Cade’s boots barely made a sound as she eased down the fire escape behind Brandt, Remy and Ethan following close behind her. Being outside at dusk without any lights to guide them was unnerving; there wasn’t even any moonlight to pave their way to the Westin. But the four of them had agreed before they’d set out that lights were inadvisable, and they were sticking to that. Cade forced a slow breath into her lungs and dropped to the ground, raising her Beretta in a two-handed grip as her boots met the pavement.
Brandt was already moving to the mouth of the alley into which the fire escape had dropped them. Cade stopped several yards short of him to provide backup as he peered around the corner, checking the situation on the street beyond. Ethan and Remy moved up behind her, standing so close that she could hear one of them breathing. She resisted snapping at them to back up, instead focusing on the man before her as he lurked in place for several long, slow heartbeats. Then he retreated, tapping Cade’s shoulder unnecessarily to get her attention.
“I only see one infected on the street at the moment,” Brandt murmured, his voice barely audible. Cade leaned closer to hear him better. “The others that followed you guys on your way here must have already scattered. We need to take him down before we move on. As quietly as possible.”
“No guns unless absolutely necessary,” Ethan agreed, his lips barely moving. “Any ideas?”
“Plenty, but they’ll get our asses handed to us,” Brandt said. He handed Cade his rifle and then dropped his hand to his belt, drawing a wicked-looking knife Cade hadn’t known he even had. She smirked slightly as his eyes met hers. “Wait here. I’ll be back.”
Cade raised an eyebrow and nodded, easing back half a step to stand with Remy and Ethan. She watched anxiously as Brandt crept back to the end of the alley, knife in hand. He slipped around the corner and onto the street. Cade motioned to the other two, putting a finger to her lips, and then hurried forward quickly and quietly. She knew Brandt had told them to stay put, but she’d be damned if she didn’t watch what was about to happen.
By the time Cade reached the end of the alley, Brandt was already halfway into the street and closing in fast on the infected man. The man seemed oddly distracted and unfocused, unlike the infected with which Cade had previously dealt in the city. Maybe he didn’t see an easy meal nearby, she theorized. Or maybe he was into the second stage of the virus, the reanimation stage, and therefore not in solid control of his mental faculties. Ultimately, though, Cade didn’t really care how the infected acted when dinner wasn’t around. She wasn’t there to study them; she was there to avoid them or, if that wasn’t possible, to kill them before they killed her. What she cared more about at the moment was Brandt, who was only feet away from his intended target.
As Brandt raised the knife, prepared to strike, the infected man turned and spotted him. A muffled gasp escaped Remy’s throat, and Cade barely suppressed her own. The man opened his mouth to make that ugly snarling sound the infected all seemed to make when sighting prey. Ethan gripped Cade’s arm hard enough to bruise, as if he expected her to run into the street. She tried to shake his grasp off even as she watched the scene, wide-eyed, and raised her gun, just in case Brandt needed her help.
The infected man extended his arms, reaching for Brandt, his fingers hooking into claws. Brandt dove forward and put his shoulder into the man’s gut, tackling him as if he were playing football. He drove the man down to the cracked pavement. Then his knife came up. He slammed the blade into the infected man’s throat, silencing any opportunity the man might have had to make any noise.
The infected man made a gurgling sound as blood surged into his mouth. He tried to claw at Brandt’s face, but Brandt easily batted the man’s hands aside. He ripped the knife free and grabbed the sides of the man’s head. With a sharp, savage twist, the man’s neck snapped, severing the spinal cord; the man went limp on the pavement. Brandt wiped his blade clean on the edge of the dead man’s shirt and slipped it back into its sheath before rejoining the three of them, only slightly breathless from the encounter.
“Come on. Let’s go,” Brandt breathed, beckoning them into the street. Cade followed without question, leading the other two, still impressed with what she’d witnessed just moments before. She’d always known Brandt had been trained to fight like that, but she’d never actually seen such a high level of stealth with her own eyes. He’d displayed such skill taking down that single target that she had no doubt he’d be fine once inside the Westin.
Brandt led them across the street, slipping sideways between vehicles as he aimed for the sidewalk on the far side. Cade squinted into the dark, trying to make out any oncoming dangers. She wondered if setting out on this mission after dark was a bad idea, especially considering the cloudy sky above. She glanced up, hoping the clouds would dissipate soon, that they’d allow the moon’s light to break through and help them at least that much. Instead, a pulse of lightning lit up the clouds. The last thing she wanted was a rainstorm, but as a low rumble of thunder shook the air, the sky seemed determined to make the trip to the Westin that much more miserable. Cade pulled even alongside Brandt with a grimace, glancing only momentarily at the pair that brought up the rear.
“Sounds like a thunderstorm’s coming in,” she murmured.
“Yep, I noticed,” Brandt muttered. He stepped onto the sidewalk and looked in either direction before beckoning to the three of them. They formed a small four-person huddle on the sidewalk to hear him. “Shortest way is to the left. We’ll cross Carnegie and into this stupid little park thing they’ve got shoved randomly in the middle of the intersection,” he instructed. “If we cut alongside that and follow the curve of it along Spring, we’ll hit the intersection at Spring and Andrew Young. Then Ethan can show us where we can get into AmericasMart and work our way up.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Cade agreed. “You’re familiar with this area. Lead the way.”
Brandt gave them a short businesslike nod and set out toward Margaret Mitchell Square. Cade, Ethan, and Remy followed obediently in a single-file line. Another rumble of thunder shuddered through the night. Cade still couldn’t see much of anything on the street level. But she couldn’t miss the Westin, towering over them as far as her eyes could make out in the descending darkness. The top of the tower was invisible in the haze dropping from the oncoming storm. A hard gust of wind pushed up her back, and she tensed as the air brushed against the back of her bared neck.
“You okay?” Ethan asked in a hushed voice. He followed her gaze to the tall building looming over the street.
“I’m fine. I just want to get this shit over with,” Cade muttered. With one last glance to either side of her, she darted across the street and into the shadow of the trees in the small courtyard. The Marine had already disappeared into the darkness there, and Remy and Ethan scrambled to follow. They reached the two of them, slightly out of breath, as Cade ducked under a tree at the corner of the courtyard to study the building without being seen.
“You act like you’ve got a plan,” Remy commented, raising her voice just enough to be heard over the growing rustle of wind through tree leaves.
“Actually, I have no idea what the hell I’m doing,” Cade admitted sheepishly. She pushed strands of her shortened hair out of her face and edged around the tree, trying to get a better look at the Westin. Cade imagined she could already hear the snarls of the infected and the screams of the uninfected inside the skyscraper. She shunted the thought aside; the last thing she needed was to conjure up sounds that weren’t there and psych herself out for the inevitable confrontation with Alicia. “I’m just winging it.”
“Isn’t that how most of our plans tend to go?” Brandt asked with a slight smirk. He emerged from underneath the trees and headed for the curving street separating them from the building. Cade drew in a breath and followed, Remy and Ethan close behind. She skirted around a couple of smashed cars and crossed the street, heading for the side of the building where Brandt already waited impatiently.
“You guys move too slow,” Brandt teased, glancing up at the wall against which he was pressed.
“No, you move too fast,” Cade retorted. She leaned against the side of the building as Ethan and Remy reached the sidewalk. Ethan squinted at the building across the street, and she followed his gaze.
“That’s AmericasMart,” Ethan told them softly. “Not far inside the front entry is a bank of elevators, and the stairwell door is right by it. We’ll go up to the third floor, where the walkway is that leads right into the Westin’s sixth floor. It’s where we came out when Kim, Derek, and I escaped.”
Without waiting for the others to voice any agreement or disagreement with his plan, Ethan took the lead and hurried down the street to the intersection, disappearing under the awning covering the front doors of AmericasMart. Cade grimaced at his back and sighed, rolling her eyes as Remy started after him.
“Race you to the third floor?” Brandt suggested with a mischievous smirk as he took a few steps toward the mall. He didn’t seem bothered in the slightest by Ethan charging ahead.
Cade shook her annoyance off and glanced at Brandt, her own smirk spreading across her face. “Why? I’ll only beat you,” she joked, even as she headed forward to join her two friends inside the building.