Page 17 of Zomromcom
Somewhere around the time she finally managed to wriggle through the window opening and launch herself into the moat below, Edie realized Max hadn’t jumped in the water too.
No, that fucking dimwit was instead swinging his stupid fucking sword like a moron knight of fucking legend, keeping the thrice-damned zombies back while she made it out of the SUV.
Somewhere, a super-old French village is missing its idiot , she thought as she held her breath, leapt as far out as she could, and hit the freezing water with a painful smack .
It took all her will not to gasp at the chill and the shock of impact.
Weighed down by her thick coveralls and shoes, she sank farther than she’d have preferred, unsure which way was up.
The air in your lungs will float you toward the surface , he’d said, and she held on to that thought to stave off panic as she let her body drift and find its way.
With effort, she opened her eyes, and then she knew for certain which way was up—because that was where the zombies all around her came from. In twos and threes, they splashed down in the moat after her, still intent on enjoying her brain as a tasty holiday brunch offering.
Far too many creatures now surrounded her in the water.
Although her lungs already felt tight, she took a moment to retrieve her knife from her bra before she began swimming for the surface.
Which was good, since whenever she neared one of the zombies, it repeatedly lunged for her.
Luckily, the water slowed them down, and they couldn’t seem to recalibrate their attacks accordingly.
The ones who got too close, she slashed at with the knife in between strokes.
The creatures didn’t even try to swim. Their gaunt frames were also much less buoyant than hers, and she doubted they’d had enough forethought to take a deep breath before jumping. They sank away from her, still trying to reach her, still trying to rip out her throat, even as they slowly drowned.
Then she was swimming alone, desperately forcing herself to hold on and not take the convulsive breath hitching in her chest. Just as she was certain she couldn’t stand the agonizing pressure in her lungs any longer, the surface appeared before her, sunlit and beautiful, and she flailed frantically until she could plunge upward, through the barrier, into a world filled with oxygen and the sound of something—anything—other than her laboring heartbeat.
Sucking in desperate, heaving gulps of air, she coughed and pedaled in the water to stay upright. And as soon as the sparks faded from her vision, her two-part search began. Where was the nearest safe spot to leave the water? And where the hells was Max?
The bridge was too high, obviously. She’d have to swim to one of the banks of the moat, but she had no idea which one might have a ladder or some other means of leaving the water.
Also which one might still have part of the zombie pack circling and lying in wait, because those classified government reports had mentioned over a hundred creatures living in the compound, so not all of them had attacked the SUV. The rest wouldn’t be far.
Didn’t matter. Max would help her decide. Once she found him.
From the water, she could only see the top half of the SUV, but it appeared abandoned. At the very least, any living being in the vicinity was no longer standing. There was a good chance Max wasn’t actually a living being anymore, though, after the way he—
No. He’d survived. He’d jumped into the water as they’d planned. If she let herself believe anything else, she wasn’t certain she’d have the strength to swim to shore.
Was he still fighting the zombies who’d pursued him into the water? Had the weight of the backpack dragged him to the bottom of the moat? Had they ripped off his head because he’d waited too long to jump?
Had he died in defense of her?
Her raw lungs expanded with one painfully deep breath, and another, and another. Then she ducked under the glittering surface again, eyes straining against the darkness beneath her, searching for movement.
When she ran out of air, she surfaced, then lowered her head to search again.
There. A fleeting glint of gold and silver far below.
It could be a fish. It could be a shiny fallen item from Max’s backpack. But it could be Max himself, his hair and sword catching a faint flicker of light, so she had to check.
Another handful of deep breaths. Every instinct screamed at her to save herself, to swim to safety, to remain in light.
Instead, she arrowed down into the murky depths of the moat once more, kicking and using a sort of clumsy breaststroke.
Over and over, her hands dragged through the water in the shape of an upside-down heart, then shot through the middle, breaking the shape in two before beginning anew.
How deep was the fucking moat, anyway? Twenty feet? More?
Her ears popped, and her lungs burned.
Just as she was tempted to turn back, he appeared before her, floating face down above the bottom of the moat, decapitated zombie bodies and severed zombie heads forming a gruesome circle around him. To keep her lips closed, she bit them so hard she drew blood.
He still had his own head. Maybe she could resuscitate him. She needed to get him to the surface.
The shreds of his backpack floated like seaweed, rippling slightly in the dark water, and his hands were caught in the current too. They drifted along the craggy surface below him in little sweeps, moving…quite a lot, actually.
If she didn’t know better, she’d say they were moving with purpose . Like maybe he wasn’t drowned after all, but rather—
Without warning, just as she reached to grab hold of his jacket or his jeans or something, anything , she could use to drag him upward, he jerked, turned his head, and spotted her just above him. She gasped. In joy. In relief. In shock.
In a major, major mistake, because she was at the bottom of a fucking moat.
The rest of her time in the water, she didn’t remember clearly, probably because she wasn’t breathing much anymore.
The next thing she knew, she was lying on her side, racked by shivers and shudders as she retched and gasped and coughed foul-tasting water onto a patch of brittle crabgrass while Max alternately rubbed her back, thumped it to help her expel more of the moat’s contents, and cursed at her.
“—fucking told you not to look for me, fucking told you to concentrate on your own survival, not to mention all those other times I fucking told you not to risk your own life to save anyone else’s, including mine, and what’s the first thing you fucking do , huh?
” His chilly fingers stroked her wet hair back from her cheek.
“Wait, you can’t tell me, can you, Edie?
Because you fucking drowned yourself doing exactly what I told you not to do . ”
“You”—she finally managed to suck back a thimbleful of air between coughs—“tried to”— hack hack —“save me first”— hack hack hack —“you utter hypocrite. What”—she dry-heaved—“the fuck?”
His hand briefly paused in its circles on her back, but he ignored her aggrieved accusation in favor of more profane muttering.
Fine. She’d try a different question, then. “Why were you at the bottom of”— hack hack —“the freaking moat if you weren’t drowning, Chad ?”
The tightness in her chest had begun to ease, breath by breath, that discomfort replaced by her growing awareness of just how cold she’d become. Another few minutes out here and she could pursue a side hustle as a freelance ice sculpture.
His sigh gusted against her ear as he bent over her, and she shivered convulsively.
“Those fuckers’ claws ripped open my backpack, and everything fell into the water.
Vampires don’t need to breathe as often as humans, so once I saw you’d reached the surface safely, I went down to find my blood packs and all the other supplies. Dude .”
Dammit. This made two dangerous, unnecessary attempts to rescue him in less than twenty-four hours. But in her defense, her neighbor really sucked at communication.
“You could have”— hack wheeze —“said something,” she pointed out, with what she considered laudable calm. “Told me you were all right and what you were doing.”
As he helped lever her to a sitting position, he scanned the length of the bridge. “The rest of the pack might appear at any moment. I was trying to hurry.”
“I thought you’d died .” On the verge of tears, she poked him in the chest. “I was so fucking scared, Max, and so fucking horrified that you’d drowned to protect me .”
The angry jut of his jaw softened, and darkness bled from his gaze, leaving his eyes a warm faded blue once more.
He studied her face, then tugged a strand of her dripping hair and ducked his head.
Right before he made contact, he paused, one eyebrow lifted in question.
In silent answer, she closed the remaining gap between them.
She was angry, but not angry enough to deny both of them what they needed.
His lips were soft and cool, the kiss slow and deliberate.
After a breathless few moments, his thumb on her chin parted her mouth and tipped her head to the exact angle he wanted.
The slide of his tongue electrified her, sent sexual heat sparking down her spine, and she exhaled sharply into his mouth as his thumb brushed her earlobe.
By the time he ended the kiss, lifting his head after one last sweep of his tongue along her lower lip, incipient hypothermia wasn’t the sole reason for her dazed state.
“I didn’t imagine you’d be concerned.” His hand, supportive on her back, stroked another soothing circle. “I apologize for your fright, my Edie. It wasn’t intentionally inflicted.”
Unable to speak, she simply inclined her head in acknowledgment.