Diana Rowland - How the White Trash Zombie Got Her Groove Back

Victor shifted off me and gave me some not-very-gentle help getting to my feet. I narrowed my eyes at him, but not because he’d pissed me off. Hell, he’d done exactly what he was supposed to do, and I’d been a fucktard for coming at Jane with a knife, or at least looking as if I was about to.

Yes, Victor had done his job very well. Very well, and the speed with which he’d made it from the bedroom to me had been pretty darn impressive. He met my gaze with an expressionless one of his own. I took a slow step toward him, pleased when he didn’t retreat—not that I expected him to flinch. But even better, he didn’t pull back when I leaned close, inches from the side of his face, and sniiifffffffed.

“What the hell is going on?” Jane demanded, baffled frustration heavy in her voice. Okay, I totally understood how the part where I sniffed her bodyguard was the final straw.

A muscle in Victor’s jaw twitched as I straightened, but when he met my eyes he gave me a very tiny confirming-though-grudging nod.

“I’m about to show you,” I said to Jane, then shifted my attention to Victor. “If I stand ten feet away from her, will you let me have the stupid knife?”

He clearly knew what I wanted to do, and he gave Jane a measuring look first, no doubt considering whether he should protect her from the knowledge I was about to give her. Apparently he came down on the side of Jane can handle it . He produced the knife from a pocket within his jacket, handed it to me, then stepped back.

It wasn’t until I gripped the knife and stuck out my left arm that I remembered this sort of thing really hurt. I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I almost asked Victor if he’d do it for me, but one glance at him and the look in his eyes told me it might not be such a great idea to ask him to cut me.

“Okay, Jane,” I said. “I’m about to give you a crash course on my weird medical condition.” I lifted the knife, looked down at the carpet, then backed up a few feet until I was on the tile of the kitchenette, all while Jane watched me as if I was insane. She probably wasn’t far from wrong.

Before I could chicken out, I stuck the point into my forearm, then pulled it down and across to slice a deep gash. “Fucking shitballs,” I gasped as the pain shot up my arm in a burning wave.

Jane sucked in a sharp breath. “My god! Angel!”

Thankfully the pain dulled after only a couple of seconds. I dropped the knife and grabbed a towel off the counter to catch the worst of the blood, then pulled it aside to make sure Jane could see the gash was real and not some sort of sleight of hand special effects bullshit. Yet I also didn’t want her to freak too hard at the sight of me standing here bleeding in the kitchen. Besides, that wasn’t the point of this. With my other hand I yanked the little baggie out of my pocket, opened it with my teeth, then gulped down the contents. Within seconds the gash began to close at the edges. I wiped the blood away with the towel again so that she could see it continue to close. Within half a minute the gash was only a red line, and after a dozen more seconds even that was gone.

I looked up at Jane with more than a little trepidation, silently praying I wouldn’t see disgust on her face. Wasn’t sure I could handle that from her. But she simply stared, utterly dumbfounded. As I watched, a realization spread across her face.

“That’s how . . .” She trailed off and sat heavily.

I turned to the sink and washed the blood off, then cleaned up the floor. Figured she needed a minute or two to process everything anyway. Once everything was spotless I moved to the sofa and sat a few feet from her. “That’s how what?”

She took a shaky breath, still staring at my arm. “That’s how Pietro and Brian walked away from the car wreck that should have killed both of them, isn’t it?”

Only a few months ago she’d had a broken leg, and Pietro had been sporting a wrist brace I knew damn well he hadn’t needed. “Yeah, it’s kind of hard to kill us,” I admitted.

She took another breath, deeper this time and much less shaky, visibly pulling herself together and regaining composure. “I don’t understand. What kind of medical condition is this? And why is it secret? It’s miraculous. ” She shook her head. “Pietro could have told me.”

“It’s secret because . . .” I fidgeted. “Well, because the way we stay alive is kind of gross. The stuff in that baggie was—” I shot a desperate look at Victor and got a You’re on your own one in response. Sighing, I turned back to Jane. “It’s brains.”

The poor woman once again looked dazed. “What kind of brains?”

My shoulders hunched. “Human brains,” I said, voice small. “It’s why I work in a morgue—so I can get them and survive.”

She paled and pressed a hand to her stomach. “You eat human brains? Pietro eats human brains?”

“Only after they’re dead,” I insisted and tried not to think about the two times I’d helped someone along to being dead enough to be my dinner. “We call ourselves zombies, ’cause it kind of fits, y’know? But we’re not bad people. I swear.” Mostly. Shit. “Please, just try to think about what you know about me and Pietro and Victor.”

I realized my mistake the instant the name was out of my mouth, but by then it was too late. Jane’s gaze snapped to her bodyguard. “ Victor? ”

Oooh, if Victor’s look could have killed I’d have been a smoking pile of ash on the carpet. Jaw so tight I thought his teeth would break, he pulled his attention to his employer. “Yes, ma’am,” he said after only a small hesitation—no doubt while he was trying to decide if he could quickly wring my neck and then claim he had to do so because I was obviously stark raving insane and no, of course he didn’t eat brains because that was ludicrous, right?

At this rate I was going to get a gold medal at Fucking Up. “Sorry,” I mumbled to Victor.

Jane folded her hands into her lap and crossed her legs at her ankles, visibly donning her armor of Cultured Southern Woman. She had a spine of steel, this one.

“And the Sabers know about all of this,” she said slowly. “And they have Pietro. But,” her brow furrowed, “Brian was with them.”

“Brian managed to get to one of our other guys before Saberton did,” I explained. “He told me he was at the party trying to get info about Pietro. I’m not a hundred percent sure, but I’m pretty sure we can trust him.”

Her hands tightened in her lap. “I knew I had a good reason to hate Nicole Saber.”

“Yeah, well, she’s pretty cold-blooded,” I said.

“And of course you can’t go to the authorities, since there’s too much chance that the detail about, ah, human brains might come to light.” Her lips pursed as she put the pieces together.

I grimaced. “Pretty much.”

Jane lifted her chin. “I assume you’re in the city to find Pietro?” At my nod she continued, “How can I help?”

That took me aback. I hadn’t really thought past this point. “I don’t really know, though I’m sure you can.” Have a congresswoman on our team? It didn’t suck. “I should probably call Brian and let him know what the deal is.”

With her eyes still a tad glassy, she looked relieved to have a few more minutes to process all the weird shit I’d just dumped on her. As I moved over to the window, I gave Victor yet another apologetic look. His expression told me I probably wasn’t going to be on his Christmas list this year.

Brian answered on the first ring. “Archer.”

“Hey, it’s me. I just talked to Jane.”

“Angel.” He exhaled. “I’m sorry about being an ass on the phone earlier. It’s been, well . . . I’m just sorry.”