My daggers slashed through one throat, two, six, then severed a spine, two, eight, rotted arms continually reaching for me. Blackened teeth chomped at me. At least no other whispers bombarded me. I arched backward, forward, avoiding being grabbed. I turned, stabbed. Turned, stabbed, staying in constant motion, knowing a single moment of hesitation would lose the battle for me.
I swung a zombie in front of me, using him as a shield as I spun around and stabbed his partner in the side. Black goo sprayed in every direction. Then I decapitated my shield.
No one else made a play for me, and I realized a wall of writing bodies had formed, blocking the others.
I climbed out, on alert, and my new targets stalked around me as if pondering the best course of action.
Some were mindless. These were not. And they weren’t just stalking around me, but were inching closer and closer, closing in. I exploded into motion—crap, I’d lost my daggers. I slammed the heel of one hand into the jaw of the zombie on my left, and the heel of the other into the throat of the zombie on my right.
As multiple other arms stretched out, I rolled to the ground, knocking several of the creatures off their feet. Coming up with two new guns, I aimed, fired, aimed, fired, taking no more than a second for each action, but always swinging my arms to ensure that I got the zombies closest to me.
I shot a zombie in the face, and both guns clicked. Out of bullets.
As a new horde approached me, I pressed the button on the side of the handles, causing blades to extend from under the barrel of the guns. Gnarled arms reached for me. I crossed the weapons in front of me and hit two creatures in the temple, twisted, hit two more, twisted, hit two more—
A hard fist slammed into my jaw.
Stupid stars, winking at me. Still I managed to duck, missing a second blow and forcing the zombie behind me to take the brunt of the impact. I straightened, grabbing another zombie, intending to use him as a shield, but his arm detached. I stumbled to the side, my momentum jacked. One of the creatures shackled my wrist and tugged me to the ground. Jerking free, but losing my hold on the weapons, I rolled, once again knocking down several of the zombies.
“Light up!” I shouted.
The smallest of flames flickered across my knuckles, and it was white. Relief speared me.
Footsteps behind me.
I twisted, reached out to brush my fingertips against the zombie closest to me. He didn’t ash, but he did hiss and stumble away from me.
He came back for more, the fool, and I did it again. This time, he batted my hand away, determined. Someone stepped up behind him, stopping him, attaching a metal collar to his neck. He sagged to the ground, motionless.
I looked around, confused.
Hazmats surrounded me, and they were snapping collars on the rest of the zombies.
Realization sent me backpedaling, but I ran into something solid. I turned, already swinging, and nailed a Hazmat in the chin. He stumbled to the side and would have given me a clear shot to my friends, but three other Hazmats took his place.
Before I realized what was happening, a collar was being snapped around my neck, sharp electrical pulses shooting through me. Suddenly I couldn’t move, could barely breathe. Panic filled me, joining the adrenaline rushing through me, and my body wasn’t sure how to react. Keep fighting, or shut down.
“What are you doing?” I heard Kat scream. “Let her go!”
She could see me? The collar, maybe...
Keep fighting. Definitely keep fighting. I tried to stand, but my legs refused to cooperate.
“You want me docile? Leave the girls out of this,” I tried to shout, but only gurgles escaped.
“Ethan?” Reeve gasped. “Help us!”
“You told me you wouldn’t hurt Reeve,” Ethan shouted.
Instant comprehension. He knew the Hazmats, because he was one of them.
He was the spy—no doubts about that now—and he had gotten some of his information from Reeve. When I’d lived with her, she’d known my schedule. The rest he must have gotten by watching me.
He’d covered his tracks very well. I still felt stupid. I should have known.
Someone crouched in front of me and removed the clear panel from his mask. He had to be in his fifties, with salt-and-pepper hair and thick lines around gunmetal-gray eyes.
He offered me a sad smile. “I hate that matters have come to this, Miss Bell, I really do, but my daughter is sick, and I suspect you’re going to be her cure.”
Chapter 25
Who Stole the Poisoned Tarts?
My spirit was dragged to my body, the collar removed by one Hazmat while several others forced the two halves of me to join. At the moment of connection, I jolted into motion, determined to fight these people with everything I had. Some of the Hazmats were not in spirit form, however, and one of them managed to slam a hard fist into my temple.
Dizzy...
Slowing...
Still I fought.
I heard a whoosh of air, felt a sharp stab of pain in my arm. I patted blindly at the spot and dislodged a small dart.
The dizziness spun out of control, helped along by...a drug? I swayed, bones liquefying, knees buckling. When I hit the ground, I was roughly hauled to my feet, my hands tied behind my back, and there was nothing I could do about it. A black hood was draped over my head, and I was stuffed into a vehicle, driven I don’t know how many miles. Time ceased to exist. There was only here, now. Darkness, rising panic. Where was Kat? Reeve?
I listened for movement—or whimpers—but heard only the wet slosh of tires, the zoom of passing cars and the soft hum of the radio.
Stay calm.
Easy to think, so difficult to do. Tremors racked me, and sweat beaded over my skin. The blood in my veins was somehow a dangerous mix of too hot and too cold.
After we parked, I was towed outside with the kind aid of two guards. We ascended a flight of steps and entered a pool of warmth. A heated building? I heard footsteps. A ding. We stopped, and the world around me jostled. We were in an...elevator?
Another ding. Again I was towed forward. We stopped several more times, and I imagined my surrounding went far beyond grim. A dungeon, like Mr. Ankh’s. A torture chamber, with wall after wall of deadly weapons once found in the Middle Ages.
We entered a room with a deluge of new sounds. Moans, groans, rattling metal.
Other prisoners?
Can’t stay here. Act! Gathering every ounce of strength I possessed, I struggled for freedom. I managed to head-butt one of my captors and trip another, and we all tumbled to the floor. Before I could run, someone fisted the back of my shirt and lifted me to my feet. The ties were cut from my wrists, and I was thrust forward. As I tripped to my hands and knees, I thought I heard Kat and Reeve gasp. Hinges groaned, and a door slammed. Trembling, I ripped off the hood and blinked as the bright light in the room stung my eyes.
We were in a laboratory. There were computers, strange equipment I didn’t recognize and a handful of humans wearing lab coats. There were also cages, with collared, frenzied zombies locked inside.
Locked inside—like me.
And in the cage next door to ours was a girl I’d thought dead. Jaclyn Silverstone.
She was dirty, her hair in tangles, her far-too-thin body stretched out on a cot. But she was alive, and in that moment, she stopped being my enemy and became my best ally.