Love Starts With Z (6 page)

T
HE
S
UN
W
AS
S
INKING
L
OWER
and shadows stretched across the forest floor, like gnarled hands reaching for her.
Turn back
, they seemed to say. Even if Soren could, she was too far in it now. The excitement of freedom was too tempting a lure to be burdened by logic.

The cold hard fact, though, was that she’d gone half-cocked into the Dead-filled woods following two complete strangers who’d had two hours head start. They hadn’t had loose ends to tie up in Dead Run River—the benefit of being strangers. She, however, had been there two years, and even if most looked relieved at her revelation that she was leaving, she still felt the need to say good-byes to anyone who’d showed her a kindness over the duration of her stay. Z she might be, but she was a Z with manners.

It should have been a lot more difficult to track Kaegan and Colten. For a human it would’ve been a real challenge, but she’d been trailing them for hours, just far enough back they didn’t notice her. In fact, Kaegan didn’t seem to notice much of anything, to the seemingly everlasting irritation of his friend, Colten. He stared in silence, taking long strides that hitched with the limp of a twisted ankle. It was Colten who she’d tracked. He was louder than anything else in the woods with his running commentary, and his leg was seeping. It smelled delicious. His bandage was pungent enough that she’d followed on scent alone for a while, and she wasn’t the only one he’d attracted. A Dead shuffled beside her, badly injured and slow, but still intent on catching up to the two humans in front of her.

That idiot, Colten, was going to get them all killed.

She frowned at Kaegan’s tense back through the trees. Something about Colten’s carelessness made her angry. She didn’t want Kaegan to die. Didn’t want to see his face reanimated on a Dead. Perhaps Colten could be loud and bold because the vaccine gave him some sort of invincibility complex. He’d survived the bite on his leg after all, but Kaegan didn’t have the benefit of immunity, and that put him at higher risk.

“What do you think?” she asked the Dead to her right. “Which one would you eat first?”

He was a skinny thing, and his leg had been broken in half at some point in his jaunt around the mountains looking for human snacks. His blue tinted flesh was sunken around the curves of his bones, and shoulders and ribs showed through the tattered mechanic shirt that still clung to his withered body.
Bob
, the name patch on his stained pocket read. She cocked her head and tried to imagine what he looked like before most of his face had rotted off. Maybe he’d looked like a Bob once.

He was slow and little danger to the men in front of them at this distance. They’d attracted him around the same time she’d found him, and it had been three hours and counting that they hadn’t noticed they were being hunted. At this point, it was just sad.

Limping badly, the Dead stayed focused ahead, not even a groan for an answer to her question, and she shrugged. Corpses weren’t the best conversationalists.

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on with you or is this how it’s going to be all the way to the coast?” Colten asked. “You haven’t said two words since we left. I get it. You’re the stoic type and all. That’s why we work well together. You are the big loner who gets shit handled, and I’m the social one who gets us invited into colonies. This sucks though, man.” Colten stared at him while they walked. “At the very least, you owe me an explanation on why you got us kicked out of Dead Run River over a fucking zombie.”

“Don’t say that,” Kaegan growled.

“Fine. A
freaking
zombie.”

Warning hummed in the tension of Kaegan’s shoulders.

“Please don’t tell me you were crushing on her, man. She’d eat you in your sleep and pick her teeth with your bone splinters. We’re better off getting out of there if that’s the case. That place was messed up, wasn’t it? Deads inside the gates. I mean, damn, how stupid could they be? She should’ve been banished or caged, or I don’t know, something.”

A numb feeling crept over Soren as she listened. This was probably what everyone said about her when she wasn’t around. She didn’t want it said to Kaegan, though. If he hadn’t already thought of all of it, Colten was just going to fill his head with reasons to hate her. Maybe this had been a bad idea.

Kaegan paused and turned slowly to Colten, saying something much too low for her to hear at this distance.

“Aw, crap,” she muttered. “Sorry, Bob. I can’t have you gnawing on my team, so this is the end of the line for you, buddy. Sorry,” she whispered as she stood in front of him and slid a battle knife through his temple. Other than the rustle of leaves, he dropped without a sound.

Staring at his crumpled body, she sighed. He’d been somebody once. The only thing Bob had done to earn an empty life was get himself bitten.

“We’ll make camp here for the night. The grove behind us will act as a natural barrier,” Kaegan said. “You want to take care of the moaner that’s been following us or you want me to?”

“I’ll do it. You go take the two coming at us from over there.” He gestured toward an embankment.

Soren tilted her ear in that direction. Huh. Sure enough, a pair of distant moans sounded over whispering leaves. So they’d known about Bob the entire time; they just didn’t feel threatened enough to pick up the pace or fight him earlier. Maybe they weren’t as incapable as she had begun to think over the past few hours.

Slipping behind a tree, she held her breath as Colten searched for Bob. He froze, likely listening for the movement typical of Deads, but when only the quiet rustling of branches sounded, he pulled a hatchet from his back. The blade whispered against its sheath, and Colten turned with a suspicious glower. “Where are you?” he muttered.

The
you
he spoke of was about fifteen yards to his left, half hidden by trees and leaves, staring vacantly in his direction and definitely dead as a doornail. Colten just wasn’t looking low enough. The rough tree bark she leaned against was steady against the slight tremble that shook her limbs.

He stepped closer and Soren held her breath. Now he stood just on the other side of the large oak she hid behind.

Another step closer.

“Colten? What’s taking so long?” Kaegan called.

“Nothing. I think we lost the Dead.” He lowered his voice and muttered, “That or you bored him to death with the dullness of your silence.”

Footsteps retreated, and when they were far enough away, she dared a peek from her hiding tree. Kaegan wiped the blade of a long machete on a tuft of grass, turning it red.

“Do we have anything to eat?” Kaegan asked.

“No. You left us zero time to gather supplies before you got us in a fight with a bunch of off duty guards and got us booted, remember?”

Unable to shake the feeling their hunger was her fault somehow, she turned and searched the ground for small rocks the perfect shape for the leather strip she’d use as a sling shot.

Kaegan had been a raging idiot. Without thinking it through, he’d jumped up to defend someone who didn’t need it. Soren could’ve lobbed off that prick’s head if she wanted. She’d been defending herself for God knew how long before he stumbled into her life. If ever there was a woman who needed a man like she needed a bullet hole, Soren was that woman. He’d heard Mel loud and clear when she said Soren was a murderer, and he didn’t doubt it. She was the fiercest creature he’d ever seen. No innocent looked like that.

But when that jackhole, Andrew, taunted her in front of his friends, something inside of him had snapped. Beating his sneering face settled something scary inside of him. Watching the way people treated her around the colony made him feel nauseous. It was over now, and he wouldn’t see her again, so it didn’t do him any good to overanalyze what it was about the creature that made him want to protect her.

Still, it was impossible not to think about the tragedy of her cage. She was a tiger on a jeweled leash. Train her all they wanted, but someday the wild would reclaim her. And a piece of him wished he could be there to watch her rise to her potential—like a damned phoenix—instead of cowering behind that contraption on her face.

With a growl, he snapped the twig he’d been stripping in two and chucked it into the darkening woods. Colten was right. It was a good thing they got out of there when they did.

When he glanced in the direction the sticks had flown, there she crouched. Animal hide traveling pants clung to the tensed muscles of her legs, and an earth colored vest hugged her torso like a second skin, exposing shoulders, neck, and alluring collar bones that stood out against her pale skin. The muzzle sat stubbornly across the bottom half of her face. In her hands was the twig he’d just snapped.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked.

Such a personal question should’ve unsettled him. At the very least, her unexpected presence here should’ve had his heart racing. It was weird that he felt so calm. She canted her head as she waited, like his answer mattered. “You,” he breathed.

The sound of Colten’s knife sliding from its sheath was loud against the breezeless evening.

“What are you doing here, Dead?” Colten asked, taking a defensive stance beside him.

“I asked her to come.” Kaegan followed her graceful movement as she stood.

The lift to her chin was brave, rebellious, and he followed her to stand.

“Why would you do that?” Colten asked, never taking his eyes from Soren. Venom and shock permeated his words.

The answer stayed lodged in his throat. He hadn’t the power to explain why he’d wanted her to come. Her fate was bigger than that place she was trying to call home, but was it with them? He didn’t know anything anymore. Since seeing her, learning of her existence, everything had gone upside down and stayed that way.

“No response at all? Really? She’s isn’t even human, Kaegan. Look at her!”

Soren pulled sunglasses over her eyes. “There. Better?”

Colten shook his head and stared at him like he should be as offended as he was. “No, it’s not better! Now you look like a Dead wearing sunglasses!”

If he hurt her feelings, Soren didn’t show it. Instead, she shrugged her shoulders like she’d tried, then tossed a trio of small, foxlike animals to the forest floor beside Colten’s planted boots.

“What is this?” he asked.

“They’re called American martens. Cooked, they’re edible for you. A good source of protein too.”

Kaegan picked up one of the small animals, the size of a large jackrabbit and turned the limp game in his hand. How had she known they needed food? He looked up slowly. “How long were you following us?”

“Since you picked up the Dead to your rear.”

“And what happened to the Dead? He wasn’t there when I went to find him.” Colten still held his knife, which looked like a pushpin compared to the battle sword that hung from Soren’s back. His weapon wouldn’t be their saving grace if ever Soren decided to end them.

“Bob is dead,” came the muffled reply. “Really dead.”

“Bob?”

“That’s what his name tag said.”

“Oh, that’s just fantastic. Fantastic, Kaegan. She’s naming the monsters. You invited a Dead to travel with us like we’re an actual team, and she’s a freaking sympathizer on top of it all. Not only will we have to sleep with one eye open to keep her from eating us alive, she’s going to invite all of her little undead friends to join in the buffet the second we let our guard down. This is a terrible idea.”

“She killed the Dead. And besides, what is your other option? You want to walk back to Dead Run River in the dark and see if they’ll take you back? We won’t survive long as a two man team, surely you know that. It’s too few fighters. With three we stand a better chance.” He tossed one of the martens to Soren, and she caught it easily. “She stays. Her place is with us now.”

“So you just make all of the decisions now? Dick, it’s been me and you since we were three feet tall. We’ve always made these decisions together.”

“I’ll take first watch,” Soren said quietly, before melting into the trees with the animal hanging limply from her hand.

“You’re right,” Kaegan said, squatting near his pack to find the fire starter. “We should discuss this. It isn’t fair for me to invite people into the team without talking to you about it. Tell me your concerns, and we’ll try to figure out the best solution.”

“Okay,” he said, holding up his marten. “How do we know she didn’t inject these with the Dead contagion? Hmm? She has easy access to it obviously.”

“She can smell that you’re vaccinated, so that wouldn’t even affect you, and if she wanted to turn me, why did she kill Bob?”

“Don’t.” He gritted his teeth and shook his head. “Don’t call the Deads by name. They’re Deads, zombies, skin eaters, risers, moaners, devourers of blood and bone, reanimators. Don’t give them human qualities. They aren’t anything like us anymore.”

“My point is—why wouldn’t she just let him continue hunting us if she wanted me turned? Or hell, why not just bite us in our sleep back in the colony? She’s quiet enough. I didn’t hear her tracking us, did you? And why is she still wearing the muzzle? It has to be uncomfortable, and she doesn’t have anyone here telling her she has to keep it on.”