“Males too,” Tate adds in a low voice. “Don't kill the messenger. We at RfH think it's substandard too. In fact, I don't believe the dead should be used.” His eyes meet Pax's. “What your dad does is a service to the living. He's not hurting and disrespecting the dead. He's simply transporting them.”
“Bot—” Deedie begins.
“Dee,” Pax says, and she zips it.
“What?” Tate asks, looking between them, a slight frown marring the perfection of his brow.
He's a sharp fella. But I don't know if we need to play father confessor at the moment.
“Nothing,” Pax says in his best sullen attitude. He's perfected that one. Damn expert at it now.
Tate lets another beat of silence go by then announces, “All right, Paxton and Caleb will have to go before Sanction Tribunal.”
“I'm pregnant, though,” Jade says, clinging to Caleb.
“Congratulations. But Caleb isn't. And there are witnesses. Folks who took pulse footage of illegal zombies and blasted it across PulseTube. Undead which were not accounted for. Placing these two at the scene of it all.”
“It's all right, Jade,” Caleb says, smoothing her hair. “There are no zombies around that shouldn't be.”
Caleb sounds a little hopeful to me. Maybe numb nuts won't pick up on that?
“Well if that's the case, it should be a fast session.” Tate folds his arms, stretching his one-button monkey suit taut over the athletic body underneath.
“And if it's not?” Deedie asks, only a slight quiver to her voice.
Tate doesn't take his brown eyes off her. “Then your daddy and brother might be in big trouble, Deegan.”
“Not if I can help it,” she says.
Tate stares at Deedie. “And that's what Randoms for Humanity is trying to avoid.”
Good luck with that.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Deegan
I hate this place without any pulse clocks. It's disconcerting. And my disc is not operational. Must have something to do with this weird Sanction building. I glance at the bland interior, looking for hidden things that might be blocking my way to orient myself.
Mitchell's at Gramps’s, and I've already been gone two hours. Two hours without being near my zombie.
I'm so glad Gram is okay, returned vitality. But Mitchell and Uncle Clyde are back there, slowly rotting. (So is that cop, O'Neil.) Just waiting to be discovered.
While Sanction wants to have a word. Or many.
“Miss Hart, follow me.”
At the moment, I'm exactly like my brother. We're sullen twins. A morose duo. Pair of asses.
Yes, that's us.
Pax, I want to get to Grampsʼs.
Pax touches the small of my back as we walk through yet another door in the endless catacomb of this structure, and our connection strengthens, gaining clarity. Dee, just let these bag of assholes ask their questions. Lie through your teeth if you have to.
I give a hard swallow. I'm terrible at deceit.
We both know I suck at lying. Pax is kilometers better at it than I am.
I open my mouth, shake my head at how dumb that move would have been, and ask in my mind, Can you lie?
Pax gives a subtle shake of his head. We haven't corroborated stories, Dee. We might say something that doesn't agree with each other.
I give him worried eyes. Let's keep it simple then.
Yeah. He swings his long, dark hair out of his eyes.
The guy jerks his angular jaw at chairs lining a long banquet-style table. “Okay, you may sit down here.”
Six identical-looking guys in suits are scattered around that long rectangle. As we sit down, I wonder who's in charge.
Both our seats face the door, so we’ll see who's coming and going. Good.
That skinny guy from before marches in, gives us a look, and nods at the guys standing silently on either side of the door.
I watch our parentsʼ eyes until the door closes, hiding us from their line of sight.
All the men simultaneously take note of my pulse informant badge.
I squirm under the scrutiny.
It's a little like guys knowing when I'm on my period. But about a thousand times worse. I shouldn't feel that way, being as how it's a great honor to be pregnant. But I do.
Skinny comes over there and hikes his butt cheek, flattening it on the corner of the long table. He knots his hands loosely, allowing them to dangle between his legs.
I'm grateful I don't have to sit close to any of the Sanction. Creepers.
One of the guys by the door isn't a guy at all. He's a zombie. A very, very, well-animated one.
That's one fresh corpse they have there, Pax notes inside my head.
My eyes roam his crude tats. Looks like a felon to me, I say hesitantly.
He smirks. Isn't that profiling or something, Dee?
I slowly nod, glad I can entertain. It would be, but I feel him.
Pax gives me a sharp glance. Feel him... feel him?
I nod, wanting Mitchell so badly, my hands dampen. I wipe them off on my denims. My hand strays to my belly protectively.
Pax takes my hand. They're not touching you. You're off limits.
I look at my brother, whose face is tight with his anxiety. You're not.
Skinny looks between us. “I know you two brats have broken about a dozen Sanction imperatives.”
I blink.
“Prove it,” Pax says, feigning a casualness I know he's not feeling. He leans back in the chair and laces his fingers as he stuffs them behind his head.
“Don't have to, Paxton.” He stands, looming over us.
Pax's eyes flick to the zombie.
“Don't even think it, Hart. We have an AftD in here that'll make your balls shrivel up like walnuts.”
I gulp. This guy.
“Huh. That's a trick. What do you want?”
Pax is so unflappable. I wish I was that way instead of numbered. What good is being super intelligent if it can't get me out of binds? They don't give any shits that I'm numbered.
Think, Deegan.
His smile is small and cruel. “We've got footage from here to bum-fucked Egypt of a pile of ragtag zombies milling around right by your dear old dad, while you and another zombie played cage fighting.”
I wince internally. With pulsescreen clarity, I remember that tumble down the embankment and Mitchell and Pax fighting.
“But where are all these supposed dead?” Pax smirks, rocking back in the chair a little farther.
The zombie moves closer. The tats undulate as he fists his ginormous hands, making his forearm muscles bulge.
Oh, boy.
Pax brings the legs of the chair down with a hard, echoing tap. “Call off big boy there.”
Skinny shakes his head really slowly. “No, I don't think so.”
“Dee, get behind me.”
The chair makes a horrible scraping sound against the quartz floor as I shove, trying to move fast to get behind him. The zombie sweeps out his arm like a biting cobra, and his fingers cuff my upper arm.
“I'm pregnant,” I say in a loud voice.
The skinny guys barks a laugh like a hyena. “Duly noted, little Hart bitch.”
I turn to the zombie, looking way up. He's as big as Mitchell.
Instinctively, I dose him with everything I have in a mudslide of power.
Release me.
He shudders, fingers slipping away from my skin.
“What are you doing?” Skinny roars at a man who sits slouched in a corner.
I didn't notice him at first. Probably a Sanction tactic. Dress everyone exactly the same, like that old classic move Men in Black, and no one knows who is who.
He pushes off from the wall, giving me a look of pure hatred. “It's not my fault. I'm supposed to counter him.” He points at Pax.
“AftD is AftD,” Skinny seethes through his teeth, striding up to the zombie. The zombie's face rocks back as Skinny's palm makes contact.
I fli
nch. Not much in seeing the undead abused. Think that's a Hart family trait.
My thinking is done for the day. Instead, I just react. Touching the zombies arm, I say, “Grab his throat.”
Sanction moves to impede whatever I've started in motion, but I'm faster.
The zombie latches onto Skinny's throat and lifts him.
He's a natural. I beam proudly.
Turning smoothly, he pounds Skinny against the wall about a half meter off the ground. Small flakes of drywall rotate slowly to the ground like plaster snowflakes.
“Do something!” he chokes, flailing his arms and attempting to claw at his throat.
Two suits grab each of my arms, ripping me away from the zombie.
Our contact is severed, and he growls from deep in his throat, throwing Skinny. The guy lands on the table and slides across the slick recycled surface before barreling into the wall where the AftD stands.
“I can't do anything!” the AftD screams.
Pax tears one guy from my grasp.
“Ow!” I shriek. The guy who holds me doesn't let go of my arm, wrenching it along with Pax's momentum.
“Shit,” Pax says, chopping downward with his stiff free hand, and the guy grunts, releasing me.
I bring my foot down hard on the other guy's foot while plowing my elbow into what Dad calls the “bread basket.”
He doubles over. The maneuver robs anyone of air if used just right.
The zombie turns in my direction, facing me. “Mistress.”
“Protect me,” I say, though that part's redundant. I can feel the pulse of his undead life in my hand. He would protect me without my explicit directive.
Because he's a murderer, and that's where my AftD reigns supreme.
Now he will protect me against all other commands.
Sanction was ignorant to raise a zombie I have potential control over. They probably thought raising a real bad ass to perform all their dirty deeds was a clever idea.
Skinny's head pops up at the end of the table. “You'll go to prison.”
“Not when I tell everyone that you attacked a pregnant woman.”
“We can make all that disappear.”
I narrow my gaze at him.
My new zombie growls again. This guy wasn't a really smart dude in life, and he didn't get much brighter after death, either. But he's a zombie, and that's all I need. I cock my head. “And Drextel Tate? You think he's going to suddenly un-remember me?”
His silence is answer enough.
“Stop trying to be physical, pass your judgement or not. But let us go. You've accused us of having illegal zombies. That's all. Prove it or release us.”
“Nice, Dee,” Pax says.
Skinny stands, smiling.
I hate the grin he wears. It's full of some secret knowledge.
Pax, he has something.
Pax breathes hard beside me, eyes everywhere at once. He's got dick.
Skinny's look of disgust passes over Sanction's AftD. “Useless—fetch him.” He spits out a wad of phlegm-coated blood. “I hate the dead.”
When the door bursts open, I catch a glimpse of my parentsʼ horrified faces.
Sanction shoves Mitchell through.
He doesn’t have a bare patch of skin that isn't abraded. Bruises cover him, and one eye is a slit in a lump of red.
My vision swims through tears I'm too stubborn to shed. He's also rotting. I knew he would without me around, but it's horribly insulting to see.
“Dee,” Pax says in warning. Don't act like you know him.
I jut out a hip, doing my best Sophie impression. “So?” I whip my chin at Mitchell, biting the inside of my lip to keep the tears at bay.
“This zombie was found at your grandfather's house. A... MacKenzie O'Brien.”
“How is this my problem?” I ask in an accusatory tone.
Mitchell's eyes follow me.
His rotting stops and reverses as we watch each other.
Bruises and lacerations fade and close. Profound relief sweeps through me, making the tears harder to hold back.
“Holy shit,” one of the Sanction says, eyes bugging on Mitchell.
“Holy shit, indeed,” Skinny circles Mitchell while I hold my breath and work like hell to play casual.
“How is this your problem?” he asks.
Skinny flicks out a blade and cuts off the tip of Mitchell's nose before I can breathe.
I hiss, spinning to the other zombie.
Crush him, I think in one crude, broad brushstroke of a command.
No, Dee! Pax's voice is a dull roar echoing inside my mind.
The other zombie bellows, tanking into Skinny and punching his head into the wall.
Splaying his fingers wide, he mashes Skinny's sallow cheek against the wall.
Skinny squeaks like he's begging, and I don't fucking care.
I run to Mitchell.
My hand covers his gushing nose. Red squeezes between my fingers as tears obscure my vision.
Mitchell hauls me against him tightly.
Sanction tries to pull us apart.
Finally, they drag my borrowed zombie outside, his fingers clutching hair from Skinny's head.
His eyes peg me with the clear devotion of the undead and then he is gone.
We listen to his howls as the flames eat the skin from his bones somewhere we can't see.
I have to endure his shrieks as they take Mitchell from me.
It takes eight men to pull him away.
Pax holds me so I can't go after him.
Doesn't matter if he's the father, Dee. He's a zombie. He doesn't have rights.
“Give it to her!” Skinny bellows.
I notice there's an imprint of the wall in his cheek.
Pax punches the closest guy.
Then another.
Five more pour in. “Don't fucking touch her!” Pax hollers, “Dad!”
I can't see anything because I'm so short.
They're closing in with a med slat. A long, rectangular-sized flat thin hard piece of poly. It's used in med facilities for drug-to-disc injection.
Fear floods my adrenal system. The baby.
Pax turns to face me.
I hear our parents arguing. Fighting.
My brother and I look at each other.
Do it.
This time. I don't zap anyone—or anything.
I take me.
Pax intuits what I'm doing, his eyes widening in alarm.
One minute, I'm there. The next, I'm not.
When I see where the stuff I zap goes, I scream.
And take it back. But I’m too late.
I send myself backward. But something comes with me.
Something awful.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Pax
“Dee!” My voice breaks under the force of my scream.
The place where she just stood a second ago is nothing more than a nasty-ass burned spot, where smoke spirals lazily upward.
I whip my head around, scanning my immediate environment. I didn't pay attention to the time.
It's dark.
The Sanction puts their hands on me.
Fuck it.
I head-butt the closest one, and his grip loosens. I yank backward.
Then blink.
Worlds appear, wavering like sheets of never-ending opaque partitions. I step into the nearest one, turn, and witness the Sanction grabbing their own asses.
Good.
Walking alongside them, I search for my relatives.
Dad is screaming at that Tate guy.
Knock it off, Dad. He's on our side. Then Skinny and Tate get into an all-out verbal brawl.
Since I'm a breath away, on another earth, I can't hear anything.
“Hey!” a person yells behind me.
This is a temporary thing—me being in this world. Really temporary.
I turn slowly because I can't ignore being yelled at. Bad for your health. Especially when the yellee is directly behind me.
<
br /> Three men, all black, are striding toward me just a few meters away. They hold a rope knotted like a noose. “What are you doing, cracker?”
Cracker?
They have on clothing I've never seen before—all-white, with strange hoods, and capes that flow to their knees. It should be funny, but it's not.
“Huh?” I ask stupidly, backing up fast, though gut instinct is pounding at the get-the-hell-out-of-here door.
“We're rounding up all you white folk. Gonna tan your hides.”
Okay, not understanding everything here, but not asking questions. They're about to my position when I blink again.
For about two seconds, I’m grateful to be out of that weird-ass earth, then I'm instantly plunged into water.
Shit.
With strong strokes, I work toward the surface, where the orb of the sun shines through the water with lazy ambient light.
I burst through the surface with a splash and immediately check out my surroundings. There's a kid in a rowboat only a few meters away. He’s a rare red-headed little guy, with freckles so thick, there's probably eyeballs in there somewhere, but I can't see them. And I guess that's his dad with his back to me, holding a fishing rod.
“Look, Daddy! There's a man in the water!”
The guy stands, the boat rocks hard from his movement, and the little kid grabs the side. Alarm washes over the dad's face. “You drowning, son?”
I shake my head, flinging away water droplets.
Gotta get back. Maybe order's been restored.
I dip back underneath the water. Can't blink in broad daylight, but I can make it work in the water, I think. I hope. Never landed in a lake before.
Ignoring the splash above me, I head for deeper, darker water.
Wavering worlds fill my vision. Squinting, I see Dad still trying to insert himself between Skinny and Tate.
There it is. My world. Even if the sight of the three of them didn't reassure me that it was the right world, there's an innate homing-type beacon that jibes with the vision.
A very good thing.
I ignore all the other worlds, breaststroking between them. Stretching my fingertips toward that opaque, gently undulating surface of my own world, I know from experience that once my hand sinks, it'll suck me right in.
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