Zombies. The ominous word played through my head over and over again as I stood under the hot, streaming water in the shower stall. The blood and black goo had been lathered away and were now blending together and swirling around the drain. Every muscle I possessed ached. And now that my adrenaline had completely crashed, my bones felt liquefied.
Only sheer grit kept me on my feet. I needed more information.
Zombies. What were they, exactly?
Oh, I knew what books and movies claimed. They were the living dead, they were mindless and they craved human flesh. But…I now knew they weren’t human. They weren’t tangible to human touch. They were spirits—as I was a spirit.
In fact, how were spirits of such malevolence created?
Was I truly safe here? Could zombies slink through the bathroom walls at any moment and attack me? I mean, how hard would it have been to follow a dirty Jeep with two delicious snackpacks inside? I think I could follow a Hostess truck in my sleep.
Before panic could have another go at me, I reminded myself that the zombies had approached my grandparents’ home time and time again, yet they’d never come inside—which brought up another question. Could they not enter a person’s home? After all, they’d never entered my old house, either. Had they tried, the entire street would have heard the gunfire my dad unleashed.
What was Cole’s part in this? He and his friends fought the zombies, I knew that. But what else? They were so knowledgeable, they had to do more.
A knock at the door disrupted my line of thought. “Ali? You good?”
Cole’s deep voice had me shivering. “Yes.” He’d saved my life tonight. Without him, I would have become zombie food.
“Hurry up, all right? You weren’t very steady on your feet, and if you pass out, I will bust in and play doctor.”
And he would find me naked. Immediately I shut off the water and toweled off. A white tank top and a pair of pink sweatpants rested on the toilet lid. How the heck—I searched the entire bathroom, which wasn’t hard to do, considering it was a small space with only a toilet, sink and shower. Those clothes hadn’t been there when I’d stripped.
Gritting my teeth, I checked the lock I had engaged the very moment I’d stepped inside. The knob stuck.
So…someone had broken into the bathroom, given me the clothes, then relocked the knob. Not a lot of thought was needed to piece together that particular mystery. Cole was the culprit, who else? And didn’t that just figure. He carried an arsenal on his body at all times, hung out at clubs meant for adults, and fought monsters on a nightly basis. Of course he could pick a lock.
I dressed, dried my hair as best I could and gave my reflection a quick inspection. All I could do was grimace. As pale as I usually was, I was now pallid. There were shadows under my eyes—eyes that were bigger than usual, with bruises circling underneath. I had road rash on the side of my jaw from when the zombies had pushed me onto the concrete.
While I would have loved a thousand pounds of makeup, a blow dryer and a straightening iron, plus professional stylists to ensure I used the tools wisely, I finally left the relative safety of the bathroom. A cloud of soap-scented steam followed me into the bedroom I’d been given. Small but comfortable, with clean blue sheets, lots of pillows and a—
Who cared about the room? Cole stood a few feet away from me, his arms crossed over his chest. Clearly he’d showered, too, because his hair was damp and slicked back from his face. He’d ditched his T-shirt and wore only a clean pair of jeans. Even his feet were bare. But his feet weren’t what I found myself staring at.
His chest was bronzed to perfection, ripped with muscle—and covered in crisscrossing scars. Some looked like teeth marks, some like claw marks.
He had a myriad of beautiful tattoos, a few designs but mostly words that were scripted just below each of his collarbones. On both of his arms was a grim reaper’s scythe. Each staff began at his wrists and stretched all the way up, with the hooks ending on his chest, just over the names. There was a trail of dark hair that led from his navel to below the waist of those low-hanging jeans.
“Should I pull on a shirt?” he asked with a hint of amusement.
I will not blush. “No.” He’d be doing the world a favor if he never wore a shirt again, but I wasn’t going to tell him that part. “You’re fine.”
“I’m glad you think so.”
Okay, so I blushed. “I didn’t mean…that was… Oh, never mind!” I was too frazzled to be witty.
He chuckled.
“So what do the words mean?” I asked.
“They’re names,” he said, fingers brushing over the ink. “Friends I’ve lost in the fight against the zombies.”
A way to honor them, I realized, and in that moment I knew I would one day have the names of my family tattooed somewhere on my body. “My first day of school, Kat mentioned that two boys in your group died from some kind of disease last year. Did that have something to do with the zombies?”
He nodded. “They were bitten and couldn’t fight the infection.”
An ice-cold lump formed in my throat. “I was bitten.”
“Yeah, but I administered the antidote in time, saving you from having to fight the toxin. You remember a sting in your neck, right after I found you, right? You’ll be fine.”
I did remember a sting. Gradually the lump melted and I warmed. “You’re sure?”
“Positive.”
Well all right, then.
“Come on.” He held out his hand. “You want the rest of your questions answered, I’m sure.”
Overjoyed that that was still an option, I closed the distance and linked our fingers. The calluses on his palms comforted me, reminding me of his strength and his ability to take down anyone or thing that threatened us.
He led me into the living room, where Frosty, Mackenzie, Bronx and two people I’d never met waited. They all stopped what they were doing and got real quiet the moment they spotted me. When their gazes moved to my hand, still joined with Cole’s, they donned rabid-mean expressions.
I tried to extract myself but Cole held tight. He lifted his chin in a sign of pure stubbornness, kinda reminding me of, well, me. “You got something to say?” he demanded of the group.
They sure did. A rapid-fire conversation ensued.
Frosty: “She shouldn’t be here.”
Cole: “Maybe not, but she is.”
Unknown boy number two: “We know nothing about her.”
I’d call him Spike. His dark brown hair stuck out all over his head, as if he’d come into contact with a very mean light socket.
Cole: “We’ll learn.”
Mackenzie: “She’s a liability. She’ll tattle.”
Cole: “Please. I practically had to torture the information I do have from her.”
Unknown boy number one: “What about the mind-screw she was doing on you?”
I’d call him Turd. No explanation needed.
Cole: “Apparently I was doing the same to her. We don’t know what’s causing those visions or why, but they’re happening to both of us.”
Spike: “And you trust everything she says?”
Cole: “Look, she stays and that’s final.”
Everyone else: grumbling and muttering.
I noticed Cole had ignored the question about trusting me. “Thanks for the welcome, everyone,” I said. “Really. Means a lot to me.”
That earned me several (more) glares. Cole squeezed my hand, but whether it was in comfort or in warning, I could only guess—and I guessed warning. His friends were important to him, and he wouldn’t want me to smart-aleck.
I once again tried to pull from his grip, and he once again held on with vise-tightness.
“Try to get away now,” he muttered. “Dare you.”
“I wasn’t trying to get away,” I muttered back. “I just wanted a free hand to slap you with.”
He tried not to grin as he pointed out, “You have a free hand.”