Someone knocked on the door and Isaiah swore. “Shit. It’s someone wanting something. Again. I’ll take it. You guys stay here.”
The crowd came and went all day long. The newly Uncontrolled were needy.
I couldn’t help resenting it. None of us had had help when we’d escaped Dexter. And Isaiah had had it the worst, since he’d been the first. He’d had to figure out how to survive while being dead.
I turned my attention back to Whitney. “So my grandmother was a nun until she was thirty and met my grandfather.”
“Damn. Your grandfather must have been some kind of man. Those ladies are serious in their devotion.” Nick whistled through his teeth. “And the rulers they used to smack my knuckles with.”
Whit grinned as she pulled back to look at us. That was good. This was just what I wanted. A little happiness injected into the terror. “Grandmother Ruth used to be a nun…” She got me back on track.
“Right. So she’d tell me stories. And they’d always start with, ‘Back when I used to be a nun…’ It’s a funny memory. But for some reason, it’s been standing out in my mind. Like maybe someday all of my stories will start with, ‘When I used to be a zombie…’ “
I thought she’d laugh, and when she didn’t, I glanced over at her. Her eyes had closed. I hadn’t meant to put her out. Maybe I wasn’t the storyteller my grandmother had been.
I held her tighter, adjusting her slightly. Sleep was the best thing for her.
John walked over, bringing me a chair to prop my foot on because I hung half-off the bed. No one said a word. Like me, they seemed content to just stay there right with her, for as long as she needed.
Whitney’s eyes danced beneath her lids. I liked to think she was deep in a recuperative sleep, dreaming about strawberries and ice cream and shopping malls. Happy things.
Not: did we have enough food to go around? Or: was her brother about to find our safe haven?
All of us perched around her room.
In between staring at her, I stared at my friends.
Arms crossed, John stared at Whit like his power of disapproving facial expressions could ward off whatever plagued her. He wasn’t calm, though he would have liked us to think that. Lawyer, remember? I was excellent at interpreting body language.
Dante paced, his attention never leaving Whitney. What did he see when he looked at her that I didn’t?
I studied her again. Her skin was pale, and her orange freckles stood out. Usually, she had a pinky glow. She said she was “red,” but I loved the flush of color. It was like she was always running. Or excited. That color was a sign of the way she approached life: energetically and joyfully. So to see it missing…
It worried me.
A crash from the corner of the room startled me, and I jerked.
“Shit!” Dante said, rubbing his knee. A second later, I jerked again, this time when a zap of static shot through my body.
“Dammit, Dante,” Nick whisper-hissed.
“I didn’t mean to,” the man replied. His tan face was ashamed as he straightened.
Worried, I examined Whit. “It’s like her body is over-reacting to our injuries.”
“Like an autoimmune disorder,” Dante said and then winced. “Sort of.”
“English!” Nick said and then when Whitney shifted, repeated in a quieter voice. “English.”
“Autoimmune disorders happen when a person’s body overreacts to something. A trigger of some sort. And in the process end up attacking the person’s body.”
“Like an allergic reaction?” Brandon asked.
“No,” Dante said. “This is when the body attacks itself. It breaks down blood and tissue.”
“Could it result in a heart attack?” John asked.
Heart attack. Whitney suffered a heart attack.
“Yes,” Dante answered. “Tissues become inflamed… It’s possible.” He shook his head. “It makes sense. Though I never came across something like this before. Not in all my studies.”
“Oh, you mean your weird-ass experiments with the Department of Psycho Killers?” Nick asked.
“Yeah,” Dante answered, voice devoid of sarcasm. “That one.”
“We go back to the labs,” John said. “Dante, run a battery of tests on us, and then we start scavenging. If we’re sick, if we’re hurt, no more relying on this fucking circuit to help us. There are antibiotics out there. Fuck—find some Band-Aids. I don’t want to take any more out of Whitney if we don’t have to.”
Nick stood. “I’ll go. I’ve always been good at finding things. Breaking and entering.” He held up his fists and then narrowed his eyes. “Or was it Law and Order?” He shook his head. “Cagney and Lacey? Whatever. Let me get Isaiah. He hates to admit it, but he can find shit, too.”
“Shut up.” John stared hard at Whitney, like he could see under her skin. “And go.”
A thought dawned on me. Dante was smart, brilliant beyond belief but he wasn’t a doctor of medicine, even though what he knew would probably rival one. We needed an actual doctor to look at her and there were some in the general population.
“I’m going to go find her a doctor.”
Brandon nodded. “That’s a good idea. Our childhood doctor and his wife are around somewhere. I’ll come with you and look.”
John walked toward me. “I’ll lie down with her, stay until you guys come back.”
She squirmed on the bed but didn’t wake. Our beautiful girl was so exhausted. We were going to kill her if we weren’t careful, and I couldn’t imagine a life without her in it. If she went away, there would only be darkness where she’d been. A big, gaping wound I’d never be able to heal.
I loved her. I would not lose her. Not to death or the Infection.
None of us had said it, but considering the state of things, what were the chances if we lost Whitney she’d wake up belonging to Dex?
Fuck, we had to figure this out. Fast.
4
Isaiah
Whitney might very well have been sick just from having to speak to the hordes of complainers on a day-to-day basis. They’d gone from being zombies—we weren’t supposed to use that word but, hell, I could think it if I wanted since I’d been a member of the club, so to speak—to the most whiny, difficult sort of living beings imaginable. Fuck.
Surrounded by complainers, I seriously rethought my idea of creating a safe haven for all Uncontrolled. The five guys yakking my ear off and filling me with rage didn’t deserve Zero. And the worst part? They had known Whit was sick and resting, and they still thought their issues were so important that they merited waking her up.
Today might be the day I murdered someone.
“So let me get this straight.” I pointed to one of the men. “You think he took your cart.”
The bald, middle-aged man shook his head wildly. “I know he did. I had the cart when I went to the well and when I came back from the well, it was gone.”
“I didn’t take his cart!” The accused was younger, probably in his twenties, and had hair a shade or two lighter than Whitney’s. “I don’t have a cart. If I had a cart would I be hauling all my shit around behind me like this?”
The balding man covered his ears. “Language.”
Someone is going to die.
I breathed in. I could do this. I was a zen master. But the calm and poise I preached to John were out of reach.
Eyes closed, I breathed again. Okay. So we were dealing with a lot of issues here all at once.
The truth was we needed to set up a government to manage this stuff.
John would love that. I could put him in charge. He loved being the final authority on things. Or at least he used to. Since he’d come back from his second attachment to Dex, he’d been quieter. This might be good for him.
When I’d created Zero—and I hadn’t called it that, Dante had given it, and me, the name—I’d just been looking for a place to lay low and lick my undead wounds for a while. Being the first to wake up Uncontrolled hadn�
��t been easy. I’d been scared out of my fucking mind.
The balding dude would hate my language, too.
“Look,” I said. “I can’t do all this on my own. You’re coming to me every day, asking me to fix your problems.”
Nearby, someone cleared her throat. A small, older woman with shoulder-length gray hair smiled. “What if I gathered the complaints and then brought them to you?” she asked. “After that, we can figure out a committee or something to start helping people.”
“And my cart?” the man asked.
The woman smiled. “Maybe I can help you search for it. If we don’t find it, perhaps I can lend you mine?”
I didn’t know who this woman was, but she was a godsend. “Thank you,” I told her. “Get me that list and we’ll go from there.”
She put her hand on my arm as she moved a little closer. When she leaned in to speak, I realized that her eyes still had the milky, blue-white film of death. “Sometimes, people just need to be heard. I’m a good listener.” And with that, she approached the gathered individuals who’d waylaid me.
“Isaiah!” Nick ran toward me.
I immediately forgot all about the complainers and jogged toward him. “How is she?”
He grabbed my sleeve, pulling me away from the group and toward one of the long walkways. “We need to find medicine. Medical equipment.”
“What? Why?” I yelled, and spun in the opposite direction, about to sprint toward Whitney’s room. What had happened in the fifteen minutes I’d been gone?
“Wait!” He grabbed me before I’d made it a step and held onto me with both hands.
I fought him, uncaring of the spectacle I made. “Fuck, Nick. Let me go!”
“She’s okay. She’s resting.” He shook me, but I wasn’t looking at him.
“I need to see.” Why had I left her? Someone knocked on the door, and I went running. There was nothing more important than her. My mind raced with a hundred awful scenarios, all of them ending with her hurt and me not knowing.
“She needs something else from us,” he said with another shake.
That got my attention, and I finally turned my gaze to him. “What?”
“Can I let you go or are you going to run?” he asked, eyebrows raised.
I couldn’t make any promises. Every muscle in my body was ready to explode into action and get me to her as fast as possible. He waited, and finally, I nodded. “Go.”
“We need to get things together so Dante can examine us and heal us.”
Above us, lightning streaked across the sky. Nick glanced up and shuddered. “Rein it in. You strike me with lightning, and it only hurts her.”
He was right. And apparently my super power of creating storms was influenced by my emotional state. Now aware of it, I could sense my energy reaching for the clouds and the molecules of water in the air. It was only with concerted effort the clouds dissipated. “What do we need to do?”
Nick let me go. “We need to check the machines in the old wildlife center. See if the X-ray is working. Find any medical equipment that may still be workable. Dante’s going to check us over. If we’re healthy, great. If not, we’ll find whatever medicine we need to get better. Whitney’s too exhausted to take care of us anymore.”
“She shouldn’t have to,” I agreed, glancing around our new home. Suddenly, the balding man who’d merely been annoying became dangerous. He was another person draining Whitney. “John and I will take point with the day-to-day things. I should have seen this earlier.”
“We all should have,” Nick admitted. He ran a hand over his face, wearing a rare, serious expression. “We’re just lucky she survived.”
His words were like a cold rain on my head on an already freezing morning. She might not survive. What would I do if she died?
I wasn’t sure that I could go on. That was something we never discussed but there it was.
Hell. We might not ever be able to die. John had died and became Controlled again. If we got sick, Whit would heal us until it killed her.
And then she’d leave us. She’d disappear someplace we couldn’t follow or fall under Dexter’s control.
I took a long breath and then another one. Meditating used to work for me when I lived but was less effective now.
Or maybe there was just no way to make this okay.
“Here’s what we’re going to do.” Nick had waited without insulting me while I pulled it together, which meant he must know how bad this was. “You are going to go find the X-ray. If it doesn’t work, drag it back anyway. You might have to recruit from the masses to help you. I’m going to find medicine. That means Roanoke and I’m better getting in and out of there myself. Even the burning shell of it can be a disaster.”
I put my hand on his arm. “If you’re sure. I’ll go with you.”
“Appreciate it, but Nick the thief works alone. If the X-ray is broken, let’s hope Dante—or Brandon—can probably fix it.”
I nodded. “Sounds good. Thanks, man.”
“You got it, Zero.”
Nick winked at me before he ran off. He was going to go to one of the cars he’d hidden. I didn’t even know where they were. Nick was a man with secrets.
I had an idea of where the X-ray was. There were old storage places with all sorts of broken-down equipment around here. I just had to figure out what it all was.
My life had really taken a turn.
It was ridiculous that I had any kind of leadership role in this world.
If only these people knew how little I had done when I was truly living. I’d gone out of my way to do nothing, and it seemed like such a waste, now.
When I’d left home, I’d jumped from mind-numbing job to mind-numbing job. And I hadn’t given a second thought about my mother and John, who were still dealing with my crazy stepfather.
In my free time, I’d gotten high and chilled. I dicked around, slept with women I didn’t care about, and gave the entire world a big middle-finger.
I’d never planned to be a hero, or a leader. But then Whitney Lake had appeared and everything changed.
I wouldn’t fail her.
5
Whitney
I’d fallen asleep in Carson’s arms but woke up in John’s. Not that I was complaining. I loved them all and was glad to have them, so I didn’t care who was with me.
John closed the book he’d been reading and stared down at me. “There are the eyes I’ve missed.” He rubbed his hand down my arm. “You feeling any better?”
I did a body check and struggled with how to answer. I didn’t want to lie to him, but I didn’t want him to worry about me either.
His body tensed next to mine. “That bad?”
I let out a breath. God, my chest hurt. I touched it lightly. Between my breasts was the worst. “Pretty bad,” I finally answered. Not only did my ribs and sternum hurt, but also my head pounded and my throat was sore. “I think I’m getting sick.”
John touched my forehead, first with the palm of his hand and then the back. “I don’t know how to take temperature with my hand. You feel hot with both sides.”
I shut my eyes. His skin was cool, and I was so warm. “Try your lips,” I said and smiled.
John chuckled and shifted. His lips were just as cool. His hand touched my neck, holding me still while he skimmed his lips from my forehead down my nose to my lips. At the last second, I jerked away. “I don’t want to get you sick.”
John’s expression changed from annoyed to concerned. “Normally I’d argue with you and say I didn’t care, but I wouldn’t be the only one who suffered.” He kissed near the corner of my mouth and sat up. “Are you comfortable here? Can I get you anything?”
My bed wasn’t the most comfortable. It was an old mattress we’d found in the wildlife center meant for those staff who spent the night to care for animals, but it was as good as it got. I thought longingly of the little cottage in the woods and the deep, if dust covered, mattresses there.
John’s gaze never l
eft me. “You hurt.”
I shook my head, made a move to shrug, but stopped myself at the last minute. “It is what it is. I’ll be fine.”
“Don’t be a martyr, Whit,” he said with a sigh. Normally, his directness didn’t bother me. It was who John was. He was a fixer. A leader. But making do wasn’t martyrdom, and he should understand it. So if he wanted to be difficult, fine.
“Unless you can get me to our cottage where I can hide out from everyone and soak in a claw foot tub, then I’m good. And I’m not being a martyr. I just don’t see the point in complaining about something that can’t be fixed.”
John smiled, it stretched from ear to ear, and he leaned over to kiss me again. “I can make that happen.”
Raising my eyebrows, I studied him. “Oh yeah? I’m not really up for a trek through the woods.” Now that I’d let the sass out, I couldn’t dial it back. “And while we’re at it, I’d love a smoothie. One of those with bananas and chocolate and peanut butter. Since you’re granting wishes, can you get me one of those, too?”
He threw back his head and laughed. Irritating man. And he kept laughing. He laughed so hard he wiped tears out of his eyes, and I had to smother the smile threatening.
John without the other guys was a different John. He liked being with me alone. In fact, I thought John really preferred to be one-on-one with everyone.
But he was great when he had an audience. He could get people to do whatever he wanted, like his voice was magic. I got the sense, though, it was more of a performance. John as the leader was as uncomfortable a position for him as it was for Isaiah.
He just faked it better.
But he couldn’t fake it when it came to our relationship. He liked small, intimate conversations. And his desire for this was part of his hesitation accepting our relationship. He’d adjusted now, but it was work on my part. I had to make sure he got enough time, just him. I had to give each guy what they needed.
“I’d take you to the cottage right now but Dante’s equipment is here. We’re going to figure out how to draw less from you.”
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