Free The Becoming: Revelations by Jessica Meigs Page B

flashlight.
    “Maybe,” Ethan admitted. “There’s a map. It looks really familiar, but I can’t figure out where I’ve seen it before. It’s not the first time I’ve seen it either.”
    “Oh, that’s the map we found in your stuff,” Kimberly said almost flippantly.
    Ethan stopped and caught Kimberly’s arm, bringing her to a halt. “My stuff? You have my stuff? My bag?” he asked, his voice urgent.
    Kimberly looked confused. “Yeah, we finished cleaning and sterilizing it earlier this week. I gave it to Alicia to give to you.”
    Ethan’s eyes narrowed as suspicion filled his gut. He glanced at the fourth-floor doorway as they climbed toward the fifth floor. He felt the sneaking suspicion that something was being kept from him, that he was missing some important information that he desperately needed to know. “Where’s my bag now?” he asked Kimberly’s back.
    Kimberly glanced at him. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “Like I said, I gave it to Alicia. She was supposed to pass it to you. If she didn’t, then I have no idea what she did with it.”
    Ethan’s jaw tightened as his mind lingered on the personal effects in the bag. Among the sundries packed away in its confines was his wife’s locket, which he’d recovered the year before in Memphis. He wanted that necklace. It was all he had left of Anna. They could burn everything else in the bag for all he cared, but he wanted that piece of jewelry.
    “I’ll ask her about it when she gets back from wherever her group went,” Ethan vowed out loud.
    Kimberly stopped halfway up the stairs, turning to look at Ethan again with a concerned look on her face. “Ethan … how close are you to Alicia?” she asked. Her eyes were wide and worried. She twisted her fingers into the hem of the thin black t-shirt she wore. She looked awkward as she stood under his scrutiny.
    Ethan was puzzled by Kimberly’s question. He raised an eyebrow and leaned against the railing to observe her for a moment before answering. “We’re okay, I guess. I mean, we get along reasonably well.” He smirked in amusement as he fleetingly thought of the day before Alicia left, when he’d slammed the woman against the wall and very subtly threatened to kill her. There was certainly no love lost there. His eyes met Kimberly’s, and he noticed the curious look she gave him. “We’re definitely not close,” he confirmed. “Well, except physically. And I don’t think you need or want to know about that.” Kimberly didn’t look the slightest bit amused. Ethan cleared his throat. “Why do you ask?”
    “It’s just …” Kimberly paused, looking as if she were sorting things out in her head. Ethan knew the expression well; he’d seen it on Remy’s face countless times in the past year. He forced thoughts of the young woman away. Thinking about her made him think about the others—and about how much he missed all of them and the camaraderie they’d offered over the year before. There was nothing resembling that here. Kimberly sucked in a breath and said in a rush, “You shouldn’t trust Alicia. Or her people.”
    Ethan blinked at the unexpected declaration. “What makes you say that?”
    “They’re in it for all the wrong reasons,” Kimberly tried to explain. “We’re just trying to find the cure to help people. They want to use it to control people.”
    Ethan’s eyebrows rose. “We?” he repeated, studying Kimberly’s face and body language for any signs of deception. There was none, as far as he could tell. For not the first time, Ethan wished for Remy and her people-reading skills. “Who is ‘we’?”
    Kimberly motioned to the dark stairwell above her head. “The sixth floor,” she said almost cryptically. Ethan frowned, his forehead wrinkling in confusion.
    “The hospital floor?”
    “There’s far more to the sixth floor than just the hospital,” Kimberly said. She motioned for him to follow and began to climb the stairs again. “Come on.