Lightning Strikes: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance (The Storm Book 1)

by Ripley Proserpina

“I know.” He touched my arm. “It’s so much to deal with. The point is, you’re safe, and given what I’m hearing about your trip beyond the walls of Roanoke, your being here is perfect timing. You see, I need to know about those guys you met. The ones in Zero. I need them back. I miss them.”

  I wanted to make sure I understood perfectly, because I’d been given a lot of information in a little amount of time. Also—I’d been tortured and electrocuted. I might be confusing things. “You miss them, because they were in your head.”

  He nodded. “You do understand. All of the Infected. They’re mine. They listen to me.”

  Oh, holy shit. My brother was the king of zombies. He controlled the Infected.

  And now he wanted information on the six guys who’d come to help me at my lowest point. Brandon, Isaiah, Dante, Nick, Carson, and John were dead. But they weren’t Controlled. My brother wanted me to pretend he was human, tell him everything I knew, and help the Resistance.

  Long ago, my mother had read Alice in Wonderland aloud to me. It was my favorite story and I asked her to read it over and over until I had memorized passages. Now, Lewis Carroll’s story flew through my brain.

  “But I don’t want to go among mad people.”

  "Oh, you can’t help that," said the Cat. "We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”

  "How do you know I’m mad?”

  "You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn’t have come here.”

  I’d gotten out of bed. I’d answered a summons from a dead friend and now my life was unrecognizable.

  But I knew one thing. The Controlled leader was not someone to trifle with—even if he was my brother. He wanted those six guys back? Well, he couldn’t have them.

  They’d come for me, and protected me, and I would protect them. They were mine.

  I blinked at that thought. What the hell was the matter with me?

  There was no mine. To call them that was to be as deluded as my brother appeared to be.

  “You woke up?” I asked Dexter. He’d been staring at me with barely restrained anticipation. His face fell, like I’d disappointed him.

  “Yeah.” He jumped off the bed and walked over to the window. He walked the same way he always had. How had I forgotten so much about him? “Dad didn’t bother burying me. Just tossed me out with the other corpses like garbage. I came awake in a pile of bodies. I thought I’d gone crazy.”

  My heart ached for him. I hadn’t known what happened to the people who’d died from the Infection. In the early days of the sickness, most bodies had been buried. Then they’d dug themselves out of their graves and the world had gone crazy. After that, anyone who died was burned. I guessed Dexter had avoided that fate.

  “Oh, Dex.”

  He shrugged. “I couldn’t understand why they didn’t attack me. And then—” He cut off when a door at the end of the barracks opened and the blonde woman from earlier entered. “Tessa. Hi.”

  “Hi, Dex. I was coming to check on your sister. And to also apologize to her.” I studied the woman who’d tased me. Dark brows seemed out of place with the light shade of her hair. She’d tied it back from her face, exposing the harsh angles of her cheekbones and jaw. For a moment, I wondered if she was like Dex, undead and in control of herself, but she stepped into the light. Under my examination, she blushed. “Sorry.”

  No. “It’s okay,” I answered. Until I figured out what I was going to do here, I was going to take Nick’s advice and play along.

  “You must have been pretty surprised to see your brother,” she said after an awkward silence.

  “To say the least,” I replied. “Everything I know has changed.”

  “It’s a crazy situation, I know,” Tessa said. “If you need a friend, or someone to talk to, I’m around. There aren’t many of us girls for whatever reason.”

  “Okay,” I replied. Nothing about Tessa seemed disingenuous, but I couldn’t forget she’d tased me rather than reason with me. I was going to be on my guard, surrounded as I was by a Resistance led by my perhaps-insane brother.

  “Tessa, have there been any more sightings of the Uncontrolled?” Dex asked.

  The woman went from tentatively outgoing to all-business. “No.”

  “And my father? No one followed you?”

  “No,” Tessa answered. “They weren’t prepared for us to take Whitney in a car. We expect them to be searching for her.”

  “All right,” Dexter said. “Thank you.” He dismissed her, and like a good soldier, Tessa left.

  “Do they know you control the zombies?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he replied. “They know.”

  I thought about the Uncontrolled, why were they in such better physical shape than the Controlled? “Could you help them?” I asked. Brandon had come awake, why couldn’t these? “Set their minds free?”

  “Why would I do that?” Dex asked. His fair brows drew together in confusion. “They do what I want.”

  “But Dex,” I said. “They might have families. Have you tried?”

  Dexter spun around and paced the long room. “I don’t even know why I hear them, Whit.” He slapped the heels of his hands against his temples. “They scream and cry inside my head until I calm them.”

  “You talk to them?”

  “Yes?” He shook his head. “I don’t know.” Holding his hands in the air, he spread out his fingers. “I imagine my brain like a computer, with a thousand different networks and connections. Each one of those connections is an Infected. If I send it images, or ideas, it’s soothed. It quiets the chaos.” He ran a hand through his hair. “But some of them left. Awake. Aware. It’s like a hole in my head.” He sighed and then grinned. “Plus, no one gets to win if I don’t get to win. They’re mine. They stay with me.”

  I swallowed. Play along. That was what Nick said. I’d hold onto that. I needed to get out of here and think. My brother wasn’t dead, he’d been Turned and he was like—the king of zombies. Or the leader of the Controlled. Hell, I didn’t know what to call him anymore.

  “Are we still inside Roanoke?”

  He nodded, and smiled cheekily. “We’re not inside the walls, but we’re still inside the limits of Dad’s territory. I’ve been coming and going for a while now. The old man would shit his pants if he knew I was right under his nose. I’m so glad you know. You can help me. You can get me the ones I need back, and then I can do what we’ve been planning.”

  Did I want to know? I supposed the time to stick my head in the sand was long over. I was in this. “Which would be what?”

  He leaned forward. “To take over Roanoke. You’re safe here. Dad still thinks of this area as the Warehouse District. He assumes the Warehouses are long deserted—a dead zone—while his shipping houses are the center of commerce.” He suddenly jerked back and then shook his head. “Don’t tell them I’m Infected, Whit. The Resistance can’t know.”

  His mind jumped here, there, and everywhere. But he didn’t have to worry. I wasn’t going to tell this group who had tracked me, kidnapped me, and threatened me, anything.

  Nor was I going to tell a single, solitary piece of info to the father who’d had me abused. No, I was getting out of here, and I was going back to the six men who had been there for me—even if just in my own mind—when I needed them. I’d warn them what was coming.

  I could figure out where to go from there. There were other towns that had fortified after everything went to hell. I’d find a way to get there and…

  And what? Live the rest of my life with a fake name, a fake identity, and alone?

  I steeled my resolve. The thought made me want to cry, but I refused to let my tears spill. First things first, I had to get away. “This is a lot to take in, Dex.”

  He sighed. “I never realized how small-minded I was as a human. It always takes you guys so long to catch up.”

  “It may be that I’m concussed.” And beaten. And zapped. And injected with who knew what. “Do you think I could rest for a little while longer?
<
br />   I needed him out of this room, so I could think and not reminisce about the boy he used to be.

  Then I’d plot escape. My last impulsive adventure had gotten me nowhere. So I’d think this one out, and try to get out of this mess.

  19

  John

  Hunkered down behind tall grass, I studied the walls of Roanoke through binoculars. “This is idiotic.” I wasn’t a soldier. These dark clothes weren’t going to hide me. This weapon, a hunting knife, was useless. This whole idea was a big fucking mistake. “I don’t see anything.”

  “Wait,” Nick said. He’d caught up to us and led us to the western edge of the wall. Here he claimed that he and Whitney had emerged from a tunnel. They’d made it to the two strips of concrete highway and then she’d been tasered and taken away.

  For some reason unknown to me, Nick was certain she hadn’t been taken far. Carson, Dante, and Brandon seconded his statement before Isaiah weighed in with his support. But Isaiah inevitably did the opposite of whatever I did, so there was a good chance he didn’t sense anything.

  Dropping the binoculars, I shut my eyes and tried to feel a connection to the girl. I imagined stretching out my mind like an elastic band. But there was nothing.

  “Spidey senses tingling?” Isaiah asked.

  Rather than engage, I ignored him. “What do you feel?” I asked Dante. “How do you know she’s close?”

  “I don’t know.” His golden eyes seemed lighter in daylight, the sun gleaming off the metal plate he’d screwed onto his chin when his jaw had broken. “But she’s there. Like an ache.”

  My heart thumped in my chest, and I startled. The things I’d taken for granted when I was alive—respiration, a heartbeat, sensation—threw me off. I’d learned to live with my undead state and managed to control my world, such as it was.

  Now, however, my control was slipping through my fingers. “Do you feel the same way?” I asked the others, finally letting my gaze rest on my stepbrother.

  “Yes,” Brandon answered at once.

  Isaiah shrugged. “It’s more like… I’m searching for a word I’ve forgotten. The harder I search, the more I lose what I’m looking for. But if I just let it be, it’s there and I can almost grasp it.”

  Why did all of them feel it and I didn’t?

  I was a failure.

  Bringing my binoculars up to my eyes again, I focused on the surrounding woods. Nick said the person who tased Whitney had driven an SUV. That sort of vehicle was necessary for getting around now. Roads were washed out or overrun, and a heavy car could push obstacles out of the way.

  An SUV was also good for off-roading.

  I examined the highway, searching for tire tracks. Whitney had been grabbed in a matter of seconds, and an older vehicle likely left some sign.

  The sun glared, and I suddenly saw it. The telltale rainbow in a black puddle of oil. I scanned the road, and found what I was looking for. The car had an oil leak and it had left us a trail.

  “Found it,” I said, handing the binoculars to Nick. “Oil leak. See it?”

  Nick brought the glasses to his face. He was silent as he searched for the oil and then he smiled. “There it is.”

  Suddenly it was like I could see her. For just a second, an outline of her body inside a warehouse. The third one on the right. Like an infrared reading from a movie. What in the ever-loving hell…?

  A man stepped out of the warehouse. He walked with purpose. Maybe it was wrong to call him a man. He looked young—the set of his shoulders, how skinny he was—it wasn’t that adults couldn’t be thin but the lanky movement of his joints screamed youth to me. Why would a teenager hang around?

  Cold shot through me, and I moaned. Around me, the others did the same. At least we were all back on the same page again. This extreme bout of weirdness that made no sense…

  “What was that?” Carson sighed. “Did she get doused in ice?”

  “No,” I shook my head. I couldn’t take my eyes off the teenager. “It’s that person. I swear it is. There’s something about him that’s wrong.”

  Dante looked over my shoulder and then through one lens of my binocular. “Then let’s stay away from him, and moreover, let’s keep him from Whitney.”

  I shot him a look, but he didn’t see it. All of Dante’s focus lasered in Whitney’s direction. We weren’t going to be able to do anything for her at all. Not a single one of us had any military background or special abilities that would lead us to do anything but stay here and stare at the warehouse while we hoped she came out. We could…

  My thoughts turned instantly. As if I’d conjured her, Whitney came out the back window of the run-down building that should be holding supplies. She looked back over her shoulder one time before she jumped. Or maybe stumbled down would be more accurate. Like us, I didn’t think she was particularly trained for this kind of thing.

  Carson jumped to his feet. “There she is.”

  I yanked him back down. “Yes, we can all see that. We won’t be helping her if we get caught.”

  “Sorry.” He got back into his place.

  “We need some way to signal her.” I looked around, finally seeing what I needed. Broken glass littered the ground. I picked some up. What I needed was to catch the sunlight and hit her right in the eyes with it. Like some awful signal. I hoped she’d get the point.

  “This is the worst spy movie I’ve ever watched,” Nick snarked, but I ignored him.

  The glass did as I hoped. A shaft of sunlight hit the black tar paper roof, and I carefully angled it downward.

  I hit her square in the face and she blinked, teetered, and fell.

  “You’re not supposed to hurt her!” Brandon whispered.

  “Damn.” I’d apologize later, but she couldn’t have been hurt too badly because she bounded to her feet.

  Nick had taken my binoculars. “She’s looking this way, flash it again.”

  I rocked the glass back and forth so the light appeared on the grass in front of her.

  “She’s running toward us,” Nick announced.

  Good.

  “I’m going to meet her,” Brandon said. “Who’s coming with me? There could be Controlled and she may need us.”

  “I’ll go,” I said. The others were able to sense her, and I wasn’t. I needed to see with my own eyes that she was unharmed.

  Brandon was on his feet and running ahead of me.

  “Quiet,” I warned him, and he slowed, placing his feet more carefully. It seemed all of us had forgotten Dante’s training.

  Behind him, I made sure to scuff the forest floor, hiding our trail.

  “She’s got to be close,” Brandon muttered, and like his words conjured her, she appeared.

  Lunging up the hill with her head down, Whitney didn’t see us until we were nearly on her. She gasped, but then threw herself at Brandon. He held her close before pulling her toward me. “We need to go now.”

  She nodded and glanced toward where I stood. “John!” Brandon let her go, and she shocked me. Arms open wide, she enfolded me in a hug.

  I was a man who prided myself on being pretty suave, but I was lost. Standing in the middle of the forest, my hands at my side, I stared down at Whit’s bright hair. She squeezed me and I had to embrace her.

  How long had it been since I’d hugged somebody? Curled my body around theirs and listened to their heartbeat? Her breath came fast and her whole body shook. I held her even tighter before remembering her boyfriend was right there.

  “Sorry.” I stepped back.

  Confusion clouded her face for a moment before she seemed to realize what she’d done. Bright red suffused her cheeks. “No. It was me. I shouldn’t have…”

  From the corner of my eye, I caught Brandon watching us. But he didn’t look upset. He wasn’t frowning or ready to punch me in the face. Instead he was thoughtful.

  “Let’s go,” he said and turned his back on us to stride up the hill.

  “Go ahead.” I waved my arm magnanimously, tryi
ng to get back some of my cool.

  Instead of moving in front of me, she walked beside me. “I’m really sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”

  “You didn’t.” I eyed Brandon, very much aware of his presence. “Everyone has been worried.”

  “Do you remember?” she asked, suddenly. “Being with me while I was hurt?”

  “I’ll never forget it,” I answered before I could stop myself. If I’d been thinking faster, I might have lied. My answer revealed more than I wanted.

  20

  Whitney

  He remembered it. John remembered being with me. That meant I wasn’t crazy. Those moments with all of them had happened. And they were here when I needed them. Had anyone ever been as lucky as I was in that moment? I took his hand. He was pale, undead, and yet I’d swear his cheeks reddened when I did that.

  Brandon led us forward, and we followed, keeping our heads low and finally reaching a clearing where the others waited. I grinned. I was so happy to see them. It was as though, like Brandon, I’d known them my whole life.

  I was tugged from John into Dante’s embrace first. I closed my eyes. The man could bear hug. And he felt safe. “There’s a man looking for you. The doctor who tortured me. He was asking about you. I didn’t tell him about you.”

  He tightened around me before he made a grunting sound. “I know exactly who that is. I’m sorry.”

  “Not your fault. He’s my father’s guy.”

  Dante nodded. “He would be.”

  He let me go. Was he not going to tell me more than that? Maybe it just wasn’t the time or place.

  Carson pulled me into a tight hug. “Really glad you’re okay.”

  He was an awkward hugger, not like Dante or Brandon, more like John. I hung on. I’d never say no to affection. Not after the hellish day I’d just passed.

  “Thanks for being there when I needed you.”

  He shrugged. “I didn’t do much. I’d have done more if I could.”

  “I know you would have.”

  Nick nodded to me, taking my hand from Carson’s. He squeezed it but didn’t follow through with an embrace. “I can’t believe you didn’t run. You stayed to help the asshole holding you captive. Is that what life is going to be with you? Watching you do crazy things over and over again?”