Read Online The Becoming: Redemption (The Becoming Series Book 5) by Jessica Meigs - Free Book Online Page A

to me?”
    Remy looked at him, eyes wide. “I…I d-don’t
know,” she stammered. “I thought you wouldn’t help me. I asked for
the cure over and over and over. I begged for it, and you
wouldn’t give it to me.” Her voice cracked, and she looked away
from him, staring out the window at the night again. “I thought I
was going to die.”
    Derek walked across the room, his boots
thumping against the hardwood floor, and the bed beside her sank
down when he sat on the edge of it. Remy studiously kept her eyes
on the window, not daring to look at him.
    “I was wrong,” he said. “I screwed up when I
delayed giving you the treatment without any explanation. I should
have explained. I should have told you about how it worried me. I
should have told you about the side effects Ethan was experiencing
so you would understand why I was delaying giving it to you.”
    Remy still didn’t look at him. “What sort of
side effects?”
    “I don’t know for sure,” Derek said.
“Uncontrollable hunger, anger issues, that sort of thing. I didn’t
get the opportunity to explore it more in depth before Ethan…had to
leave.”
    “That’s a polite euphemism for ‘ran away,’”
Remy muttered.
    “These side effects are worrisome enough that
I wasn’t willing to throw everything behind it all the way,” Derek
went on, ignoring her. “It’s not a cure anyway.”
    That was enough to bring her around with a
gasp. “What?”
    “It’s a vaccine,” Derek said. “Sort of. If
you’re already infected when you’re given it, then you stay
infected. It just replaces one type of infection with a stronger
version of it.”
    “So I’m still infected?”
    “Yeah, and you always will be,” Derek
answered. “It’s just a question of whether you’d be contagious or
not, and if Ethan’s status is any indicator, the answer is no.”
    “I can hear the ‘but’ in your voice,” Remy
said.
    “ But I’m concerned that things may be
different with you,” Derek said.
    “Different how?” Remy asked. She was thinking
back on what had happened at Woodside, when she’d walked right into
a horde of infected and none of them had laid a hand on her. She
put a hand up to stop Derek before he could say anything. “Wait,
never mind. I’m not sure I want to know,” she said. “It won’t make
a difference for me to know, especially since I’m leaving with Cade
and you’re staying here with the baby.”
    Derek gave her an uncertain look. “You
sure?”
    “Yeah, I’m sure,” Remy said with a confidence
she didn’t feel. “Like I said, it won’t make much difference when
I’m out on the road.” She tucked a stray lock of hair behind her
ear and sighed. “I wish we could all go. I don’t like the idea of
any of us being left behind. We’ve lost too many people
already…”
    Derek caught her hand in his and squeezed it.
“I know, Remy,” he said. “We’ve all had our share of losses, some
many more than others. And even after those losses, it never gets
easier.”
    There was a heavy vein of sadness in the
doctor’s voice, one that drew Remy toward him like a moth to a
candle’s flame. It was the sense of a kindred spirit, of a fellow
survivor with a darkness that, like hers, was buried so deeply in
his soul that he didn’t have a hope of digging it out. He was
broken inside, and she wondered if he was aware of it. She didn’t
say her thoughts out loud, though. It would probably only lead to
trouble. Instead, she said, “No, it never does.”
    Silence fell between them. Derek seemed lost
in his thoughts and was staring at the wall across the room. When
he spoke, his voice was hushed. “I’m a coward.”
    Remy raised an eyebrow. “What? No you’re
not.”
    “Yes, I am. I should be going with you guys.
You’ve got the more dangerous task ahead of you, and you’re the
more likely of the two groups to need medical help. Yet the moment
the opportunity arose, I jumped at the chance to stay here, where
it’s safer