Love Starts With Z

by Tera Shanley

  She wanted to go home.

  In her weakest moments, she thought of life outside of the Boneyard. Yearned for it even. Some peaceful spot where she didn’t have to wash the blood of lives she’d taken from her skin when she came home every day. She could feel herself changing, could see it in her team. Adrianna had stopped joking by the fourth day. Lauren didn’t pick up her chalkboard anymore, and even the bright love for life had dimmed in Colten’s eyes. Kaegan tried to keep up appearances, but he had nightmares. She’d never tell him in a million years, but every night, his body went so rigid, she was afraid he would stop breathing, so she kept near constant vigil over his body until morning when he was conscious again.

  She still couldn’t sleep.

  Beans simmered over the fire, and Kaegan sat slumped over, watching a lazy fly hover over the food. When she approached, his gray gaze lifted to her, and he attempted to smile. “I’ll go get your dinner from Moore. Be right back.”

  “No. You need rest and food. I’ll get it.”

  “Please.” His expression was so raw, like he was too tired to keep up the façade covering the damage battle did to him. The damage she did to him.

  It ripped her guts out.

  “Okay,” she said, then he walked away.

  “You’re torturing each other, you know.” Adrianna sat beside her and offered the injured hand. It looked awful, but at least the bleeding had mostly stopped. “You two could die in any fight, at any time, and you’re spending your last days hurting each other. It’s not right.”

  “And it’s right what you’re doing to Colten?” she snapped. Hissing through her teeth, she said, “Sorry. I know you’re just trying to help.” Lowering her head, she pulled the thread through Adrianna’s gash. “I don’t know what I’m doing with him. I’m confused half the time, and the other half, I’m so busy worrying about staying alive and keeping everyone safe, I can’t tell my head from my ass.”

  Ade gestured to the base. “You’re doing what you have to here, Soren. A man like Kaegan needs more, and you know it. You’d be a good mom.”

  “Ade,” she warned.

  She snatched the needle from her hand and stood. “You would. And any kid you had would be fuckin’ awesome, just like his mom.”

  The tent flap fell as she whooshed inside, leaving Soren with the simmering beans. She was too tired to have a row with Adrianna, too exhausted to even think about putting together all the fractured pieces that used to be her and Kaegan.

  A hulking shadow fell over the toes of her boots, and she looked up to thank Kaegan for retrieving her daily ration. Only it wasn’t Kaegan but another familiar face.

  “Finn?”

  “Funny story,” he said. “We had messengers telling us about a mysterious zombie-woman leading a war against the Deads. Now, I’ve never seen any other zombie-people, so your parents and I put our heads together and started thinking, maybe, just maybe, it was our Soren spearheading this little shindig. They say hi, by the way.”

  Rocketing to her feet, she threw her arms around his thick neck and buried her face in his shoulder. It was so good to be reminded of home she could cry.

  “Hush now, girl. You got an audience.”

  She thought he was talking about her soldiers, but when she looked up, Kaegan stood with a look so intense, his eyes should’ve sparked.

  “You remember Finn,” she said.

  “Good to see you again,” he said dryly and dropped a blood stained sack at her feet, then disappeared into the tent.

  “What’s going on?” Finn said, eyes on the dirty canvas.

  “A war.” More than one, apparently.

  Cocking an eyebrow like he knew exactly what kind of war she was talking about, he shook his head. “I didn’t come alone. I brought troops from Denver with me. They’re settling into their tents right now. Also, Sean’s been pulling every favor he has in his back pocket, and we’ve brought his dealings with us.”

  “Like what?” she asked, afraid to get too excited.

  Finn’s entire face was taken by a wicked smile. “Like tanks. Two of them, fuel, ammunition for them. We parked them across the moat. And these.” He tossed her one of Guist’s arm guards he’d created and perfected years ago. Black, nylon, bite-proof lifesavers that her soldiers could strap on their forearms and hold Deads back.

  “How many?”

  “Two hundred pair. Brought the gun locker too, and that’s not all. I saved the best for last.” Pulling her to her feet, he dragged her by the hand until they were near the front gate. Trails of people filed across the tiny metal ramp, the line stretching to the woods. Deads attacked but were outnumbered and were dropping like flies. “Your parents, Guist, Sean and Vanessa, they’ve been traveling far and wide with a call to arms. Every able body.”

  “Finn,” she breathed, tears stinging the backs of her eyes. “This gives us a chance. The migration is almost done. The Deads will go in the night, and we’ll be left with just a few to pick off.” She inhaled a shaky breath and tipped her face to his. “This gives us a shot at making a big run.”

  He gripped onto the fence and watched the new recruits file into base. “I knew the migration was coming to an end. We were racing time trying to get here. I was afraid we’d miss it.”

  “Tomorrow,” she murmured. “We’ll have to take our shot tomorrow if we want to take the most numbers.”

  “You been sleeping, zombie-girl?” He frowned down at her.

  She hadn’t looked in a mirror in weeks, but she could imagine she didn’t look like the girl who’d left Denver a few weeks ago. She didn’t feel like the same girl either. Maybe she’d never get back the parts of her she used to like, she didn’t know. “No. Sleep doesn’t find me anymore, Finn.”

  “Battle scars?”

  “Heart scars.”

  Such sadness swam in his eyes, crinkled with age. “Your parents would be proud of the woman standing in front of me. Rumors of the good you’ve been doing here have united entire colonies. We knew you were meant for big things, Soren. Stupid us, we just thought you’d find the cure.” He dragged his eyes to the Dead bodies piling up as the new recruits downed them. “But maybe you have.”

  Two tanks ran over the hastily erected fence, destroying it so troops could storm the beach from more drop points. Snipers raced up tower ladders, and ammunition runners darted back and forth with boxes of bullets. Body haulers and burners had been prepped only to retrieve Deads closest to the trails to be safe.

  They were about to piss off the freaking beehive.

  People would die. Soren looked to her left. Colten whispered something into Adrianna’s ear and brought a faint smile to her lips. Lauren watched her, nodded, and squeezed her hand once. To her right, Kaegan and Finn stood like giants of old. Scarred and focused. Ready.

  Behind her, more than two thousand brave men and woman walked with weapons at the ready. They weren’t here because they were drafted or forced. They were here, offering their lives to make a difference in the apocalypse. She was so damned proud of the humans around her, her heart filled to bursting. Honor like that wasn’t found among the Deads. She’d picked a side before arriving in Empalme, but sometime in the last weeks of bloodshed and bonding, it had been cemented in her makeup. She didn’t pity the creatures anymore. They weren’t the people they were in life. Just husks and hosts for a disease that lay destruction to an entire planet—threats to her friends and family, to her soldiers.

  Her speech had been made, brave good-byes spoken on tentative lips just in case. Now her body hummed with the desire to end this. Today would go down in human history either way. Either they would annihilate the majority of the Dead population in one epic onslaught, or they’d die trying in the biggest human loss of life in two decades.

  “Go big or go home, right?” Kaegan asked, looking down at her with a sad smile.

  Dread had been her constant companion through the night. The feeling like this was the end wouldn’t be stifled, and when she looked at him, she di
dn’t feel the numb exhaustion from battle weariness anymore. She felt afraid. “If something happens today—”

  “It won’t.” His fingers found hers, and the fog of fear evaporated.

  His touch was everything, and after this was over, she’d find a way to make it right with him. Their fickle fates would just have to piss off. She’d compromise if it meant keeping him.

  “Light ’em up!” she screamed, and the battle cry of two thousand men and women filled the dawn.

  She ran alongside them, these humans who’d put their lives in her hands. The men and women who chose to let her lead, let her make plans, let her choose the course of their destinies.

  Wind whipped through her hair as she screamed along with them, lifting her battle sword in the air. She’d give everything for them.

  She hit the front line with the force of a storm, brought her arm guard up, and bashed a Dead in the skull with the hilt of her blade before scissoring her swords against the face of the next. She found her rhythm, thrusting, spinning, ducking, elbowing, pushing back—always pushing back.

  Soldiers fell and died beside her, and she saved who she could. The screams on their lips spurred her on.

  Water. She was water, and Deads were helpless against her movement against them. Traitor. No, not a traitor. She wasn’t one of them. They were incapable of love, and she loved people to oblivion. Adrianna, Colten, Lauren, her family. And Kaegan had pushed her over the edge, filling her with adoration so bright it was blinding. Slashing, smashing, pushing, her clothes were red. The sand turned black and lapped at her boots.

  Maybe it had been hours, or perhaps minutes, she didn’t know. On they pushed, held the line. Screams and groans mixed together. The sound of waves and the dull thuds of bodies fighting and falling haunted the beach. The second wave of soldiers attacked the fray, fresh and ready, and she paused in a pile of bodies. Panting, she took in the moment. Colten and Adrianna fought side by side, working together. Lauren backhanded a Dead with her arm guard beside Finn, and Kaegan…where was Kaegan?

  Frantically she searched the faces in the crowd, but none were her Kaegan. Her horrified gaze dropped to the mass of bodies around her, scanning, terrified.

  “Soren,” came Kaegan’s whisper on the breeze. “I’m here.”

  She knew before she even turned around that doing so would destroy her. Kaegan sagged to his knees in the spattered sand. Mud and filth caked his body, streaked with the perspiration of his battle efforts. His face was pale, shocked, and fresh red streamed down his shoulder, gathered in his curled palm, and dripped from his middle finger.

  The wound wasn’t from a blade. The muscle connecting his shoulder and neck had been torn, the edges jagged. She’d seen a hundred Dead bites before.

  “Soren,” he gasped, swaying.

  “No,” she said shaking her head in denial. Tears streamed her face, and her throat constricted until nothing came out but whispers softer than the breeze. “No, Kaegan.”

  He had a few minutes before he would turn. Before he became the thing they fought. It wasn’t enough. Her hand fell from the gun at her hip. The one she hadn’t ever used. Jarren’s pistol that she would finally pull the trigger on to free the man she loved.

  She ran and fell to her knees in front of him, and his hand slid up her neck. He caressed her tearstained cheek and looked at her with such ceaseless pride, she broke.

  “I can’t,” she sobbed.

  “You won’t have to,” he said, eyes filling with tears that matched her own.

  Of course she would. She couldn’t let him walk the earth a Dead. It was cowardly for her to ask someone else to do it. No, the burden was hers.

  Gripping her hair, he bent down and pressed his lips to hers. He eased back and rested his forehead against hers. “I’ve waited a lifetime to do that.”

  Swallowing a sob, she tilted her chin, kissed him, and dragged him closer. His mouth moved against hers, and he shifted the angle of his head, cradled hers in his hand, and lapped the seam of her mouth until she opened for him.

  How had she lived so long without this?

  Parting her lips, he brushed his tongue against hers, tasting. Every second that ticked by brought the joy of finally touching him. Every second brought agony with its loss.

  “Soren,” he whispered against her lips.

  “I can’t lose you,” she said, breaking apart. “I know what I can do, and this is too much. I love you.”

  Cupping her cheek, he smiled. His dark hair fell forward, and she brushed it out of his face. Every plane of it was precious, consuming…mortal.

  “You won’t.”

  She frowned. Maybe he’d forgotten what a Dead bite did. Right now, the virus was surging through his unprotected system, overwhelming his organs.

  He lifted the sleeve of his T-shirt to reveal a raw, circular wound. “I took the vaccine this morning. I took the one in your satchel because I couldn’t live without you anymore. I compromised. Having a family doesn’t mean anything if it isn’t with you.”

  “You took the vaccine?”

  He cupped her face in both wide palms. “For you.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “You would’ve run from me if I told you. I was scared you’d blame yourself, and you already have so much on your shoulders. I wanted to wait until tonight, after this last fight. You’re mine, Soren. You have been since the moment I saw you. It was my decision, one I’ll never regret, and one you’ll never be able to change with your good intentions. I. Choose. You.”

  Her shoulders shook with the sobs that wracked her body, and she fell into him, so relieved she could die of it.

  Kaegan was alive.

  He was still human, and he was hers.

  Nothing else mattered.

  Epilogue

  SOREN WALKED THROUGH THE WOODS with Max at her side. He’d found them again after the Battle of the Boneyard. He’d waited in the woods outside La Junta, and had followed them all the way back through the gates of the Denver colony.

  Her fingers rested in his coarse fur as they walked a deer trail, and a low growl rumbled in his throat. A Dead pulled against the snare that had wound around its ankle, and she pulled her knife.

  She didn’t commune with the Deads anymore. Those days had been demolished with her time served in the war. Now her goal was the same as the rest of the human race: snuff out every Dead, and let none escape. Only then would they be rid of the disease.

  It had taken two-and-a-half decades, but the humans had fought back and won. Life wouldn’t ever be the same as it was before the end of the world. Colonies stood while the cities of old still crumbled. There wasn’t a rush to rebuild after the war. What was the point? The colonies served their purpose, and people could finally enjoy safety.

  The Dead dropped like a stone, and she wiped the dark blade on her pants, dragged him away, and then reset the snare. A tiny tree jutted from the earth inside the wire loop, its fragile green pine needles stretching toward the light that filtered through the canopy. Searching the large trunk in front of her, stretching her neck until she looked into the matching needles of a towering spruce, she smiled. Pulling her canteen, she poured water over the infant tree and stood.

  When she turned, Kaegan was there, leaning against a giant pine. His smile was sexy, his eyes hungry as she’d never been able to quite catch in her drawings. He was beautiful.

  “Dinner is on,” he said, stretching his hand out to her.

  It had been two years since the Boneyard, and still he took her breath away. Slipping her palm into his, she gave a sharp whistle to Max, who fell into step under the fingertips of her other hand.

  “I’ve been thinking,” she said.

  His voice was laced with a smile when he said, “Uh oh.”

  “Maybe someday it wouldn’t be so terrible to try for a child.”

  He was quiet for a long time, and the first of the forest frogs croaked its evening song.

  “Why?” he asked, so quiet he didn’
t disturb the peace of the woods.

  “Because you’d make an amazing father, Kaegan. And I used to be so scared that our child would be like me, but she’d be raised in Denver, surrounded by people who love her. And it would be a shame if my mom and dad never got to be grandparents. I see the way they look at Lauren’s baby.”

  “I like watching you hold little Connor,” he admitted. “You’d be a great mother, but I don’t know if we can. Lauren was lucky to get pregnant after being vaccinated.”

  “Well, that’ll be the fun of it then, won’t it? We won’t expect it, but if you give me a baby, it’ll be special. She’ll be one of the first warrior women of the beginning of the world.” She grinned and turned, walking backward in front of him. “Plus it’ll be fun to practice.”

  “You keep saying she,” he said, cocking his head. “How do you know we won’t have a son?”

  She shrugged and looped her arms around his taut waist. Pressing her head against his chest, she closed her eyes against the precious sound of his beating heart, the only music that meant anything to her.

  Smiling, she whispered, “I had a dream.”

  Acknowledgments

  There is a heap of people who deserve a giant thank you—people who believed in this series and in me as an author. This series has been such an emotional journey and one of the coolest experiences of my life. I gave a piece of myself to each of these books, something I don’t have the ability to share with anyone outside of these words on a page, and as scary as it was, I met the most incredible people through this little zombie adventure. Thank you to Robin Lonscak, for working tirelessly to polish these books and for bringing these characters to life with me. To Sean Riley for streamlining this story and getting as excited for Soren and her story as I have been. To the awesome line editors and cover artists who worked on this project. I’ll be honest, when I received the line-up for the team on these last two books, it looked like a freaking dream team, and every single one of them came through for this finale.