A Living Dead Love Story Series (48 page)

Either way, I go back to pacing.

Each pass I notice something new about how Vera's sitting but more importantly where she's sitting. Just on the other side of the yellow line outside my cell, to be specific. Too far for my arms to reach, and don't think I haven't spent the last few hours trying.

And the way she sits there, smiling, legs crossed, my file on her knee, one foot dangling in the air and every so often kicking a little the way people do. It's like she's read my mind and already knows about me wanting to pickpocket her or something!

“So,” she says brightly, as if I'm not in a cell and she's not on a molded plastic chair outside of my cell holding a file that contains every vital piece of information about my life. “How are you feeling today?”

“Today? What day? Isn't it the same day?”

She nods. “Technically, but it's after midnight now, so how are you feeling today?”

I pause by the door of my cell and rest my hands on the bars over the lock, the way you'll see prisoners do in old movies. It feels good to take a break from the constant pacing. Not because I'm tired, but staring at a wall hour after hour gets real old real fast. Besides, like her or not, Vera's at least something new to look at for a change.

“Well, let's see. I'm sad and scared and pissed off and lonely, but mostly I'm pissed off. Why? What are you writing?”

She has an open legal pad on top of my file and is writing what I'm saying. Okay, maybe not every word, because I was really flying through the syllables there at one point, but—

“You're here for intake, remember, Maddy? I can't release you if I don't—”

“Release me? When are you releasing me? Let's do this thing already!”

Vera cracks a rare smile, then shakes her head at the same time. “Maddy, you know I can't tell you that yet.”

I groan and turn on my heel and catch a slight whiff of mold from my sneakers. “Well, can I at least get some new clothes, then?” It's not the mold I care about so much as the opportunity to reach out and grab and steal a key from whoever's handing some new clothes over.

She nods absently, then scrawls some more notes. “Someone will be bringing those along for you. Now, before we do, a few updates.”

I perk up, sitting in one of the steel chairs bolted to the wall of my cell.

“We've now sent a total of four Sentinel First Responder teams to Barracuda Bay and moved your dad to a safe house.”

“A safe house. What's that?”

“A house that's safe, Maddy.” Her tone isn't even
sarcastic. “I can't tell you where, for obvious reasons.”

“How safe?” I ask urgently, lurching to the edge of my seat.

“Safe, Maddy, as long as he goes straight from work to the safe house and back again.”

“And work? I mean, a safe house is one thing, but how do you hide four teams of Sentinels in the county morgue?”

Vera offers another little smile. “You'd be surprised how subtle we can be. After all, we stalked you for months without you knowing, didn't we?”

Yeah. And look how well that turned out.

“Well, I mean, how is he? Did he say anything?”

“About what?”

“About me? Damn, didn't he even ask you why he was being moved?”

She looks at some notes in her pad and shakes her head. “I don't see any of that here, no.”

She leaves it out there, just like that. So do I. I mean, what am I going to say? It doesn't sound like Dad to not ask about me, but … he does hate change. Maybe he was ticked off when the Sentinels showed up and dragged him out of his warm, comfy home.

“Secondly,” she goes on, pausing a little so I can snap out of it and focus on her again, “we've been interviewing Dane and his story conflicts with yours.”

“How so?”

“Well, he claims that you were unconscious for most of what happened at Barracuda Bay High School and, accordingly—”

“Wait, what? The Fall Formal? Seriously? Why are we still beating that dead horse? I thought … I thought this was about Val and what happened to Stamp. She's the bad guy. She should be in some damn cell, not me and certainly not Dane! I mean, who the hell still cares about Barracuda Bay High?”

Vera cocks her head and runs a large hand over her bristly scalp. “The Sentinels do, Maddy. In addition to the laws you broke by leaving the scene of an active Zerker infestation and not reporting to the Sentinel authorities the minute you three arrived in Orlando, you broke a series of laws back in Barracuda Bay.”

“Wait. Hold up.
The Sentinels
still care? I thought you were a Sentinel.”

She shakes her head. “I'm a Keeper, Maddy. We're kind of between the Sentinels and the Elders.”

I nod. “So you're above the Sentinels?”

That would explain why she can click a tongue and 400-pound zombies in black berets come running.

“We don't think that way about ourselves,” she scolds, but there's still a gleam of self-satisfaction in her eyes.

“So, I don't get it. If you're not a Sentinel and you're not an Elder, then what does a Keeper do?”

She shrugs. “What do you think a Keeper does?”

“Keep kids in some stupid jail cell when they should be out protecting their dads.”

She nods. “Not quite but, yes, we are the Keepers of many things: of information, for one. Of rules and laws, for another. And when those rules and laws are broken, we keep zombies like you locked up until we can get to the truth. That's how we keep order. That's how we keep ourselves above the Zerkers. I thought you, of all people, would appreciate that.”

She waits a beat, as if to see if her explanation makes sense, but really I'm just trying to gather as much information as I can so that when and if I ever get out of here I can know who to avoid the fastest.

Sentinels: avoid.

Keepers: avoid at all costs.

“Back to Dane.” She leans in just a smidge.

I watch her closely. It's as if she's finally started talking about what she came here to talk about. “You understand that if he is charged with all the zombie laws he broke back in Barracuda Bay, he could be kept here for up to 10 years. And that if you were to allow him to take all the blame, your stay would be much shorter.”

“How much shorter?” I say, not even trying to hide the base desperation and, yes, greed in my tone.

Another head cock, as if she's surprised by not just the question but the tone. “I-I'm not sure.” She stumbles for the first time since we've met. “I guess I didn't think
you'd let him take the blame for what I doubt he could have managed to do all by himself.”

“Who says? Ever seen the dude with his shirt off? He's all muscle, lady. All over. And he's been doing this a really long time. And he really, really hates Zerkers. Does it say that in your file? Because, really? Those Zerkers didn't stand a chance.”

“Okay, but you understand that these are serious charges Dane faces?”

“Well, then, he shouldn't have killed so many Zerkers, I guess, huh?” I try to sound flip, but the words feel like acid on my tongue. I wonder if she can see the distaste on my face.

She nods and stops writing. “I see. Are you saying you're willing to let Dane take the rap just so you can flee to Barracuda Bay and—?”

“Of course not!” I gasp, really laying it on thick now. “I would never let Dane be punished for something I did, but if I didn't do it, would the Keepers want me to confess to it? Is that how you guys roll because, from what I've seen, Vera, you guys are better than that.”

She shakes her head warily, suddenly distracted by a noise at the end of the hall.

I look at her closely and lean in. If she were only sitting two stupid inches closer to the cell, I could reach out and snatch her bony-ass arm, yank it inside, and get the key.

And the pen.
Don't forget the pen, Maddy!

“Your clothes are here,” she says abruptly, standing and sliding the chair back another few inches.

Damn, can this witch really read minds?

I hear boot steps, lots of them, and wonder how many Sentinels it takes to carry a change of underwear and some stupid flip-flops.

Then I hear the distinct clinking and clunking of chains.

“Dane!”

And I catch Vera's eyes, so alert and so knowing, and I can almost hear her thinking:
Wow, for someone so eager to let her man take the rap for her crimes, she sure is happy to see him.

H
e looks bad:
beat down, bruised up, and bandaged everywhere.

Plus, he's limping. And there's this: a cane!

“Hey,” I snap at the Sentinels and, by association, Vera. “That wasn't all from the sharks!”

“Maddy,” Dane says, hobbling on his cane and getting pulled back mercilessly by one of his giant Sentinel guards when he's too close to the forbidden yellow line of doom. “Don't worry. It's fine. I'm fine.”

“You don't look fine,” I grumble.

He cracks that crooked smile. “Really, Maddy, I am.”

He's holding clothes, lots of them, and goes to hand them over. Before he does, a Sentinel grabs them and shoves them clumsily through the bars, where they naturally sprinkle like grated cheese all over the floor.

“Nice,” I hiss, picking up socks and a flannel shirt and tossing them onto my shiny, stainless steel table just as carelessly. “Real nice. Can we have some privacy please?”

The Sentinel guards chuckle, but Vera gives them a look and they take four steps back immediately. Dang, maybe these Keepers are badass after all.

“Five minutes,” Vera whispers, eyeing Dane carefully before stepping back to keep a safe distance from the stocky Sentinels. She touches Dane's shoulder gently. “And stay behind the yellow line.”

Dane looks down and stops his cane right where the yellow line ends. He waits, watching until Vera has joined the Sentinels midway down the hall. She walks past them a smidge, then stops. She's not going any farther.

“Maddy,” he says, undeterred, “what is this place?”

“I don't know. Some detention wing or something.”

He's in gray sweatpants a size too big and a snug pajama top buttoned up halfway. Part of his chest and his left hand, the one with the pinky missing, are bandaged. One leg of his pants is rolled up to accommodate one of those black plastic casts you can walk around in.

He sees me looking and lifts the cane. “You like?”

It's an old person's cane, with a black rubber tip on the bottom and an aluminum frame and a black rubber grip at the top, for comfort, I suppose.

I smirk. “High tech,” I say, wishing everyone could just leave us alone—really alone—for a few seconds.
That's all I'd need to make Dane realize that what I'm doing—what I'm about to do—isn't meant to hurt him.

Instead, I have to speak in code. Or try, at least. “What are they doing to you?” I say quietly.

He shrugs. “Asking me a ton of questions, but who cares? You?”

“Same. I thought we'd be in trouble over the Splash Zone, you know? But all they seem to care about is Barracuda Bay. It's like, no matter how far we run, or how hard we try, we'll never escape our past.”

He smiles weakly, and for a second I see the old Dane. My Dane.

“Did you know about this place?” I say. “About places like this?”

He shakes his head. “I've heard rumors, but I've only ever dealt with the Sentinels when the Elders were around. I'm not sure even the Elders know about places like this.”

“Why? I thought they knew everything.”

He shrugs. “It just seems beneath them somehow.”

“So what are we going to do?”

“What can we do? You've been up here the whole time, but I'm still downstairs in the medical wing, and let me tell you, this place is locked up tight. So whatever you're thinking, stop thinking it.”

There's a glimmer in his eye, unfamiliar and over-zealous. It's like he's onstage.

“I'm not thinking about anything,” I snap, the thought of those dead sharks lying wet and broken on the concrete, pieces of Stamp digesting in their stillwarm bellies. “I'm doing it and soon. You know about Val, right?”

He leans in a bit but not far enough to catch the wrath of Vera. He lowers his voice. “Do you?”

I nod. “Didn't you know Bones had a sister? I mean, that would have been nice to know. Before we tore him to bits and pieces and set his ass on fire.”

“Shut up,” he says but not unkindly. “The odds of two siblings being Zerkers is, like, astronomical.”

“Says you,” I taunt, but only because I enjoy seeing him smile, even if just for a second or two.

I see one of his teeth is chipped.

“What happened there?” I point to it.

He shrugs again, the ill-fitting pajama top lifting up from his sweatpants. “I must have chipped it when I was fighting one of those …”

I don't need him to finish his sentence. I nod.

Hurriedly, as if to air the stench of our shared memory from the hallway, he blurts, “They're working on some new stuff down in the medical wing, though, where they say they might be able to grow back some of the flesh.”

“How? I thought zombie flesh didn't grow back.”

“It doesn't, but they're trying electrical therapy to
revitalize some of the dead tissue clusters. Don't ask me. Just, we'll know if my frickin' finger ever grows back.”

He's using that false voice again, and I look at the Sentinels standing downwind. I wonder, idly, if he's been coached.

I look at Vera over Dane's shoulder, but she quickly avoids my gaze. I turn back to Dane, who's still smiling.

Why? Why is he smiling so much?

I look into his eyes, those deep dark eyes, and wait for something to shoot across the air, something magical and true and sincere that only I could see. It never does. He looks down, then up, then down, and I say, just as falsely, “Good for you, Dane. I hope they can grow your finger back.”