She was so insistent I’d get creamed out on the highway and she’d have to identify a box of paste as my remains. I miss it so bad.”
“I don’t know how to drive one, but I bet those of us who don’t know how can hitch rides on the backs of whoever does,” Gray continued. He still didn’t bother to turn around.
“It’s called riding pillion,” Cade grumbled. “And you’re assuming the bikes are even still there.”
Remy snapped out of her motorcycle daydream and raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
“We can’t be the only survivors roaming around the southeast, you know?” Cade explained. “There’s got to be others, and there might even be others in this neighborhood. Considering the way we’ve broken into shit ourselves, there’s no way other people haven’t been doing it too.”
“Well, I’m going to think positively and hope there’s at least three bikes in there,” Remy said.
Cade shrugged and shouldered her rifle. “Just preparing for the worst-case scenario,” she said mildly.
“We’ll have to worry about gas too,” Brandt pointed out to Remy. “As long as we can get enough together to go the twenty miles from here to Atlanta, we’ll be fine. But most dealerships don’t keep much gas in their vehicles as a rule, in case of theft. It’ll take some time to get the fuel together.”
Remy let out a slow breath and clapped her hands together gamely. “Okay, so let’s get this show on the road and go get us some motorcycles.”