Love Starts With Z

by Tera Shanley

  Wrapping his hand slowly around the back of her neck, he growled, “I do know you. And if I have to sit back and be all right with your decisions to fight, you owe me the same respect. I fight with the team.”

  Shrugging off his hand, she pressed her face to the bar. He was right, double damn him.

  Turning to her team, all gathered around and staring at the passing palm tree scenery, she said, “No matter what, we have to all stay together. Fight as a team like we’ve done all along. If we get split up, fall back, regroup, and we’ll charge again.”

  “It won’t be simple like that,” a man said beside her, swaying in rhythm with the bumpy road. His blue eyes were probably handsome once, but now they’d dimmed and housed ghosts. “We said the same thing, my team. Now I’m the only one left.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” she said, unable to hold his gaze. His sorrow was too much. How he was still standing, still going to battle, she didn’t know.

  The man’s lip trembled, and his eyes looked like they should be rimmed with tears, but none came, like he didn’t make them anymore. “Fight the ones on the edges. If you get too deep in, pull back, but never, ever lose track of where you are.”

  Clenching her shaking hands against the nerves that threatened to lock her body, she nodded. “Okay. Thanks.”

  The scent of burning flesh was faint at first, but grew stronger as they meandered on a washed out, sandy road. The truck slowed. Outside, dozens of people hauled Dead carcasses, pulled them into piles. One was already burning, the flames licking the clouds, and plumes of shadow-colored smoke blotted out the sky.

  The back door to the truck screeched open, and one by one, the soldiers trickled down the metal step to the dune covered earth beneath.

  The sound of guns cocking, clips being checked, blades sliding from their sheaths overshadowed the faraway sound of Deads groaning and ocean waves cresting the shore. The body haulers didn’t even look up as they passed. Maybe it was too hard for them, knowing they wouldn’t see all of them return that evening.

  Soldiers filed down a trail into jungle, but at a trio of carcasses, she paused. Bile curdled in her throat, threatened to come up as she considered, but she’d do anything to give her team an advantage at survival.

  The knife in her hand made a slick sound as she sliced open the arm of a Dead woman who stared vacantly at the sky, face maimed.

  “What are you doing?” Kaegan asked.

  “The smell will confuse them. It’ll hide your human scent.” She pulled the dark pungent liquid from the arm and slathered it across his arm.

  Lauren gagged when she did the same to her, but Adrianna stood stoically, awaiting her turn.

  A couple of the soldiers from the truck stopped to watch, and one even followed suit, spreading the fetid blood across his neck. He nodded once and walked off behind his companion.

  At last, Kaegan knelt and brushed his hand across the woman. Standing, he feathered two thumbs across her cheeks.

  “I don’t smell human,” she said.

  “No.” He ran a light finger down her jawline and offered her the saddest smile. “But you look battle ready this way.”

  Turning to hide how much he still affected her, she asked, “Ready?”

  Whatever she’d expected to see on that beach as they walked out of the coastal grasses and trees, it wasn’t this.

  Deads surged the sand, covering every inch of it as far as the eye could see. The ocean had been blocked out completely by the stumbling monsters. Crudely built towers leaned against towering palm trees, and the crack of sniper shot was almost constant. Up the beach, humans stormed from forest trails similar to the one where they stood. And the noise—she’d never forget the cries of the damned as long as she lived. It rattled her bones.

  Kaegan turned away when she caught him watching. Colten and Lauren stared with horrified expressions. And Adrianna—her fearless friend, who’d been there since the moment of her birth—her lips were pressed into a grim line like her fate had already been decided. Soren pulled both battle swords from their places on her back. Her hair whipped her face, and she flung it back. If they died today, they’d do it together.

  Three quick breaths, and she was off, the others trailing her. Her feet sank deeper into the sand with each step. The fighting below was chaotic. Screams and gunfire penetrated the steady hum of hungry Deads, and farther down the beach, large shells blasted, from a tank or maybe a cannon.

  There was no training, no preparation. The other fighters fought and fell, scattered amongst the horde like the seashells on the beach. This was no way to fight. It certainly wasn’t the way to die. A man cried out as he disappeared under a mass of rotting bodies, and enraged at the pointless loss, she screamed a battle cry as she ran into the first line of defense.

  The Deads were loosest here, and Soren plunged her smallest sword into the first. One. Pressing forward, she pushed toward a couple of fighters cut off from escape. They brawled, fought for their lives, but they couldn’t hold. Not forever.

  Kaegan appeared beside her, slashing and maiming, his face closed down, focused. There was no organization, no commanding officers to give orders and rally the troops. The war was a free for all, and the survivors of this would only be alive out of sheer dumb luck.

  Grabbing a Dead’s throat to slow it down, she kicked another in the chest and ducked beneath the grasp of a Dead more bone than meat. He fell over her, and she thrust up until her sword caught the Dead woman through the jaw. Two. Stepping over the bodies, she pressed farther, but Kaegan must’ve seen what she wanted, because he was already adjusting his position toward the stranded fighters too. Colten and Adrianna fought, spun, sliced, graceful and deadly, while Lauren held her right side.

  The Deads were never ending. Kicking the kneecap of one and bringing her blade down upon his skull, she shoved his body against the onslaught. Three. Now she could see why the warriors back at camp kept count. It eased the lonely feeling of just being one in a thousand. It motivated her to ratchet her number up as high as she could before she went. At least then, her life would’ve meant something.

  “Soren,” Adrianna called as one fell forward against her.

  She jerked her head to the side just as one of Adrianna’s knifes thunked into the side of its face.

  They were almost there. She could hear the exhausted whimpers from the woman as she slashed with heavy looking arms. The look of desperation was written all over her face.

  She tossed her small sword up and caught it by the hilt and rammed it into a Dead. Four.

  “Hey,” she called out. “This way!”

  The woman jerked her gaze for just a moment, but it was enough. The Dead she’d been holding back lurched forward, mouth open, intent on her exposed throat.

  “No!” Soren screamed, bolting for her. Rocketing off the couples’ pile of carnage, she brought the hilt of her sword through the Dead’s thin bones just before his teeth grazed the woman.

  The impact of her body knocked them both over.

  Kaegan yelled something from the crowd, but she couldn’t understand him. All she heard was the snarls of the undead as they piled atop her. She moved to cover the woman’s body with her own, but the weight disappeared from her back, and the pepper of gunfire shattered the humming death chant.

  She yanked the woman upright and implored, “Stay with us,” before turning to pull a shorter blade. She couldn’t afford the big swinging arcs her battle sword would need when the team fought in such a tight grouping. Hell, she could feel Adrianna against her back, moving with her like she was glued.

  Endless Deads stumbled toward them, inhibited by the deep sand, but steady on their path of destruction. She spun the hilt of her blade and gripped the familiar handle, just as much a part of her as her own arm.

  She wouldn’t do it. She wouldn’t die today, and neither would her team. Her blood sang with revenge.

  Revenge for all the lives taken.

  Revenge for making her Other.

/>   Revenge for ending the world.

  Five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve…

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  THEY’D SURVIVED, but for how long?

  Soren hovered above her sleeping team. After a day of brutal, bloody fighting, not a single word had been uttered on the ride back to camp. Silence had hung between them as they dragged themselves through camp. Lauren and Colten had nodded off before the chili had even begun to simmer over the fire just outside the tent.

  Lauren had already taken a nip on the shoulder. Her saving grace was the vaccine she’d taken when she was a child, so still human, she only slept like the dead.

  How long could they fight like this? How long could Kaegan without losing his soul to the disease?

  She could vaccinate him in his sleep.

  He was so exhausted he probably wouldn’t even feel the needle. But then he’d notice the pain later. The pockmark that would rot away where the vaccine was injected. He’d know what she’d done.

  Still. She glared at her satchel, lying limp in the corner. Guist had included a single vaccine in her go-bag, and he had to have meant it for this. He’d known Kaegan was at risk of turning. She cracked her knuckles. He’d know though, and he’d despise her forever. Would it be worth it?

  “Soren,” Moore said from the open tent flap.

  She jumped like she’d been scalded. Maybe she should’ve been for her traitorous thoughts.

  Standing, she shot one last look at her team and followed him out. The eyelash moon hung high in the sky, surrounded by a dusting of stars that lit up the silent camp in muted hues. The hour was late, and the fighters were sleeping, resting their bodies for another day of death come morning.

  “What happened today?” he asked, linking his hands behind his back as he walked.

  “We fought, joined up with a couple of other groups, and got lucky.”

  “Got lucky?”

  “Yes. We caught the attention of the snipers. Without them, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  “Lucky.” He mulled the word around in his mouth like it was unfamiliar to his vocabulary. “You said you gathered a few groups?”

  “Joined up with,” she corrected. “And yes.”

  “I hear that by the end of the day, you led a group fifty strong.”

  She shrugged. There hadn’t exactly been time to do a head count, but that guess was as good as any. “You’re unorganized on the battlefield, General Moore. Your troops are scared and disheartened, and there isn’t a single person out there leading. You have teams that are thrown out there with no warning of what is coming.”

  “Where did you train?” he asked.

  “Who says I trained?”

  “What was your number?”

  The question caught her off guard, and she hesitated. That number was supposed to belong only to her. “One hundred fourteen.”

  “Where did you train?” he asked again.

  “The Denver colony, under Laney and Derek Mitchell, Sean and Vanessa Daniels, Finn Geer, and Aaron Guist.”

  His dark eyes were hard, like an eagle on prey. “Soren Mitchell?”

  “The one and only.” Her voice sounded sad, even to her.

  “I have something for you.” He held open the canvas to his tent, and she stepped into his office.

  A leg of beef sat atop a large, metal plate. “Kaegan informed me of your dietary needs.”

  Of course he did. That man hadn’t stopped trying to take care of her since she’d met him. Ending their relationship hadn’t stifled his protective instincts one bit.

  “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me yet, because I have a favor to ask.” He sat, gripped his hands in front of his mouth. “I want you to head a battalion.”

  She scoffed. “You want me to lead a bunch of humans into battle against creatures who look like me. You know they won’t do it.”

  “Fifty did today.”

  “Part of that number was my own team, who’ve had a chance to figure out who I am. The others were in desperate trouble and needed the safety of numbers. No one was leading that, sir. It was a mess.”

  “Then tell me who qualifies more than you do. Hmmm? Who? Who has your training? Who has your skill with a weapon and your calm head in battle? Oh, I heard all about you from several witnesses, Ms. Mitchell. Deny it all you want, but you were made for this.”

  “I’ll give you some pointers, assist whoever you choose to lead them, but this isn’t me, General. I haven’t been accepted by humans my whole life. It’s not going to magically happen in my final days.”

  “Z,” he said, standing. “Their lives depend on you.”

  Wrapping her hands around the leg of beef, she hoisted it away from the table, and then turned at the door. “I’m sorry.”

  Her? The leader in this war of the damned? That couldn’t get any more laughable. He’d lost his mind. Lost it! Too many men lost under him, too many days on the battlefield, something. Whatever his game was, she wasn’t going to be any part of it. She was peon cannon fodder, just like the rest.

  Who qualifies more than you do, his voice caressed her mind.

  Probably lots of people. A damned human to start with. She thought of all the scared and weary fighters she’d fought alongside today. All down for the cause but none of them held a candle to anyone on her team.

  Their lives depend on you.

  She hovered at the door to her tent, watched her team, the people she loved, sleep. Colten’s arm was thrown over Adrianna’s hip in a protective embrace. Lauren had pulled her knees to her chest and twitched in her sleep. And Kaegan. Her Kaegan—so long, his calves hung off the blanket and rested in the sand. His arms were crossed over his heart, like doing so would keep it from breaking. She mirrored him and sighed.

  No, General Moore had it wrong.

  Her life depended on them.

  Everywhere Kaegan looked, rotting faces moaned for his flesh. Just a taste that would turn him into one of them. They were so thick, he couldn’t see the sky, couldn’t see the earth, couldn’t see…

  Hush now, Soren whispered.

  He’d frozen in fear, machete clutched in his sweating palm, useless against his fears. The monsters, dark and foreboding, parted. Soren weaved through them, an angelic smile on her face.

  His beautiful Soren.

  You’re scared, she said, though her lips didn’t move. Of what?

  His chest constricted, choking him with words he was desperate to hide. Words that clawed their way out of him, gutting him in the process.

  “I’m scared of losing you,” he rasped.

  The smile fell from her face and sadness swelled in her eyes like the churning sea. “You can’t lose something you never had.”

  Decaying hands stretched from the sand, ensnaring his feet until he couldn’t move. He reached for her, but she fell back, overtaken by the Deads.

  They devoured her, and he couldn’t move to stop them.

  “Aaah!” he yelled, sitting straight up. It was dark, and in his panic, he couldn’t see, couldn’t move, couldn’t remember where he was. Panting, his chest heaved until it hurt, and his hand landed on something warm.

  “Paws to yourself, you handsy giant,” Adrianna muttered sleepily, and reality slammed back into him like a tidal wave, harsh and suffocating.

  It was still too early for dawn to bestow her subtle light, but Mother Moon was helping as best she could. The corner of Adrianna’s blanket had draped over him in the night, and he flung it off. He wouldn’t get any more sleep tonight.

  “Bad dream?” Soren asked from her seat beside the long-extinguished fire. She washed blood from her hands with the lip of her full canteen.

  “Yeah.” He sat beside her and ran his hands through his hair, preening away the remnants of the unsettled feeling the nightmare left him with.

  “About?”

  “You,” he admitted.

  Eyes on the embers, she said, “I have to talk to you about something.”<
br />
  Uh oh. “Shoot.” A fitting word because sometimes, her words felt like wounds.

  “I’m leading a battalion today. Probably will until…well, until my end.”

  Her voice stayed as passive as her eyes. A bone, free of its meat, lay on the ground, and he stared at his untied laces. She’d been to see Moore. Okay, maybe her leading wasn’t a bad thing. She’d have more protection than he and the team could provide. But then again, what if she felt the need to protect all of the people under her? A battalion—that could be hundreds of soldiers. It could exhaust her, spread her too thin.

  Hell, he didn’t know what the right move was. But looking at her here in the dark, something clicked. He’d known all along she was special. Gifted. Damn it, she was the gift, to him and to this war. Watching her in battle proved that. She saved human lives. She slaughtered Deads with such grace and skill, sometimes it was hard not to stop and watch her. Anyone with eyes in their head could see she was the weapon that could turn the tide of this failing war.

  “I always knew you were destined for more,” he said.

  “You think I should?”

  He swallowed the urge to say no. To ask her, beg her, to walk out of camp with him and leave all notions of this fight behind. If they weren’t in it up to their eyeballs already, then those winged Dead gargoyles yesterday drowned them in duty. “Yes,” he said before he could chicken out.

  She fidgeted with a string that had come loose from the hem of her shirt. “I don’t dream.” She looked up, eyes daring him to think her strange.

  She wasn’t though. Everything about her was perfect.

  Memories of her face disappearing as Deads clawed and bit into her flesh made him repress a chill that had been hiding in his spine. “You aren’t missing anything.”

  “When I was growing up, I used to ask Ade and Seamus to tell me all the details of their dreams. Eventually I didn’t have to ask. They’d just tell me first thing in the morning before school. I wanted one so bad. A good one, I mean, but I don’t think good dreams are given to…you know.”