Had I really made her apologize for doing the smart thing? All to save my pride?
“Fuck it,” I said and ripped my leather jacket from my shoulders. “At least they didn’t ruin my jacket.” My t-shirt came next, and I tore it over my head before I could change my mind. “Fix me.”
Whitney’s eyes lifted, and she met my gaze head on. “You’re sure?”
“I’m shirtless and sitting here. I’m pretty sure. It’s too late for you not to see.” To really stress the matter, I pointed to the left side of my chest. “As you can see that’s where I was bit the first time. It’s always the worst scar on all of us. Except maybe Dante. He’s so altered it might be hard to tell now.”
She made a non-committal noise and got to the business of stitching up the hole in my chest. It didn’t hurt. Nothing ever hurt. Truth was she could have left the hole. But Dante didn’t like the idea of bugs or animals making homes in holes all over us. It might have sped up the decay. So we were stitched up like it mattered.
Once upon a time, I’d hated all things medical. I’d had to look away if someone bled near me. And puke? Forget it. But now it was all very meh.
“Are you from this area?”
Was she making small talk while she worked? She hadn’t flinched yet at my shirtless appearance. And it seemed she hadn’t run from Dante. Maybe she was getting used to us. Wouldn’t that be something?
“I was born and raised in the District of Columbia. DC boy right here. There aren’t too many kids actually raised in the capital itself, but I was. Went to Georgetown for both undergrad and law school. I hardly ever left DC. But I woke up here. I don’t remember how I arrived. The Controlled travel wherever they are sent. Guess their leader sent me here.” I shrugged, and she made a tut-tut noise. I guessed movement made it harder for her to stitch.
She didn’t speak, and I missed the sound of her voice. This was conversation. With a real live person. One who I bet, if I could smell, would have some beautiful scent like lavender even through the dirt and the river all over her.
I blinked. This was also Brandon’s girlfriend. The man loved her so much he’d risked everything to see her again. I had no business thinking about Whitney and flowers. But now I’d gone there in my head.
“How long were you and Brandon together?” All of this was starting to feel much more like a bar. I said stupid things like that when I tried to talk to women.
“We’re not together. I always hoped we would be, but he could never handle my father’s objections. We were grown people. I waited and waited. I’d finally reached the point where I was going to force the issue when he died.” She finished what she was doing and snipped the end of the stitch.
I loved the man like a brother, but Brandon was a stupid fucking idiot.
“He wasn’t,” she said to defend him, and I realized I’d spoken aloud. “If you’d grown up around a man like my dad, you’d be wary of me, too.”
“I know your dad,” I said. Everyone knew him. Or about him. Grabbing my shirt, I jerked it over my head. Whit’s gaze lingered on my chest before her cheeks heated, and she flicked her attention upward to my eyes.
“What?” she asked. Had my chest distracted her? Doubtful. I was a mess. When I’d been alive, I’d taken care in my appearance. Worked out, drank protein shakes, ran in charity races—so I’d been in pretty good shape when the Infection began. But the Controlled had done a number on me, and there was nothing pretty about the crescent shaped bite marks and divots that they’d left.
“Your father,” I repeated. “I know him.”
“So you understand what Brandon was up against. My dad had something against him from the time we were children. If I’d been stronger, I’d have told him earlier how I felt.” The girl threw her shoulders back, but when something slammed into the workshop, she hunched down.
“We’re winning,” I assured her. “The Controlled have no choice but to follow orders. They’re not able to think on their feet—”
“They’re not able to think at all,” Whitney interrupted.
“Right,” I agreed. “So inevitably we kill them. It just takes a while because…” I waited to see if she’d fill in where I left off. I wasn’t disappointed.
She smiled and wrinkled her nose. “Because they’re already dead.” Her gaze went to the door again and the smile disappeared. “But if they can be killed, so can you.” Blue eyes met mine. “I just found…”
Another body hit the building, and she winced. A storm pounded on the roof. The weather was crazy lately. This time I didn’t try to make her feel better.
7
Whitney
The fight outside seemed to go on forever. The walls weren’t soundproof, and even though Carson repeatedly assured me I was safe, the growls and groans of the Controlled caused a visceral reaction in me. I’d been conditioned to hide or run when I heard them, and it took every ounce of courage I had to stay in one place.
A rapid tapping on the metal roof had me bracing for the building’s collapse, but it wasn’t the Controlled. I forced myself to think of them as Controlled and not zombies. Zombies were dead monsters. Like the man I spoke to right now, the creatures outside were alive. Sort of.
The sound sped up. It was only rain. A huge boom shook the walls, and I wrapped my arms around my waist. Perfect. A thunderstorm and Controlled.
Thunder boomed again, followed by a screech. In the distance, a boom sounded as a tree shattered from the destructive power of lightning hitting it.
My shoulder ached. Had I injured it when I fell? I caught Carson looking at me as I rotated my arm and massaged the place where it met my shoulder joint.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
I nodded. I was as good as I would get until Brandon and his friends returned.
Carson tried distracting me. He talked, but he didn’t tell me that nothing could get me in here. No half-truths or lies from this guy. But I got what he’d been saying earlier. Controlled weren’t smart, yet I’d seen them overrun and destroy. In this world, survival came down to luck.
Eventually though, the sounds outside became less frantic. And then, thank God, Brandon came inside.
“Oh my God,” I whispered. He’d been injured. His arm hung at an odd angle, like it’d been jerked out of the socket, and he’d been bitten on his neck. Again. I rushed toward him but, Dante followed fast, yanking Brandon by his good arm before tugging on the bad one and shooting him in the shoulder with what looked like a staple gun. My mouth fell open as Brandon shrugged.
“It’ll hold. Thanks.”
Dante nodded. “I live to serve.”
“Ha.” Brandon’s smile surprised me. He turned his attention in my direction. “Don’t worry, Whit. We do this pretty regularly. The Controlled couldn’t care less about us, but their leader gets his nose out of joint and likes to exert his authority every so often. You’re safe in here. I don’t know what it is about this building but it’s like they can’t see it or something. They’re birds flying into windows.”
That made sense. Body after body had smashed into the walls.
He tugged me into a hall. Cold, dirty and blood soaked, and yet somehow he still held the clean, fresh scent of Brandon.
“So this is the girl.” A voice I didn’t recognize preceded yet another new person as he entered the room.
He was blond, with long hair, and distant blue eyes. His face was long, with a cleft in his chin. He walked slowly, and yet I had the feeling he knew just what movements he did and didn’t want to make. He was… purposeful.
Brandon stepped back. “Whit, this is Isaiah. Isaiah, this is Whitney. I realize I should have discussed with you or John before I brought her here. It had never been my intention to bring her to Zero. Things just got out of hand.”
Isaiah nodded. He didn’t keep his gaze on me very long before he leaned on the wall and stared off at seemingly nothing in the distance. “We’re all individuals, Brandon. Capable of deciding what we do and don’t want to do. I
don’t decide who comes here and who doesn’t. If you want her here, and she wants to stay, you’re both entitled to decide that. If someone doesn’t like it, they can let you know. That’s how this works.”
Brandon stayed silent for a moment before he looked at me. “Isaiah was the first of us to break free. We don’t know why, but it started a domino effect. Since then the Controlled leader has consistently lost a portion of his Controlled. Including me. Some of them go back unwillingly, like their consciousness is recaptured. It’s strange. But Isaiah has managed to never return, and we’re all hoping to be him.”
Isaiah walked away from the wall, patting Brandon on the shoulder. “Be you, my brother. Don’t be me. Be you and that’s better. Nice to meet you, Whitney. I don’t usually get to meet living women. Everything okay in the world where people have heartbeats?”
He was strikingly handsome. What had he looked like when he’d had a pulse?
“Oh,” I said, wanting to see if I could make him react. “The world is ending. Not enough food and all my friends are dead. But otherwise, same old same old.”
He stared at me a second, and I wondered if I’d pushed him too far, but no. All he gave me was a slow blink. “Sounds the same.”
I snorted and this time he did react, chuckling along with me.
“Thanks for letting me stay,” I said. “But I think I should go. If the zombies are gone.”
“The Controlled are gone,” Isaiah said, sweeping his long hair away from his face. “Nice to meet you, Living Girl.”
He loped away from us, all loose limbs, the way I imagined a surfer would move, and disappeared down another hallway.
“Are there no women here?” I asked, facing Brandon. He stared at me darkly, a frown on his lean face.
“You want to leave right now?” He’d ignored my question. “So soon?”
I didn’t, but— “I need to go before my dad finds this place. He won’t listen to reason and he’ll kill all of you.”
“You mean he’ll have someone kill us,” Brandon muttered.
“Right.” Dad never did his own dirty work. “Blindfold me, Maid Marian and Sherwood Forest style, and drop me back at the Roanoke.”
“Not enough amenities for a princess.” Nick stepped through a door. Had he been part of the fight? Every hair was in place and not even his t-shirt was mussed. “Never mind the fact that Brandon risked his life, no, scratch that, all our lives, to let you know he was okay. ‘Nick, she’s suffering. I can’t let it go on.’ ” His hands curled into fists. “You’re a real ungrateful piece of work, you know that?”
“Watch it, Nick,” Bran said, stepping in front of me.
“No.” I stopped him with a hand on his chest. Immediately, the cool temperature of his skin seeped through his shirt. “I get it.”
“You don’t get anything,” Nick scoffed. “You’ve never worked a day in your life. All you do is live in your castle, surrounded by servants and admirers like this chump, and take for granted everything you have.”
“You’re trying to protect, Brandon,” I said, though his words struck too close to home. “He’s your friend. But I’m trying to protect him, too. You don’t have any idea what will happen if my father finds this place.”
“No?” Nick asked and jerked his t-shirt over his head before spinning around. Across his back, thin red lines criss crossed over his shoulder blades and down to his hips. They were raised like welts, though some places sliced deep and had been stitched together with delicate black thread. “Want to guess who killed me, princess? Who strapped me to a tree and whipped the shit out of me so every Controlled in a ten mile radius could smell my blood and sweat?”
Horrified, I examined his back. “Why?”
His shoulders, speckled with golden freckles, lifted in a shrug. “Didn’t offer him the deal he expected. Didn’t get the products he wanted in on time. Who knows? There were a million reasons, and not one of them the truth.”
“Before I go any further I need to tell you how truly sorry I am.” I swallowed my pain. This wasn’t about me. This was about him. “There will never be words to express how sorry I am that this happened to you.”
He blinked several times. “Easy to say.”
“I know that and so do you. There’s nothing I can say to make this better. You want the truth? While you are the first of his victims to speak to me about what he did, you’re not the first one he’s tried to kill. The first was when I was five and it was my nanny. I don’t know why he murdered her. I think they might have been sleeping together.”
Nick’s mouth fell open. “I…”
I wasn’t done. “I know he’s a very, very bad man. There wasn’t—isn’t—a thing I can do about it. I’m trying to survive just like you. And this is our world. We do the best we can with what we’ve got. So while I hope someday you won’t blame me for your death, if you have to… I understand.”
8
Isaiah
I listened through the door under the awning outside Dante’s workshop. When Nick had stormed toward them, I’d been fairly certain he’d drive Whitney away. He was good at that. The man struck first and asked questions later. I was surprised he’d lasted as long as he had without launching a full-frontal emotional attack.
She withstood him pretty well, and it was impressive. I sighed, running a hand through my hair as I walked away from the scene. I needed her to go, but there was no way to do that without losing Brandon. He’d quickly become everyone’s favorite person, including me. Not even John would be able to run him off without serious ramifications. We were holding on by a thread.
Every time I lost one of them back to the Controlled leader it killed something inside of me. Brandon’s love life, and whether or not he got Whitney Lake, wasn’t paramount to our situation. And yet somehow it was.
The storm raged outside. Tree branches snapped and whipped against the side of the building. One narrow window plated with thick glass sat near the ceiling, and I stood on my tiptoes to watch the sky. There had hardly been a lag between the lightning and the thunder. The rain pelted down, making everything blurry. The storm was its own kind of battle.
Before the Infection, Roanoke summers were known for their wicked storms. Then Mother Nature had enough and decided to wipe the Earth of the living. Or at least that’s what I thought happened. Person by person, we would be exterminated until the only thing left was the dead fighting the dead. When we were gone, there would be nothing.
Or maybe there’d always been nothing to begin with.
“Are you high?” My stepbrother’s voice immediately got my back up.
“I can’t get high, John, I don’t breathe.” I faced him and straightened my shoulders. It bothered John to no end that I was half an inch bigger than him. I used that half an inch now, fixing a bored smile on my face. “But I haven’t tried. Want to light up with me?”
John’s nose wrinkled. “Yeah, because I want to smell like skunk.”
“Rot or skunk. Our choices aren’t stellar. What can I do for you, Brother?” Every word out of my mouth was designed to irk him. The lines around his mouth got deeper and more pronounced, and I knew my plan was working.
“Have you met Whitney Lake?” he asked.
“I have.” I didn’t give him any more than that.
His hands clenched at his sides when it was clear that was all I’d say. “And what did you tell Bran?”
“Dude.” A muscle twitched along his jaw, and I was tempted to tell him to be more careful. Dante was great at replacing appendages, but I wasn’t sure about the man’s dentistry skills. John was one twitch away from breaking a tooth. “Stay or go. The choice isn’t mine. If Whitney wants to leave, she can go. If she wants to stay, she can stay.”
“Great.” John threw his hands into the air. “Thank you, oh wise trustafarian. Thank you for being literally no help whatsoever.” He spun on his heel, muttering to himself as he strode down the hall.
“You’re welcome!” I called after him, prete
nding he’d been genuine.
I went back to the door and eavesdropping.
“Don’t leave yet,” Brandon said. His voice was a step below pleading. This girl really had him wrapped around her finger.
“Did you hear Nick’s story?” Something thunked against the door, and startled, I jerked my head away. Whitney’s voice sounded closer as she went on. “Brandon, I barely survived losing you. I can’t do it again.”
Now Brandon’s voice was closer as well, and I imagined him gathering her in his arms. Smart man, holding the person he loved close. There was no telling when she’d be ripped from his arms.
“Whit…”
“Hey.” An arm wrapped around my elbow, and I reacted. Throwing my elbow out, I struck the person who touched me in the chest. Unfortunately for me, the person was Dante and my elbow slammed into a metal plate.
“Sorry.” The last thing Dante needed was for me to dent his already ravaged body.
“It’s fine,” he replied. “What are you doing?”
“Brandon…” Whitney said, and Dante lifted an eyebrow.
I widened my eyes. “I am a student of the human experience searching to learn at every opportunity.”
“That stuff may work with your brother, but it doesn’t work with me, Zero. You know what will happen if she leaves.”
Yeah. Dante was always too smart. “Brandon will go too, and I’m afraid that’ll be the end. The true end.”
“Do me a favor.” I put my hand on Dante’s arm. “Go in there and buy some time. We need to… slow things down. Consider our options. Tell them they can’t leave tonight. Find a reason.”
Dante sighed. “You know I hate lying. But I have my own reasons for not wanting her to leave. I… Maybe the less said on that the better. Brandon’s going to have to move out of the workshop for the night if he wants her to stay. I’ll convince them then to stay.”
Lightning Strikes: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance (The Storm Book 1) Page 4