Page 8 of Zomromcom

Common human opposition alone couldn’t stop the zombies.

For their own survival, many—but not all—Supernaturals and Enhanced humans chose to battle the creatures as well, and they did so publicly and calculatedly.

The revelation of their existence had become inevitable after the discovery of their werewolf brethren, as they explained to the president and her closest advisers, and they intended to control the circumstances under which they too were discovered.

By emerging into public view as they fought for common humans as well as themselves, they hoped to foster trust and forestall any future eradication efforts by the government.

And vampires like Not-Chad evidently no longer had to feed in darkness. “So before the zombies, you avoided sunlight simply because you were trying to escape human notice?”

“Yes.” Tiredly, he rubbed a hand over his bristly jaw.

“We had to be discreet. If our existence had become known before public opinion turned in our favor, common humans would have hunted and killed us all. But we needed human blood to survive, so we were careful to prevent witnesses to our feeding.”

Wait.

She froze with the burrito poised an inch from her mouth. “Is that a roundabout way of saying you killed everyone you fed from?”

Because she didn’t know how often he or other vampires had to feed, but it probably wasn’t an infrequent occurrence. And if some poor soul had died for Not-Chad’s every meal, dear gods . She couldn’t even imagine how many people he’d killed over the years.

Maybe eliminating witnesses had been necessary for his species’ survival. But even that reasoning didn’t make the reality of repeated consequence-free murder any less horrifying.

Stomach churning, she set down her food. Goose bumps prickled along her arms and legs, and not simply because Not-Chad kept his house chillier than most humans preferred.

He glanced down at her forearms, and his brows drew together.

“No,” he said hastily. “Vampires can confuse the memories of those they feed from. There was no need to kill them.”

She slumped a little in relief. “So you scrambled the brains of your prey, then?”

“That’s an unnecessarily dramatic way to describe a finite period of limited confusion.”

“Hmmm.” She thought it over. “What if you messed up and there were other witnesses?”

He drew himself stiffly upright, evidently insulted once more. Were all Supernaturals such touchy little divas, or was that only a Not-Chad thing?

“I didn’t mess up ,” he pronounced firmly.

Of course. “But surely other vampires did, at least on occasion. What would happen then?”

Lips pressed together, he met her gaze steadily.

“I see.” Ah yes. Back to consequence-free murder. “Better to guarantee a human’s death than risk your own life.”

“Of course.” A flick of his wrist dismissed her implied criticism. “I told you, human: Don’t die to save someone else. Not vampires, not humans, not anyone. Every single one of us would gladly sacrifice you to save ourselves.”

Her personal history proved otherwise, but she didn’t owe him that story. She didn’t owe it to anyone. She kept it safe in her heart, a tangled bundle of love and grief, wrapped tight and buried deep.

He evidently confused her disagreement for offense. “Don’t take it personally. Vampires wouldn’t bother saving our own kind either. We’re essentially feral cats.”

“If trapped in an apartment with someone, you’d eat their face off when they died?”

“What?” His nose wrinkled as he glared at her. “No.”

Touchy, touchy, touchy.

He paused. “Well, some vampires I’ve encountered might possibly…”

Yeah. Just as she thought. Dead Roommate: It’s What’s for Dinner.

“Anyway.” He sort of shook himself. “I meant that we don’t, as the saying goes, play well with others.

In fact, violence tends to erupt when too many of us live in close proximity.

Maybe because at one time, crowding would have meant not enough to eat for everyone without our presence becoming obvious. ”

“Feral cats often form cooperative colonies.” The cheese in her burrito had solidified and turned waxy, but she chewed it thoughtfully as she considered the animal kingdom. “You’re more like betta fish plopped into the same aquarium.”

He scowled again. “Fish? You think we’re like fish ?”

“Very pretty fish,” she said soothingly. “With frilly fins and lovely colors.”

His mouth worked, but he couldn’t seem to find the appropriate words in response. In the end, he simply continued glowering at her.

Since he didn’t appreciate her similes, she returned to an earlier topic.

“Why don’t common humans like me know about the sunlight thing?

Or the brain scrambling? Vampires and all the other Supernaturals and Enhanced humans have been out in the public eye for twenty years.

Shouldn’t we understand you better by now? ”

He muttered something that sounded like Not all Supernaturals .

“What did you just say?” Because if she’d heard him correctly, the implications—

“I said that for all Supernaturals, too much knowledge of our abilities and vulnerabilities could prove dangerous. To maintain a certain amount of mystery, we counter any true information with total lies, so outsiders never know exactly what to believe. Also, common humans still cling to their wild imaginings from before our public emergence. That confuses the matter further, in ways we gladly encourage.”

“So how do I know you’re telling me the truth now?” Picking at a soggy piece of tortilla, she regarded him closely. “For that matter, how do I know you haven’t already fed from me and fiddled with my mind at some point?”

His shoulder lifted in an unconcerned shrug.

“Are you? Have you?” she demanded.

“Yes, and no.”

Both his face and his tone were expressionless. Impossible to read for signs of deceit.

She threw her hands in the air. “How can I be sure?”

“You can’t.” He sat back on his barstool, infuriatingly nonchalant. “You just have to trust me.”

“You’ve basically told me not to trust anyone!” It was a near yell, accompanied by the near addition of the word asshole at the end.

He pointed at her. “Exactly. Well done, human.”

Setting down her burrito, she dropped her chin to her chest, dug her knuckles into her aching temples, and tried to regain control of her temper.

For a minute, silence blanketed the austere fortress he’d built for himself.

“Do you need medicine?” When he spoke again, his voice was quiet. “I don’t have any, but perhaps you carry some in your bag?”

Oh, right. Ibuprofen.

Stretching out an arm to her left, she snagged her purse and tugged it closer. The pill bottle, of course, had fallen to the bottom of the bag, so finding it took some time.

When she chanced upon her little tin of cinnamon Altoids, buried beneath her hairbrush, she looked up. “Want a mint?”

His mouth opened, then closed, and he stared at her oddly.

“That’s not a hint, by the way,” she told him, to clarify matters. “I just thought you’d like this flavor. It’s my favorite.”

His gaze flicked to the tin, then back to her.

“Or maybe you can’t consume anything but blood?” That would certainly explain his refrigerator’s contents. “Does human food hurt your stomach?”

He shook his head. “We can eat whatever we want. It simply has no nutritional value for us, however pleasant it might taste.”

In that case, why in the world did his kitchen contain nothing but blood?

The mints rattled as she shook her tin coaxingly. “If that’s true, then live a little, Not-Chad. Have a mint.”

“Your container appears to be festooned with hair,” he said slowly. “But thank you. That’s…very kind.”

The dented box creaked as it opened. “The hair’s only on the outside. See? The mints inside are perfectly…” She hesitated. “Well, there’s only one hair in there. Two, max.”

He shuddered.

Fine. More mints for her, then. “You never answered my other questions, you know. About how you managed to get footage from inside the compound, whether all vampires have bougie underground lairs like yours, and what your real name is.”

After wrestling open her bottle of ibuprofen, washing the pills down with water, and putting everything back in her purse, she ate more of her burrito and waited to discover whether Not-Chad would offer any new information, however dubious in its veracity.

He remained silent for a few moments, then sighed and gripped his nape with one broad hand.

“The common human government only shares that camera footage with the highest officials from the Supernatural and Enhanced Ruling Council. At one time, I was expected to fill an open seat on SERC, and I still have connections there. Some of those connections owe me favors. Since moving to the Zone, I’ve allowed them to repay their debts with classified information about the creatures, including the interior footage. ”

She blinked at him, stunned.

He’d once been willing to serve on a council for the public good? What in the world?

SERC’s creation had been another unanticipated outcome of the zombie jailbreak.

As Supernatural and Enhanced groups had stepped into the spotlight and helped drive those zombies back into the underground compound, they’d coordinated with one another for the first time.

Determined to address common human officials from a unified position of power, they’d formed SERC to serve as a loose governing body that could speak for its members’ interests.

In the heady rush of victory following the Battle for Containment, the government had rewarded its allies by sanctioning a loose, tentative partnership with SERC.

In return for the government’s toleration of Supernaturals and the Enhanced, as well as prosecution of common humans who injured or killed SERC’s constituents without just cause, SERC had promised that those constituents would protect common humans rather than prey upon them.

Not all humans approved of the alliance. Neither did all Supernaturals. Nevertheless, the agreement carried enough weight that a fraught, uneasy peace had taken shape and been maintained ever since.

And Mr. Trust No One had almost taken a seat on SERC? Had almost dedicated his life to maintaining peace and order—only to wind up in an underground bunker of his own, entirely alone and ostensibly unconcerned with the survival of anyone and everyone else?

Something had clearly gone very, very wrong in the interim. What the hells had happened to Not-Chad? And exactly how old was he, anyway?

“I don’t understand,” she said, setting aside his more personal revelations for another time. “Why would the government make information about and footage of the zombies classified?”

“Officials would rather not remind common human citizens of the Breach or the continued existence of creatures that could wipe out all humanity,” he told her dryly.

“Especially when those creatures could be eliminated in various ways if the government weren’t still hopeful that future genetic tweaks might render them usable as supersoldiers again someday. ”

Her brow furrowed. “I thought the government didn’t kill them because the only feasible weapons would cause too much damage to surrounding Zone communities.”

His slight sneer was annoyingly attractive. “You believed that?”

“Not all of us are cynical assholes, dude .” Disheartened, she slumped on her stool. “Well, the government’s tactics clearly worked. When I talk to friends outside the Zone, you would think the Breach happened centuries ago and zombies didn’t still exist.”

“Exactly as officials would prefer.”

“Would you share all that classified information and footage with me?”

“I suppose,” he said, sounding mildly put-upon.

Which was weird, because…wasn’t sharing that sort of intelligence with her, a mere common human, kind of a big deal? Shouldn’t he be more intense about it? Or conflicted?

For that matter, why had he even agreed to do it? Everything he’d just told her might be a lie, but even he couldn’t instantaneously doctor some footage and whip up a false dossier to hand over to her. Not when he’d had no clue she would enter his underground stronghold that evening.

Whatever he showed her would have to be genuine. The truth.

Even though he’d said she shouldn’t trust him.

“Most vampires are wealthy.” A graceful flick of his hand indicated the evidence of that wealth all around them.

“We have a long time to build interest on our savings, and the rare vampires who conceive pass their fortunes down to their offspring. But ostentatious affluence can draw undue human attention. By tradition, we often hide our homes—”

“Lairs,” she murmured.

“—in some fashion,” he continued, ignoring her. “Sometimes underground, but not always. And to answer your final question, my first name is Gaston, although I prefer to go by—”

She nearly choked on a chunk of pork carnitas. “ Gaston? ”

Pinching the bridge of his nose, he sighed again. “Yes, yes, I know. That godsforsaken movie made my given name…unwieldy. I now choose to call myself—”

“Chad?”

“—Max, as Maxime is the second of my given names.”

She grinned. “I can see why you prefer Max to Gaston. Still, it’s a shame, since—”

“Edie,” he began, his voice full of warning, but it was too late.

“—no…one…bites like Gaston,” she singsonged, “drinks Miller Lites like Gaston. In a—”

“Don’t make me kill you, human.”

“—zombie match, nobody fights like Gaston. He has neutrals in all of his—”

“It wouldn’t take any effort or cause me any regret, really. Just one lunge, et—”

“— dec -o-rating—”

“—voilà! No more throat.”

“My, how he lies, that Gaston!”

After the echoes of her final, triumphal notes faded, he stared stonily at her. “If I told you never to sing that song again, you would no doubt misconstrue the order as defensive and the result of hurt feelings .”

“No doubt.” She raised her brows. “So I can sing it whenever I want?”

“Try it and see what happens, human.” He glanced at the shadowed hallway leading to his media room and other mysterious spaces. “I have no bed for you, incidentally.”

“Because you sleep in a coffin?” she asked sweetly.

His entire body stiffened in affront. “I sleep on premium memory foam so supportive and comfortable it would make astronauts weep in tormented longing.”

“I see.” She bit back a smile.

“I have no bed to offer you because I have one mattress, and it’s mine ,” he emphasized.

Swallowing the last of her burrito, she winked at him. “Ah, that famous saying when it comes to guests: ‘Mi casa es mi casa.’ In that case, why don’t you show me where you want me to sleep and where I can wash up before you have to leave?”

A line bisected his brow. “Leave?”

“You know.” She waved an airy hand. “To round up villagers and pitchforks so you can attack the Beast’s castle?”

He did his best to scowl at her, but before he turned his face away, she could have sworn she saw his lips twitch.