Congratulations,” we say as they turn to hug us all.
“Thank you,” Dad says. ‘And thank you, Angel.’
‘Always.’
After the pastor leaves, we eat cake and listen to mum telling the story of how dad hunted her down and got himself captured by the lab she worked at. I hear them omitting parts of the story, but most of it’s there. Angel is engrossed, and so is Zaire. Those two are desperate to start dating. Their plan, like most of ours, is to go to school as soon as they reopen.
Dris, Theo, Emerson, and Amber, though, all want to travel for a while. I can’t say I’m not going to miss them and the security we feel when we’re all together, but I’d never try to encourage them to stay.
Besides, we’re all billionaires now, so we can do whatever we want.
Mum comes over to sit with us on the grass.
“I told you we had enough time.”
She smiles, and I hear her thinking about how much I’m always right. “You did. Thank you all again, so much.”
“You’re welcome, Mum,” Royal tells her.
She suddenly looks around. “It won’t be long.”
Mason had someone run the papers to us earlier, so now we have our security in writing, we’re good to see the back of these zombies for good, and it feels so damn good. With each stop we’ve made, the weight on all our shoulders has lessened. It’s as if we can breathe a little easier, like our minds know we have less souls to put to rest each night we do this.
Even as babies, we’ve felt the need to deal with them. I can still remember how I felt when dad told me to forget about them and how much I had to fight to do what he said. I completely understand that they made that decision to keep us safe, but I can’t say it wasn’t the hardest thing we’ve ever had to do.
The urge never went away, no matter how much we tried to focus on other things. We were born to do this, to rid the world of the walking dead, and now, we’ll get the freedom we’ve always wanted. In the world, and from our minds.
“I’ll set up the cameras,” Emerson tells Mum.
“And we’ll hold them back for a little longer.” ‘Start gathering them near, but keep them back about a mile,’ I tell my brothers and sisters. There are more zombies here than anywhere else we’ve been so far, so it will take a little longer to gather all their minds.
Mum gets up and brushes her dress off. “Alright. Well, I’m going to dance with your fathers, and then let’s get to work for the last time so we can all enjoy our next few days here.”
Bibi and Vincent sit up on the porch as we all stand at the front of the house. We’re all in black like usual, and have gold masks on with black teeth. We love these masks the best, so we saved them for our final night. Dad and Paris did good on all the designs, and our TikTok fans love voting on the colours we’ll wear next.
Not sure how we’re going to entertain them now, though…
We allow the zombies to come closer, not that it matters because we can use each zombie to gather the rest, it’s more for the fans. They love seeing the whole domino effect when they fall, and I have to admit that it’s pretty cool.
I still can’t wait for it to be over, though. It’s been fun, no doubt, but I’m so ready to start my life in a zombie free world. Except from us of course.
‘I have Gia and Myers, and four more,’ Mum tells us. ‘They’re close, but they feel different to the others we’ve found. Weaker.’
Me and the rest of my brothers and sisters can feel it, too. They almost feel broken somehow. I’m not sure what this means, but we make them run faster towards us to the point of exhaustion. We know our parents want to make these kills personally.
And we want to see them.
If I had a best friend, I’d never do what Gia did. God knows what may have happened if they’d found us. The way Myers did what he did, too, making more zombies and taking innocent people’s lives, makes us hate them both even more.
Mum was right. Zombies aren’t toys, they’re lost souls, tormented humans trapped inside a half rotten body that takes control of them and makes them do the most horrific things. And it’s those lost souls that are drawn to us.
For release.
As the zombies surrounding us come to a stop, we shift, and Mum quickly merges all our minds so their souls can begin to release. And then the tremble of bodies hitting the ground begins to ripple beneath our feet.
We all feel the relief as the burden of our purpose lifts off us, but I pay close attention to the hybrids that come running over all the bodies that have already fallen in front of us. Their fear isn’t only clear on their faces, but also from their thoughts.
They come to an abrupt halt caused by mum, and their fear is tangible. One of the men is trembling and already begging for his life, and although they’re trying their hardest to fight the hold we have over them, they can’t.
I make sure I plant their feet to the ground, just in case.
The last of the zombies fall miles away, and we pull our minds from mums for the last time, but then I immediately make the six hybrids in front of us shift, so the entire world can see exactly what Myers and Gia are.
Mum gives me a nod before she begins to walk over to them with our dads beside her, and we follow behind them, feeling more excited about what they’re going to do.
‘I hope mum eats that hoe,’ Royal says.
‘I hope one of our dads knocks Myers out,’ Africa chips in.
‘Same.’
Uncle Vince even calls Gia an evil bitch, and Bibi says pretty much the same.
Axe quickly releases the minds of the four men and women, having tired of their constant begging, and then Myers and Gia both stare at us. I can hear their disbelief at seeing us in the flesh. They still think we were made and not born, though, so Paris pulls her mask down and shows her face. She’s the spit of mum.
The truth hits the two of them clear as day.
“How? How are they alive?” Myers asks, his voice barely audible.
“Because they’re not knock-offs like you pieces of shit,” Pin says.
“But…” He doesn’t finish vocally, but we hear the rest of his sentence.
None of his and Gia’s kids have lived.
“Mikka please,” Gia starts begging. “I’m pregnant.”
That’s true, but I can’t feel any life within it.
Mum stops a few feet away from her. “It won't live,” Mum says, showing no mercy. “It's not compatible with life.”
“But I’m different now, Mikka. This baby is different.”
“Trust me, I don’t know what kind of shit you two have done to yourselves, but that baby will never live past its first breath, just like all the others.”
“Mikka, please!”
I can feel mums anger growing. “I would say, I'm sorry it’s turned out this way, but I'm not. You fucking betrayed me, you evil bitch, not once, but twice. I loved you like a sister and you spat it in my face.”
“You bit me!” she screams.
“You deserved it,” Mum says calmly, but that infuriates Gia further.
“And this is your fault!”
“No, this is your fault. If you’d kept your mouth shut, none of this would’ve happened. You sided with the enemy and caused millions of people to die for no damn reason. Now this is what you get!”
“But…” She starts crying.
Myers looks at Gia and then back at mum. “If you’d just—”
“What?” Dad asks, “let you capture us so you could finish what your twisted, fucked-up brother started?”
Blade steps forward. “You really thought we’d let you lock Mikka up to grow kids for you? You’re entire family was fucked up.”
“Zane especially,” Dad adds.
“Fucking right he was,” Blade spits. “And the world will be a much safer place without you.”
The rest of our dads become outraged as they remember what Myers’ brother and nephew almost did to mum, and they walk closer to them.
“Can we kill him now?” Axe asks, pulling his own mask down and shifting.
“Yep,” Mum replies.
Gia starts screaming, but while our dads begin beating the shit out of Myers, my brothers and sisters and I hear the strangest noise.
We turn to face each other. “What is that?” Hope asks.
‘I don't know, but it sounds like it’s getting closer.’
I look across the field and spot something flying through the air towards us.
And another…
“Get down!” I scream.
I push mum to the ground and then run at my dads. The sound comes closer and I hear Jaden and Theo trying to find something to stop whatever’s coming at us. I reach Dagger first and pull him off Myers and down to the ground, then Axe, Pin, Blade, and finally, I grab dad.
He stiffens, and so do I when I feel something stick into my arm. I quickly feel for it and find a dart that I pull from my hoodie, and dad does the same to his neck.
“What the fuck was that?” Dagger shouts, getting to his feet with the rest of my parents.
I turn the dart in my fingers. “A dart.” I look back up. ‘What the hell is in this, Dad?’
His jaw hardens. ‘I don’t know, Angel.’
Twenty-Three
Mikka
The kids jump up to disappear across the field, and I run over to Raeni and Thorn. My stomach turns when I see the darts in their hands.
They were hit.
I grab both their arms. “How do you feel?” I ask them, damn near shaking them to death.
They both shrug. “Fine.”
I grit my teeth and storm back to Gia now in Dagger’s hold. “What the fuck was that!?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know. I swear.”
I turn to Axe beating the shit out of Myers on the ground, who’s laughing through a mouthful of blood. “They’re weak because they’ve taken their own fucking cure,” he yells. “Thought it would stop us getting to them. That’s what were in those darts. Muthafucka!”
No… My stomach clenches so hard, I throw up on the grass.
Myers laughs harder. “Fuck you all.”
Axe loses the last piece of restraint he has and rips Myers’ head from his body, silencing his laughs, while Gia starts screaming hysterically behind me.
I hear mum and Vincent shouting, and then the sound of the kids ripping one of the men who were supposed to be protecting us, to shreds, and as I wipe my mouth and turn back to Gia, my anger and fears manifest themselves into pure hatred, causing me to shift and see bright red.
“Please, Mikka, I didn't know!”
I grab her neck and force her to the ground. “I fucking hate you!”
“No! Please!” The skin on her neck begins to shed and her eyes glow back at me, pleading for me to let her live, but I grip her neck harder so her eyes bulge.
The bones and cartilage in her neck snap, piece by piece, crunch after crunch, and I relish the sound of her choking on her own blood as her windpipe collapses. “Die, you bitch!” I grab her braids and twist her head, slowly pulling her head from her body.
Then I take her limbs.
The relief of no more zombies being left in the world doesn’t even make me feel better as I stand and drop her arm on the ground. The earth is silent again, but unlike every other time, there’s a sadness to it.
I turn to the kids that have returned. They’re all bloodied, especially Violet, and she has a handful of unused darts in her hand.
She passes them to me. “These are what she had, Mum. It was one of the people protecting us.”
I grind my teeth as I take them from her but quickly look back at Raeni and Thorn. “Are you sure you feel okay?”
They both nod, but my gut is screaming at me that they’re not.
“What happened?” Vince asks from beside Pin. “It all happened so fast.”
I shift, but it’s hard to. My blood feels like it’s scalding my veins. “Someone shot darts at us.” I need to know what's in these. I need to know now, so I can figure out if this could be as bad as I feel it might.
They seem to be okay right now, but we’re all scared of what this could mean.
“Clean up and pack your things, we're leaving.”
“Now?” Mum asks, both shocked and upset.
“Yes, now.” I nod to the kids to pack everything up inside the house while I pull my phone from my pocket to call Mason.
“Hel—”
“Your zombies are dead. We're leaving.”
“Now?”
“Yes now,” I almost scream. “One of your so-called protectors attacked us with loaded darts!”
“What!”
“I told you Myers didn't care about anyone but himself. If you'd just taken care of him when I first told you this—”
“Miss Rishan, I'm sorry. I never—”
“I don't want to hear your apologies! I want you to send me everything off ZoNaR’s servers, and then I want his labs and everything in them burnt to the fucking ground. Right fucking now! Do you fucking understand me?”
“I’ll do it immediately.”
He fucking better. “We're leaving. I suggest you have a plane ready for us.”
“Of course. I really—”
I hang up as I look at Thorn and Raeni. Something isn't right. I just know, and the look in Thorn’s eyes tells me he knows, too.
“We’ll get a flight as soon as we can, okay?” Vince says. “I’ll come back with Mum, at least for a while.”
I feel a little sad that they won’t be coming with us now, but I nod an okay before looking at Mum. She hugs me and I almost cry, but I keep it together. She even knows how serious this is. She hasn’t even killed me for cussing in front of her.
“It will be okay, Darling.”
I close my eyes. I hope so.
A plane is waiting for us when we arrive at the airport, and I quickly order the kids on. There are a lot less people here this time, but it’s the middle of the night.
No weapons either.
Mason rushes towards me. “Miss Rish—”
“Misses Clarke,” Axe barks, making him jump.
“I'm sorry, Misses—”
I stop and glare at him before pulling my mask from my face. “Do I fucking look like I want to hear how sorry you are right now? We come here to do you a favour and this is how we're repaid?”
He holds his hands up. “I promise you, I had no idea.”
I scoff. “Regardless of that being the truth or not, you were meant to be protecting us!”
He steps back. “I know.”
Dagger pulls my arm, but I snatch it away from him to step closer to Mason. “If anything happens to my husband or daughter, I promise you, I will come back here, turn everyone into zombies personally, and then I’ll eat you. Every single one of you!” I scream. “Every piece. Even your precious President!”
I finish my point by forcing them all to their knees.
“I’m sorry,” Mason says, looking up at me.
‘Princess…’ Dagger pulls my arm again, but I shift and burn Mason with my eyes before going with him. ‘It will be okay, Princess.’
I feel for the darts in my pocket.
For everyone's sakes, it better fucking be.
Twenty-Four
Mikka
I cry quietly on the plane while I watch Raeni and Thorn sleeping beside each other. Something is definitely wrong. They feel broken.
It's like they're slipping away from me.
I don't feel whole, and I have to consciously listen to their dreams because they’re not automatically inside my head anymore.
Our bond is fractured. I know there is something bad in these darts. Once everyone wakes, they'll feel it, too. My mind doesn’t even feel as strong as it was after the brothers woke up.
The liquid in these darts is clear, which tells me absolutely nothing. They don’t have a smell, and without my lab, I’m helpless to do a damn thing. All I can do is pray that once we get h
ome, I can find a way to reverse whatever’s going on inside their bodies.
Everything feels strange, like their scents, even the way their hearts beat inside them isn't as fast. They're almost becoming human right in front of my eyes, and I’m more afraid than I’ve ever been about anything.
I wish we could kill Myers and Gia all over again.
I wipe my eyes and then twist my rings on my finger, over and over. Today was one of the happiest days of my life. I said I do, and so did the brothers, and our love reached new heights for one another.
We became each other’s in law.
Some might say it’s only a piece of paper, but it’s not. It’s so much more than that, for us especially, because it’s a promise of forever. After last night, though, I’ll always remember it as the day someone tried to take my family away from me.
I should’ve made sure to check the minds of the people guarding us. I got complacent, too comfortable, and now look? If I wasn’t so hellbent on getting revenge, I would’ve heard those darts firing. I would’ve been the one to push them all to the ground, to protect them, because it’s my job to.
Not Raeni’s.
It should’ve been me.
I’m dreading the moment they wake up. What will the brothers say? Or the kids? How will they feel about having two less minds in theirs? How will they cope without their big sister’s strength that has always kept them grounded?
And what if I can’t make it better?
The plane hits the tarmac, jolting everyone awake. My heart immediately sinks, though, because it doesn’t even take a second for all eyes to immediately fall on Thorn and Raeni. Now they’re awake, the loss off their connection is obvious.
“Mum? Why can't I hear you?”
I wipe my eyes again and feel Dagger wrap his arm around my back. “I don't know.”
Thorn’s eyes tell me everything I can’t feel. His confusion, his worry, his fear. “Angel?”
“As soon as we get back. I'll figure it out.”
“I’ll help, mum,” Hope says. ‘I’m scared for them.’
Her siblings mirror her thoughts, and so do the brothers’.
The World For My Zombie Kings: A Reverse Harem Romance (Zombies Rule The World Book 3) Page 14