Love in the Time of Zombies (8 page)

Where
U @?

Scotlyn
eyebrows soared.  Someone named Caleb was looking for Zeke.  More importantly,
the phones were working, again.  Maybe this madness was ending.  She quickly
answered him.

Zeke’s
hurt.  R zombies gone?

He
bit???

No. 
Unconscious.

A
pause.
 
She wasn’t sure if the guy was digesting that or if the phone
was about to die.  Maybe both.  There was a strange static-y quality to the
screen, like it was flickering in and out. 
Who R U?

Scotlyn. 
I work with Zeke.

The
secretary?

Scotlyn
frowned. 
Assistant!!

Sorry.
 
Even though he’d typed the word, he didn’t
seem
sorry. 
Where R U?  Gonna
lose connection
.

Scotlyn
wasn’t sure if she should answer that.  Zeke had never told her about anyone
named Caleb.  What if this guy showed up and attacked them or something?

Caleb
must have sensed her hesitation. 
Hang on
.

A
minute later, he sent her a grainy photo of Zeke and a dark haired man standing
next to a car.  Her boss was much younger, no more than fourteen, and looked
extremely annoyed.  The other guy was about twenty, his elbow resting on Zeke’s
head exactly the way an older brother would to annoy his shorter sibling.

Zeke
had a brother?  Scotlyn looked over at Zeke.  “You have a brother?”

Her
sleeping boss didn’t bother to answer.

He
didn’t have to.  Even with the poor quality of the image, the guy in the photo looked
so much like Zeke that they had to share DNA.  His hair was a cut shorter and
his shirt was buttoned, but other than that he could’ve been Zeke’s twin.  Two
pairs of identical eyes looked out at her from the screen.  Two unnaturally
beautiful faces.

Two
werewolves.

There
wasn’t a doubt in her mind.

Me
& Z.  I’m the pretty one.

Scotlyn
let out a shaky breath.  She didn’t have the energy to be scared of more than
one breed of supernatural creatures at a time.  Werewolves might be real, but
Zeke was one and Zeke wouldn’t hurt her.  She knew it at a level that went
deeper than logic.  Besides, compared to the zombies, his brother couldn’t be
too
bad.

Probably.

R
zombies gone? 
She tried, again.

No. 
Need to find Z.

Of
course, they were still out there.  It had been stupid to even ask.  Scotlyn
rubbed at her temple. 
Why won’t Zeke wake-up?

Don’t
know.

Yes,
you do.

WHERE
IS HE???

Scotlyn’s
eyes narrowed at the shouted capitals
. 
She set the phone down and waited.

Several
minutes ticked by.  She couldn’t hear any noises coming from the store
anymore.  The silence was even worse than the gunfire and screaming had been.

OK. 
OK.  Did he look DIFFERENT before he passed out? 
Caleb
finally demanded.  He must really want to find his brother.  If he was anything
like Zeke, he wouldn’t have caved so fast unless he was desperate.

Scotlyn
didn’t have time for his shit.
  U know what he looked like.

I
can help him.  Where is he?

Scotlyn
weighed her options.

Please.

Scotlyn
puffed out a breath.  It wasn’t like she could live here in the bathroom
forever.  And Zeke didn’t seem to be coming around on his own.  What the hell
did she know about werewolves?  What if he needed some kind of special vet
care?

Jesus,
she was losing her mind.

Scotlyn
looked up at the ceiling for a beat.  Fuck it.  Zeke’s safety was worth the
risk. 
The Wal-Mart by TGW.  Bathroom @ back of store.

2
hrs.  DONT MOVE.

What
can I do for him until U get…? 
The
phone died
in the middle of her message.

It
never came back on.

***

Zeke
came awake with a pounding migraine and with his entire body aching.  What the
hell had happened?  Had he Changed?  He must have.  Christ, why would he do
something so stupid?  It wasn’t a full moon, so Changing was painful and dangerous
and…

Scotlyn.

His
eyes snapped open, reality crashing in on him.

Where
was Scotlyn?  Zeke jerked into a sitting position, his eyes cutting around. 
Where was
he?
  A bathroom?  What the…?  His frantic gaze fell on a
familiar dark haired figure sitting on the long vanity, reading
People
Magazine
.

“Caleb?” 
Zeke blinked at his pack-mate.  “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Reading
about the Kardashians.”  He flipped a page.  “I’m thinking they were
already
zombies.  It’s all becoming clear, now.”

As
usual, Caleb looked like he’d just stepped off the pages of
GQ
.  Cale
only stole this season’s finest fashions, so even at the end of the world he
was dressed in a thousand dollar button down.  The only difference between
today’s outfit and his usual sartorial masterpieces was the Mac-10 looped over
his shoulder.

Zeke
got to his feet.  “What did you do to her?”

“Kim?” 
He squinted down at the magazine.  “Nothing.  I’d never hurt a girl with an ass
like that.”

“
Scotlyn
.”

“Ohhhhhh,
right.”  Caleb arched a brow.  “Your secretary amscrayed.”

Zeke’s
stomach sank.  “She’s
gone?
”

Caleb
eyed him with something like pity.  “I remember when Brewer robbed that Blockbuster
when we were kids and we had ten thousand videotapes piled up to the ceiling. 
I figure you watched
all
of them that summer.”

Zeke
had no idea what Cale was getting at.  It didn’t matter.  “Where
is
she?”

“New
movies and old movies and funny movies and sad movies…  And in every single one
of them, you wanted to fuck the good girl.”  Caleb sighed.  “All the rest of us
lusted after the hot villain or the trampy one, but you wanted Mary Pickford
and Debbie Reynolds and Meg goddamn Ryan.”  He shook his head.  “You should
have just nailed the prom queen back in high school and gotten this perversion
out of your system, Z.  It isn’t healthy.”

“I
did
nail the prom queen in high school.”

Caleb
arched a brow.  “And did she go to the
dance
with you?”

No. 
Zeke had slept with Heather Ganache in the boys’ locker room, but she’d laughed
at the idea of going with him to the actual prom.  She’d been dating the
basketball team’s star player.  Nice girls didn’t date men like Zeke.  Not in
public.

They
wanted someone special.

Caleb
knew it, too.  “So, obviously, you didn’t
learn
anything from your
experiences, if you’re hung-up on another human cheerleader.  Why don’t you
just let her go and save us all the trouble?”

Zeke
eyed Caleb, trying to figure out what he needed to say in order to find out
what happened.  It was hard to think through the panic.  “Scotlyn works for
me.  I don’t sleep with her.”

Caleb
swiveled around so his legs were dangling over the edge of the counter.  “Oh, I
know you haven’t nailed her, yet.  You must be losing your touch, Z.  Human or
not, she’s cute as a button.  If she was my secretary, her
dictation
skills would be getting a lot of practice…”

Alright,
enough with being patient.  Zeke seized his pack-mate by the shirtfront and
slammed him backwards into the mirror behind the sink.  “
Tell me where she
is!
”

“I
don’t
know
.”  Caleb met his eyes, not bothering to fight back.  “She was
here when I showed up an hour ago.  She said, ‘Can you help him?’ and I said,
‘Yeah.’ and she said, ‘Good.  Do it.’  Then she took off.”  He held up his
palms in a gesture of peace and innocence.  “Wherever she is now, she’s not our
problem anymore.”

She’d
left him.

There
were a thousand reasons why Zeke should be glad he was free of the girl.

Needing
people just led to pain and disappointment.  Changing to protect her proved
that Zeke was too attached.  It wasn’t normal.  He’d
known
it wasn’t
normal, even before the zombies showed up.  Christ, he’d been obsessed with her
from the very beginning and thinking about her in danger out there sent his
mind into complete meltdown.  Scotlyn was his weakness and shifters shouldn’t
have weaknesses.

Especially,
not very breakable ones.

Maybe
her vanishing was actually a
good
thing.  He hadn’t
technically
mated with her.  He wasn’t even sure he
could
mate with her under pack
law.  Not that the law mattered to him.  At all.  But the point was that she
was a
human
.  No shifter had gone through the ritual with a human. 
Ever.  Maybe Scotlyn leaving would prove all his misfiring instincts wrong.  He
didn’t need her.

…Except,
he
did.

Zeke
let out a shaky breath and released his hold on Caleb.  His rambling,
half-formed thought led him to one inevitable conclusion.  “I have to find
Scotlyn.”

“Take
a hint, Z.  The girl’s gone.  She’ll find another sucker to take her in.”

Zeke
shook his head.  “You don’t understand.  Scotlyn and I are a team.”

“A
team?
”

“Yeah. 
She said so herself.”

“Before
or after you shape shifted?  Jesus!  You’ve never been on a team in your
life
. 
You can’t even stay in the pack!”

“I
left the pack because I don’t fit in.  I’ve
never
fit in.”

“That’s
because you’re weird!  You wanna research your weird stories and dream your
weird
Raiders of the Lost Ark
dreams…”

“There’s
truth behind most legends.  I’m telling you.”  Zeke snapped.  “And I’m
also
telling you, what I feel for Scotlyn is beyond my control.  She goes… deep.”

Caleb’s
jaw clenched.  “
How
deep?”

Zeke
stared at him silently.

“She
left
you!”

Zeke
lifted a shoulder.  “I know.”  He still had to protect her.  It was a
biological imperative.

Caleb
slowly shook his head.  “She’s probably the last human in the city.  She’ll be
a magnet for every
Omega Man
wannabe and hungry vampire from here to
Canada.  Unless you’re planning to sell her for fuel, she’s gonna be a
liability to us.”

“I
know
.  But, I can’t go anywhere without her.”  He couldn’t explain the
pull he felt towards her, but there was no way he could fight it.  From the
minute he’d seen her, it had been Zeke and Scotlyn in his mind.  An indivisible
pair.  He couldn’t survive without that lecturing, straitlaced, bossy human.

He
needed
her.

“If
you two are such a great team, where is she?  Why’d she leave you?

Zeke
grabbed the duffle bag and headed for the door.  “Good-
bye
, Cale.”

Caleb
didn’t take the hint.  “Damn it, I know you want her, but be logical for once.”

“You
know
nothing
about…”

Caleb
cut him off.  “Of
course
, I know.”  He hopped down off the counter to
follow him.  “When I found out you’d won that stupid golf course at cards, I wondered
why you bothered.  I mean, what kind of shape shifter mini-golfs?  Then, I saw
the “assistant” that came with the deal and the light was shed.”

Zeke
couldn’t dispute that.  Once he’d realized that winning Topless Golf World meant
winning Scotlyn, he’d been
very fucking interested
in that hand of
poker.  He would’ve done anything to claim the pot.  How else was someone like
him ever going to get close to a girl who wanted a guy to be “special?

Wait
a second…

Scotlyn
had kissed him.  Granted, that was a huge way from sex, but the principle
remained the same.  She never would’ve have kissed him like that and then
walked away without a word.  Not Scotlyn.  The girl made Pollyanna look like a nymphomaniac.

Zeke
turned to glower at Caleb.  “She wouldn’t have just abandoned me unconscious on
the ground.  Not without even a good-bye.  What did you tell her?”

“I
didn’t have to tell her anything.  You
Changed
in front of her, dick for
brains.”  Caleb seemed greatly amused by that.  “From what I understand, you wolfed
out, collapsed, and she dragged you into the ladies’ room.”  He grinned.  “That
story will never not be awesome, by the way.  If we weren’t in the middle of
the zompocalypse, I’d be telling everyone I know.”  Caleb paused.  “Huh, do you
like ‘zompocalypse’ or ‘zombageddon’ better?”