by Lori Devoti
He opened the passenger door and tossed his bags into the backseat. The light inside came on when he did.
She glanced at the giant bloodstain that spread across his shirt, then moved her gaze to his face. She took a step forward, her hand rising. “You’re hurt.”
He shook his head. “It’s not my blood.” A lie, but he didn’t have time for care he didn’t need.
Her face hardened. “Those people had no idea what they were dealing with, but we did,” she said.
He placed both hands on the door opening and took a breath. He wasn’t arguing this. There was no reason to. Instead, he pushed himself away from the car and spun. “You don’t want to come with me, that’s fine. I don’t need you anymore. You gave me your tip. I can find the lab without you. Probably easier without you.” He crossed his arms over his chest and stared at her.
“I’ve never had zombies chasing me before. But you arrive and zombies pop up like dead fish in a lake. Why do you think that is, Samantha?”
She straightened her shoulders. “What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean. You heard that last zombie. It was looking for you. Tell me why.”
Samantha stared off into space. Her hand rose to her throat. “She wasn’t looking for me. She just…asked about me.”
“Asked about you? That wasn’t someone’s granny enquiring after your health. Zombies don’t ask about people. Zombies can’t ask about people. They aren’t human, not anymore.”
“But she did,” Samantha murmured. “And I…I don’t know why.” She lifted her gaze. Her eyes were hard now, steely, determined.
“It, not she. It,” he replied, but it wasn’t Samantha’s misguided use of pronouns that nagged at him. It was her change in demeanor, as if she’d made some decision in front of his eyes. He called on every bit of wolf instinct he could, analyzed how she was standing, the angle of her head, any subtle sign that would tell him what she was thinking.
“You know more about this lab than you’re telling me, don’t you? You aren’t some innocent out to save her friend.” As he said the words, he realized how true they had to be. He strode the ten feet between them in three steps, grabbed her by the wrist and held it up.
“I’m nobody’s patsy. I’m not a tool for you to point and twirl. Tell me who the hell you are and what your connection to this lab is, or I’m leaving you here and the next zombie I meet I’m directing right to you.”
She watched him, her eyes huge and scared.
Of him or the fact that he wasn’t believing her lies anymore?
Caleb loomed over Samantha. His fingers were tight around her arm. She could feel each of them digging into her flesh. And it wasn’t just the physical contact she found intimidating. It was him.
His eyes sparkled and his muscles were coiled, as if he was holding back some anger or energy, something that once set free could never be reined back in.
She would have run if she could have. No, that was a lie. She wouldn’t have because Allison’s survival depended on her being here, on her convincing Caleb to stay with her.
She lowered her chin and stared him in the eyes. “I told you, my friend works at the lab. You saw the videos. You know everything I know.” She jabbed her fingernails into her palms, forced her face to stay calm, not to show the lie, forced her hand not to drift to the metal tube hidden in her coat lining, either.
Caleb’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t believe her.
If he did what he threatened, if he left her here, Allison would be lost.
Sacrifices had to be made. The words rang through her head. She closed her eyes and thought of Allison, thought of her father, thought of why she had to lie to this man.
Then she opened them and let the tears of frustration roll down her cheeks. “I’m sorry if you think I look at you as a tool, but I need you. You saw the video. They are making zombies. The place has to be filled with them. Somehow, I’ve managed to take down one or two, but a lab full? I wouldn’t stand a chance. Allison wouldn’t stand a chance.”
His grip softened, but only slightly. The anger in his eyes shifted…he wasn’t sure. She could use that doubt, had to use that doubt.
“My friend is missing.” She stepped closer to him and placed her free hand on his chest. “I swear to you that is true.” She let him see the truth of her statement in her face, let him see how desperate she was. “And my only hope of saving her is you.”
He glanced at her hand, fingers spread wide and pale against his dark shirt.
He looked back at her face; his gaze flickered. “But there’s something you aren’t telling me, too.”
A battle broke out inside her. She wanted to tell him everything, wanted to believe she could toss aside the deal she had already made and put her trust in Caleb instead. But she couldn’t. She knew if she told him everything, he would see her as the enemy. He’d leave her or kill her, but he certainly wouldn’t help her.
She swallowed every word that tried to bubble up to her lips—both lies and truth—and settled instead on a question.
“If you don’t trust me, why would you let me go?” There was an obvious answer to this. He wouldn’t.
But it didn’t mean he’d keep her alive, either. She’d seen him handle his weapons, seen the cold mantle of a killer that he wore so easily. How much harder would it be for him to kill her here, alone in these woods, than it was for him to blow the head off a zombie that still looked so human?
He seemed to ponder the question, too, and for one loud thump of her heart she thought he was going to leave her behind, dead and deserted in the park’s overgrown grass.
Then he dropped her wrist and stalked back to the car. “Good point. Get in.”
Her knees bent and her forehead sank to her thighs. She’d thought… But he hadn’t.
Then she forced herself to stand and walk to the car.
It wasn’t over. She still had a chance of saving Allison.
They drove another hundred miles without incident or conversation. It was close to sunrise now and not that much farther to the Iowa border. Deciding it was time to switch the vehicle, Caleb took a detour down a county road.
Samantha jerked her gaze from the endless farm scenes. “Where are we going?” She glanced at the GPS device he’d stuck to the dashboard.
“Nowhere you need to know about,” he replied. Let her think he was looking for some deserted barn in which to dump her body.
There were circles under her eyes; the dark smudges made her irises look more green than hazel. She looked thinner, too, which he knew was impossible. Humans didn’t lose enough weight in one day for it to show. But she was stressed and she didn’t hide it well.
“We need to get a new ride,” he muttered, his voice gruff. “Maybe get some sleep.” He slid a quick look at her. The last was for her, but he could use it, too. Spending time in his wolf form had helped his gunshot wound heal, but he needed sleep to really speed the process.
He could feel her staring at him. “You lied to me,” she murmured.
Surprised, he looked at her. He couldn’t think of a lie he’d told. She was the one pulling or trying to pull some kind of deception.
“That is your blood. I couldn’t see it well last night, but I can now.” She opened the glove compartment and began digging inside.
“What are you looking for?” he asked, annoyed.
“First-aid kit. I’m guessing you won’t agree to go to a doctor.” She glanced at him.
He didn’t bother answering.
She dumped an owner’s manual, a foil envelope of pipe tobacco and about a dozen pens onto the floor.
“I’m fine,” he muttered.
“That’s a lot of blood,” she answered. Her eyes were clouded with concern.
Something in Caleb warmed. He twisted his gaze back to the road.
“When we stop I want you to take your shirt off. I’m training to be a nurse. If you won’t go to a doctor, I’ll have to do.”
A new warmth sprang to life
inside him. Images assailed him…her cool hands on his fevered skin, her face drawing closer as she bent toward him, him lying stretched out on a bed, her hair brushing his chest…
He shivered.
She tensed and leaned toward him. Her hand outstretched, she placed it on his forehead. “Do you have a chill? We may need to get some aspirin when we stop for food. It will help take the edge off the pain, too.” Her forehead creased. “I hope it isn’t infected.”
Her hands twisted in her coat. She dropped back against her seat and fell silent. But every few seconds she glanced at him.
He kept his eyes on the road, kept his lips closed and fought the impulse to tell her she had no hope of curing any fever he might have. Quite the contrary.
Just thinking about her caring for him, touching him, was stoking a fire he wasn’t sure he could put out.
Chapter 9
S amantha waited at the motel while Caleb ditched their car. She didn’t know if he would return with a new one, or if he planned to pick one up in the morning.
Pick one up in the morning… As if they were out of milk or coffee.
She fell back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. This was becoming too normal—killing zombies, stealing cars, lying to Caleb.
Well, not lying. She hadn’t lied yet. She had just carefully omitted information.
Her gaze drifted to her coat strewn across the chair.
But it was very important information.
She walked to her coat. When the doctor had given her the metal tube and told her to keep it with her, she hadn’t analyzed what it was, hadn’t wanted to think about it too much.
Because, she had to admit, she’d known what it was. Known it would tell them where she was.
But that was all she’d thought there was to the thing—that the doctor had simply wanted to know where she was so he would know she was fulfilling her part of their deal.
Now, though, it was getting harder and harder to ignore exactly what she had agreed to do…the repercussions of what she had agreed to do. Two zombies, both wearing collars, had found her in less than that many days.
The doctor was having her followed. Just to keep track of her movements, as a reminder that he was watching? She prayed that was all, but the twisting guilt in her stomach said there was more to it. The sick pain she hadn’t been able to shake since spotting the second zombie holding that trooper said there was more to it.
She reached for her coat, ready to throw the garment on the floor and stomp on it until the doctor’s little metal tube was nothing but electrodes and bits.
An image of Allison’s face flashed through her mind.
Her fingers curled back in toward her palms and she dropped her hand.
So, the doctor was having her followed? She’d been a fool to think he wouldn’t. How else would he know she was doing her part…luring Caleb away from Wisconsin just as he’d asked.
Maybe instead of killing the next zombie she needed to give the thing a message for the good doctor. Make a demand of her own.
She and Caleb were out of the state. That deserved something—an assurance that Allison was okay.
The idea gave her strength. Yes. The next zombie that wandered into her path she was giving a job—to tell the doctor she wanted to hear from Allison. A phone call, anything to let her know her friend was okay.
Or she was telling Caleb that Waco was a lie, that as far as she knew there were no zombies there and never had been.
Caleb left the car parked outside a residential care center not all that different from the one where he had found it. Once the car was ditched, he made his way back to the hotel where he had left Samantha. It was growing dark, but not wanting to leave his clothing behind he was forced to jog the three miles from the care center to the hotel as a man.
Running as a human was never as calming as running as a wolf. As a human he felt his pains and remembered his worries. As a wolf he left all of that behind. It was for him the best part of being a werewolf. Alone, it wasn’t enough of a trade for becoming a monster out of a midnight horror flick, but then the peace that came from running in wolf form wasn’t why he’d sought out the alpha werewolf two decades earlier.
He had wanted revenge. He had wanted to kill zombies. And not only did legend have it that lycanthropy made a human immune to a zombie’s bite, but it also gave him an increased sensitivity with all of his senses, quadrupled his strength and speed and gave him the preternatural ability to heal quickly.
In other words, it made him the perfect zombie hunter.
And at the time it was all he had wanted.
No, not had wanted. It was all he wanted then, now, forever.
Nothing had changed.
He looked up. He was outside the motel. It looked just like every motel he’d stayed at for the past twenty years. Outside entrance, dark parking lot, flimsy doors…
But behind this flimsy door was something new.
Samantha.
He couldn’t trust her.
He knew somehow she had attracted the zombies that had found them since leaving that alley. Knowingly? Intentionally?
Or was she a victim, too?
Did it matter? He knew the answer, knew it didn’t. She had given him enough information—assuming it was true—that he could find the lab alone now.
He knew he should turn around and leave her, find a car and drive away alone.
Except there was room number 22, right in front of him. The dark blue paint had peeled in strips, as if someone had scraped their nails down its length. A light shone from behind the closed curtains.
She was inside, waiting.
He slipped the key into the lock, then placed his hand on the knob and walked inside.
The rattle of the lock only gave Samantha seconds to prepare for Caleb’s return. She grabbed her coat off the room’s lone chair, folded it in half and shoved it into a drawer. She was standing with her back to the dresser when he entered.
He was dressed. She let out a nervous breath. She hadn’t been sure if he would be; she couldn’t imagine why he’d removed his clothes last night before going to find a new car.
But then she couldn’t have imagined a lot of things that now seemed routine if not mundane.
Caleb hunted zombies; that eclipsed almost any behavior others might see as strange.
Past just noticing he was clothed, she studied the state of what he wore. His shirt was blood-covered and crusty. His face and neck were still mottled with the brown remnants of last night’s attack, too.
He was a disgusting mess and despite it all sexy as hell.
“You’re back,” she said like an idiot.
He nodded and glanced around the room. Not sure what he was looking for, she took a step back, covertly making sure the drawer behind her was fully closed.
His gaze locked onto his bags and he strode toward them.
She sagged against the dresser. He’d forgotten, or at least decided not to pursue his earlier questions for a while.
Not sure how long she could hold up to his questioning, she was glad for any reprieve.
After tossing his duffel onto the bed and jerking a clean shirt out of it, he pulled the stained one from his body.
His muscles were sleek and firm, like a racehorse’s. She had never seen muscles like this on a man. She wanted to place her palm over them, follow them from beginning to end. And, like a horse after a long run, a sheen of sweat covered his body. She wondered if his muscles would twitch under her touch, if she would be able to feel the contained power inside them.
Her palms began to perspire.
Then she saw his wound. Guilt instantly lanced through her. “Oh. Let me get towels.” Jerking her gaze away from the temptation of his bare chest, she hurried into the bathroom to retrieve the towels she’d set out earlier. There was soap, too, but not much more. She could make a temporary bandage out of the materials, but that was it. If the bullet was still inside, Caleb would need to see a doctor. He should see a doc
tor no matter which.
She knew the zombie hunter wouldn’t agree to that, but she couldn’t obsess about his inevitable resistance now. She would worry over that battle after she had seen just how bad his wounds were. Holding the wet towels out so they didn’t soak her one and only outfit, she hurried back into the room.
He was sitting on the bed waiting for her when she returned. His compliance surprised her, but she knew better than to make a comment.
She pressed the steaming towel to his shoulder to loosen the dried blood and handed him another to place on his face. She held hers steady but gentle. He scrubbed with his as if trying to slough off his own skin.
Startled by his violent scrubbing, she grabbed the towel from his hand and held it out to the side. As it dangled from her fingertips, water dripping onto the worn carpeting, his eyes met hers.
Desire, dark and intense, shone from their depths.
Her breath caught in her chest. Her heart thumped…once, twice, three times. She could hear her own blood moving through her veins. The world seemed to narrow until there was nothing except the two of them in it.
Without meaning to, without even realizing she had done it, she dropped the towel she had taken from him.
Another minute dragged by, then he grabbed her other hand, the one still holding a towel to his shoulder.
His skin was darker than hers; his hand dwarfed hers. She squeezed the towel and water dribbled down his chest. Flustered, she moved to wipe it away.
He grabbed her wrists and tugged her into the V of his legs. “It’s fine. I’m fine.” He pulled her hand away. There were still bits of blood stuck to his chest, but the gaping wound she had expected wasn’t there. It had been there. She could see where the edges of a hole had knitted together. The center was still angry and red, but it looked nothing like what it should have looked.
