Текст книги "Alice in Zombieland"

Автор книги: Gena Showalter

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

“Tonight you watch and learn.” He threw the swords down, took hold of my arm and tugged me to a tree. He bent down and linked his fingers. “Up.”

Using his hands as a stepladder, I climbed onto one of the branches and crouched. I palmed both of my blades. “Let me help,” I said. “There’s got to be something I can do.”

He remained on the ground, those violet eyes pinning me in place. “We’re the last line of defense tonight, so we shouldn’t have to fight very many. If any,” he added. “Stay up there unless absolutely necessary. You’re still healing, and I should be able to handle any stragglers that make it our way.”

“But—”

“Because you’re working with daggers,” he interjected, “you’ll have to get up close and personal to render one immobile. If you get close, and they open your wound, you’ll bleed and weaken, and they’ll tear you up the rest of the way.”

Okay, so, basically I was bait. “You shouldn’t have armed me if all you wanted me to do was watch.” The temptation to act would be too great.

“We have to be prepared for anything, always.”

I sighed. I might not like his logic, but I understood it.

“I hate that we’re throwing you straight into the fire like this, that you haven’t done any simulations or practice runs. You’re going to be surprised by how this goes down. But if the zombies are hunting you specifically, we need to know it beyond any doubt, and this is the fastest way.”

A howl ruptured the night, stealing my bravado. Not a wolf’s howl, but a man’s. Hunkering down at the base of my tree, Cole moved the swords in front of him. “We usually leave our bodies at one of our houses, so that they’re out of the way and no one out here can harm us while we’re unable to defend ourselves.” He withdrew the small crossbow from one ankle holster and a gun from the other. “That was impossible for Bronx and me, since we had to drive you here. We’re gonna leave ours right here, with you. Don’t worry if the zombies approach. Our bodies will be fine. You just watch for humans, and if you see any, you need to scare them away.”

I trembled as I said, “All right.”

“Did I tell you that the zombies don’t feel any pain?” he asked, still in teaching mode. “If you’re forced to fight, don’t try to hurt them. It won’t do you any good. They make noises when you strike them because they’re startled out of their rampage. Therefore, your only goal is to disable them.”

“Okay.” I’d already decided this was for better or worse. I wouldn’t change my mind.

Another howl. A scream. Grunts and groans. The sounds came from all around us. I wasn’t sure who was making them, the zombies or Cole’s friends. Next came rattling leaves, pounding footsteps.

“Yeah, they’re following you, all right,” Cole said. “Bronx?”

Bronx nodded.

Both boys donned sunglasses that strapped around their heads. Cole tossed me a pair, but I dropped them. Great!

“Now,” Cole said.

In unison, they stepped out of their bodies.

Someone must have flipped a switch, because bright halogens suddenly lit up the entire clearing, throwing too-bright rays in my direction and chasing away every single shadow. I squinted, my eyes tearing.

The sunglasses now made sense, and so did the dark circles under my eyes. Black absorbed light, deflecting the too-bright glare, allowing me to maintain optimal sight. A very smart move.

That was my last rational thought.

Frosty burst through a thick green bush, the black paint smeared on his face. He wasn’t wearing sunglasses. He dove for the ground, rolling when he landed. “Now, now, now!” The moment he stopped, he had two guns palmed and aimed.

Good thing. The zombies had arrived—and not just a few stragglers but an entire horde.

Pop, pop. Whiz, whiz. Thump, thump. Both Cole and Frosty squeezed at their weapons’ triggers, sending bullets and arrows flying. More grunts and groans sounded as zombies tripped and fell. The scent of rot intensified, making me gag.

More zombies pushed through the bushes, some stumbling over their friends, some managing to remain on their feet. But the moment the light swept over them, they wrenched up their arms to protect their eyes. I’d never seen them in full light before. Now I wished I hadn’t. They might smell rotten, and look it, too, with their dirty clothes, broken features and ripped, sagging skin, but there was something strangely…beautiful about them right now.

Their skin was like chipped ice, glistening with onyx and sapphire undertones. Eyes that had appeared black in the dark were glittering rubies in the light, and utterly hypnotic.

The zombies who weren’t hit by one of Cole’s or Frosty’s weapons flailed for the trees when they realized they couldn’t reach the boys without enduring more of the light. A stroke of good fortune—until a gust of wind snuck up behind me and tossed my scent at the combatants. The zombies froze, sniffed…those ruby gazes zeroing in on me. Suddenly they forgot their aversion to the light.

They marched forward.

“Swarming,” I heard Frosty tell Cole between shots. “Everywhere. All directions.”

Frosty faced front; Cole faced backward. Bronx extended both arms to cover left and right. Boom, boom, boom. Bullets flying in every direction.

Cole dropped his empty clip, then quickly and easily inserted another one that was ready and waiting on his belt. All three boys aimed for necks, doing their best to sever spinal cords.

They hit so many, piles of bodies began to form. And yet, they never made a dent in the numbers. As one zombie fell, two more would take his place. They just kept coming. When Cole ran out of arrows and his second round of bullets, he swiped up his swords and hacked his way through the masses. Heads separated from bodies, and those bodies collapsed—but just as before, neither head nor body died.

He moved with fluid grace, arching back when someone reached for him, then circling around to swipe everyone in front of him while kicking whoever happened to be behind him.

Footsteps. “Incoming,” I heard someone yell. Frosty and Bronx stopped firing. Trina and Cruz shoved through a wall of zombies and into the light, their hands glowing. They attacked the piles, ashing one enemy after another.

Another “Incoming!” sounded. Mackenzie, Derek and Haun were next to arrive, then Lucas and Collins. In their spirit form, their anklets hardly mattered, I realized. There was no sign of Brent.

Some of the boys were bloody. All were sweating, red-faced from strain and exertion. And here I was, up in the trees, doing nothing, letting them put their lives at risk.

Screw staying up here.

See? I’d known temptation would get the best of me.

Zombies followed each of the slayers, and soon we were utterly surrounded. All the kids continued to fire and fight and try to get their glowing palms on those decaying chests. Most of the creatures continually hissed as the heat from the lights flooded over them unceasingly, the blue tones in their skin darkening…darkening…becoming a thick black steam that rose from their pores. They no longer seemed to notice. Maybe because they felt no pain. Wasn’t that what Cole had said? And it seemed as though the zombies were actually working in organized groups, targeting specific kids, separating them before striking with more force.

A scream echoed. Mackenzie stumbled back as she yanked her arm from a zombie’s mouth. Rather than teeth marks, I saw black ooze bubbling from under her skin and I knew evil had been poured straight into her veins.

She kept fighting, her motions slowing…slowing…to nothing more than a slug’s pace. Another zombie managed to bite into that same injured arm, the black ooze spreading up, up, up. Her next scream crackled until it broke into a thousand pieces of silence. A new group of zombies leaped at her, disappearing inside her, rising, and dragging her down. None of the other kids realized her distress; they were too busy defending themselves.

I drew in a deep breath…held it, held it a little longer…I can do this. I will do this…then exhaled with force, propelling my spirit out of my body at the same time, just as I’d practiced. Here and now, with a surge of adrenaline, the action was easier.

I dropped to the ground, landed in a crouch, straightened, both blades clutched in my hands. A glow here, a glow there. The kids, the Blood Lines. Things to avoid. Immediately I pushed into motion, driving toward the group surrounding Mackenzie.

I slashed a zombie across the back of the neck. He stumbled to the side. Spinning, I stabbed another in the stomach. Another spin, another stabbing. From the corner of my eye, I saw Mackenzie’s body spotted with black and twitching, no longer glowing, her fingers gnarling from the intensity of the pain. At least the zombies surrounding her had forgotten all about the already bagged and tagged meal they could have and focused on me.

One snuck up beside me, crouched on the ground as he was, and managed to wrap his fingers around my wrist and tug me down. I stabbed him in the eyes, jab, jab, blinding him. Next I practically did a handstand to kick the zombie I’d heard coming up behind me. My overworked thigh muscles strained but he was shoved away.

“Zombies will not win tonight,” I said as a multitude of others gathered around me. It was a proclamation I prayed I believed.

I popped to my feet as they lunged at me, managing to slick my blade through one jugular, then another. I felt something solid press into my back, but didn’t panic. I caught a familiar sandalwood scent. Cole.

“You’re doing great.” He fought behind me, shielding my blind spots.

A warm gust of wind swirled around me, sparking with power and giving me a burst of strength. He’d believed what he’d said, and I’d believed what he’d said. I was doing great, but now I would do even better.

“You, too.” I arced my arms in different directions, cutting high with one and low with the other.

“Keep doing exactly what you’re doing, just do it quietly.”

Faster…faster…the zombies reached up to block me, but they were just too slow. I cut and I cut and I cut—shoulders, arms, hands, torsos, stomachs, thighs—and twitching bodies began to rain around me.

Bronx swooped in, both of his hands glowing bright white, and rendered the deathblows.

Cole and I continued to battle, but the glow never filled my own hands. After we’d finished hacking our way through Mackenzie’s crowd, we switched our sights to Frosty’s, then Collins’s. I was bitten a few times, nothing prolonged, nothing like before, but the ensuing burn still managed to at last slow my motions. Each time the culprits jerked away from me in horror, as if they’d realized I would treat them to extra loving from my blades.

When the battle was over, when there was no one else to fight, I lost every ounce of energy. I couldn’t resist as an invisible chain dragged me up…up…up…and into the tree. Before, I’d always had to reach out and touch. This was the first time I’d ever experienced such a tug.

I sucked in a breath, the world crashing back into focus.

Even operating in the natural realm, I was too weak to hold myself upright and just kind of tumbled from the branch. I smacked into the ground and rolled, losing the blades somewhere along the way. There was a sharp sting in my arm, and I knew without looking that I’d ripped open my stitches again.

There were too many bodies to count around me, the zombies reminding me of flies stuck in sticky paper that had been left out for several weeks.

“Frosty, get Mackenzie to Ankh,” I heard Cole shout. He stomped to his body, still perched in front of the tree, and reached out. Instantly the two linked up.

“On it,” Frosty replied. He picked up Mackenzie and stalked off.

“Trina, Haun, search for Brent.”

“Already gone,” Trina replied.

“The rest of you destroy the remaining zombies.”

“That won’t be necessary,” an unfamiliar voice said, slithering from the shadows.

Someone flipped the switch on the halogens, and the entire forest was suddenly swept into a great flood of darkness. Spots winked in my line of vision. I heard the pound of multiple footsteps, the crackle of…something, then a swarm of people in hazmat suits came into view.

“We’ll be taking the zombies,” the same person said.

Cole dove at him, his arm ghosting through. Clearly, the hazmat was in spirit form. “Coward! I should have known you’d show up.”

They must have watched the battle on the outskirts, never coming to our aid, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike. And what better time than now, while Cole and I were back in our bodies, injured, and too weak to fight back?

“Go,” Cole snapped to his remaining friends.

All but Bronx darted away. They were still in spirit form, and therefore susceptible to further injury from the suits. Normally that wouldn’t be a concern, I was sure, Cole and company’s skills far superior. Now, we were all vulnerable.

One of the suits walked over to me and bent down. There was a clear panel in front of his face and as I squinted up at him, Justin’s features began to crystallize.

“You picked the wrong team,” he said.

A warm breeze washed over me, and I thought maybe the breeze had somehow sprung from the force of his words, as if there was power in them even I could feel in this natural realm.

“I’m on the right team,” I gritted out. His will would not supersede mine.

His sister came up beside him, grinning smugly through her mask. The whiteness of her teeth gave her a feral appearance. She never said a word, but then, no words were necessary. She laughed.

I watched, helpless, as the suits collared what was left of the still-writhing zombies and dragged them away.

Two seconds after they were gone, blood-covered arms slid under my back and knees and lifted me. I was cradled against Cole’s chest, his heart hammering away at his ribs. “I’ve got you,” he said.

“I’m not in as much pain as usual. I can walk.” He didn’t appear to be straining, but I knew he was feeling the effects of our battle, too.

“It’s either hold on to you or chase after the hazmats. I picked you.”

“Good choice, I guess.” As he carried me through the trees, my gaze locked on my sister, who had materialized a few feet away from Cole, her slight form already flickering in and out. There was such a sad expression on her face.

“It’s too late now,” she whispered. “I’m sorry, Alice, so very sorry. He’ll be coming for you.”

15
The King and Queen of Shredded Hearts

My sister’s words haunted me the entire drive to Cole’s house. He’ll be coming for you. Who would? Why?

The moment we arrived, however, my focus changed. Inside the barn, I saw all the kids on hospital gurneys. Most were hooked to an IV bag while Mr. Ankh walked around checking vitals. Some were sleeping, some in too much pain to nod off. But Brent…he was utterly still, his body a mess of black boils.

Of all the kids, he needed medical attention the most and yet Mr. Ankh never even approached his bed. Dr. Wright, who cleaned and bandaged those with minor injuries, never even glanced at his bed. That could only mean…

Cole unleashed a dark, dark curse that dripped with all kinds of venom and sorrow. He eased me onto a bed, and said to Mr. Ankh, “Trina and Haun are still out there, looking for…” His voice broke. He pressed his lips together.

But Trina and Haun were lying on gurneys and—oh. No. They weren’t. Their bodies might be here, but in actuality they were in the forest still in spirit form.

“I’ve already sent your dad out to get them,” Mr. Ankh said.

Though her expression was as stern as always, Dr. Wright placed a gloved hand over her heart. “I’m sorry, Cole. He was a wonderful boy.”

Cole bowed his head.

“He’s not…he can’t be…” I said.

“He is. He can.” I’d never heard such a raw tone from him. “We’ll find out in a few days whether or not his spirit moved on or became zombie.”

There was no way to tell here and now? And was that really a possibility? No matter what, I did not want to wake up one day as an undead spirit corpse.

“We’ll have to sneak his body into his home, into his own bed, and his girlfriend will be the one to report his condition in the morning. Word will spread that he died of the same disease as Boots and Ducky.” A bitter laugh left him. “Maybe it won’t be classified as ‘rare’ anymore, eh?”

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered. I knew the devastation of loss, the sick feeling of realizing someone you loved had suffered greatly.

“To a bed, Cole,” Mr. Ankh said before he could reply. “Let’s get you medicated.”

Within minutes, both Cole and I were hooked to an IV. He had lapsed into silence, but I could feel the pain radiating off him in huge, twisting waves. I hadn’t known Brent well, but even I mourned his loss.

“He wouldn’t have wanted to go any other way,” Collins said.

Cole banged his head against his pillow.

Dr. Wright walked by and patted his hand.

My chin trembled.

“You will not cry,” she said to me, and though the words seemed cruel, they were actually a kindness, strengthening me. “That’s not what’s needed right now.”

“I know.” But…how many friends had Cole lost like this? How many more would he lose? And what about me? I’d get to know these guys better, probably come to love them, and then lose them, too.

When Trina and Haun glided into the barn, both were fighting tears. I watched, the desire to cry rising all over again as they stepped up to their bodies and slipped inside, as if they were covering themselves with a shimmery blanket.

“I can’t believe he’s dead,” Trina croaked. Red and black stained her bared biceps. Her hair, now flecked with dried blood, stuck out in spikes. There was a split in her upper lip, a bruise on her cheek, and a large knot on her jaw.

A warm tear escaped and trickled down my cheek.

I watched as Mr. Ankh gathered Trina in his arms and hugged her tight.

Bronx, who’d arrived with Cole and me, had claimed the cot next to her. Silent, he rested his arm over his swollen, already blackened eyes. He, too, was covered in red and black, his blue hair a disheveled mess.

Mr. Holland was the next to stalk into the barn. He made a beeline for his son. “I’m sorry. He was a good kid. We’ll honor him, like we’ve honored all the others.”

Cole nodded stiffly, and another tear trickled down my cheek. “Take care of Ali,” he said, the hollowness of his voice enough to break my heart the rest of the way. “She took a lot of heat.”

A pause, then Mr. Holland patted his son’s shoulder. “All right.” He turned to me and cleaned and bandaged me as gently as possible. “I hear you also took care of some business tonight.”

“We all did.”

“Modest? Really? I wouldn’t have guessed it of you.” He tossed the bloody bandages into a trash bin beside my bed. “So Mackenzie hacked her way free on her own? Frosty, too?”

“I did what I had to do, what any one of the guys would have done for me.”

“Yeah, but you did it without much training.”

I sighed. “Is this the part where you accuse me of working with the bad guys?”

The corners of his lips twitched with amusement, the same way Cole’s sometimes did. “No. You didn’t know where you were being taken for the ambush, so there’s no way you could have told them where to go. The suits followed the zombies like the zombies followed you.”

Speaking of… “What are they planning to do with those zombies?”

“Besides trying to stuff them into human bodies? I wish I knew.”

After that, he walked away from me. The entire group fell into a prickly silence, everyone lost in their own thoughts. If only there was something I could say to comfort them, but I remembered my disdain for the doctors, nurses, friends and family who had offered me ridiculous platitudes after the accident.

You’ll be okay. They would carry on, yes, but they would never forget their own sense of mortality.

Time will heal you. Losing a loved one was like losing a limb. You were always aware of what you were missing, of what you used to have.

I’m sorry. I was, but those words wouldn’t really mean anything to any of them. Their friend was gone, and they wouldn’t see him again until they died. That thought wouldn’t comfort them tonight.

“The zombies have become more resilient,” Frosty said, shattering the quiet with a harshness he usually reserved for me. “The halogens used to send them running away. They didn’t run tonight.”

“I don’t think they’re more resilient,” Cole said, his tone now as dark as it was hard. “I think they were that determined to reach Ali.”

“But why?” I asked, baffled.

No one had an answer for me.

* * *

The next few months passed in a daze. Brent hadn’t gone to Asher. He’d already graduated and had been living on his own, away from his family, so no one at school knew he was gone. No one understood why Cole and friends were all on edge, ready to snap at any moment.

Cole held a small, private memorial service for Brent, and seeing him and the others, each more stoic than the last, break down over their friend’s death had affected me deeply. I’d sobbed like a baby.

Sometimes all I could do was worry about who would be next to fall. Cole? We hadn’t had another vision, and still weren’t sure what that meant for us. What about Frosty? Just how would Kat handle his loss? Not well, that was for sure.

But as I’d already learned, no matter what happened around us, life would always go on. Every day after school I worked out and trained with Cole. In the ring, I was never as good as I’d been in the field. I couldn’t fake the spring of adrenaline or the rush of fight or flight no matter what we were practicing.

I was definitely the weak link.

Cole tossed me on my butt countless times, nicked me with swords and daggers, but he hadn’t kissed me again. Not that I’d thought about that or anything. Really.

I stayed up almost every night. If I wasn’t patrolling the forest around my house with Cole, I was setting traps for zombies. If I wasn’t setting traps, I was hunting for nests. If I wasn’t hunting nests, I was watching for monsters from my window or trying to decipher the rest of the journal.

Two more passages had opened up for me, one about the first of the zombies, which Dr. Wright had already explained to me, and one about the first of the slayers, which she hadn’t. Those first slayers had not been able to leave their bodies and had had to learn to fight the zombies while in their natural form. But then, the death of one of their own had saved them. The zombies had eaten his spirit straight out of his body, and somehow an infection had spread, nearly wiping out the undead. Nearly. That’s all I’d been able to make out, but maybe that was for the best. Everything I learned confused me more.

I’d finally broken down and showed the journal to Cole, but the pages had been coded to him—all of the pages. That meant I was somehow deciphering the words on my own.

Cole had no idea how I had done it or who the author could be and had asked me to hand the entire thing over to his father for further study, but I’d refused. I couldn’t bring myself to part with it.

Cole had argued with me, but in the end, he’d relented. He’d taken pictures of the pages, yeah, but he’d relented.

There was never a dull moment for me, that was for sure, despite the fact that the zombies had stopped coming out. There hadn’t been a single appearance since the night they’d hunted me, and Cole thought it was because they were finally catching up on their rest. I’d speculated that Team Hazmat could have something to do with it, but he’d said his dad and Mr. Ankh were staking them out and there’d been no movement on their end, either.

Home wise, my grandparents were not happy with me. I constantly fell asleep during class and my grades had dropped significantly. I’d been sent to the principal’s office twice, lectured, grounded, and taken back to the therapist.

The first time I was sent to the principal’s office—and set free by Dr. Wright without any punishment, thank you—Wren and Poppy had dropped me as if I were radioactive waste.

“We can’t afford to be associated with trouble,” Poppy had said. “Not when our every deed could be Tweeted online. No colleges will want us.”

“We warned you this would happen,” Wren had said.

Yeah, and she’d also smiled at me that day in the cafeteria, silently telling me to go for Cole. Which, I now knew, was because she’d wanted Justin Silverstone for herself. I’d seen them in the halls, holding hands. Apparently, they were Asher High’s new “it” couple.

Kat had sided with me, and I loved her so much more for it. I’d never let her go now. Never. I didn’t care what Cole said.

“At our very first meeting I told you that you’d be my number one,” she’d said. “And I never lie or exaggerate.”

“True story,” I’d replied with a laugh.

“Plus, how can I let you go when I’m so close to finalizing the rumor tree?”

Oh, yeah. The rumor tree. I’d stopped caring about it, to be honest. I’d tried to make things up to Mackenzie for wrongly blaming her, but the most she’d given me was a dirty look.

One day, during lunch, I’d had enough. “What’s your problem?” I demanded from across our table. Yep, I now sat with Cole’s group. “I said I was sorry.”

Kat, whom I’d dragged with me, leaned toward Mackenzie and said, “Yeah. What’s your problem?”

Flashing emerald eyes moved from me to Cole, who was at my other side. “Lift the ban, and let me handle this.”

“Nope. The ban stays,” Cole said with a shake of his head.

The not-hurting-Ali ban? “Go ahead,” I retorted, “lift it.”

Mackenzie popped to her feet, leaned over and flattened her hands on the table, rattling the entire thing. “First, I don’t need your backup, cupcake. Second,” she said, glaring at Cole, “you can’t stop this forever.”

“Actually, you do need my backup, Tinker Bell,” I said.

She ignored me. “If you don’t want me yelling at your tasty treat, how about I tell her what you told me?” Finally her attention swung back to me. “Every time I ask him if he’s dating you, he says no. But then he gets around you, and well, you know the way he is with you.”

I did, yes. Friendly. But that was it, nothing more. “Your point?”

“I think he’s using you. Either that or he’s lying to me and himself. I only wonder what he’s saying to you.” She stomped out of the cafeteria, shoving kids out of her way.

Multiple calls of “hey” followed her.

I remained in place, one terrible fact sinking in. Mackenzie and Cole had talked about me, and quite a lot, considering she’d said “every time.”

What else had been said?

Had she asked him to get back together with her? Obviously she still loved him. But how did he feel about her?

Whether they’d done anything together since I’d come into the picture, I didn’t know and shouldn’t have cared, but…yeah, I cared.

“You should join her,” Kat said to Trina, and I knew she’d done it to remove attention from me. Any time I thought I couldn’t love her any more, she surprised me by winning another piece of my heart.

Trina was eating a sandwich and never even glanced over at Kat.

“Do you have to dive into every fight?” Frosty asked Kat. He’d been sitting beside Mackenzie, and now sat beside Trina—and tried to scoot away from her, as if he couldn’t stand the idea of Kat seeing him next to his alleged hook up. “Ali can handle herself.”

“Do you hear that pesky buzzing noise?” she asked me, ignoring him.

He gave a sad shake of his head. “You are such a child, Kitty Kat.”

“Buzz, buzz.”

“I have no idea what I ever saw in you,” he said.

She gasped and threw an orange at his head. He easily dodged. “You saw all of my wonderful qualities, you butt!”

A booming laugh escaped him. “You sure you’ve got any?”

“I’ve got plenty, and you know it!”

They weren’t officially dating, but anyone who saw them together knew they belonged with each other. She made him laugh, as proved, brought him out of his depression over Brent, and he distracted her from whatever had been bothering her. Too often lately she was pale and quiet, but anytime I asked, she waved me off and changed the subject.

I wasn’t sure what to do about her. Heck, I wasn’t sure what to do about anything.

* * *

Later that day I found myself back in the boxing ring with Cole, both of us in our spirit form, our bodies resting peacefully on gurneys, but I was too distracted to learn anything. I was stuck on Kat and kept replaying some of my conversations with her, trying to figure out what could possibly be wrong with her.

Wren and Poppy’s desertion hadn’t fazed her. “Honestly? I expected it,” she’d said. “I’d just hoped they’d learned how horrible their lives are without me the first time around.”

She’d missed several more days of school, but when I asked her why, she’d said, “My mom thought it’d be cool to spend some time together,” and once again waved it off.

“Ali!”

The snap of Cole’s voice jerked me out of my head. Just in time to watch—unable to react—as he kicked out his leg, knocked my feet together, and sent me crashing to the floor.

You need to concentrate, his expression said. We weren’t supposed to talk while we were like this.

My bad, mine replied.

He didn’t help me stand. He never did. I lugged to my feet under my own steam.

Every second I spent in here was designed to make me stronger. And you know what? I liked him so much more for it. I needed to be stronger. The zombies—

“Ali.” Cole’s booted foot kicked out again, and I crashed a second time, ending up flat on my back, the air blasting out of my lungs. He spread his arms, and I knew he was projecting “What did I just tell you?” at me.

Sorry, I mouthed as I stood.

He crooked his finger at me, a silent, You come at me for a change.

I nodded to let him know I understood. Knowing how fast he was, I didn’t give myself a moment to ponder how best to attack him. I simply attacked. Even then, he had the upper hand. I punched, he blocked. I kicked, he sidestepped. The few times he caught my fist, he should have shoved me away, twisted my arm behind my back, something. But he didn’t. He just released me and let me come at him again.

That aggravated me. For the first time since we’d begun training together, he wasn’t doing me any good. He was babying me.

More punching, more blocking. More kicking, more sidestepping.

“Wow. Gently remove your tampon, Holland, and throw her around like a man,” Frosty called.