I dropped my eyes. There I was, complaining about my parents when he hadn’t even had true parents. I wished I could take back what I said. Because deep down, I knew how lucky I was. For all our conflicts, I knew my parents loved me.
And that was X’s point. He was saying he couldn’t love me. He didn’t even know how. And he was convinced that’s what I wanted.
As I gazed into his blue eyes, all my arguments fell away. He was right. I wanted him to love me. Because I was falling for him.
Somehow, X knew me better than I knew myself. I guess that was his specialty—reading people.
I got up. “I’d better go.”
I wanted him to stop me, to ask me to stay for a while longer. But he was already heading for the door. “I’ll walk you down.”
“Don’t bother.” I closed the door behind me, harder than I’d intended. I hurried down the stairs, determined not to cry until I’d started driving.
When I got to the car, I glanced back and saw him standing in the window. We stared at each other for a long moment, frozen in time.
Then I got into the car and drove away.
Two weeks passed, two agonizing weeks. X sent me an occasional businesslike text updating me on the search for Bree. But he didn’t ask me to help find her, and he didn’t suggest we meet up.
I should never have gone over to his apartment that night. He’d sensed how I felt about him and sent me packing. At least he’d been honest with me. He could’ve tried to take advantage of my feelings for him. He could’ve said a few choice words and stripped me down, literally. But he hadn’t. He’d done the right thing.
The gang leader was a gentleman.
Which made me want him even more.
I should’ve waited for us to get to know each other better before pushing him for more. Maybe, over time, he’d have come to care about me too. Maybe he’d have realized that he could care for me despite his horrible childhood. I refused to believe that he wasn’t capable of loving someone. Not when I could feel his passion for helping people, and his devotion to his brother. No, X was perfectly capable of love. He just didn’t want to love me.
I told myself to put aside the romantic fantasy and get over him. That’s what I’d told so many girls on my radio show. If he can’t give you what you want, say thankyouverymuch and move on.
So why couldn’t I?
X had said I was unshakeable, but he was wrong about that. My feelings for him had shaken me to the core.
Every time I got a call, some part of me sparked, hoping it was him ready to smooth things over between us. Hoping he’d even want to meet for coffee. But he didn’t do that. And I might as well accept that he never would. He was probably relieved that I’d backed off.
I couldn’t trace how it happened, how I’d come to fall for him. I just knew that from the moment I’d seen him watching me that night at the bar—the night he’d saved Maria and me from Raul—I’d been hooked on him.
Hooked on a guy who wouldn’t even tell me his real name. Gotta love it.
“You’re out of it today,” Adriana said Monday in the cafeteria.
“I’m just tired.” The truth was that heartsickness had taken my sleep and my appetite. But I didn’t feel like admitting it.
Rory’s pimply face zoomed in close to mine. “Gabby might’ve contracted the zombie plague. Look, she’s not even blinking!”
“Very funny,” I said, pushing his face away. “I told you, I’m exhausted. No need to drive a stake through my skull.”
“I still say that’s what happened to Bree,” Rory said. “According to ZombieSighting.com, undead activity in Miami has spiked recently.”
Alistair glared at him. “We told you not to joke about Bree.”
Rory looked offended. “I wasn’t joking. And even if I was, why is everyone acting like she was a saint? Remember when she bumped our table? Do you think my mom could get the Coke stain out of my pants? Noooo.”
“Bree didn’t bump our table,” I said. “Ellie and Karina did.”
Rory shook his head adamantly. “No way. I saw her do it.”
I wanted to knock Rory’s Coke over his current pair of pants, but Alistair gave me a look that said not to bother.
“Guess what’s coming to town on Halloween,” Alistair said, changing the topic. “It’s going to blow your minds.”
Rory’s eyes bulged. “But I thought it wasn’t coming to Miami!”
Alistair grinned. “They added a Miami date due to popular demand. I saw it on the website last night.”
Adriana and Caro did a Squee!
I looked left and right. “Is anybody gonna fill me in?”
Alistair turned to me. “Have you ever dreamed of spending Halloween trapped in a mall full of zombies?”
“Um, not really. Have you?”
“Indeed I have. And my dream is about to come true. It’s called ZombieMall. It’s a chance for people like us to test our skills. To see if we can really survive.”
“Holy.” A shiver went through me. I couldn’t tell if it was excitement or nerves.
“It’s kind of like a fire drill, but with zombies,” Rory said cheerfully. “It’s gonna be awesome! The only thing is they don’t let you bring weapons of any kind—not even wooden or plastic ones. So it’s just you, your bare hands, and a horde of hungry zombies.”
“We should start strategizing,” Alistair said. “I’ll print out the schematics of the mall so we can prepare.”
Once we’d finished eating, we went upstairs to grab our books from our lockers, then parted to go to our classes. My teacher launched into a lesson about the Boer War, but I sat there, in a different world. For the thousandth time, I thought about texting X to apologize for coming over that night. But what good could it do? He’d think I was pathetic.
I was jolted back to the present when I heard shouting and commotion outside the classroom. My first thought was Zombie attack! but I shook the silliness out of my head. I was spending way too much time with Rory. It was probably just a fight.
Our teacher rushed out of the class, and a bunch of us flooded into the hallway to see what was happening. I heard the words ambulance and seizure shouted back and forth between teachers.
I took several steps forward, straining to see inside the crowd. My hand covered my mouth. JC was on the ground, bucking uncontrollably.
Oh my God. What was happening to him?
EMTs arrived within minutes. By that time, the seizure had stopped, and JC was wheeled away on a gurney with a teacher by his side.
“It was a grand mal seizure,” Mom told us at dinner. She’d just gotten off the phone with Father Juan, who was at the hospital with JC’s parents. “They did a CT scan, and there hasn’t been any brain damage. He’s awake and talking normally.”
“Thank God,” my dad said. “I wonder what would bring that on. Did Father Juan say?”
Mom shook her head. “He asked for our prayers, and said there would be several weeks of recovery.”
“Several weeks?” Dad frowned. “But if he’s doing so well . . .”
“That’s code for rehab,” I said, figuring there was no use in keeping the secret anymore. Even if JC’s parents hadn’t known about his drug use, they’d know now.
Dad’s mouth fell open. “JC is using? I know he’s had some depression, but I never would’ve expected this. Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. He says his parents know about it.”
“Poor Camila.” Mom put her head in her hands. “How long has this been going on?”
“A few months.” Since the breakup, I didn’t add.
“What’s he on?” Dad asked.
“There’s this new psychedelic drug out there called Blings. I don’t know much about it except that it’s really addictive.”
Dad nodded grimly. “It’s a major problem at our school too. You haven’t tried it, have you?”
“Of course not.” I tried not to take offense at the question. He and mom were both shaken up. And
probably not half as shaken up as I was. I kept seeing JC shaking uncontrollably, his mouth wide open, his limbs thrashing.
“Well, this explains his behavior at our party.” Dad looked pointedly at my mom. “Gabby did say he’d been behaving erratically.”
“Yes, I suppose that explains it.” Mom slid me an apologetic look, but I just shrugged. I didn’t need something like this to prove my point.
ALL HALLOWS’ EVE
TONIGHT WAS THE NIGHT WE’D been waiting for. Halloween. We would prove our skills as zombie survivalists—or go down in a free-for-all of clawing hands and gnashing teeth.
I was hoping that being with my friends tonight would bring me out of my funk. With every day that passed, the pain of missing X hadn’t gone away. It sat there, like a dead weight on my chest. No matter what I did, it was there.
I tried to accept that we weren’t meant to be a couple, that we were meant to learn from each other and be better people for it. At least, that was the sort of thing the Paranormal Twins would say if they knew. Which they didn’t.
And then there was Bree. No matter how much I worried about her, it didn’t change a thing. She was still out of reach.
I needed to get out of my routine, to do something different. Hopefully, dodging zombies was just what I was looking for. It didn’t hurt that, since yesterday was Alistair’s birthday, we went to Adriana’s pre-ZombieMall to eat cake. After ZombieMall, Caro and I would be returning to Adriana’s for a sleepover. The plan: horror movies till dawn.
“Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday dear Alis-tair, Happy Birthday to youuuuuu!”
Alistair’s gaunt cheeks had a faint flush as we sang. Then he blew out all but one candle.
“Ha, one girlfriend!” Rory said. When we all looked at him, he explained sheepishly, “That’s just something my family says.”
I saw Alistair subtly glance over at Caro. Interesting. Was a romance brewing?
This was my first time at Adriana’s house. It was a sprawling ranch-style bungalow in an exclusive area of Coral Gables. Her family had a live-in housekeeper who stalked us throughout the house, cleaning any dirt our shoes left on the pristine floors. Adriana had never mentioned what her parents did for a living, but she’d said they were workaholics. Clearly their workaholism had paid off nicely.
Adriana’s massive kitchen was like something out of a home makeover show, with state-of-the-art everything. We sat on barstools around the granite island, digging into the two-tiered chocolate cake that Adriana and Caro had cut school that afternoon to make. As we ate and licked icing off our fingers, it hit me that these people were really my friends now, not just my default friends. They had stuck by me, even when everybody said I was the worst kind of snob.
Rory put his hands to his temples. “Holy simultaneous sugar rush and carb coma! Roar, God of Gaming, dangerously vulnerable to attack.” He sprawled out on the couch.
“This is excellent cake,” Alistair said, a small blob of chocolate icing sticking to the corner of his mouth. Caro reached up with a napkin to wipe it off, and he blushed.
Adriana leaned back in her chair. “I wish we could dress up in zombie makeup tonight. But we’re supposed to be the innocent victims.”
“Don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll be covered in fake blood by the time we get out of there,” Caro said.
“Hope not.” I was wearing my favorite black pants, black boots, and a purple Guess shirt.
Once we were finished with the cake, we cleared away the dishes, and Alistair spread out a map of the mall. “Let’s take one more look at the mall schematics. Rory, are you paying attention?”
“Yep. Go ahead.”
“The first few minutes will undoubtedly be a feeding frenzy—from what I’ve read, a third of participants are bitten in the first five minutes.”
“A third?” Rory said from the couch. “Screw that. Not for my thirty bucks.”
“We all need to head here,” Alistair slammed a finger down on the map, “to the north escalator, as quickly as possible. That gives us several potential hiding places, and a number of escape routes. Those who stay in the mall lobby won’t survive for long.”
“What about the lower-floor bathroom?” Adriana asked, studying the map. “Maybe we could hide in there during the initial frenzy.”
“Each bathroom has only one exit,” Alistair replied. “It’s more likely to become your tomb.”
“I’ll take that as a no,” Adriana said.
Soon after, we piled into my car and headed downtown. I parked in the underground lot, then we followed a crowd of people into the mall. Everybody was lining up near the Gap.
Anticipation rippled through the crowd. Several people dressed as movie ushers came by to take our tickets and give us waivers to sign.
“What the hell?” I said, flipping through the pages. “Some people get PTSD from this?”
Rory examined the waiver. “Check out the top of page three. It gives a list of possible reactions to extreme fear. Panic attacks. Uncontrollable outbursts of laughter or crying. Spontaneous bowel release.”
“Spontaneous bowel release?” I repeated. “That, I cannot handle.”
“Your bowels will be fine,” Alistair assured me. “You’re a cool cucumber, Gabby.” He looked pointedly at Caro. “When in doubt, clench your buttocks and count to ten.”
Caro smacked his arm playfully. “Worry about your own ass, not mine!”
Alistair laughed.
“The safe word is apple,” Adriana said. “Apple. Remember that.”
That made me no less nervous. “A safe word? I thought that was for S&M.”
“There’s a whole subculture of zombie sadomasochism, you know,” Alistair said thoughtfully. “We should explore that at our next meeting.” His face heated up. “I mean, in theory.”
We broke into laughter, but smothered it when we noticed that everyone around us had gone quiet. Ushers were locking the mall doors with heavy clicks behind us. Was it to keep the crowd outside from coming in, or to prevent the participants from getting out?
A cute usher with an eyebrow ring stood in front of the crowd. “Welcome, shoppers! Please go about your shopping as usual. That report you heard on the news about zombies being on the loose is, I assure you, totally—” Before he could finish, a zombie jumped out from behind him and tore into his neck. Blood sprayed out of his neck, drenching anyone within five feet of him, like it was shot out of a ketchup-filled cannon.
Everybody screamed. The blonde beside me practically deafened me.
The feeding frenzy had begun.
The crowd dispersed in all directions. Zombies were emerging from everywhere, limping toward their victims.
“Stay close together,” Alistair cautioned us. “This way!”
We quickly moved toward the downward escalator. We were almost there when a zombie popped out of a garbage can next to us. Rory gave a shriek, scrambling away from the threat. The zombie went after him, and Rory took off.
“Rory!” Alistair shouted. “Come back this way!”
The zombie chasing Rory wasn’t very fast, but then, neither was Rory. He kept tripping over victims, falling to the floor, then picking himself up and narrowly escaping with his life. The zombie chasing him broke character once and started laughing, then made a horrible groan and kept pursuing him.
“Why isn’t he circling back?” Caro said, exasperated. “We don’t have much time before . . .” We saw two zombies heading our way.
“If we leave Rory, he’s a goner,” Adriana said tragically. “But we can’t stay here. Let’s go!”
We hurried down the escalator. Once we got to the bottom, we heard an odd, bloodcurdling scream.
“That sounded like Rory,” I said.
“We shouldn’t have left him.” Caro was clinging to Alistair’s arm. “We might’ve been able to save him.”
“It’s survival of the fittest,” Alistair told her gravely. “In a situation like this, death is inevitable.”
He looked past her. “Run!”
A chunky zombie who made a show of eating his own entrails was dragging toward us. We darted under the escalators, huddling together like a football team.
I turned to Alistair. “What’s our next move?” I knew this was make-believe, but it was freaking me out. I could tell that Adriana and Caro felt the same. But Alistair was thriving under the pressure.
“We head for the food court,” he said. “With all of the tables, it’ll be harder for the zombies to touch us. Remember, we’re faster than they are. And we’re strongest when we stay together. Let’s go!”
We jogged toward the food court. A quick scan told us that three zombies were there, but that was still better that the screaming chaos upstairs. There were six guys in basketball jerseys, obviously with the same idea, fending off the zombies.
“Should we try to make an alliance?” Caro asked Alistair. “There’s strength in numbers.”
“No. Never. They could use us as zombie fodder. We can only trust ourselves. Wait a minute.” He blinked. “Is that zombie Rory?”
We stared in disbelief. Yes, it was Rory. He must’ve grabbed someone’s messy black wig and smeared blood all over his army fatigues.
Caro gasped. “Oh my God, Rory’s been turned!”
Alistair shook his head. “He turned himself. What he did was against ZombieMall rules. Only the actors are allowed to play zombies. It’s a liability issue.”
I shrugged. “He wanted to get his money’s worth.”
My phone rang. I took it out of my pocket to turn it off, but then my heart slammed against my ribs. It was X.
I could feel the others looking at me disapprovingly, but I had to answer it. “Hello?”
“Gabby, Bree is here,” X said.
With all the screaming going on, I could hardly hear him. Did he just say Bree was there?
“What? I can’t hear you.” I cupped a hand over my other ear and distanced myself from the group. “You see Bree?”
“I’m looking at her right now.”
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