Love Starts With Z (4 page)

A smile curled across only one side of her mouth. “It’s not a threat, Kaegan. It’s a friendly warning from one survivor to another. Have you ever heard of Laney and Derek Mitchell?”

“Of course. Everyone’s heard of them. They’re legends.”

“Living legends, Mr. Langford. Laney and Derek are Soren’s parents. She was raised by them and trained by Finn, Aaron Guist, and Sean and Vanessa Daniels. I assume you’ve heard of them too?” At his nod, she continued. “She has more weapons in her arsenal than you have coherent thoughts.”

“She didn’t use them on Colten when he stabbed her.” His voice was hard and flat.

“That’s because of the muzzle and likely the surprise of the attack. Your first mistake was forgetting what she is.”

“And what is that?” Surely the woman could see she was more than a monster.

“A Dead. I can tell by the look you’re giving me that you remain unconvinced, and so I will share information with you that most of this colony is not privy to, and I’ll trust you to keep it quiet. Soren has killed people. Living, breathing people, and a lot of them. Seven to be exact, four of whom were children.”

His mouth went dry as cotton, and his stomach sank to his knees. Closing his eyes against the sick feeling building in his center, he leaned against a tree behind him like he’d suffered a blow. Children. She’d killed children. She was a monster after all. Everyone had known it, seen her for what she was, but he, the damned idiot he was, had been searching for something more. And why? Why did it matter? Because he didn’t like the way a girl was treated in a colony? Life was hard these days. Everyone died in awful ways. At least she had a colony who accepted her presence, no matter how ungraciously. She didn’t need his saving.

“Can you understand my concern now with you, an unvaccinated civilian, getting too curious about her?”

Unable to speak around the nausea that clawed his middle, he nodded.

“This is the one and only warning I’ll give you, Kaegan. And it’s not your safety I’m concerned about as much as that of my colony. Get too close, she’ll kill you. She seems like a nice person, and I owe her parents a great deal, which is why she is allowed to live here and work on the cure. But the moment you forget what she is, that is the moment you’ll take your last human breath. I don’t want you anywhere near her. The rules are the same for everyone. It’s why we have handlers watching her at all times. Their job is to protect the colony, and their training is extensive. Break my rules, and I’ll throw you out of the front gates so fast you’ll think I’m magic. Have I made myself clear?”

He dragged a hard gaze back to her cold eyes. “Yes, ma’am.”

S
AMPLE
D
AY
. G
OOD
T
IMES
.

Soren rubbed a fingertip over the row of scars across her hip. Mom had gone through the same when she was giving tissue to help Dr. Mackey create the Dead outbreak vaccine. And now, twenty years later, she was doing the same for the cure. Hooray for genetics.

The dickhole who’d stabbed her should be long gone from the medical building by now, but just to make sure, she stalled, walking slowly and dillydallying near any shrub that caught her attention. Every bird that squawked in the trees earned a long look from her, and when a squirrel went chattering through the branches above, she stopped and watched for at least three minutes.

The work day had begun, and she’d showered in the middle of the night when the humans were snoring away in their warm beds. The upside to chronic insomnia—she used every drop of hot water in the dark and didn’t have an ounce of guilt for it. It would heat up again by the time the early risers needed a shampoo. The showers, heated by water power leached off the snow-melted rivers in the mountains above, were quite the commodity. The look on settlers’ faces when they moved here and figured out there was hot running water was a treat to watch. Mouths often gaped open, just before a brilliant smile. No matter how plain one looked, a smile instantly added fairness.

The muzzle itched like a tiny swarm of horseflies were eating her jaw, and she reached up under it and scratched.

“Soren,” Marie warned from behind.

“Heifer,” Soren muttered as she ceased the scratch.

Davey and Sara Mathis played in the woods, digging and laughing and Soren smiled at their antics. She’d had the best childhood home. Hours and hours had been spent playing with Seamus and Adrianna, just like these two. Davey started to arch his gaze toward her, and she turned away before she could see the fear that would pool in his eyes, a little trick she’d picked up over her two years at Dead Run River.

Had it only been two years? It felt like so much longer. Homesickness had been her constant companion, but she had work to do that couldn’t be done from the Denver colony.

The look on Mom’s face when she’d left home with Seamus still pulled at her heart. Everyone in the world knew Laney Landry. How tough she was and how brave. How lethal she was in a fight. They knew she was the origin of the vaccine and of her sacrifices to get it to the masses. But no one knew her like Soren. Mom was tender and caring. Loyal to her family and friends. Soren and Dad were Mom’s whole world. Everything else revolved around them like secondary stars. She’d say,
hang the end of the world. We’re the lucky ones because we have each other.
It had been all that had mattered for a while.

Mom and Dad had both understood her need to help with the cure and had never begged her to stay. More proof of their love for her. They’d let her go and held back their tears until they waved her off.

If Mom saw her now, muzzled like an animal and cowed by the stringent rules of this place, she’d burn the whole world down. It was just how Mom was. Shame heated her cheeks. God, what was she doing here?

“I swear, man,” someone said through the trees. “An actual, honest to goodness sponge bath. I thought I’d died after all, but then I realized if I had, I’d be surrounded by more flames, and less hot nurses.”

Kaegan’s massive shoulders showed through a gap in the trees, and she froze. Shit. Wide-eyed, she looked for a hidey hole and came up with nothing.

“Move.” Marie’s voice was saturated in impatience.

When Soren stood locked in place, Marie shoved her hard in the back, and she flew forward, landing on her hands and knees in the dirt. A snarl rippled through her before she could stop it. Gripping handfuls of rich soil, she panted, desperate to control the red rage that filled her veins.

“What are you doing?” Kaegan’s voice held steel and something more. Anger?

“None of your fucking business, civilian,” Marie replied. “Move on.”

“Dude,” the other man with Kaegan said. “Is that the chick I stabbed?”

Soren lifted her face to the man. He was shorter than Kaegan, but still tall. Lanky where Kaegan was layered in muscle. His light brown hair was swept fashionably up and to the side like he’d found the time to hand mix homemade hair gel. His eyes were bright blue and a frown tugged the corners of his mouth. Stubble brushed his jaw. His face was all angles, and attractive ones at that.

“I don’t think I regret it,” he murmured, cocking his head as he studied her. “She’s a Dead. Right?”

“Exactly!” Marie grabbed her shirt and pulled her upward, eliciting a loud ripping sound from the fabric in her clenched fist.

Kaegan just watched with an unfathomable expression in his soft, gray eyes. Unable to bear the embarrassment, she cast her eyes down and to the left. Anywhere but at him.

“Come on,” he said quietly. Brush rustled as he led Stabby-Mcstabby-Hands off the trail and through the woods.

She clenched and unclenched her hands and took a long, shaking breath. All she wanted to do, the only thing in the world that felt right in that moment, was pinning Marie to the nearest tree and scaring the piss out of her.

But—she closed her eyes—though this place didn’t need a half-Dead inhabitant, Dead Run River was vital to her.

Someone had talked to him. Why else would he look at her like that? Kaegan had been kind enough to stitch her up just days before, and now, he couldn’t get away from her fast enough. She threw a longing glance at his back as he disappeared through the trees. It would’ve been nice to pretend for a little while longer that she could make another friend.

Dusting off the knees of her jeans, she strode deliberately down the trail. Maybe it was better someone enlightened him about the dangers of being a Dead sympathizer. Sympathizers were cannon fodder for the Deads. A vision of Kaegan, eyes open and vacant, bent across a marsh soaked in his own blood flashed across her mind, and she shook her head to rid herself of such black thoughts.

He was better off this way.

She stepped right on the squeaky step of the medical building’s front porch out of spite and pulled the door. Dr. Mackey looked up from his desk where he sat pouring over a notepad and removed his glasses.

“How is the stomach?”

“Are you asking because you care or for medical observation?” She felt especially volatile after the past five minutes.

Dr. Mackey cocked his head and gave her a withering look that was answer enough. “I care that you live, but I wasn’t ever worried about an injury like that to you. Hop up on the exam table and let me see it.”

Lifting her shirt, she waited while he poked it with the tip of his glasses. “Good,” was all he said before he scribbled across his notepad. “And what did you eat this morning?”

She slid Marie an emotionless smile as she said, “Raw bunny.”

The woman’s face went positively green, and Soren allowed herself a wider grin.

A frown lowered Dr. Mackey’s bushy gray brows. “Where did you get a rabbit, Soren? I thought Mel told you to stay in the colony gates from now on.”

Soren shrugged, not about to out Seamus or the game meat black market behind Ricky’s. “A zombie’s gotta eat.”

A hideous noise came from Marie, and she left and slammed the door so hard, it rocked the cabin. Soren sighed. She’d bet her best knife Mel would feel the need to have a private discussion with her before the day was done.

“You shouldn’t bait her,” Dr. Mackey murmured.

She reached up to remove the itchy muzzle but Doc shook his head. “Until the unvaccinated civilian is gone, you’re to keep the muzzle on twenty-four hours a day.”

“You can’t be serious. What about when I sleep?”

“Even when you sleep. There is fear of you sleepwalking.”

“But I’ve never sleepwalked in my life. Why would I start now?”

“Because we are trying to add cooked food to your diet. Changes like that can upset your body and cause changes like sleepwalking.”

“Wait, you’re in on it? You know it makes me sick, Doc! My entire digestive system shuts down. It’s like trying to feed a T. rex a Caesar salad. You of all people should understand how I work.”

“It’s just an experiment.” He held his hands up like he was compromising, but he wasn’t. No one compromised with her on anything.

“The muzzle is rubbing me raw.”

“Soren, you knew the gig coming here. The rules weren’t ever going to get easier the longer you stayed here, child. You are still just as dangerous as the day you walked in here.”

Lowering her voice, she said, “I don’t feel more dangerous.”

“Which convinces me further that you are. You obviously don’t see what the rest of the colony sees. Your refusal to mind the rules set in place to keep them safe scares people.”

“What are you talking about? I wear a damned muzzle. I eat without the comfort of other people. I keep my distance from everyone and live by myself. What rules am I breaking? If anything, you and Mel sequestering me makes everyone fear me more.”

“No, Soren.” He snatched a hand held mirror from his desk and shoved it in her face. “That scares them.”

Cold colored eyes, pale skin, a muzzle made of leather and metal, feral hair. She looked away from the glass. “Can you take my sample so I can go? Please.” Tears burned the back of her eyes, but she’d be hanged before she’d shed a single one in front of someone who didn’t deserve them.

Without a word, Dr. Mackey pulled a scalpel from a jar and deftly cut a chunk of flesh from her stomach.

“I’ll do it myself.” She snatched the gauze out of his hands and left the building. The chart sat unchecked by the front door. For the first time in months, she didn’t obsess over checking whether they’d magically found the cure overnight. They hadn’t. Maybe they never would.

Seamus ran out of the building after her, his tennis shoes stabbing clumsily at the earth as he ran to catch up. “He shouldn’t have taken his frustration out on you.” He pulled her elbow, and she slowed. “Doc’s just pissed they are at a standstill with the cure. He’s sick. Hey,” he said gently, turning her. “He’s sick. He told us yesterday. His only goal since the outbreak was to cure it, and it looks like he’ll die before he gets to do it.”

“We’re all dying, Seamus. Nothing is promised us in this life but death. The only thing in our control is our character while we pick our way through the muck.”

She was sorry to hear Doc was sick. It made her limbs heavy with sadness, but it didn’t excuse unkind behavior. She should be in there. Turning, she frowned at the cabin. The Dead vaccine had been created there. It’d been added onto through the years, and giant labs could be found through a back hallway, but the main building had remained the same. It had been the place she’d worked and studied for two years. It had been the place she’d dreamed of working for much longer. What would happen to her place at Dead Run River if Dr. Mackey wasn’t there anymore?

“Let’s cut work and get something to eat. I skipped breakfast.”

Yeah, well she could guess why. He’d brought her the gift of a raw bunny at the expense of his appetite. Seamus was a rock star in the friendship department. She usually steered wide and clear of the mess hall, but she owed him.

Throwing an arm around his shoulders, she squeezed his neck and rested her head on his shoulder. “Let’s get you fed.”

Despite his unfortunate taste in friends, according to the colony, Seamus seemed to be well liked. He had an easy personality and was friendly to everyone. He was so laid back he was nearly comatose and had an easy wit that seemed to make people want to talk to him.

She had none of his talents for socialization. Shyness crept through her, spreading through her arms, hands, and fingers until her throat closed over the polite
hellos
she wished she could give anyone who didn’t shoot poisoned darts with their glares. Kindly, he led them to the back door of the mess hall near the Dumpsters. With a genteel bow, he opened the door and waited for her to pass.

“Why, thank you, my liege,” she slurred through the muzzle.

“The pleasure is all mine, milady.”

Soren snorted. She’d never be anyone’s lady.

The cook’s name was Brennan, but everyone called him Chef. And if anyone deserved that distinguished title, it was him. He could create food out of meager rations with very little complaint on taste from the colonists. Sometimes his dishes even looked appetizing enough for her to wish she ate normal human chow.

“You!” Chef said with a crooked pointer jabbed in her direction. “I have something for you.” He pulled a raw steak from a refrigerator unit and set it on the stainless steel counter. “Hurry up and eat this before Marie stinks up my kitchen trying to cook the thing.”

She pursed her lips and shot Seamus a baleful glance. “Sorry, partner.”

A wicked smile took his face. “A zombie’s gotta eat, right?” he said, using her earlier words.

Huffing a surprised laugh, she snatched the steak and waited for Seamus to grab a late breakfast from the serving line. Pickings were slim, as he’d missed the rush. Still, the biscuits were perfectly browned, and he managed to secure himself some scrambled eggs to go with them. Gesturing for him to eat first, she slid onto the bench seat across from him and plucked at a string that edged the frayed napkin he’d grabbed. Seamus had picked a spot in the corner, and there weren’t many people left. Just guards newly off duty and people with a day off work.

She relaxed when a table full of men around her age seemed not to notice her presence. Self-consciously, she ducked her head and unclipped her muzzle. She was allowed to take it off to eat, but sometimes people still grumbled about the little bend in the rules.

“Do I have something on my face?” Seamus asked. Eggs hung halfway out of his mouth, and he lifted his eyebrows in innocent question.

“You’re such a child,” she said, stifling a giggle as she wiped his mouth with the napkin.

“And you’re a mother hen,” he accused.

Cocking her head, she waited for the punchline. She’d never been called that before. “What do you mean?”