Gena Showalter - The Queen Of Zombie Hearts

Right?

I had to try. He wouldn’t make it otherwise. He was hemorrhaging strength, his head lolling to the side. His lips were starting to turn blue, his skin chalk-white.

Frantic, I closed my eyes. Humans were made of three parts. The spirit, the source of life, was bound to the soul, which consisted of the mind, will and emotions. Both were housed inside the body, the outer shell. With a deep breath in...out...I forced my spirit and body to separate; it was like removing a hand from a glove. Because zombies were spirits, they could only fight other spirits. I’d learned to divide like this at a moment’s notice.

Cold air enveloped me. Without the insulation of skin and muscle, my spirit felt the temperature drop what seemed like a thousand degrees.

“What are...you doing?” As a slayer, Cole could see into the spirit realm. Could see me.

Couldn’t pause to explain. When it came to stuff like this, I was so new I had trouble multitasking.

Light, I thought, and the ends of my fingers heated. I peeked...flames crackled all the way to my wrist. Good, good. I reached inside Cole’s shoulder.

His breath hitched. That was it, his only reaction. Even still, I knew his pain was off the charts. Been here, done this. He’d basically just received third-degree burns on his soul. But he hadn’t turned to ash, so I would consider this a win.

I dismissed the flames and returned my spirit to its proper place with a simple touch, then studied Cole. His color was back to normal. That quickly. I grabbed the shirt he’d discarded and wrapped the material around the still-bleeding, but now-charring wound.

What next? I didn’t know if there were bad guys with guns trained on the open window that was allowing flurries to bluster inside the room. I didn’t know how many bad guys were in the house, shooting at Mr. Holland—or if Mr. Holland was still alive.

My insides twisted into a maze of painful knots.

No matter what, we couldn’t—wouldn’t—leave without him.

“Can you walk?” I asked.

Cole’s jaw clenched with determination. “I don’t...care if I...can. I will.”

Despite the pauses in his speech, his timbre was stronger. Not just because of the emergency cauterization, I was sure, but because his bones were reinforced with iron-hard resolve, and his muscles pumped full of courage.

“I’ll find your dad and meet you—”

“No.” His tone was inflexible, meant to stop any argument. “We stay together.”

“Time is of the essence.”

“Don’t care. My dad. My decision.”

Very well. “We need more weapons.” I crawled to the gun he’d dropped and slid it to him. Then I continued on to the nightstand and claimed the minicrossbow he had stashed there.

Cole struggled to his knees. “I’ll go through...door first. You stay...on my heels. Got it?” He yanked a backpack from his closet, grimaced.

No, I didn’t get it, and I wouldn’t do as he’d demanded. The strong led the weak, not the other way around.

“I’ll go first.”

“Just—” He frowned, then held up a finger for silence.

I paused to listen for suspicious noises. Wind whistled eerily and...ice crunched. Every instinct I possessed shouted red alert, red alert!

Someone was coming in hot.

I turned and aimed just as a masked man swung his legs through the window. As he straightened, I squeezed the trigger. An arrow lodged in his throat, shutting off his airway and cutting off a bellow of pain before it could even form.

A kill shot.

I’d done what was necessary. I couldn’t regret that.

Keeping my weapon trained on the intruder, I closed the distance. His head was turned to the side, his eyes open, but glazed. No pulse. He had an earpiece anchored to his lobe. I lifted the bud and listened, heard a tangle of voices.

“Hit. I’m hit—”

“—like me to proceed?”

“He’s dead—”

There were more of them.

The door wrenched open, and I spun. I registered Mr. Holland’s identity at the same time I gave the trigger a second squeeze, barely managing to twist my wrist and send the arrow into the post at his side.

“Get down,” Cole commanded with a mixture of concern and relief.

Mr. Holland remained on his feet. One of his eyes was swollen shut; he scanned the room with the other, inhaling sharply when he spotted Cole, exhaling slowly when he spotted me. Crimson streaked his face. “There were four. Three inside, one outside. But it looks like you got him.” He stalked to Cole’s side and peeled back the soaked cotton to check his wound.

Cole winced.

“Clean shot, all the way through. Edges burned. Bleeding slowing.” Mr. Holland threw the shirt aside, removed the one he wore and rebound his son. “We don’t have much time. One got away. He’ll come back with others.”

“I’ve already heard others,” I said. “On the dead guy’s earpiece.”

“Those men aren’t here. They’re at Ankh’s.”

Mr. Ankh, Reeve’s father. He wasn’t a slayer, but he funded our cause and allowed Nana and me to live at his house.

“Nana,” I rasped. “Kat.” She’d planned to stay the night with Reeve. Were they hurt?

Not knowing...

I should have been there, should have protected them.

“I’m sorry,” Mr. Holland said, “but I don’t know the outcome. This was a planned attack, meant to take us all down at once.”

All? “You mean—” No. No, no, no. I didn’t like where my thoughts were headed.

“Ankh called me. Someone shut down his security system. I was getting dressed, intending to go over there and help, when another call came in. Frosty. Soon after, Bronx rang. But I didn’t have a chance to answer either boy. Two men busted through our back door. So, yes. I suspect every slayer on our team was targeted tonight.”

Frosty. Bronx. Trina. Lucas. Cruz. Collins. Gavin. Veronica. Mackenzie. Justin. Jaclyn. If anything had happened to any of them... Different emotions hit me with the force of a baseball bat. Pain, regret, worry and a sharp lance of rage.

A to-do list took shape in my mind. Compartmentalize. Get Cole to a doctor. Find everyone else. Destroy the people responsible.

I didn’t have to wonder about the culprit. Anima Industries. No question.

“The Ankhs have multiple secret passages meant for quick getaways,” Cole said, his expression fierce. “Ankh got everyone out, Ali-gator. I guarantee it.”

Like me, he abhorred lies. I believed him.

I confiscated the backpack, and he winced. “Sorry,” I muttered as I anchored the strap over my shoulder. Whatever he’d stuffed inside weighed a million pounds. At least. “Let’s get out of here.”

We made it to the garage without incident, and I uttered a quiet prayer of thanks. Cole climbed into the passenger seat of his Jeep, and I set the backpack at his feet.

Mr. Holland tossed me a set of keys. “You’re driving.”

“Yes.” A license wasn’t important right now.

“Take him to Holy Trinity Church. Pastor’s office. Bookshelf.” Mr. Holland looked to Cole. “Like the shelter we built for your mom.”

Cole stiffened. Any mention of his mother always had that effect. She’d been a slayer, and she might have had a shelter, but she’d still died during a zombie attack.

Mr. Holland met my gaze. “That’s where Ankh and your grandmother will be if—”

They survived, I finished for him and would have flown straight into a panic if not for a whispering replay of Cole’s assurance. Ankh got everyone out, Ali-gator.

“Just make sure my boy gets there,” Mr. Holland said.

Nothing would stop me. “What about you?”

“I won’t be far behind.”

What did he have to do? Bury the bodies?

Oh, glory. Probably.