She giggles. “Yeah, I think Tate knows your intent.”
The suits corral me.
I glare at them. “Buzz off,” I bark.
One grins. “Don't care if you're a zombie, ass wipe. Our orders are clear: protect the talent. Period.”
I rotate slowly, giving him my full attention, putting Deegan at my back. “I'm having a private conversation, if you're too dense to get that.”
In the next second, I'm flat against the wall, pancake style.
His arm is stiff in front of him, and he’s grinning from ear to ear. “Telekinetic, dick lick.”
I try to lift an arm. It's a no-go.
Shit.
“Hey!” Deegan says, indignant. “This is my fiancé. Put him down.”
Fiancé now? Nice.
“Jorge, put the zombie down. You don't have to do the wall thing.”
The smug fuck grins again. “But I like the wall thing.”
“I don't.” Deegan puts her hands on her hips.
The other guy goes on, more nervous this time. Smart man. “Hey, man, did you get briefed on the talent?”
He gives Deegan a cursory glance, instantly dismissing her and returning his attention to me. “Nah. Not important. Subduing the threat is.”
I strain against the invisible force this guy's putting out.
Deegan's eyes flash low emerald fire. “A lot of people see my packaging and think I'm this small woman who can't do anything.”
Jorge gives her a glance.
His power flickers, and I lift an arm.
He jerks his eyes back to me, and the arm slaps against the wall. Hard. Of course, I'm undead, so that shit doesn't even sting.
“Then their body parts disappear,” Deegan says in a low voice of warning.
His eyes snap back to her, narrowing. “What are you talking about?”
“She's an Atomic. I mean, that's what they're labeling her talent.”
He lifts an overgrown shoulder. Too much time at the gym. Bet his legs are like toothpicks.
My teeth click together, and I gnash them. Love to get at this guy.
He jerks his jaw back. “What the fuck is that?”
Olʼ Jorge's tie disappears as the air crackles with ozone, leaving a ragged hole in the shirt underneath it. And forget manscaping with Deegan around.
A large bald patch where his chest hair used to be is suddenly as smooth as a baby's bottom.
I chuckle. This is tight as shit.
“Crap,” the other guy says, backing up.
Exactly.
Jorge looks down, sees the hole, and makes a low gurgling sound of surprise.
His arm falls, and I crumple. My hands and knees hit the unforgiving floor, and I bounce up.
Deegan has that look she gets on her face when she's zapping away. Kinda dreamy.
Shit.
“Deegan.”
She keeps staring at Jorge, who's arrogant expression has been replaced with a horrified one.
Love that, but Deegan might finish the job. These guys are part of our way out of this mess, and I don't want to find out how zapping them would affect her new standing.
Tate said we could be blinked back to my world, witness protection style.
New name. House. New identity. I want to be back in my own time. Where they're no zombies, yet.
Except me, of course.
What girl doesn't want that white picket fence? Can't say I don't want it, either.
Even undead, I want the future that was stolen from me.
I can't get Timmy back, but I can salvage something pretty good from the wreckage.
“Deegan,” I say loudly.
“Huh?” she asks, semi-dazed. “Oh...” Her mossy-green eyes clear, and she hugs me, coming back to the now.
“I was going to make him disappear.”
Stroking the back of her head, I say, “Yeah, saw that, baby.”
Deegan tips her head back. “Thank you.”
I cradle her face. “Welcome.”
“I don't want to guard that,” Jorge says, backing up, frantically touching his bare chest.
My anger is directed at him this time, and I look at Jorge over Deegan's head. “She's not a that. She's a pregnant female.”
He snickers, braver now that he's twenty feet away. “Yeah, knocked up with a zombie baby.”
Should've told him distance doesn't matter to Deegan—if she can sight you—you're history.
Okay. This fucker.
“No,” Deegan says, hand to my chest. And I literally can't move against her direct command. Though I've never made a stink about it, right now there's an ass that needs to be kicked, and I've got the toad in my crosshairs.
She turns to him. “Drextel Tate won't like your ideology.”
Jorge lifts his chin, clearly non-plussed. “Yeah, heard you're numbered, so what?”
“She can outthink you too, Jorge.”
Jorge flicks hard eyes to his partner. “Stop talking.”
He shrugs. “Just as soon as you stop digging a deeper grave.” He throws up his hands. “I don't want to be buried with you.”
Tate walks out into the hall, catches sight of Deegan, and strides toward us. He notices his “guards” and dismisses them. “Deegan, glad to find you. Is everything okay?”
Deegan looks at Jorge.
His expression shows he thinks she's going to tell Tate everything about our little interchange.
But Deegan doesn't. Even though Jorge has made a judgement about her, he doesn't know anything about Deegan.
I know I would've loved her even if I hadn't been her zombie. And that's the difference.
Deegan gives Tate a radiant smile, taking my hand.
I guess I'm forgiven. I keep my fat trap shut unless some more emotion gets flung my way, and I fumble that pass as bad as the last one.
“Yes, I'm ready.”
Tate gives a curt nod. “We have what Mr. Rasmussen asked for, if that suits you?”
“What Mitchell asked for?” she asks, inky brows drawing together in confusion.
I shake my head. “Not what. Who,” I clarify.
“Oh,” she says, surprised. “Who?”
With a sly smile, I answer, “Justice of the peace.”
Deegan lays her face against my hand, warming me. Every ache and scrape that was almost too small for the naked eye to see mends under the weight of her touch.
I give a last scathing glance to the putzes behind us and walk back to the interior of the Randoms for Humanity headquarters.
Ready to do the most important deed of my life.
Or my death.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Deegan
I've been such a fool.
Mitchell's a great guy, and I dismissed his desire to be with me forever because I was concentrating on someone knowing something in advance of him asking me.
Rising my eyes, I take note of bulbous, bright LED lights pulsing rhythmically around the ceiling in long lines of draped cords. They twinkle like captured stars.
I blink, just a normal, human surprised shutting of eyelids.
Pax, Tara, Jonesy, and Sophie are already all lined up.
And dressed up.
I turn to Mitchell and whisper, “What's going on?”
He leans down, tickling the shell of my ear with his warm breath. “They're all taking the plunge.”
“Jonesy would never get married,” I say, not able to keep the awe out of my tone.
Jonesy overhears, grinning. “Doinʼ it, darlinʼ. Just had to find the right chick. Besides”—he gives Sophie a long, solemn look as he lays his palm on her still-flat stomach—“I wanna do right by her.”
Sophie smiles, circling her arms around his waist, and Jonesy leans his head against Sophie's temple.
“Too sappy for words. I'd be drinking if I wasn't already knocked up,” Tiff comments with a hard eyeroll.
We laugh.
Tara and Mitchell look at each other. Then Mitchell shifts his gaze
to Pax. “I hate being related, but I guess the fates have other ideas.” His words are hard, but I can hear the olive branch in his voice.
“Can't deny it, bud. You're marrying my sister, and I'm marrying yours.”
“Better have,” Mitchell growls, and I put a steadying hand on his shoulder.
“I didn't do it because I was threatened by your ass.” He looks at Tara. “I did it because we work. Tara gets me—and we're bringing a life into this shit mess.”
Mitchell stares a full minute at my brother. “But you're gonna make it better, right?”
Pax nods. “That's the plan. And there's gonna be something for our kid to look forward to.”
“Kids,” Tara says, leaning her head against Pax's arm.
He just smiles, but he moves forward. Then Mitch and my brother meet with a one-pump handshake.
There are more important things than rivalry going on here. We're sharing something rare. Having children on our earth, at this time, is a special privilege.
Pax and I know it, and every person from this earth knows it. But I'm pretty sure that Tara and Mitchell—from the earth of plenty and a time where everyone could breed like alley cats—don't feel exactly the same.
Ron and Kim are witnesses, without fingerprints or a history on this earth, but their lives will begin too, free from bot and Brad Thompson.
I give Gramps a glance, but his eyes are on Kim. I feel my lips curl. Maybe he can find happiness too.
A guy wearing a white wig with artificially perfect ringlets stands near everyone, holding an older version of a pulse-pad.
Tate whispers something to him, and he nods.
“Judge Regional Mason residing,” Tate announces.
We stand in front of him, and I self-consciously push the stray wisps of my hair behind my ears. I don't look how I thought I would look like on my wedding day, that's for sure. In fact, I'm sort of a big mess.
But I'm excited.
Mom steps up beside me. “Drextel's not too bad of a man, Deegan.”
She hands over a sparkling ring.
I gasp, meeting her eyes, afraid to touch the beautiful bauble. “My aunt's. Before... yʼknow, what happened.”
Mom's talking about when her dad killed his own sister. Our gazes lock, and hers shines with remembered sadness of a history that transpired before I was born. Of something good coming from something bad.
“It was my grandmother's wedding set.”
A cluster of white gold with carved, half-moon designs frame modest-sized diamonds. They sparkle and wink in the dimly lit space of all those artificial stars above our heads.
Mitchell plucks it from Mom's hand, and she retreats without a word, giving us our moment.
Judge Mason’s voice is the only sound that fills the silence of the room.
Three rings are slipped on the third finger of the left hands of three women, then the judge says the phrase that pronounces us man and wife. Or men and wives.
We kiss.
I think Mitchell’s and mine lasts a little longer than the othersʼ.
And my new life begins.
Better than the one I had before.
*
Mitchell's earth, 2011
“What's that?” I point at a clear little house of glass with a strange black box inside, covered with a keypad of numbers. Something hangs on one side of the box with a metal spiral cord. The door to enter folds at its center. I frown. It's such a weird looking thing.
“Telephone booth,” Mitchell says with a short laugh.
We're at a crosswalk, and there's no small vibration, like a hiccup behind my ear, to signal that a vehicle is overhead.
Actually, even that mode of street traffic has been gone for ten years. In my time.
Cars are far above us in 2049. But when they pass, we'll sometimes get an echo of the long-forgotten tech from when hovers were first introduced.
Here, the cars travel on the ground. It's beyond weird to see hundreds of cars whizzing by on roads and highways that I know will be ghost roads in a few decades.
I stare at the little, man-sized glass house and wrack my brain for telephone booth.
Then it comes to me. Oh, yeah, pre-pulse, where you had to actually pick up a handheld plastic receiver and put it to your ear. Gramps has one, but phone companies no longer support such things.
And here, they had one for public use. The need for a phone was that large.
A green walking figure flashes on the lighted sign across the street, and Mitchell tugs me along after him.
The cars stop, but my gaze mistrustfully stays on them.
What if they just plow forward, crushing us?
Mitchell keeps moving forward, utterly unconcerned by all those chrome, fossil-fuel guzzling cars.
Beep, beep, beep, sings the little green walking man. The beeps speed up, the increments between each sound getting shorter, and that's when I understand the sound and the speed of the little green man's legs pumping faster means we should hurry.
Mitchell does, and I'm all too happy to attempt to match his long stride and get out of the middle of the street.
We reach the other side, and an orangish-red hand takes the place of the green man.
Cars roar, eating up the space we were just occupying.
I turn away with a small shiver, putting my hand over the small baby bump I've acquired in the two months we've been living as Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell Ramsey.
Mitchell and I thoroughly explored how we wanted to live in this time. We both said no to Kent.
Too many memories.
We're living up north in Sedro-Woolley, a town nestled at the cascade foothills and nearly two hours from Kent.
It's a metropolis in our time. Here it still hangs on to rural by the skin of its teeth.
Randoms for Humanity footed the bill for a huge old house that Mitchell and I fell in love with. Only the bones remained of the architecture. Small animals had taken up residence and gnawed the plaster to the two-by-four skeleton beneath.
We lived in the small downtown section of Sedro-Woolley while workers poured in an out of the place.
Snakes of electrical and pipes for plumbing were strung through and plugged in at all the strategic places.
Drywall was hung.
New roofing and siding were installed.
The house was painted pale-lemon yellow with green shutters, trim and a deep-red door.
Today is move-in day, but Mitchell veers off from where his vintage car is parked and heads to Starbucks.
A bell on the door rings as we walk inside, and the clerk looks up, smiling when he sees us.
“Carmel frap for the lady?” he asks with a knowing smile.
“Perfect,” Mitchell says, cupping my cheek gently.
I never get tired of Mitchell spoiling me—and the sugary drinks that are still legal in this time. Before sugar is banned.
“And you? Nothing, as usual?” He smirks.
Mitchell nods, giving a small, noncommittal shrug.
Zombies don't eat.
Well... that's not exactly true. They do. But what they need isn’t on the menu at Starbucks.
Mitchell gifts me with one of his tender smiles.
I've gotten so used to them, I can't remember my life without them.
*
Pax
“Fetch!” I holler.
And like a black streak, Onyx chases the ball as if he's four years old, instead of nearing thirty.
“Don't know if he'll always be this way,” Dad muses from my elbow.
I straighten, waiting for Onyx to faithfully return with the tennis ball. We watch his tail swipe in the air as he soft mouths the ball.
Shrugging, I reply, “Maybe, but I want to take every minute I can.”
Dad looks over at Mom and Tara putting the finishing touches on supper.
I smirk, thinking about the crash course Tara's gotten on cooking. I'm totally the beneficiary of that trend. My appetite is legendary. But Grandpa Kyle says that's
due to my talent. Having blinking, Organic, Body, and AftD is too much physical taxation on the body without the extra fuel. His words.
He'd said, “It would be a physical burden to be you, Paxton.”
My parents thought that was really funny, having lived through all my excess.
Tate's got a setup not too far away from Mom and Dad's, where Tara and I can live. I glance at her just as Onyx bumps my hand for another toss.
Can barely tell she's pregnant. Not like Sophie, who they know is having twins. (Hell, she looks like she's having triplets to me.)
Not that I'm dumb enough to say.
Jonesy likes to say she's bigger than his house he moved her into. She hits him, and he's quiet for a second or two. Then he's back to teasing. Because he's Jones.
Tiff still isn't drinking, and her stomach hardly shows. But there's hope in her eyes for the first time since I've known her, and Uncle John whistles to himself for no reason.
I chuck the ball again. Onyx chases it, sending clumps of grass flying behind his paws.
Putting my hands on my hips, I wait for Onyx to trek back. “What about our guests in the basement?”
“Tate says you can blink them back to bot.”
We exchange a glance. “I can't let that fucker Easter get them.” I frown. “Actually, I can't believe Sanction didn't find them.”
Dad's nod is resigned. “Don't think they're used to searching the nooks and crannies of these old places. Think if we'd lived in a modern house, George and family would have been discovered.” Dad gives me a sideways glance, hesitant to say his next words. Like he won't be able to take them back once they're out there. “Can't say I'm crazy about you returning them, even however brief a time it'll take to put them to rest in bot.”
Yeah.
I look at Tara again and think about her small warm body clinging to me at night. I swallow.
Loving people sucks. Because I do love her now. Just happened. Can't seem to get out of loving people. That vulnerability seems to be built in to life.
I turn to Dad. “I'll do it soon. Drextel says he has people who can come with me. Shouldn't take longer than ten minutes, tops.”
Dad gives an uneasy glance around us, and Onyx whines. He's really intuitive to Dad's emotions. We've all noticed. “You're right, in theory.”
I snort. “But our theories get blown to smithereens.”
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