“Maybe I should come see you. You working tonight?” Charlie paused before shaking her head. “No, not tonight. I’m finally starting my apprenticeship with Dad. It will have to be tomorrow.”
“Apprenticeship?” Despite the unease in my stomach, I couldn’t help giving Charlie a questioning look. I’d always thought she followed Al around just for show.
“Yeah, Dad has been on me to make a decision about my future. Then there are the lectures from Mom.” She rolled her eyes like it was the most tedious thing she’d ever had to deal with, which was probably true, but there was a small smile on her lips that gave her away. “I finally gave in. I’m excited, I guess.”
“That’s good.” It was nice that someone had some direction. Now, I wish I’d taken Joshua up on the offer of an apprenticeship two years ago. It would have given me access to the CDC if nothing else.
“Are you working tomorrow night?” Charlie asked hopefully.
“Yeah. Every night.” Every day, every night. I never got a break. Just thinking about it weighed me down.
“If I came by, maybe you could introduce me to Donaghy.”
My feet stopped moving. Seriously? She watched me out of the corner of her eye, trying to act subtle. She missed her target by a mile, though. It wasn’t a surprise that Charlie would want to meet Donaghy, he was hot and any sane person could see it, but for some reason it took me by surprise.
“Meg?” She turned her whole face toward me and shot a questioning look my way. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” I started walking again. “Yeah. I’ll introduce you.”
A pang squeezed my insides, but I ignored it. Donaghy had walked away from me because he was leaving soon, so it only made sense that he wouldn’t let anything happen with Charlie. Still… I looked her up and down, and I couldn’t help feeling a little inadequate. Charlie was exotically gorgeous.
“What’s going on?” She narrowed her eyes on me. “Is something happening between you and Donaghy?”
“No,” I said, a little too fast.
When her eyebrows shot up, I knew she wasn’t buying it. “Holy shit! That’s great.” Charlie beamed at me. “Now I want to meet him even more.”
“Nothing is happening.” We reached the intersection where I needed to turn and stopped walking. “I’m serious.”
“Okay.” Charlie started was smiling from ear to ear as she walked backward, heading down the opposite street. “I totally believe you. I’m still coming, though.”
I sighed. “Okay.”
“See you tomorrow, then?” Charlie called as she spun on her heel and headed down the street.
“Yeah,” I mumbled, shaking my head.
She waved once before trotting off, and I let out a sigh.
Chapter Nineteen
Donaghy
My night in Dragon’s Lair was restless and not nearly as refreshing as sleeping at the Regulator’s house had been. My guards, who had barely been able to drag themselves into the bar after their night of partying, were still passed out when I woke. The snores the younger one let out were nasal and deep, and seemed to echo off the cement walls of the room. The sunlight that shone in through the one small window was low, telling me it wasn’t nearly time for me to drag my ass out of bed, but no matter what I did, I couldn’t block the snores out enough to get my body to relax.
“Asshole,” I muttered as I rolled over and glared at the guard, whose mouth was wide open.
The door that led to the holding room was cracked, and between snores the sound of distant voices was just audible. They were deep, but not loud enough for me to make out their words. Not that I cared what they had to say. I just knew it meant Dragon was already up and I could get some breakfast. The prepackaged food he’d given me at every other meal tasted like shit, but at least it kept my stomach from growling the way it constantly had in DC.
I slid out of bed and headed across the room, not bothering to be quiet. Not only did I not give a shit if I woke up my guards, but I was pretty sure that a zombie horde couldn’t have roused them at the moment.
The voices grew louder when I stepped into the other room, and even though I could only catch a word here and there, I knew with certainty that one of the men was Dragon. What I wasn’t sure about was who he was talking to.
I moved through the dark holding room and past the empty cages. My footsteps were quiet, barely more than a slap against the stone floor. The closer I got, the louder the voices became, and for some reason that I couldn’t quite put my finger on, I found myself straining to listen. They wouldn’t be able to hear me coming, not with the noise they were making, and for some reason I wanted to take a moment and listen. Something about the few words I’d been able to catch had my interest piqued.
When I reached the door I stopped and held my breath, waiting to find out if I’d be able to hear anything through the thick wood.
“I want ‘em out!” The voice of a man I didn’t recognize boomed through the room.
“I know you’re worried, but we can’t rush this,” Dragon said, his own tone much quieter. Calmer. Like he was trying to reassure the other man. “They’re safe for now.”
“They ain’t safe. Nobody is safe here. Them assholes have got eyes everywhere.”
“I don’t know what you think is going to happen, but I’m watching them.”
“An accident is gonna happen. A breach. A damn flu. Hell, you of all people know they don’t give a shit. They can snatch somebody up like that—” The click of fingers being snapped cut through the words. “—and say whatever they want.”
“I’m keeping an eye on them.”
“It ain’t ‘nough. We gotta get out while we can.”
“Are you willing to leave Axl behind?”
Axl. The name made my heart beat faster, and I pressed my ear against the door harder. That was Meg’s dad, but how Dragon was involved and who he was talking to was a fucking mystery.
“No.” Silence followed, but it was brief. “But I know he’d want me to if it meant keepin’ everybody else safe.”
“Trust me.” Dragon’s voice was calmer than I’d ever heard it, and his tone reminded me of someone who was talking to a hysterical child. “Have I ever let you down? I’ve watched after Glitter, haven’t I? Just like you asked.”
There was a pause, and when the other man spoke again, something about his voice made me think he was smiling. “She’s a good girl, ain’t she?”
“She is. So is Meg. I promise that we will do everything in our power, but we need more time. My contact on the outside is getting the supplies together, but it’s going to be a while before we have enough manpower and explosives. The CDC is a fortress.”
Explosives? The CDC?
“What the hell?” I muttered just as the man in the other room said, “You got me out.”
“It took us almost twenty years,” Dragon said, his tone wracked with guilt.
“We don’t got that long. Understand? What they’re doin’ now is bigger. Shit. You wouldn’t believe the things I seen in there.”
“I know.”
Silence followed, and I held my breath again, waiting. But all I could hear was the sound of footsteps and a few muffled words here and there. After a second, I took a deep breath and eased the door open. Carefully. Slowly. When it was wide enough for me to get a good look out, I peered around the corner. Dragon and another man were behind the bar, still talking, but quieter now. The other guy was older. Lots of gray hair and a beard that matched, both of them wild.
Was this the man who had given Meg the note? It was possible, but how was Dragon mixed up in all this? And what did Glitter have to do with it?
Shit.
I stepped back before they spotted me and stood in the darkness of the room, trying to sort it all out. None of it made sense, and the more I learned about the situation, the more questions I seemed to have. I couldn’t imagine how Meg felt.
I was still standing in the same place when the loud boom of someone
knocking echoed through the bar. Dragon swore and I made my move. It seemed like a good opportunity to get another look at—and maybe talk to—the man with the gray hair.
I pushed the door open and stepped out just as the gray-haired man disappeared down the back hall. Dragon was heading for the front door, and when he spotted me, he waved me over. I would have rather followed the other man, but since I didn’t have a good excuse, I headed after Dragon.
He ripped the door open and stepped back when the scent of death floated into the room. “What the hell?”
“A delivery for you. For the fight.” A deep voice said. “In addition to the two you planned to throw in.”
Dragon’s body was blocking my view, but I didn’t miss it when his dark eyes grew large. I took a step closer so I could get a good look, and when I did, I nearly shit my pants. Two men wearing enforcer’s uniforms flanked a zombie so tall that they only came up to his shoulders. And these weren’t short men. Six feet, probably. But the thing between them, which was desperately trying to break free of its chains, had to be seven or eight inches taller than that.
“You have to be kidding me,” Dragon said, his eyes narrowing on the two men. “I like to keep things fair.”
“This isn’t a request.”
Dragon stepped back as the guards pulled the zombie through the door. My feet felt like lead when I moved out of their way, and I couldn’t take my eyes off the creature they were dragging past me. He was thin, but freakishly tall and new. In life I would have been able to take him without a problem, but depending on what strain of the virus he’d been infected with, he could be aggressive. Tough to beat even.
And there would be two others in there with me.
Dragon and I stayed next to the door while the guards pulled the dead man through the bar and into the other room.
“Looks like they finally decided to get rid of me,” I mumbled, shaking my head.
Dragon’s eyes moved from the door the zombie had just been pulled through so they could focus on me. “I think there’s more to it than that.” His gaze went past me, to the dark hallway his friend had just disappeared down. “I think this is a message.”
“What kind of message?” The only message the government would want to send me was the one that said it was time for me to die. I refused to go easily, though.
Dragon shook his head instead of answering.
When he walked away, I didn’t move. Despite what he’d said, I couldn’t really see how this would affect anyone other than me. I was the asshole who was going to get his throat ripped out by the dead man’s teeth.
Chapter Twenty
Meg
My crew had been MIA all day.
It was trash week, which meant a group of ten of us picking up stinking bags of garbage, most of which had been sitting in the sun for weeks by the time we got to them. More often than not, they’d also been ripped open by animals or people desperate for leftover scraps of food. Even with gloves on my hands, a mask to cover my nose and mouth, and an orange jumpsuit, the stink seemed to penetrate my skin.
By noon I was drenched in sweat and a hundred percent positive that I’d never feel cool—or clean—again. The worst part: this would be my assigned job for the week. That was how long it took to collect all the trash in the city.
I was beat by the time the shift was over. My arms and legs were shaking when I stripped my filthy clothes off and stepped under the hot stream of the decontamination shower. It would have been refreshing if the water was cool, but they claimed the chemicals they sprayed us down with needed hot water to work well. I was pretty sure they were just trying to torture us a little more.
I spotted my boss on the way out, my hair still dripping and stinking of chemicals, and my body so sore that all I wanted to do was go home and curl up in a ball. Still, I couldn’t make myself leave without finding out what had happened to my crew.
“Hanson!”
The boss stopped and looked me up and down, frowning like he was upset to see me standing in front of him alive. “What do you want James?”
“My crew. The guys you sent me out with yesterday. Where are they?”
Hanson looked away. “Quit.”
“Quit?” All three in one day? “Why?”
“Don’t know, don’t care. All it did was piss me off and put me behind.” He headed off without saying anything else.
They quit…
I didn’t believe it. Not only did it not make sense that all three of them would quit at the same time, but Matt had worked on the maintenance crew since he’d turned sixteen. Why, I didn’t know, but I doubted he would just up and quit.
My stomach was uneasy the whole way home, and it got even worse when I found Mom once again passed out on the couch. This time, I left her where she was.
The feeling of dread stayed with me as I showered for the second time, trying to get the chemical smell out of my hair by using more shampoo than I should, and the worry hadn’t eased by the time I left the apartment—once again wearing my black dress.
When I arrived at the bar, Donaghy was nowhere in sight, and a part of me was relieved. I was so preoccupied that I could barely focus on anything other than the thoughts in my head, and I had serious doubts I would be able to carry on a conversation right now, let alone try to unravel how I was feeling about him and the kiss we’d shared last night.
Like me, Helen was silent and tense. She didn’t look my way when she slipped behind the bar, and even the drunks didn’t get much of her attention tonight. Her blue eyes seemed to be continuously focused on the door across the room, and when she held her cigarette to her lips, there was a slight tremor in her hand.
I wondered if she and Dragon had a fight.
At first glance Glitter seemed to be her normal, chipper self. She chatted with the patrons and shot Helen a few concerned looks that seemed to confirm my first impression about the older waitress having fought with her lover. After a while, though, as the night got busier, I caught Glitter looking my way a few times too. There was pity in her eyes, and concern. I couldn’t figure out why she was looking at me, but the expression fed the heaviness in my stomach. It only got worse when Dragon entered the ring and the crowd moved away from the bar. I turned to face the older waitress, only to find her staring at me with the same expression in her eyes.
My heart beat faster. Something was going on, only I didn’t know what.
I hadn’t seen Donaghy yet. Had something happened to him?
No, Glitter and Helen would have told me. This couldn’t be about the fighter. Dragon was in the ring now, getting ready to call him out, which meant that Donaghy was fine. Nothing had happened to him.
Then why was Helen looking at me like I was on the way to a funeral?
Dragon was still talking when the doors to the back room burst open. I turned toward the sound, hoping to get a glimpse of Donaghy so I could reassure myself that he was okay. The big men who doubled as bouncers pulled the cart forward, and the crowd parted for them. I couldn’t see much from my place behind the bar, not through the crowds, but it had never really mattered to me before. There was never really much to see. Except today, that is. Today was different.
There were three zombies on the cart tonight, an extra treat for the spectators. The first two were small and nothing special as far as I could tell, although not much was visible other than the tops of their heads. The third zombie, however, was so tall that he dwarfed the other two.
“Do you see how big that one is?” I said, not even sure who I was talking to.
My eyes were on the dead as the men pulled the cart forward. Not only was Dragon upping the odds by adding a third zombie, but he was throwing in one that had to be taller than even Donaghy.
“Wasn’t Dragon’s choice.” Helen’s gravelly voice came from my other side. When I glanced her way, the waitress’s hand was shaking even harder than it had earlier as she took a drag off her cigarette. “Somebody brought that one in this morning. Told Dragon he had
to add the thing to the fight today.”
“Who?” I asked, turning to face the older woman completely.
She didn’t meet my gaze as she sucked in another mouthful of chemicals. “Somebody high up. That’s all I know.” Smoke came out with the words, hitting me in the face, but I didn’t care.
Why would someone high up have any say in the fight? Why would they care?
The dread that had been sitting in my stomach all day grew until I found myself wrapping my hands around my stomach. This had to be about Donaghy. Had they decided to finally finish him off? It would make sense, especially if they’d found a new fighter to showboat across what was left of the country.
By the time I turned back to face the ring, the zombies were chained up and ready for the fight. Donaghy made his way out of the back room and the crowd went nuts, screaming his name. Men and women slapped him on the back as he passed, but as usual, he kept his head down. The closer he got to the ring, the more my stomach ached.
I hadn’t gotten a chance to say goodbye to him, and I suddenly found myself wishing that I’d paid more attention to the atmosphere when I’d come in tonight. I’d been too preoccupied with what was happening in my own life, and now I’d missed my opportunity.
When Donaghy stepped into the ring and took his place at Dragon’s side, I saw that I’d been right. The third zombie was a good six inches taller than the fighter. Now that I was able to get a better look at the creature, though, I was relieved to see that the zombie was thin. Long and lanky. He might have towered over Donaghy, but he was all decaying arms and legs. Maybe there was still a chance.
“I’ve never even met anyone that tall,” Glitter whispered.
“I have,” I said, my eyes on the lanky zombie as he pulled against his chains, trying to get at the fighter. “My uncle was—” The words died on my lips when all the air whooshed from my lungs in one violent burst.
Joshua had been six feet seven inches tall, but thin. Gangly. Just like the zombie in the ring was. He’d died shortly after Dad disappeared. Some kind of accident in the lab. He’d been exposed to the virus…
Twisted World Series Box Set | Books 1-3 & Novella Page 20