by Laken Cane
She just had to accept it.
Chapter Nine
“Rune, Rune,” Lex called. “Wake up.”
And the blind Other reached into the dark fog and pulled her into the light.
“Know how I find the silence?” Rune muttered.
“What is she saying?” Raze asked.
“Nothing.” Lex’s voice was brusque. “She may have given Levi too much.”
Levi. Levi…who is Le—
Abruptly her mind settled inside her body with a dizzying finality, and she was Rune again.
She opened her eyes. The pain was gone. The crew stood above her, staring down with varying expressions of worry.
She frowned as an image of Llodra swam into her mind. Llodra was back in River County being…cared for by RISC. Soon he’d be dead and she…
Again, she frowned, uneasy.
“Rune?” Lex knelt beside her and took her hand. “Are you okay?”
She shook off thoughts of Llodra and sat up, shaky and weak. “How is Levi?”
Lex shrugged. “He’s quiet. But he’s still…” She shook her head.
“Fuck,” Rune said. “Fuck!”
Her blood decided whom to heal. It had healed Lex, but refused to heal Tim Emerson, the man who’d tried to burn her and the berserker’s child to death.
He languished in prison, tormented beyond belief because he was addicted to her blood and could not feed. But his brain tumor would kill him long before his cravings did.
She sat beside Levi, resting her hand on his chest. Please. Heal. Heal.
His dry skin was pitted and dotted with oozing sores. They were visible through the thin, lank strips of hair that remained on his skull, and were thick on his hands. Even between his fingers.
She leaned over and pressed her lips to his. “I’m sorry, Levi,” she whispered. So sorry.
“Don’t give up yet,” Denim said, but his voice was lifeless.
Levi’s cell began to ring.
“It’s Ellis,” Lex said, as though she could see the display.
Thankful Ellis wasn’t there to witness Levi’s suffering, Rune took the call. “Ellie.”
“No,” Ellis begged. “No, Rune.”
“He’s still alive.” Barely.
“Did you feed him?”
“Just now.”
“And you didn’t heal him? You didn’t heal him, Rune?”
God. “I’m sorry.”
He sniffed. “Put the phone on speaker, please.”
“Ellie…”
“Put it on speaker so he can hear me, Rune.”
What a fucking terrible way to say goodbye. She put the phone on speaker, then wiped a bloody tear from her cheek and laid the cell on Levi’s chest.
But she was getting physically stronger.
The feeding had been awful…terrible. Still, she sat there, a little weak but okay. Maybe eventually the pain would be less, as well.
Maybe.
“Levi,” Ellis said.
Rune closed her eyes, not sure she could handle Ellis’s pain, his pleas, his torment. He was her Ellie, and she could not bear for him to hurt. God knew she’d caused him enough pain.
She stood and turned to walk away.
“Levi,” Ellis repeated. “If you die on me I will never forgive you.”
Rune lifted an eyebrow.
“You have Rune’s blood,” Ellis continued, “and you have my love. All you need is the will. Do it, Levi.”
Willing it for him, Rune clenched her fists. “Heal, Levi. Heal.”
Levi moved restlessly. His eyes flickered open, then closed again.
Denim straightened slowly. “I feel him in there. I feel him.”
Gooseflesh erupted on Rune’s skin and she rubbed her arms, shivering. “Keep talking, Ellie.” Were his sores looking a little less…sore?
She sat back down and once again, put her palm on his chest. He felt warmer. And it wasn’t her imagination. “Levi,” she demanded. “Wake the fuck up, baby. Come back to us.”
He opened his eyes.
But that was not a good thing.
His eyes were dilated and feverish. He skimmed over Denim and Lex until he found her, then pinned her with his stare.
His zombie stare.
“Ah fuck no,” she shouted, then wished she could grab the words back when Ellis’s screams came out of the phone.
She jumped to her feet and backed away, away from the horror.
“God,” Ellis yelled. “What is it, Rune?” But he knew.
Denim stumbled away so fast he fell, then scrambled up again and ran for the door.
“Denim,” Lex cried. “Don’t you leave me, too!”
But not even Lex could make him stop. He fought with the door locks, not appearing to have even heard her, and flung open the door. He slammed it behind him with an awful finality.
Then he was gone.
Once again, Raze put a hand on Levi’s shoulder, holding him down. “Rune. What do you need me to do? Should I...” He couldn’t say the words.
But he was horrified. They all were.
Ellie’s sobs came through the cell, loud and heartrending.
Levi began to struggle and the phone fell to the floor. No one picked it up. Lex was frozen in place, her hands to her mouth, her sightless eyes wide.
“I don’t know.” Rune fingered the hilt of a shiv. “I don’t know, Raze.”
Levi, his eerie stare still on her, wanted to rise. He struggled harder and then reached up to try and pry Raze’s hand off his shoulder.
“Let me up, Raze,” he said suddenly, angry. “I have to go to Rune.” He blinked, and suddenly his eyes were…they were normal.
No one moved, no one even breathed. Ellis’s crying stopped abruptly.
Raze, his eyes a little too wide, looked at her.
Finally, Rune found her voice. “Levi?”
He frowned and grabbed Raze’s hand. “Get off me, man. What the fuck?”
But still, they were afraid. Afraid to believe, afraid they were dreaming. Afraid.
Lex eased toward him. “Levi,” she said, her voice broken. “Please?”
Raze, watching Lex, let Levi go.
He sat up and Lex threw herself against him. He wrapped his arms around her but never once stopped watching Rune. “I’m okay, Lex. What’s going on?”
He didn’t know. He didn’t remember.
And he was alive.
But…
He gently pushed the sobbing Lex off him and stood, walking with shaky determination to Rune.
She stared up at him. “Levi?” It seemed to be the only thing she could say.
“I heard you calling me,” he said, frowning even as he spoke the words, “and I had to come.”
Rune put her fist to her mouth, horror in her heart. “My God.”
What the fuck had she done?
Chapter Ten
Anxiety filled him. It oozed from him, that anxiety, like noxious, bubbling water from a toxic spring.
Lex slid up beside him and grabbed his hand.
He glanced down at her. “What’s wrong, honey? Was I hit on the head? I can’t remember anything. We were fighting the zombies and I…” He trailed off, then his eyes widened. “I was bitten.”
“Yes,” Rune said.
“What happened to your hair?”
“I was bitten as well. Yours…”
He slapped a hand to his head, suddenly realizing. “I was bitten. I was infected. You fed me?”
“Yes.”
“You healed me from a zombie infection.”
“I…”
Raze stepped up beside them, Levi’s cell in hand. “Ellis is having trouble.”
Levi shook his head once, hard, as if trying to shake something loose that didn’t belong there. “Ellis?” He listened, staring at Rune as though she was his lifeline and he would die if he stopped looking at her.
She turned away, unable to bear the weight of his stare.
What was he? What had she made
him? A…living zombie? That wasn’t even possible. Was it?
When he figured it out, he was not going to forgive her.
She was not going to forgive her.
“I…I don’t know,” he was saying to Ellis. “I feel fucked up. I don’t know anything.” He paused. “Yes. I’m alive.”
Rune shut her eyes and clenched her fists so hard she broke the skin. Raze was suddenly beside her.
He pulled her to his chest. “Don’t.”
She laughed, a harsh barking sound that held absolutely no amusement. “Oh Raze. What the fuck have I done?”
He took her by the shoulders and shook her. “He’s alive. You saved him, is what the fuck you’ve done.” He shook her again. “Now snap out of it. We have work to do and this shit will sort itself out.”
“How can it?” she asked.
“It has no choice, does it?”
“I guess it doesn’t.”
“I feel like I need to sleep,” Levi interrupted. “I feel like…”
“You’re confused,” Lex said, her vibrations strong. “You’re walking through a fog and it has grabby hands.”
Rune nodded. “Go lie down, Levi. Sleep. I’ll wake you in a bit and you’ll feel better.”
He didn’t say a word—simply turned and walked away. They watched him in silence as he lay down on the couch and immediately went to sleep.
And she knew that when he woke up, he’d feel better.
Lex was staring in Rune’s direction, her dancing eyes dark. “You…” she said. Nothing more. Just “You…”
“Yeah,” Rune said. She started to bite her fingernail, realized what she was doing, and stopped. Me. And my monster.
“What…” Lex held out her hand.
Raze took it.
Lex shuddered, then tried again. “What is he?”
Rune shook her head. “I’m not sure.”
“But what do you think?” Raze asked.
She pressed her lips together. “I think he’s something I’ve never seen before.”
“You command him,” Lex said. “You’ve made him your…slave.” She curled her lip and put her free hand to her chest. Despite her disgust and anger, her face was stark and full of desperation.
“Would you rather he’d died?” Rune closed her eyes in a slow blink, wishing she could retract the words. “I’m sorry, baby.” She gestured helplessly at the peacefully sleeping Levi. “I’m sorry.”
“Do not tell Denim,” Lex said. “And try to refrain from ordering Levi directly. Maybe it will wear off. Maybe he won’t notice.”
“He’s alive,” Raze told the angry Other, his voice soft.
“Maybe,” was all Lex would say.
“I’m better,” Rune said. She had to get out of the stifling room. “But I may need to feed again to help Z. Lex, guard Levi. Raze and I will go help the crew.”
“Rune—”
Rune cut her off. “I’ll bring Denim back. I’ll bring them all back. And everything will be okay.”
“Do you have your cell?” Lex asked. “Just in case?”
Rune hesitated, understanding suddenly that Lex was afraid. She glanced up at Raze. “Raze…”
“I’ll stay with her,” he said. “Be careful.”
She stopped at the door, unsettled, and put her cell on vibrate before stuffing it back into her pocket. “I will. Try to call the crew. If you get any of them, text me their locations.” She had no idea if they’d collected their phones or not. She could only hope they had.
She pulled the door open the slightest bit and peered through.
She saw no movement, no zombies, no people. It was just dead quiet and eerie as fuck. The sky was overcast but the sun peeked through some clouds, lighting the area in a colorful, strange way.
From the moment they’d entered Rock County, nothing had been right. She had a feeling things were going to get worse.
She jogged down the street, alert for any movement or sound. The weird light combined with the dead quiet to make Rock County seem like a different planet.
She didn’t like it.
And now she was out alone with a town full of zombies. Well, not really alone. She had her monster.
Up ahead she spotted three zombies. Chunks of their deformed, rotting bodies broke off and splattered the pavement as they shuffled toward her.
She dropped her fangs and sent her lethal claws out. Where the fuck were the rest of the bastards?
Probably battling her crew.
She ran toward the zombies. She dropped the first one quickly, but zombies had no fear. As she was killing the first one, the other two came right on, craving her living flesh.
She didn’t have to work hard to destroy them. She’d fed Levi and was still strong enough to kill without breaking a sweat.
She was growing in strength. Soon, she might have no real weaknesses.
Not if she fed—and the days of denying her monster were over.
Zombie body parts littered the street around her almost before she realized she had nothing left to kill.
Night would come soon. She wondered if the vampires would come with it. They could help the crew, if she could convince them to do so.
If any humans remained in Rock County they were hiding. Most of them appeared to have become zombies—strange, somehow altered zombies.
But where were the Others? Where were the wolves and shifters?
At that exact second, she spotted a wolf crossing the street a half a block away.
The wolf was bony. His swaying head hung low between sharp shoulder blades. As she watched, he listed to the side and fell over.
His paws scrabbled against the pavement. Finally, he climbed with torturous slowness back to his feet and continued on his way with drunken, weaving steps.
She jogged toward him. That he was injured was obvious, but she needed some answers. If she could get him to shift and talk to her…
She was about fifteen feet from him when the wolf heard her, stopped his rambling walk, and turned around.
It was then she realized what had happened to the Others.
They’d been infected. The wolf looking at her now was not just a wolf, he was a zombie wolf.
“No fucking way.” Weres couldn’t be made into zombies. They couldn’t.
Yet there he was.
And if the new zombie humans were faster and stronger, what would a zombie wolf be like?
Slow at first, until they got their first sniff or taste of human flesh? Or blood?
He growled, then opened his misshapen mouth to show broken, sharp teeth. His eyes were black, pure black, except for a sudden bright spark of joy.
And like the starving, desperate zombie he was, the wolf went for her.
Chapter Eleven
He was no match for Rune, despite his hunger and lack of fear. She moved to the side as he leaped at her, and drove her heavy, razor claws into his skull.
As he lay on the ground, she pulled one of her longer shivs and took his head. Just in case.
If she’d been less alert, the next wolf would probably have torn her head off, but she was Shiv Crew.
Shiv Crew barely relaxed when off duty. No one was going to sneak up on them. She whirled around and drove a claw through his eye and into his brain with almost perfect precision.
She knelt to clean the blade and her claws on the downed wolf’s fur. Zombie fucking wolves. Unbelievable.
When she saw movement from the corner of her eye she shot to her feet, a gun in one hand and a silver blade as long as her forearm in the other.
She’d dropped her fangs, as well. It was good to cover all bases.
Another wolf crept down the street toward her, but that wasn’t what caused her to back up a step. “Oh, shit.”
Behind the creeping wolf were what appeared to be at least fifty Others. Other zombies. New zombies.
She holstered the gun and the blade and shot her claws back out, forcing them to lengthen.
The zombies caught her scent.
It was as if the smell of living flesh gave them energy and a spark that was almost life. Their ears perked up, their faces lifted as they sniffed the air, and then, they saw her.
It never occurred to her to run. She wasn’t going to turn her back on a pack of zombie Others.
Not yet.
She’d do what she did best.
Fight.
Then they were upon her.
After that, she didn’t stop moving, not for a millisecond. If she had, they would have torn her to pieces.
They piled on top of each other in their eagerness to reach the scent driving them crazy, and that slowed them down.
Still, it wasn’t enough that she was a super monster. Didn’t matter that she used her built-in shivs to slice the zombies up.
There were simply too many of them.
Because even as she kicked and sliced and punched, she spotted more of them coming to join the fun.
She thrust the claws of her left hand into the wide open mouth of a particularly large St. Bernard and as the claws exited through the back of his throat, he clamped his teeth down, trying to eat the tempting flesh right there in his mouth.
He took off half her hand.
When she managed to pull free she was missing three fingers, with only her first finger and thumb remaining.
She screamed, though in her shock she barely felt any pain.
Time to run.
With the haunting zombie moans and clicking teeth assaulting her ears, she turned to run for her life.
The ground was littered with pieces of the zombies she’d destroyed, but with a mangled hand and no one to help her, she wasn’t feeling too confident.
The pavement was a blur beneath her feet as adrenaline and her monster propelled her onward. But she wasn’t running at full speed—feeding Levi had taken that from her.
She could feel them there, right at her back. One misstep and they’d mow her down like tall grass. And no matter how immortal a girl was, if a zombie was eating her heart and munching on her brain, she was just dead.
Across the street she spotted movement. A young man stood on the edge of a porch, waving. “Here,” he yelled.
She veered off the street immediately and ran toward him. Leaping up the steps to the porch, she streaked past him and into the house.
As soon as she was inside he slammed the door shut, bolting it behind him. They listened quietly as zombies rammed themselves against the house.