My father doesn’t blink, which tells me he already knew about Mom. Once again, I’m the one left out of the loop here.
“No, honey,” Dad says. “We never wanted this to happen. For your mother—” He swallows hard. “I can explain. Just give me a chance to explain everything.”
“Screw your explanation!” I shout, once again struggling away from Hale. I manage to slip out of his grasp and lunge in Jane’s direction. He catches me before I get to her, tackling me to the floor.
“Get her out of here,” she barks at Hale. “Let me know when she calms down and stops acting like a feral animal.”
He wrestles me to my feet, drags me backwards but I don’t fight. I don’t want to see her face.
“Jane,” I hear my father plead, but Hale pushes me through the office away from my family I fought so hard to find.
I grab onto the door and spin around. “I don’t know what all of this is about, but we’re not finished,” I say. “I worked too hard to get here. I deserve answers. I need to know what the military wants with me. I want to know why all of this happened.”
“Go,” Jane says to Hale and again, I’m dragged away from my family. Again.
***
I spot Cole the second the elevator doors open. He storms across the lobby and out the front door. Just before the door shuts I hear an anguished wail.
Without hesitation, I race toward him. Hale catches up, stopping me with a strong hand. “I’m supposed to take you downstairs.”
I shrug him off. “He’s my friend.”
“I have orders.”
“Fuck your orders,” I spat. “Tell my sister I said that. Don’t worry-she can take it up with me.”
Through the glass we see Cole, face pinched in pain. Something terrible has happened. Thankfully, Hale backs off. “Go,” he says. “But I’m telling her you escaped.”
“Whatever.”
I would deal with Jane later.
Pushing open the door I step outside. It’s dusk, the sky behind over the wall turning pinkish red. The battle from earlier is over but the air is thick with smoke and ash. I can’t tell who won, other than the fact the walls are still up. I have no clue if they eliminated Erwin or not. At this point I’m not even sure I want them to.
I take a second to scan the area for Wyatt or Walker. Neither come into view. Shoving down the irrational concern I have for them, I focus on Cole.
“I guess PharmaCorp won,” I say approaching him. He leans against the building, chin to his chest. I step over a mangled piece of metal that looks like it came from a vehicle. Drops of dark blood litter the ground. “What’s going on—how’s Chloe?”
Cole lifts his head. His eyes are red and watery. “She’s unconscious. Shot in the head by Erwin’s men.”
“Shot? I thought she hit her head on the window.” Another wave of loss crashes over me. When will this end?
“No. The bullet hit her head. I don’t know how she’s still alive. I’m not even sure she is because they kicked me out.” He slams a fist into the building.
I take a deep breath and reach for him. His body is warm and shaking but relaxes just a little when we make contact. “Hey,” I say. “She’ll make it. She’s tough.”
He laughs darkly. “Hell yeah she is.”
“Still not sure what exactly is going on around this place but I have a feeling their medical team is probably amazing. At least we’re not out there somewhere.”
He nods and wipes his eyes with the back of his hand. “Did you find your father?”
“I found him, but I wish I hadn’t.”
“What happened?”
“It’s a long story.” I glance around, but the only people around are dressed in black fatigues, with a bright “FF” on the shoulder. “I do know that I’m no longer sure he’s a good man. Like Wyatt and Walker and the others. I don’t like this place and what they’re doing.”
He looks around the grounds—at the debris from the battle. Our images reflect off the glass walled building now pink from the sunset. “This is not where I expected we would end up.”
“Yeah, I didn’t think I would travel all this way, lose my home and my mother, to ultimately end up alone.”
He frowns and in a heartbreakingly pained voice says, “You’re not alone. How could you say that?”
“You don’t know what my father is doing, Cole. And God, my sister. It’s like I’ve stepped into some kind of crazy alternate reality. They may not be dead.” He flinches when I say it and instantly I feel like crap. “But they’re not the people I thought I knew, so yeah, it feels like I’m pretty freaking alone right now.”
He grabs me by my shoulders so that I face him and then tilts my chin up, until I’m looking at his searing blue eyes. “When I said you aren’t alone, I didn’t mean your family.”
“Oh, uh,” I mumble and try to look away, but he holds firm. A flare of nerves race through my body—an inappropriate, or maybe the only realistic response in our current situation. “I just…I feel like I’m falling, like I’ve got nothing real to hold onto anymore. Wyatt lied to me. Erwin is insane. My family…even you started this off hiding stuff from me.”
“You know I never meant to hurt you.”
“I know.”
He steps closer until his mouth is close to mine. I get a close look at the beard he hasn’t shaved since we left the Army base and reach up to touch it. I feel his heat and warmth. I spot the look in his eyes, beneath the red weariness. It’s a look I’ve seen before but not on him. Not for me. It’s the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen and I’ve faced down a horde of Eaters.
I close my eyes to block out the pain and in a heartbeat, feel his mouth on mine. The kiss is a little sloppy—definitely nervous but I allow myself to slip into the moment, into the feeling of the moment. It’s certainly more pleasant than the other emotions I have bubbling under the surface. Than seeing the hurt and want in Cole’s eyes. His lips, the scratch of his beard, the way his hands tug on my hair, they feel amazing. Real.
I clench the front of his shirt between my fingers, twisting the fabric into a bunch. His hands land on my hips, pulling me closer.
This. This is easy
, I think, sinking into his hard body.
The loud scrape and groan of the gate cuts through the intensity and I step back.
I take a breath and rub my chin. “Why did you do that?”
“To give you something to hold onto,” he replies touching his forehead to mine.
“Cole, these people—my family. They’re out of control. Horrible things—”
He cuts me off. “Just because we’re here doesn’t mean we have to be like them. We know who we are, what we want to do. It’s about humanity, stopping this nightmare while helping other survivors. Together, with the resources of PharmaCorp, we will figure out how to stop this insane virus ravaging the country and the rest of the world.”
“Yes! That’s what I want to do.”
“Good. We’ve got this, Alex.”
For the first time in weeks I feel steady. I look out at the grounds—at the fighters standing on the watchtowers. The massive walls protecting us. The answers are in that building. With my father, sister and myself. They can’t push me out of this and I will demand that they do the right thing.
And if they don’t?
There will be hell to pay.
Thanks & Stuff
Many of you know that (title) is a companion to my contemporary YA book,
FanGirl
, a novel about a girl obsessed with a zombie graphic novel that ends up cast in the lead role in the TV mini-series.
FanGirl
is the redheaded stepchild of my books. My favorite but not my most successful. Those that do read it seem to love it, but the topic either weirds people out or confuses them. Either way, my plan from the beginning was to write the zombie companion to FG but life and other books got in the way. When I signed FG with Entertwine Publishing it gave me the kick that I needed to write this book (and the second book in the future).
Guys, writing zombies is hard. Especially if you’re like me and decide to add a complicated plot. This may have been the hardest book I’ve written to date. So hats off to the zombie genre. It’s not as easy as it looks!
Big thanks to my family (CA for watching The Walking Dead with me every week and listening to me complain about plot holes and pacing). Ramona who is too scared to watch but likes to talk about zombies all the time. AG for discussing all the things zombies with me. Bev and Vanessa for always being there. Claire Riley for beta reading this. (THANK YOU). And I’d like to give a big shout out to the My Zombie Addiction (and Toni in particular) group on Facebook. I also need to thank Autumn and Audrey for their eternal support and love for FG way back when. I love you guys! So much fun and laughs over dead people. I’m inserting a Coral gif for you here.
I love chatting with readers and zombie fans so find me @theangellawson or Angel Lawson (or Angel Lawson Author) on Facebook.