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“Noah, you need to learn to defend yourself.” His words hit my ear, and I vaguely remember telling him I wanted to learn to defend myself. But the one simple idea now seems too scary, and I want to take it back.

That’s a good idea.

“I take it back.”

One of his perfect eyebrows rises, a crease slowly appearing between them.

“I take it back, Reed. I don’t want to learn. I'd much rather you fight off the bad guys, all of them, right now. Reed I’m not kidding; you can fight him off.” I ramble on. Jerking my arm back again, it does nothing as Reed holds an iron grip on my wrist.

“Noah.”

I shake my head, refusing to hear anything that comes out of his mouth. The thing about fear and anxiety is that they don’t go hand in hand. They’re terrible together; the fear of one of those things biting me makes my skin crawl. And then the anxiety of having no idea how to defend myself properly just makes me want to vomit everywhere.

“Noah!” Reed barks at me.

My eyes snap from the zombie who’s closer to us than I would like all the way to Reed's beautiful eyes. Time seems to blur, the world around me fading until all I see are those specs of brown and green hidden with emotions that I can’t understand.

“Noah, you’re dissociating; I’m going to need you to reel it in. It’s one zombie, just one, and I’m going to be here the entire time.”

His words make sense, but I don’t want to hear them. I don’t want this to be the reality.

“Noah, listen to me; tell me you’re listening.”

I nod my head, not truly wanting to listen.

“Words, love.”

I’m not sure if it’s because I can see the zombie closing in on us or if my brain must have short-circuited at him calling me love.

“I–I’m listening,I think.”

The corner of his eyes creases, showing me he can at least smile.

“I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

“Promise?” I whisper.

“I promise.”

CHAPTER15

Reed

I’m not sure who was more surprised, Noah hearing me call himlove, or myself by calling him that. I’m not entirely sure where it came from, but I needed him to listen, and the name just came out. And now that I’ve said it, I can’t think of a better name for him.

“Don’t let me die,” Noah whimpers. Images of him on his knees, begging for my cock, flash through my brain. I want to see him whimper. In some fucked-up way I want to see tears in those eyes, pleading for a single taste of me. The intoxicating desire growing inside me has me nearly ready to kill the zombie myself just so I can feel his plump lips around my cock.

But Noah needs to learn. He needs to be able to survive without me; I can’t always be there, even if a part of me wants to be.

“You won’t die,” I tell him. Even if I have to throw myself to a crowd full of zombies, Noah will survive.

“If I’m going to f–fight, you’re going to have to let go of my wrist.”

Once again I drop his arm like he’d burn me. Before I can see the hurt cross his face, I turn around to see where the zombie exactly is. Thankfully the fucker had his feet almost hacked off, causing him to move slower than most.

“Still have your mallet?” I ask, even though I know he does.

“Of course,” he mutters behind me.