Page 6 of Zomromcom
Empty houses that had once cost millions began to sag. The roofs of upscale shopping complexes collapsed. Immaculately paved streets pitted and cracked.
And three years ago, Not-Chad had bought the unprepossessing house next to hers, tunneled deep beneath it, built his lair, and installed startlingly sophisticated security systems, apparently unbeknownst to anyone.
Except her now.
He pointed to one specific image on his computer monitor, the rectangle dark purple except for several dozen orangey splotches clustered in a loose grouping.
“My infrared camera.” Side by side, they studied the image, and his frown deepened. “The creatures seem to be down on all fours and moving slowly.”
“They must not have found anyone else yet.” Otherwise, they’d be sprinting toward their victims and rising to their hind legs for the kill.
He nodded, then checked another subset of images. “Here they are on my night vision cameras. They’re still searching for us. If we stay down here, they’ll eventually give up and attempt to find other game.”
The creatures glowed an eerie green, their eyes as bright as spotlights, the details of their gaunt, muscled frames far more visible now.
The outdoor views showed them circling the property, sniffing for telltale scents, as the broken remains of his front door swung and creaked in the bitter winter wind.
The interior cameras showed other members of the pack exploring the home above, flinging aside a narrow bed and swatting a closet door off its hinges to expose potential hiding places.
There were so damn many of them. Far too many for even Not-Chad to kill—with her assistance, however unwelcome—before both of them would literally lose their heads.
They were going nowhere until the pack moved on. She might be desperate to alert other Zone residents of imminent danger, but her death approximately five feet outside his home would serve no purpose and help no one.
“Other people ,” she corrected quietly. “Other people, not other game.”
“Not to the zombies.” He sounded dismissive. “They can’t think in those terms. People are food to them, although they’d gladly slaughter Supernaturals instead of humans if given the opportunity. It’s why they were created, after all.”
Stung by the detached tone of his words, she turned her head to study him.
Nah , he’d said when she’d asked him to call the hotline. As if he couldn’t be bothered. As if the slightest effort to aid others required more energy than he cared to expend.
Why the hells had he saved her, then?
“How about you? Do you think in those terms?” she asked. “Or is everyone else simply other game to you?”
He didn’t answer.
His face was as smooth as his marble countertop once more, all expression gone as he checked his various security features and collected intelligence on their—his—current situation.
Finally, he straightened and turned to her.
“My cameras’ reach isn’t foolproof. There may be stragglers I can’t see, even after the bulk of the pack departs.
I don’t intend to leave my home until authorities give us the official all clear and I’ve seen no sign of zombies for at least forty-eight hours. You can stay here with me until then.”
A generous offer.
She didn’t understand it. Without a plausible explanation, she didn’t trust it either.
“Why?” Exhaustion, hunger, and uncertainty sapped her remaining strength, and she leaned heavily against the edge of his glass work desk.
“Why snatch me away from danger and lecture me about self-preservation if my life means nothing to you? Why offer me safe shelter for days or even weeks to come if the survival of others doesn’t concern you? ”
Whenever he offered her that one-shoulder shrug, casual and Gallic and infuriating, she wanted to smack the shit out of him.
“I noted the initial zombie’s approach in time to kill it without your ill-considered assistance,” he said bluntly.
“Still, you believed you were saving me. You intended to save me. You foolishly risked your life to do so. In return, I feel obligated to provide basic assistance, at least this once.”
“So you’re merely fulfilling a perceived debt, then.”
“Correct.” How he managed to pack so much ostentatious boredom into two syllables, she’d never know.
“You don’t actually care if I live or die.”
“Correct.”
Edie hadn’t spent time around farm animals in at least three decades, but she could still identify the pungent scent of bullshit. “What if I left here tonight to warn the other Zone residents?”
It would be a suicide mission, and they both knew it.
A muscle in his jaw ticked. “I would not recommend that.”
“Of course not, but would you care? Would you mourn my death?”
He silently watched her for a moment, a vein throbbing at his temple, before answering. “You told me you didn’t wish to die. Was that a lie?”
“I haven’t lied to you, Chad .” Her thick sarcasm should have choked him.
“Then you won’t leave before dawn.”
Much as she’d love to contradict him, he was right.
“If the pack moves away and the sirens don’t sound during the night, I’ll go at daybreak.
” She couldn’t live with herself if she didn’t at least try to alert other Zone residents and the authorities that a calamitous breach had occurred.
“Thank you for your kind offer of shelter until then.”
If he noted any irony in her tone, he didn’t react to it. He simply nodded.
After one last glance at his monitor, he stood and left his media room. “I need to change. Wait for me in the kitchen.”
He disappeared into the doorway across the hall, and she ventured back into the kitchen in search of an ice pack. Her ankle had stiffened up and was currently protesting the unanticipated evening of zombie kicking, mole hole tripping, and ladder descending.
She limped to his refrigerator, slid open his freezer drawer, and found…nothing. Absolutely nothing. No freezer-burned bags of corn. No microwaveable dinners. Not even a pint of H?agen-Dazs.
He reappeared at her side before she even had time to close the drawer. Somehow he’d managed to change and cross a vast expanse of concrete floor in about thirty seconds, max. Which was…telling, she figured.
Compared to the leather hoodie and animal-hide thong, his track pants and tight Henley were disappointingly normal, albeit ridiculously flattering.
When her eyes drifted toward his rounded posterior, she whipped them upward again.
She was still blinking away spots from that damn thong.
Too lengthy a perusal of his ass now might entirely burn out her retinas, like staring at an eclipse.
“I don’t suppose you have an ice pack tucked away somewhere else,” she said.
“No.” His forehead creased. “You’ve injured yourself?”
“My ankle isn’t injured. Strained, maybe.
” Also twisted and jammed, but that wasn’t important.
Even without an ice pack, ibuprofen and a few hours off her feet should take care of the issue.
“Do you have something to drink? And is there somewhere I can sit without ruining the sacrificial efforts of all those naked, shivering geese?”
She looked down at her blood-splattered, muddy coveralls and winced. Mess didn’t bother her, but gore? Yuck. Sadly, there was no point asking to borrow clean clothes. Nothing he owned would fit her generously rounded frame, on top or bottom.
He hesitated. “I suppose I could get some towels to put beneath you.”
No doubt his towels had been woven by master towel-making craftspeople in the Alps, the glowing white of their cotton unsullied by even the merest speck of dirt.
Ah, fuck it.
“You know what? There’s no need to filthify your towels.
Compared to your previous outfit, I might as well be wearing a nun’s habit beneath my coveralls.
” Without further ado, she tugged her bag over her head and set it on the countertop, then unzipped her coveralls and shoved them over her shoulders and hips and down her legs.
After kicking the stained fabric into a pile beneath the island, she washed her hands thoroughly at the kitchen sink for a second time.
“Got any pomegranate juice? It’s my favorite. ”
He didn’t respond.
When she turned to check on him, he was staring at her, his expression pained.
Which was unfair, because she was actually wearing a bra beneath her tank top for once, and her panties were of the comfy granny variety and fully covered her ass cheeks.
Also, they had a cute pink bubble pattern and had never served as the skin of a living creature, so…
“I know, I know. It’s like seeing your mom in her underwear.
Get over it, Chad .” To a guy his age, no doubt her late-thirties body seemed like a cautionary tale about the dangers of gravity.
Or maybe he wasn’t into fat women of any age, especially those with generous bellies and thick thighs and not much in the way of T and A.
His loss. “While you process your Oedipal trauma, let’s find out what beverages you have in your fancy fridge. Mama’s thirsty.”
She swung open the French doors.
Well. Maybe he wasn’t in his earlyish twenties after all. And maybe he wasn’t an elf or a fae either, as she’d been theorizing all evening.
His refrigerator contained nothing but blood bags. Discreetly packaged, of course, but definitely, unmistakably blood bags.
Not-Chad—her closest neighbor, the guy with whom she was currently locked in an underground lair—was a freaking vampire .