Page 18 of Zomromcom

I didn’t imagine you’d be concerned . It was such a gut-twistingly sad statement that the remaining warmth from his kiss faded into a bone-deep chill and she almost lost her renewed battle against weeping.

What the hells kind of life had he led, that he simply assumed she wouldn’t care if he lived or died, even after he’d saved her own life multiple times? After everything they’d already shared?

“Your lungs sound much better.” In response to her crinkled brow, he explained with exaggerated patience, “Vampire hearing. Much more sensitive than the paltry sensory capability of mere humans.”

She flicked her gaze to the blue sky above. “Naturally.”

That auditory sensitivity was a vulnerability as well as a strength, as he would soon discover. From now on, she intended to hum the Gaston song whenever he was within a country mile of her, in recompense for all the fun Chad had had at her expense.

“Are you otherwise uninjured?” He shot a glance toward the bridge once more, then returned his attention to her. “Because we need to leave soon, and my vehicle should still be drivable.”

Apparently they were going to overlook his calling her my Edie and pretend their kiss hadn’t happened, even though her lips were still tingling faintly. Which could also be due to frostbite, come to think of it.

Fine. She didn’t have the mental wherewithal to puzzle out what the kiss and his choice of endearment meant or didn’t mean right now. If he wanted to let the elephants in the room trumpet unacknowledged, so be it.

She nodded. “I’m fine. You’re okay too?”

“I’ve already healed from my minor wounds.” Haughty condescension soaked his every word, and he regarded her pityingly. “Just another aspect of vampires’ inherent superiority to your kind.”

His eyes gleamed as he watched her reaction. The corner of his mouth twitched, then stilled again.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” she said dryly. “Before we go, do you want to get back into the water to search more for your supplies?”

“No time.” He rose to his feet in a single graceful motion and offered her his hand. “Besides, we need to get you warm. You’ll be useless if you go hypothermic on me.”

“Which would happen because—what was it again?” Standing with his assistance, she took a moment to regain her balance. “ Humans have such an inferior range of acceptable temperatures? ”

It wasn’t a bad imitation, especially when she looked down her nose at him and sniffed loudly.

“Yes.” His gusty sigh tickled her ear. “It’s tragic, really.”

As he clasped her arm in a gentle hold and got them walking toward the bridge, she told him, “I know why you’re playing up that patronizing vampire shtick, Max. You can’t fool me.”

He wanted to stave off her incipient tears. To distract her from the kiss they’d shared. To amuse her. Amuse them both, maybe.

“I have no idea what you mean,” he declared loftily, and helped her back to his SUV.

***

The zombies had managed to batter through the SUV’s bulletproof glass in several places and flatten part of the roof, which was both impressive and terrifying as hells.

Luckily, they’d discontinued their efforts after their potential prey had leapt into the water, so her emergency supplies remained intact, and the spiderwebbed glass surrounding the windshield’s holes didn’t entirely obscure Max’s view of the road as he drove to the nearest defensible shelter: a giant, abandoned, once-swanky mall just inside Zone B.

When she’d suggested that they keep driving straight through to Zone C, he’d ignored her. “Until you’re dry and warm again, we’re done. We need to get you indoors,” he’d told her, and that had been that.

The sun still shone brightly above them. The heated seats were on full blast, the interior temperature set high enough to roast a turkey. Didn’t matter. She couldn’t stop shivering.

A frigid December wind whistled through the gaps in the windshield, her clothing didn’t seem likely to dry anytime soon, and Max apparently didn’t have one of those foil blankets anywhere in his damn car.

“My body temperature is naturally much lower than yours. I don’t require blankets for my comfort.” He ducked his head to see around a crack, an unhappy expression on his taut face. “I didn’t anticipate ferrying a human passenger, so my emergency supplies are inadequate for your needs.”

There was an unspoken apology in there somewhere, and she appreciated it, but her teeth were actually chattering. Like she was a freaking cartoon character, tinted blue with cold, a layer of frost slowly spreading over her clothing.

“It’s f-fine.” Because she hoped satisfying her curiosity would distract her from frozen misery, she asked, “Is it e-even p-possible for you to die of c-cold? Like, if y-you got s-stuck in an industrial f-freezer and b-became a vampsicle?”

“A stake through my heart will kill me. So will removing my head or”—his throat bobbed—“burning me alive. In theory, I can drown as well, but it would take a very, very long time, and I could be revived for hours afterward. Nothing else will suffice. We vampires are notoriously tough to dispatch.” He directed a scowl her way, then drove onto the cracked asphalt of the mall’s large, empty parking lot.

“As opposed to humans, who can die far more easily in countless ways. Which is why, as noted previously, you should never, ever —”

“Yeah, y-yeah.” She waved a shaking hand. “So f-freezing solid w-wouldn’t do y-you any h-harm at all? Really?”

After circling around the side of the vast, abandoned shopping center, he wedged the SUV into yet another hiding spot between two dumpsters and put the car in Park.

His shoulder lifted. “Some temporary skin damage, perhaps. Once I got warmer, I’d simply—”

“D-defrost?” she offered innocently. “Like a chicken b-breast with freezer b-burn?”

Slowly, he turned his head to stare at her. “Do you deliberately choose the most insulting comparisons possible?”

“Me?” She blinked over at him, arms wrapped around her middle for warmth, and continued perfecting her imitation of him. “I w-would n-never.”

“Mmmm.” Shaking his head, he gathered her duffel and cross-body bag and slung them both over his shoulder, then unearthed his first aid kit.

“We need to be quick and quiet, Edie. I’ve heard rumors about this place.

If it weren’t an emergency…” She swung her legs out from the SUV and slid down onto half-numb feet, and his mouth thinned as he watched the clumsiness of her movements. “But it is.”

He didn’t need to elaborate. Normally, she’d never enter an abandoned building in the Containment Zone, and neither would any other Zone resident without a death wish.

Over the years, members of criminal gangs had forged identification documents and gotten accepted as residents in the Zone, where the relative lack of government oversight and media attention worked to their advantage.

They’d discreetly looted where they could, then set up clandestine drug labs and stash houses in empty, derelict structures exactly like this one.

Generally, the gangs kept to themselves, as long as no one invaded their dilapidated fiefdoms. Which was precisely what she and Max were about to do, unless the mall had somehow remained entirely vacant over the past twenty years.

Highly unlikely. She might not be a cynic, but she wasn’t a fool either.

Keeping his right arm free, Max wrapped his left around her shoulders and tugged her tight against his side. Not to provide warmth, because he had none to offer, but to support her and help her keep up with his rapid pace.

All possible entrances to the four-story mall had likely been smashed open by looters soon after the First Breach, including the unremarkable dented gray door near the dumpsters. A staff entrance, she guessed, now propped wide open with a concrete block, its lock disabled.

Max nudged her behind him as he entered the dim interior. The light filtering through the open door illuminated empty shelves and filthy mud-tracked linoleum, with shoeboxes scattered everywhere, their contents long gone. A stock area for a footwear store, evidently.

She kept her voice to a faint whisper. “We c-can’t stay h-here.”

“Agreed. We need a place zombies can’t access so easily,” he murmured into her ear.

Her tooth-punctured bottom lip stung when she licked it. “Yes, b-but the upper f-floors put us t-too far away from an escape r-route. We n-need to pick a s-spot on this level.”

He shot her a long-suffering look. “Obviously.”

In silent accord, they crept from the store’s back room and emerged onto the selling floor, where they immediately ducked behind empty shoe racks and waited.

Nothing. No visible movement, no noise. No indication they weren’t alone.

After a minute, they cautiously kept moving.

The closer they came to the store’s entrance, the brighter their surroundings got.

This mall had an atrium, she suddenly remembered.

A dome of glass high above the open center of the building, allowing natural light to filter into all the stores lining the edges of the structure.

That sunlight, along with the lack of wind, was probably why the mall didn’t feel nearly as cold as she’d feared.

Roughly twenty-two years had passed since her last visit here, but if she recalled the layout correctly…“There’s a Pottery Barn n-nearby. Let’s g-go there.”

Maybe it hadn’t been entirely stripped of merchandise, and they could find a chair or some bedding to dry off with. Maybe it even had some of the furniture she remembered so clearly from all her family’s visits there.

His shoulder lifted a fraction. “It’s as good a place as any. Which way?”