I wasn’t sure how to answer that. “I don’t know. Are you planning on spending life with me?”
Ask an uncomfortable question, get an uncomfortable one back. His smile was slow. “I don’t know. It’ll depend on just how crazy you get.”
“Maybe my getting crazy will depend on just how aggravating I find you.”
What was it about Nick that made me want to taunt him and why did he seem to like it? Isaiah caught my eye. He nodded to me and then tugged me close. “You’re okay.”
He didn’t ask it as a question, more like he was informing me I was okay. I didn’t say anything. He’d helped me fight back.
“Thank you,” I whispered. “I hate enclosed spaces.”
He sucked in a breath, and I leaned my cheek against his shoulder. My lips came right up to his neck, and I had the craziest desire to pucker them. What would he do if I did?
And why was I thinking this at all?
It was nice, however, to have friends. I rested back on my heels and felt a hand at my back. Without even turning around, I knew who it was. “Brandon.”
“I think I speak for all of us,” Brandon said, placing a hand on my hip so I faced him, “when I say we want you to come back with us. No more kidnapping and running away and getting hurt. Come with us. Where you’ll be safe—”
“Surrounded by zombies,” Nick interrupted.
Leaning back against Brandon, I studied them and noticed that none of them were all that zombie-like. Brandon’s blue-white skin was still pale, but the hands that wrapped around my waist were pink—I touched the skin—and warm!
“Are you guys getting better?” I asked.
“There’s something better than perfection?” John joked. “Because if there is, I’m it.”
Dante shook his head. “Come on.” He jerked his head toward the forest. “We can walk and talk.”
“Unlike other zombies, who just walk and moan!” Brandon added, and I burst out laughing. Instantly, I slapped a hand over my mouth and cocked my head, listening hard. But there was nothing. No sign anyone, or anything, had heard us.
“All right,” Dante said, sounding like a schoolteacher. “Can we go, please?”
Brandon released me and we started our journey. I had no idea how far away Zero was from Dex, or how far Dex was from Dad, but it felt too close. I’d been able to make it from Zero to Roanoke in less than an hour on foot. According to Dex, his home was on the outskirts of Roanoke.
“It’s interesting how close we all are, and yet I never knew any of this existed.” I glanced over my shoulder at Isaiah. He’d started Zero, had he known about my father?
“I’ve been thinking about moving Zero for months now. With so many new Uncontrolled, we’re bound to bring more attention to ourselves,” Isaiah stated.
“You have?” Carson asked. “I thought—never mind.”
“What?” Isaiah asked.
“I thought we needed to stay in the center of things in case people woke up,” Carson said. “I don’t know what would have happened to me if I hadn’t found Zero. What if someone from Roanoke—not you—” He shot a guilty look toward me. “Found me?”
“My brother is Infected.” I glanced over my shoulder down the hill. “He’s the one who took me. And he believes he controls the Infected,” I said. I spoke quietly. “So I don’t know what that means—”
“We always knew someone Controlled them,” Dante said. “I assumed it was the government and some sort of horrible experiment gone awry.”
I’d dropped that piece of information about my brother on them and not gotten much of a reaction. Were they not surprised? Or was it just that their lives were in constant upheaval, so they rolled with things really, really well?
There were hundreds of theories about why the Infection had started, but no proof. It was a topic everyone discussed on those long, quiet nights. Why did the world end and whose fault was it?
“He couldn’t have controlled them from the beginning though.” My brother had died during one of the first waves of the illness, but there were Controlled before him. All of us had seen them on television when we were still trying to figure out what they were. Those beings had been like the Controlled—mindless, hungry. I’d never seen anything like Brandon or his friends. “How did you stay hidden for so long?”
Dante held up his hand, halting our progress. I squinted, trying to see through the trees. In the distance, I could make out an engine. Its high-pitched whine suggested it was an off-road vehicle. My father had a few of those. They were rarely driven.
Dante made a motion that we should duck down, and we all did, waiting until the vehicle drove far enough away we couldn’t hear it anymore.
“To answer your question,” Carson said when we rose again. “We stayed hidden because no one was looking for us. I mean, everyone stays away from zombies, and who could blame them. You come out somewhere and see a large-ish group of zombies hanging out together you run the other way.”
That made sense. “I see.”
“And we took precautions,” Brandon added. “By never going out of Zero unless we absolutely had to. We don’t need things. Or we didn’t anyway. If you don’t have to go hunting around for food you don’t draw a lot of attention to yourself.”
I nodded. “You kept to yourselves.”
“Your father is focused on Roanoke. If we affect him, then that’s when he cares about us. Your torture is suddenly making much more sense, knowing your brother is alive.” Carson kicked at a pile of leaves.
“Alive-ish,” Nick said. “He’s a zombie.”
I ignored Nick. Carson had a point, but was he right?
How much did my father know about life outside the walls? And how could Dex be in control of the Infected. I mean, how did that happen?
As we came upon the outskirts, Isaiah stopped. “I’m going to open it up to a vote. We’re all people who can determine what we want with the rest of existence. I don’t intend to trample on anyone’s free will.”
Every so often Isaiah sounded like he was a walking advertisement for some kind of peace, love, hippie mantra. I might have believed it except that he was the one who’d helped me beat up my captor. He was far more than he seemed.
“And if half of them want to leave?” John shook his head. “Then what do we do? There has to be consensus. Carson makes a good point, but so did you about leaving. When we found Zero, when we came looking for you, I don’t remember stumbling around. I remember having a feeling I knew right where I was going. Is there any reason we have to assume it’s Zero, not Whitney, that has that pull?
Isaiah held his hands in the air. “I’m not a messiah. Don’t make this about me.”
John took a deep breath and held it. It was clear he struggled keeping quiet. His face was so red, I feared he was going to pop like a balloon.
“A zombie vote,” Nick said and raised his hand. “I vote yes.”
“Yes on what?” Carson approached one of the buildings and opened the door. “Go ahead Whitney,” he said, holding it open for me.
This wasn’t Dante’s workshop. It was a small square building. Inside there were chairs, a table, and piles of books. I examined the ones on the top, nonfiction histories, books about psychology, a series of encyclopedias. “In the middle of the woods and you have a library?” I imagined them struggling with armloads of books they’d snagged from houses.
“Well, there’s not much to do but think,” Carson replied a little bitterly. “Unless you have Dante’s skills. If I’d have known what the future looked like, I’d have chosen something more useful than law.”
“Why would you say that?” I asked. “What Isaiah and John are talking about is where people who understand conflict and resolution shine!” I sat in a camp chair, craning my neck to see him. He’d stood with his back toward me, but when I spoke, he faced me.
“That’s a great point.” John cupped Carson’s shoulder. “So how do we do this?”
Carson stared at me a moment before
answering. “Well. While it seems like there are only two options, staying or leaving is more complicated. First off, everyone needs to be involved. Not only the six of us.”
“Seven,” Dante interrupted. When attention fell on him, he raised his eyebrows at me. “Whitney is part of Zero.”
“Right.” Carson shoved his hands into his pocket. “There are other Uncontrolled here. This is their home and whether or not Isaiah and John want to admit it, they’re the leaders. Their decision will impact others.”
“I already told you, I’m not influencing what other people do,” Isaiah replied and crossed his arms, his body language closed off.
“Then I’ll tell you what will happen…” As Carson spoke he stood up straighter and a sense of pride filled me. This was who Carson was. He was smart and well-spoken. I hoped he would start to see himself this way. “You have a vote. People will vote not only according to what they want, but what they think you will do. If people think John and Isaiah are leaving, because they associate you both with leadership, they may choose to leave, too.”
John and Isaiah appeared to be engaged in a stare-down, neither one answering Carson.
“John and Isaiah have to decide what they want, and then there’s a vote.” I thought I understood.
“Yes.”
Dropping his arms from across his chest, Isaiah spun away from us. “I don’t want to be a leader. I didn’t ask for it.”
“Here’s what I think—not that anyone has asked—but Zero is too big,” Nick stated baldy. “We’re getting attacks from Controlled every other day. They know where we are, and for some reason, they’re after us.”
I knew why, so I raised my hand. Nick saw me and blew out a breath, letting his head tip toward the ceiling. “Oh my God, Whitney. Just say it.”
“I know why they’re coming after you.”
Six identical expressions of impatience flashed across the guys’ faces. “Yeah?” Nick asked.
“My brother thinks you all belong to him.”
Brandon cleared his throat. “Come again?”
“My brother told me that he misses you. When you become Uncontrolled, it’s like a big giant hole in his head. He wants you back, because he misses you all crying inside his mind. Of course, his ultimate goal is overthrowing Roanoke.”
“Every bad guy’s goal is world domination,” Nick philosophized.
Brandon slumped down into a chair with so many holes I wondered how it stayed upright. If we did stay here, some basic improvements were going to be necessary.
“Why are you all taking this information about my brother so well? You don’t seem surprised.” It bothered me that my announcement rolled off their back.
Nick walked behind Brandon. “We aren’t surprised because once we were dead, and then we woke up. Now we’re walking around and yesterday my heart started beating, so yeah, that makes it hard to be particularly surprised. Also—your dad is a bad dude. Makes sense your brother would be, too.”
My back stiffened and my temper surged. “Am I evil automatically, too, because my dad’s an asshole? My mom was nice. Does that count for anything?”
Nick shook his head. “I don’t know if you’re evil or not. I know I turned into a ghost and had to go rescue you. I know that you did some freaky thing where we visited you in your mind. I don’t know what any of that shit is about.”
Brandon sighed and shook his head. “Whitney is not evil. And, Dexter? I mean, he looks young from what I can see. How can a teenager control the Infected? Did he seem like an adult?”
How to describe him? “He’s the same, Brandon. Temperamental. One second angry, surly the next, and then loving. And so sure of himself. Or maybe full of himself is a better description. He acted nice, but I got the sense he was trying to intimidate me, too.”
“I don’t think you’re evil, Whit.” Nick interjected. “I’m just pretty much an asshole.”
Brandon stood. “You’re not an asshole. Farthest thing from it, actually.” He patted Nick on the back before looking back at me. “How does Dex propose getting us back?”
“That’s a good question.” John hadn’t said much in this exchange but he spoke now. “Come up to us and mind meld?”
“That’s not how the mind meld worked.” Dante shook his head. “Never mind. Let’s not get into Star Trek again.”
Was this a long-standing thing with them? Discussing Star Trek? It didn’t matter. We were moving on.
“We lose some of our people every time the Controlled come by.” Isaiah sighed. “Every. Time. It could be it just takes him being near us. I don’t remember screaming in his mind, but it’s something I’d rather not do again.”
“I think he could release them if he wanted to.” I paced the length of the short wall and bit at my thumbnail. “He’s like a little boy. All the toys are his and he can do whatever he wants with them. But no one else can play with them.”
“He’s frozen at sixteen,” Brandon said. “He never moved out of that self-centered mindset. It’s all about him and his needs and his wants.”
“I think about you all.” I met each of their stares and imagined if they’d remained with my brother. What would they look like? What would he have done to them? “I don’t know how you got away from him, but thank goodness you did.”
Dante approached me slowly. Of all of them, he seemed to be the one who suffered the most physically. His body told the story of his struggle in the time before he came to Zero. Suddenly, I needed to hold him and assure myself he was there.
I threw myself at him, and he caught me, holding me close. Like he could read my mind, he whispered, “I don’t remember much of it.”
Tears leaked out of my eyes and trailed down the sides of my nose. I sniffed and blinked hard. “Those are people he controls. People who may still have families with loved ones. I don’t know why he can’t understand that.”
Someone touched my shoulder, and I turned to see Nick staring at me. For once, he didn’t wear a sarcastic grin. “I don’t know how, given your father, you kept your heart.”
It might have been one of the nicest things anyone ever said to me. And for it to come from Nick… “Thank you.” I left Dante’s arms and went into his.
His body stiffened, and I was certain I’d made a huge mistake, but then he hugged me back. And it felt right.
Eventually, though, he cleared his throat and pushed me away from him. “So yeah. I guess we have to worry about your father and your brother now.”
There was the Nick I was used to. And it did feel that way. Even after twenty-four hours. Maybe it had to do with how we were connected.
Isaiah sighed. “I can’t leave. Especially not now. If Zero somehow means the difference between awareness and oblivion, then I’m staying.”
“You pulled your mind away from my brother, Isaiah,” I said. “If you can figure out how, imagine how many lives could change.”
“Don’t put pressure on him,” John interjected. “The last thing Isaiah wants to be is responsible for anyone.”
That wasn’t fair. He’d just said he’d stay at Zero to take care of people. If that wasn’t being responsible, I didn’t know what was. However, if my brother, or father, knew where Zero was, then it wouldn’t be a safe place for anyone. “You’d stay here, no matter what the danger, to help the Uncontrolled. I think that’s honorable, and I admire it.”
“I can’t help thinking you and Isaiah are the key to unlocking minds,” Dante said. “You somehow reached out to us, Whitney. I’m certain it’s related to your brother’s abilities. I just don’t know how.”
21
Dante
I’d always hated lying and yet I was doing it right now.
Whitlee had reached out to us, mind-to-mind. Did the others really not remember?
I’d learned to keep secrets during my years working for the government. Back then, I’d done all kinds of experiments using technology. They were pointless now. Who cared if I made the smartest, easiest to use drone?
I should have been working to find a replacement for fossil fuels. Look at us now, we only had a handful of working cars.
The night of the storm, I’d had a dream that was more than a dream. Whitlee had taken our hands as the lightning struck the ground around us. I was certain that electricity had done something.
I stared around the room at the others while they discussed Whitlee and her brother. The whys of the siblings’ abilities were a mystery for now. Somehow, we’d been linked to her brother until we escaped his control. But then Whitlee had linked us to her. Maybe it was the lightning, maybe the electricity. I didn’t know.
Electricity had a lot to do with animation. A heart stops: zap it back to life. So was it possible?
Had lightning struck when Isaiah pulled himself out of Dexter’s head? Isaiah truly was Patient Zero. He’d joked about it, but it was the truth.
Until him, we were dead. But then he’d reinfected us with what? Consciousness.
And why, out of everyone, was Isaiah the first? And why had it happened after so much time? Why hadn’t it been me? I glanced down at my ruined body. If Isaiah knew the answers, he’d never told me.
I, myself, had stopped asking these questions, focusing instead on being grateful I wasn’t part of the brain-eating, human-killing masses.
I rubbed my face. Had I eaten a lot of brains? I wished I could puke.
“Dante? You okay?” Whitlee asked.
I nodded. “Yes. But you can’t be. You’ve been through a tremendous amount. You need to rest. Guys?”
They scrambled around, like they’d remembered all the things I just had—that she was sick, hurt, tortured, and beaten up. We didn’t have real bedrooms. We had makeshift rooms we turned into sleeping areas as best we could. Why bother? We had labs and libraries. Poker rooms. Long conversations.
Whitlee needed to rest. I grabbed a blanket off the chair closest to me and indicated she should sit in it. She did, slumping down. I wrapped the blanket around her.
Lightning Strikes: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance (The Storm Book 1) Page 11