Page 33 of Dyana (Love in the Apocalypse #3)

I took off through the trees, and it didn’t take long to hear the sounds of zombies.

And from the ruckus behind me, I wasn’t the only one running to help Remi.

I crested a hill and ran smack into the group.

They were just as surprised to see me as I was to see them, and being alive, I had the advantage of reacting quicker and planted my knives into the two closest zombies.

A small group may have been misleading. There were about ten to fifteen zombies.

Jack and Derrick joined the fray, and together we cut through the group. Where the fuck was Remi? I hadn’t caught sight of him yet, and I should have. I didn’t want to think the worst, but I was beginning to get nervous.

“Remi!” I jumped at Trent’s hoarse scream. I hadn’t realized he had joined us. The terror in his voice was evident, and so was his distraction. His scream caught a zombie’s attention, but Trent was so busy searching for Remi that he hadn’t noticed.

“Trent!” I yelled as I threw one of my knives at the zombie’s head and prayed I didn’t miss and kill Trent instead. Thankfully, the knife hit its mark, and Trent turned toward my yell just as the zombie fell.

His eyes widened in shock. “Thanks. That was close.”

“Too fucking close,” I replied as I trotted over to get my knife.

“Stay alert or go back home.” I jumped back into the fight, grumbling to myself.

Men. When we were down to only two, I paused to let Jack and Derrick take them out since they were closer and scanned the forest. We still hadn’t seen any sign of Remi.

“Remi!” Trent yelled again.

Silence fell with the last two zombies, and we all held our breath as we waited for an answer. The seconds ticked by, and with every one, my dread grew. I didn’t want to go back and tell Cora we lost one of her men. And looking at Trent, I wasn’t sure he’d survive the loss, either.

“Over here!” Remi shouted.

“Oh, thank fuck,” I said as I ran toward his voice with the others hot on my heels. “Keep talking to us, Remi,” I shouted.

“I’m up here,” he replied. I looked up into a tree and saw him clinging to the trunk for dear life.

“Well, are you gonna come down?” I asked, shielding my eyes from the sun with my hand.

“Yep. Just give me a moment. I got a little higher than I expected, and I feel like this branch is going to snap any minute.”

“All the more reason to come down, don’t you think?” Jack asked.

Remi took a deep breath and slowly lowered himself to the next branch. Slowly, he picked his way out of the tree, and as soon as he reached the ground, Trent nearly tackled him in a bear hug.

“You scared the ever loving piss out of me, asshole!”

While I was happy he was back on solid ground, there was one more thing we needed to check. “Trent, backup,” I ordered. He looked at me confused, but my tone didn’t give him room to argue with me. “Remi, were you bitten?”

“No.”

I looked at Derrick, and he nodded. “We have to be sure, bro. It’s not that we don’t trust you, but that was a close call, and we have to be sure before we bring you home to Johnny and Cora.”

“I’ll leave you guys to it,” I said as I turned and walked back toward camp with Jack. I had no interest in seeing Remi’s bits and baubles.

“You’re a badass,” Jack said as he linked his hand in mine.

“Are you surprised?”

“No. Pleased. That was hot. I’ve never seen you in action before. I’ll admit, when you tore off through the trees, I almost had a heart attack, but you can take care of yourself. That’s good to know.”

Part of me preened under his praise, but the rest of me prickled at it.

Of course I could take care of myself. I’ve been doing it from the start.

Instead of reacting to the unintentional slight, I focused on how his pride in me made me feel.

It was nice to be recognized for my abilities by someone I loved.

When we arrived at the house, Cora’s door opened, and Derrick stood in the doorway, concern etched on his face. Before he could stop her, Cora rushed past him with Johnny. “Where are they? Are they ok? Why aren’t they with you?”

“They’re ok, Cora,” I assured her. “They’re just checking Remi for bites, and then they’ll be here. He didn’t think he was bitten, but we wanted to take precautions anyway.” She nodded but didn’t take her worried eyes from the treeline.

“Dyna!” Johnny screeched excitedly.

My mouth fell open as I looked at the drooling, grinning baby. “Did he just say my name?”

“He did!” Cora exclaimed, her joy over Johnny speaking distracting her from her worry. She turned on Isaac, who looked equally as surprised as I was. “I told you he said Mama this morning!”

“Yeah, you did,” Remi said from behind us. “The kid kept saying Mama the entire time we were down at the creek.”

Cora whirled around and jumped into Remi’s arms. “I’m ok, Little Mouse.”

“So his first word was Mama,” I said, biting back my smirk. “Did he say anything else?”

“Nope,” Trent said. Isaac groaned.

“So then what you’re saying is his second word was my name?”

I couldn’t contain my laughter when Johnny’s four daddies all glared at me. Oh, I was going to enjoy pulling at that thread for the rest of our lives.