The Lola Chronicles (Book 2): A Day Without Dawn (18 page)

Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy

Hunter was waiting for us
when we pulled up in front of the middle school. Not a big surprise since he’d probably heard us coming from a while way.

Maximus “just a car” was, in reality, a sleek red corvette convertible with black leather upholstery and an engine that sounded like a small jet taking off.

It wasn’t exactly subtle.

“Lola?” His gaze darting from the car to me and then back to the car, Hunter slowly approached the curb. Dawn lit the sky in bright slivering streaks of red and gold, making him squint and throw a hand up against his forehead. “Is that you?”

“In the flesh,” I chirped as I opened the passenger door and climbed out. “Well, most of my flesh. I might have lost a little.”

“A
little
?” Hunter repeated, green eyes widening as he took in my new bandages. “What happened to you? And where have you been? And who the hell is he?”

I turned around to look at the ‘he’ in question. Looking as friendly and welcoming as a cactus Maximus stood leaning against the hood of his car, arms loosely crossed over his chest and a scowl darkening his face.

“Hunter, meet Maximus. Maximus, Hunter.” I’d already decided not to tell Hunter that Maximus was a drinker. It wasn’t lying exactly. More like withholding the truth. We had a short window of opportunity to work with and I didn’t want to waste it fighting which was exactly what would happen if Hunter found out who – or rather what – Maximus really was. “This is the guy I was telling you about. The one who taught me how to defend myself.”

“What’s he doing here?” Mimicking Maximus’ aggressive posture Hunter folded his arms and spread his legs apart.

I rolled my eyes.

“Can we skip the pissing contest, please? Hunter, there’s something we need to tell you. Alone,” I added when Greg walked out of the front of the school and headed straight for us.

Or rather straight for the car.

“Whoa!” Greg exclaimed, his entire face lighting up. “Is that a Stingray?”

“No, it’s a car. Can you give us a minute? I really need to talk to Hunter.”

“Is she yours?” Looking at Maximus as though he were Captain America and Iron Man all rolled into one, Greg lovingly brushed at fingertip along the corvette’s hood and then buffed out the smudge he’d left with his t-shirt.

“Temporary loaner. Want to go for a ride?”

“Do I–” Mouth gaping open, Greg was in the passenger seat and had the seatbelt strapped on before I could blink twice. “Man, this is SWEET!”

Maximus met my gaze as he lowered himself into the car. ‘
Ten minutes
’, he mouthed.

I nodded to let him know I understood and then stepped quickly out of the way as he revved the engine and peeled out, leaving two strips of black tattooed on the asphalt and the smell of burnt rubber hanging in the air.

Hunter frowned. “
That’s
the guy who helped out you and your dad?”

“Yep. Listen, there’s something we need to–”

“No offense or anything, but he kind of seems like an asshole.”

Since I couldn’t exactly argue with Hunter’s assessment, I just shrugged. “Yeah, he can be. But he also knows more about the drinkers than anyone else I’ve met and he’s a good fighter. The best, actually. We want him on our side, Hunter. Trust me.”

“I trust
you
. But him…” Hunter shook his head. “No way. There’s something off about him, Lola. I mean, where is he from? What is he doing here? How does he–”

“You don’t have to trust him,” I interrupted. “You don’t even have to like him. Hunter there’s something really important I have to tell you. Like, right now.” My gaze shifted to the front doors of the middle school. I thought I’d caught a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye. “But not here. Let’s go the playground.”

“Okay,” Hunter said once we were hidden from view on the far side of the yellow plastic slide. “What gives? And where the hell have you been?” His pupils dilated as his eyes narrowed. “Was Maximus the guy you met in the woods?”

I bit my lip. I was going to have to walk a very fine line between telling Hunter just enough to make him believe me but not so much that he freaked out. It didn’t exactly help that he’d already decided he hated Maximus, but what had I really been expecting?

Maximus and Hunter were as different as night and day and in this case opposites were definitely
not
going to attract. Their differences went way beyond the physical. I might have only known Hunter for a short time – despite attending the same school for ten years – but it didn’t take a genius to figure out he had a moral compass the size of Pennsylvania. He was Mr. Do the Right Thing whereas Maximus…Maximus was Mr. Do Whatever it Took.

Seeing them standing within ten feet of one another, Hunter with his Golden Boy looks and Maximus all dark and broody… No. No way. I wasn’t even going to go there.

I was a fighter, not some weak simpering girly-girl stuck in the middle of a teenage love triangle.

And right now I needed to fight.

For myself. For my dad. For all the nameless faces trapped in the basement enduring God only knew what at the hands of the drinkers. Even for Hayley, although she was
so
going to owe me.

“Yeah, Maximus is who I met in the woods.” I cupped the back of my neck, absently squeezing the tense muscles. When was the last time I’d slept on something softer than a locker room floor? When was the last time I’d
slept
? “He’s been…spying on the drinkers. Most of them have moved on to other towns, but there’s a few left and they’re all at the farmhouse.” Including the big bad drinker Maximus stubbornly refused to tell me anything about. “That woman who attacked us? The drinker zombie? There’s more where she came from. A lot more. They’re called crawlers and the drinkers are using them to make an army.”

“Zombies, crawlers, it doesn’t matter what they’re called.” Hunter wrapped his hand around a metal pole, knuckles gleaming white beneath the early morning sun. “It only matters that they’re standing between us and our friends. Between us and your father. But they won’t be for long,” he said ominously.

Oh boy. How was I supposed to explain that even though the crawlers were going to try to kill us we shouldn’t try to kill them? I didn’t know if there was a way to turn them back. I didn’t even know how much of their human side was left. But I did know that if we killed them we’d never find out.

“The thing is…the thing is the crawlers are still human, Hunter. At least a part of them is,” I said hurriedly when he looked at me as though I’d suddenly sprouted a second head. “And there might be a way to turn them back. I don’t know what it is yet, but with a little more time we might be able to figure it out.”

“What are you saying, Lola?” He crossed his arms. “You don’t want to attack the farmhouse anymore? You don’t want to rescue your dad? Rescue Hayley?”

“I do. And we’re going to. Today, as soon as everyone is ready. Just like we planned. But if we could shoot to injure instead of shoot to kill… Just the crawlers,” I said when Hunter’s jaw hardened. “The drinkers are fair game.”

“We can try, but if it comes down to one of us and one of them I’m choosing us, Lola. Is that it? Is that what you brought me back here to tell me?”

“Not exactly,” I hedged, shifting my weight from foot to foot as I tried to think of the best way to tell Hunter the rest. If I’d had trouble believing one of us had joined Team Drinker then there was no way he was going to believe it. Hunter’s faith in us was absolute. He was willing to die for each and every one of us. We were his teammates. His partners. His family.

All except for one.

Ever since Maximus had told me about the traitor I’d been trying to figure out who would be willing to switch sides. My initial suspects had been Livy and Becca but I didn’t have any concrete proof. Just because we disliked each other didn’t make one of them guilty. Rose wasn’t even a contender and try as I might I couldn’t picture Greg or Stevenson working with the drinkers. That left Ms. Siegel, who I knew the least about, but as far as I knew she’d never left the middle school. Kind of hard to be a traitor when you were always surrounded by the people you were supposed to be betraying.

That only left Hunter, but if he was the spy then I was a penguin. If there was anyone who hated the drinkers more than I did it was him. He would rather die than work with them, which was why he was the only one I could trust one hundred percent.

“Hunter, they know we’re coming.”

His brow furrowed. “Who knows we’re coming?”

“The drinkers.”

“What? No. How could they?”

My cheeks puffed as I blew out a breath. “Because…because one of us told them.”

He stared at me for a full five seconds, eyes wide and unblinking before they hardened into chips of dark green. “That’s not funny, Lola.”

“Do I look like I’m laughing? I’m serious, Hunter.”

“Well you’re wrong.” He looked past me at the middle school. “There’s no way.”

“You have to believe me on this.” I drew his attention back to me when I reached out and touched his arm. “One of us is working with them. I don’t know who it is, but I know they told the drinkers all about our plan. They’re going to be expecting us.”

“Who told you this?” he demanded.

“Maximus.”

Hunter snorted. “Why am I not surprised? Lola, the guy is bad news. You’d have to be blind not to see it.” 

“You don’t even know him.”
Neither do I, but that’s beside the point.
“He hates the drinkers as much as I do, Hunter. He even killed one of them last night to save me. There’s no reason for him to lie about this.”

“And what about you, Lola?” Mouth thinning into a long, straight line of suspicion he shrugged my hand off his arm and stepped back. “Do you have a reason to lie?”

“
Me
?” I said incredulously. “You have got to be kidding.”

“You’ve been acting a little weird lately. First you disappeared into the woods–”

“To meet Maximus!”

“–and you’ve been missing all night. Now you’ve come back with some crazy story about how we’re supposed to protect the zombies–”

“I never said to protect them,” I bit out through gritted teeth. “I said try not to kill them if we don’t have to.”

“–and you want me to believe that one of us is working with the drinkers. Sorry, Lola.” Dropping his hands to his hips Hunter shook his head. “Not buying it. There’s something you’re not telling me.”

There was a
lot
I wasn’t telling him. And I wasn’t going to. We needed to be fighting the drinkers, not each other, which was exactly what would happen if I told Hunter the truth. I could just picture it now.

You’re right. There is something I’m not telling you. Maximus is actually a drinker. But he’s a good drinker. How do I know for certain? Because he hasn’t killed me yet.

Yeah. That would go over well.

“You’re just going to have to trust me,” I said firmly. “Which means we need to change the plan. If the drinkers know what we’re going to do then we’ll be finished before we even start.”

“No. No way. We’ve been working on this for days, Lola. We’re not changing it now.”

“But–”

“
No
,” he snapped. “It’s too late. We’re sticking with the plan and you’re either with us or you’re not.”

My mouth dropped open. “Hunter! How could you–”

“What are you guys doing out here? Sorry!” Rose exclaimed when we both jumped like scalded cats and whirled around. “Sorry! Sorry! I didn’t mean to startle you.” She twisted her fingers together. “It’s just that…well…it’s dawn. And we’re sort of all waiting. And there’s a boy out front of the school in a red convertible who says he needs to talk to Lola.” Her gaze slid to me. “Do you know who he is? He’s really cute. I m-mean,” she stammered as her cheeks turned pink, “at least that’s what Becca and Livy said.”

Hunter growled.

“Thanks Rose,” I said quickly. “We’ll be in in just a sec. We’re just going over some last minute details.”

Her eyes darted between us as she picked up the tension radiating off our bodies in hot, electric waves. “That’s – that’s what I figured. What should I tell everyone?”

“Tell everyone to get ready,” Hunter said.

“Hunter…” I said, a warning edge in my tone.

“Tell everyone to get ready,” he repeated without looking at me. “We’re going forward with the plan.”

“You’re all going to die,”
Maximus said shortly.

I rolled my eyes. “Nothing like a little optimism before going into battle.”

“What is there to be optimistic about?” he asked as we strapped the last of my belongings onto one of the four wheelers. “

“Don’t you start too. God.” Pulling the final bungee cord into place I threw up my hand and turned around to face him. All around us everyone was making their final preparations before we headed out for the farmhouse and – according to Maximus – certain death.