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But. . .
On the sixth day, I began to feel Z. A. stirring. She was angry. Hungry. Determined. I fought her with all that I was, doing my best to keep her on a tight leash, and it cost me. What little strength I’d won, I lost again, confining me to the bed.
Reeve recovered from the trauma first, and that was when her father pounced.
He strode into the room, sat at her bedside and held her hand. Uncaring about his audience, he said, “I’m going to talk, and you’re going to listen without saying a word until I’m done. ” He waited for her to nod before he continued. “I want to send you abroad. I never wanted you to know what was going on here, didn’t want you to live your life in fear and danger—”
“I’m not going anywhere,” she interjected. “And are you trying to tell me the zombie problem is isolated to this area?”
“No, it’s not,” he gritted out. “But I don’t want you around the people who fight in the war. They’re targets. Magnets. If you’re here, you’ll cave and hang out with them. Then, as you see the injuries they receive, you’ll start to fear and stop living your life. ”
“I’ve seen the injuries, and I’m not afraid. I’m ready and willing to help. Those guys carry a huge burden, and I need to step up and take on my share. ”
I lay on my side, and Kat, who had the middle bed, lay on hers. We peered at each other, remaining quiet, listening to the conversation over the beeps and hums of medical equipment.
“What can you do?” Mr. Ankh demanded. “You can’t see the monsters. ”
“Neither can you, and yet you manage just fine. ”
“I’m a doctor. ”
“And I’m a healthy girl with two arms and two legs, capable of taking orders to assist the doctor tending to the slayers. ”
He shook his head. “The zombies could bite you. ”
“And I could be given the antidote,” she sniped. “Look, Dad. I’m going to help the cause whether I do it here or somewhere else. That’s not something you can stop. I caused the mess we’re currently in. Me. And I want to make amends. I need to make amends. ”
“No, you—”
“Dad,” she insisted. “We both know the truth. I’ve been spying on everyone, trying to figure out what’s going on and why the people I love, the people who profess to love me, kept lying to me. In my quest for answers, Ethan was able to encourage me and teach me how to be a better spy. I told him everything I learned. I caused this. ”
His shoulders drooped, and he scrubbed a hand down his face.
I yawned, my eyelids growing heavy.
“If you want to stay, stay,” he said softly. “If you want to help, help. But you will not go near that boy. ” There at the end, his tone had hardened. “Do you understand me?”
Reeve scowled at him. “He has a name. ”
“Bronx,” the doctor gritted. “You’ll not go near him. ”
“Why? Why do you hate him so much?”
“I don’t hate him. I just hate the thought of you with him. He’s too. . . rough for you, honey. You haven’t read his file, and you don’t know his past or the trouble he’s been in, the things he’s done or the things he’ll do. ”
Her smile was sad. “And I don’t care. I know the boy he is now, and that’s all that matters to me. ”
“Reeve—”
“No! I’m not Mom. I didn’t understand her breakdowns before, or what they did to you, but I do now. I get it. But you don’t get to control this part of my life. And if you try to punish him and the slayers because I want to be with him, then you will lose me. I will move out. And who do you think will be there to take me in?”
I gave another yawn, this one nearly cracking my jaw. My eyelids drifted closed, and the rest of the conversation faded from my awareness.
Not over. . . Will try again. . . You’re not going to win. . . Z. A. ’s voice filled my head, oozing past the barriers I’d managed to build.
I wanted to reply, but there was a strange fog in my head, muddying up my words.
“—still sleeping,” Kat said.
“Yes,” Cole said. “She sleeps all the time. ”
I tried to open my eyes but couldn’t quite manage it.
“I’m worried about her. ” Kat said. “I’ve never seen her look so. . . fragile. ”
Were they talking about me?
“She’ll recover,” Nana said. “I’m not going to lose her. ”
Nana was here, too?
If Cole replied, I missed it.
I wasn’t sure how much time passed before I felt warm fingers brush through my hair. At last the fog dissipated. I pried open my eyes as sparks of energy bloomed. Nana was gone, I realized. Kat and Reeve were asleep. Cole was next to me, his eyes closed. He absently stroked my scalp.
I smiled. I needed more of this, more of him.
I thought about the journal. The answer. Light. Fire. Clearly, he was a light to me. Just as clear, I burned for him. But there was more, something I was missing.
To-do: figure it out, and fast. Time was running out.
* * *
“—I’ve always known,” Frosty was saying to Kat.
My eyelids fluttered open, and I realized two things at once. I’d fallen asleep while Cole stroked me, and morning had arrived.
Frosty sat beside Kat’s bed, holding her hand. Her other had tubes sticking out of it—tubes attached to a dialysis machine.
Her eyes widened with shock. “You have?”
“Well, yeah. Kitty Kat, I’m, like, a master black ops agent man, and not just when it comes to Call of Duty. To hang around you, and to let you hang around my friends, I had to know all about you. I never said anything about your illness because I wanted you to trust me enough to admit the truth on your own. ”
Oh, wow. He’d always known.
“Well, that didn’t stop you from asking a bazillion questions about what I was doing each day,” she grumbled.
“I was giving you the opportunity to come clean,” he said with an unrepentant grin.
“It was entrapment, you turd, plain and simple. I should be furious with you. ”
He arched a brow. “Should?”
She sighed. “For some reason, I’ve never found you sexier. And you know I have trouble staying mad at anything sexy. ”
He barked out a laugh, but sobered only a few seconds later. His gaze pierced her, intense and demanding. “I want you healed, Kat. I want you around, tormenting me, forever. ”
“I want that, too,” she whispered. “More than anything. And I’m sorry I’ve broken up with you so much. I just didn’t want you to see me while I was sick. I didn’t want your sympathy or pity, or worse, you staying with me because you felt obligated. ”
“You have nothing to be sorry for. You made me chase you, and I loved it. And I stayed with you because I love you, no other reason. ”
My heart constricted. I shouldn’t be listening to this. It was private. A moment of vulnerability and longing I wasn’t meant to share. I rolled to my other side, giving the pair as much privacy as possible, and came face-to-face with Cole.
He was watching me.
“You look better,” he said.
“You’re still here,” I replied. I wasn’t sure why I was surprised.
“Of course I am. There’s nowhere I’d rather be. ”
My heart leaped into my threat. “Cole,” I breathed. “Thank you for coming to find me. Thank you for everything. ”
He nodded, but a hard gleam appeared in his eyes. “I dropped your grandmother off, checked in with my dad and went back to the cabin. You weren’t there, but your tracks were outside. Then I got your message. I think I was an hour and a half behind you, and by then it was too late. And I’m sorry for that. No,” he added when I opened my mouth to respond. “You don’t get to tell me I have no reason to feel guilty. I love you, and I’ll feel guilty if I want. ”
r /> He’d once told me he was coming after me with everything he had. This. This was all I needed.
Though I tried, I couldn’t find the strength to lift my arms and hug him. All I could do was lean forward and press my forehead against his chest. His heart beat fast but steady.
“How did you track us?” I asked.
“Justin had the address for several Anima facilities in the area. I nearly shouted my house down trying to get your sister’s attention. She showed up, I gave her the addresses and she was better than a camera. ”
“But she couldn’t get into the building to see us. There was a block. ”
“Yeah, but she could see and hear everyone who entered and left. You were mentioned. ”
Oh. Thank you, sweet sister.
He kissed my temple. “Will you tell me what I want to hear now? Without falling asleep on me while you’re doing it?”
“Totally. But what do you want to hear?”
Two of his fingers gently pinched my chin and lifted my head until my gaze locked on his. He searched me for a long while, silent, before grinning wryly. “Never mind. I’ll wait. ”
“For what?”
“You. ” He tucked my head against his chest—against the final L in my last name—breaking eye contact. Toying with the ends of my hair, he said, “I know you like to ask a thousand questions. Is there anything you’re dying to know about what’s been happening around here?”
I was confused by the exchange—seriously, what did he want me to say?—yet caught up in the seduction of him. Everything about him lulled me into a deep sense of relaxation. “Do you know where Nana is?”
“Earlier she was walking by, heard you talking in your sleep and decided to spend the rest of the night by your side, just in case you needed her. I came in a few hours ago. I’d left to shower, and sent her to her old room to rest. She refused to go until I promised to call her when you woke up. ”
Darling Nana. She’d seen so much death lately. “I want to kill Zombie Ali so bad. ”