A Living Dead Love Story Series (73 page)

D
ane!” Instinctively, I
run to him. Our embrace is uneven, with me clinging to his chest as he reluctantly reaches around me, momentarily at least, until his clutch turns to an insincere pat on the back.

“Okay now,” he mumbles, finagling his hands up against my shoulders and gently prying me off of him like some rock star wriggling away from his groupie. “There.”

I see a flash of embarrassment flit between him and Courtney, one of those how-pathetic-
is
-this-chick looks I always dreaded being the cause of. But even now, as it's happening to me, I so don't care. I shove him back so I can wedge my pathetic, Vanished self between him and Courtney.

“What is going on?” I grunt, pushing him a little more.

He flashes a look at Courtney. “Block the door.”

She makes a soft cluck but scuttles off, wedging her arm against it as if the Zerkers were already trying to get in. Courtney and I share a look, and suddenly I don't know what to think. My anger is gone, but I can't quite feel sorry for her either.

I turn back to Dane. “Fine. Now the door is blocked and we're all here, one happy little undead family, so tell me what's going on.”

He wastes no time. “The Zerkers are here. You know that, right?”

I freeze-frame. How much does he know I know? Does he know I sat in the bushes watching the Zerkers attacking Jogger Girl until it was too late for me to do anything about it? Does he know about Lucy and the missing jogger? About the thrift shop and the sixty bucks and the grape juice and the cat food?

“Yeah, yeah,” I rush. “I saw the Missing posters and put two and two together.”

He kind of softens. “Just like Barracuda Bay, right?”

I blink, and we could be back there in any bathroom, talking about Bones and Dahlia and Chloe and Hazel. All of them gone, no more. Dane and I gone, no more, as well.

I lower my voice. “Not just like.”

It wouldn't hurt so much if he didn't look so epically stunning in his stupid school uniform. It's like he was flippin'
made
to wear this thing. The white, collared shirt hugs his chest; the tie sets off his deep, dark eyes and hollow cheeks; his stubbly hair looks punk rock next to his maroon blazer with the sleeves rolled up. He even manages to make pleated khakis sexy.

He looks to Courtney, who doesn't have the good grace to even pretend she isn't using every bit of her new zombie hearing to snoop on us.

“Forget all that,” I surprise myself by saying. “We're here, it's now, whatever. So the Zerkers. What now?”

He shrugs. “Same as it ever was. Courtney and I are here to scope things out, make sure they don't get out of control.”

I look from him to her. “You. And Courtney. Are here. Period?”

He looks uncomfortable. “Well, Florida is big, and we still haven't located Val, so we're all the Sentinels could afford to send right now.”

I shake my head. Just thinking of what happened last night, three Zerkers plus Jogger Girl, who, if they didn't totally devour her, is one of them now as well. We're outnumbered.

I look at him, then at her, and something strikes me. The uniforms, the cockiness—this isn't their first day at Seagull Shores Prep. “Wait. When exactly did you guys get here?”

He avoids my gaze. “A few days ago. Why?”

“Are you . . . Are you not surprised to see me, Dane?”

“A little, yeah, but you were on foot, so how far could you go?”

Okay, that kind of makes sense. Still, something is fishy.

But now it's his turn to quiz me. “Tell me Stamp's not here, in school with you.”

I get vaguely protective all of a sudden. “No, he's not, but he could come if he wanted to.”

“No, he couldn't.”

I nod. “No, he couldn't.”

“So who's watching him, then?”

“Lucy.”

He and Courtney do their eye flick thing again. “Who's Lucy?”

“Lucy Toh. She lives next to us. She got me my fake ID and a school schedule.” Then I kind of stare at him, as if he's the worst Sentinel on the plant. “I mean, look at me. How do you think I went from Vanished to attending a human high school in less than a week? You think I could do that all by myself? Do you even care if I had to do it all by myself?”

Whoosh. All of that goes over his beautiful head. “A Normal?” He looks at me as if I've just broken about 24 zombie laws.

But I'm not even technically a zombie anymore, so who cares? “Yeah, but—”

He brushes past me, roughly, so roughly I want to grab his tie as he walks by and yank it off—through his neck.

“Unbelievable,” he says. “Courtney, get to . . .” He turns back to me, snapping like he's some advertising executive and I'm his secretary and we're in his office dictating a letter. “Where are you and Stamp staying?”

“One-four-six-five Lumpfish Lane,” I offer happily, anything to get rid of Courtney. “Why? Where are
you
two staying?”

“None of your damn business,” she answers for him.

The door swings open, and without another word, Courtney slips through it.

“Where are you staying?” I ask again.

“There's a warehouse downtown—abandoned, whatever. We've been camping out there.” He
pauses
from pacing the room and flashes me a crooked grin. “Why? Is your place better?”

“Not for her, it isn't.”

“Come on, Maddy. Let's not—”

“Not what? Not talk about something that's unpleasant for you?”

His eyes soften. “I meant not now.”

“Not now? Then when? We couldn't do it during Keeper training. I missed you when they Vanished me from Sentinel City, and now a Zerker might come in the girls' room any minute, so we can't do it now. When are you going to break up with me, Dane? I mean officially?”

He looks younger suddenly in his maroon uniform jacket. More vulnerable, though I know he's not. Just the opposite, in fact.

“It's not like that, Maddy. I still have feelings for you.”

“No, you don't. If you did, if you ever did, you'd grow a pair and break it off now and quit making me do all the work.”

He starts to speak, then simply nods. “You're right. I'm sorry. About everything. You, me, Courtney, Val, your Dad, Vera, the way it went down back at Sentinel City. I wanted to be there. Really, I did. But my time isn't my own anymore. I'm a Sentinel now. I have to go where they send me.”

“And Courtney has to go where they send you too?”

He nods.

“Funny, Dane. I don't remember Sentinels ever showing up with support before. Do you? At least not with girl support.”

He shrugs. “It's kind of your fault, actually. Ever since Barracuda Bay and what you did back there, and then Val and how you handled her, well, they're planning to let girls do more around Sentinel City.”

I throw my hands up. “Lucky me. I'm so glad I could make it so all the pretty young zombies get to come in and steal everyone's Sentinel boyfriends. I am so proud of myself right now. You wouldn't even believe it.”

“It's not like that. It wasn't like that.”

“Then how was it? Honestly, I'm curious.”

Ugh, I hate myself right now. I sound so shrewish and petty and, worst of all, so desperate. But I can't help it. It's like I
have
to know, no matter how irrational I sound. He has to explain it so I can understand it, or it will never make sense.

“I don't know. It just happened, I guess.”

I want to strangle him, hug him, choke him, and kiss him at the same time. How can he do this to me? How can Dane, whom I fought so hard for, whom I loved so hard, just walk away from it all so quickly? And expect me not to make a big deal out of it?

I stand speechless, my back to the sinks. The bathroom door cracks open, and I slam it shut. Harder than I expected to. The sound echoes through the room, through the halls, through the whole school probably. I don't care.

Dane looks at me harshly. “Stop drawing attention to us. It's called
passing
, remember?”

“Yeah, Dane, I remember. 'Cause you taught me how to do it.
Remember
?”

He straightens, getting ready to leave. “Yeah, well, a lot's changed since Barracuda Bay.”

“I guess so.”

We stand there, hearing the mumbling outside.

“What now?” I ask, holding it in place.

“Now we go find the Zerkers and take them down.”

“We?”

“Yeah, we. What, you're going to let them turn a bunch of Normals just because you went and got yourself Vanished?”

“I didn't think I was allowed to do that anymore.”

He smiles, breaking my heart all over again. “Yeah, well, I officially deputize you.”

L
ucy drives us
home. She's got a fairly newish car. At least it still smells new. Dark green, four doors, it's a compact but feels bigger. A little sluggish on the gas for my taste, but zombie beggars can't be ride-home choosers. I called shotgun because, hey, I found her first.

Dane sits behind Lucy. Sorry, scratch that, rewind. Dane
slumps
behind Lucy, doing his best sullen teenager of the living dead act all too convincingly.

It's pretty frigid inside the car, and I don't mean the temperature, although, yeah, clinically speaking, a commute home from school with two reanimated passengers is technically rather cold.

We've left school too soon. That's because no one listens to me. I told her to let some cars out first, let the traffic die down. But Lucy's so anal, she just had to race out as soon as we were strapped in. Now we're stuck in a long line, crawling away from Seagull Shores Prep down Pelican Row toward the main drag, where we'll peel off on Wahoo Way and inch toward the house on Lumpfish Lane.

We sit there, going nowhere fast. Dane slumps lower with each passing minute. Lucy nervously taps her steering wheel. I think idly how nice it would be to live somewhere without cheesy street names that don't sound like they come straight off a bait store inventory list. It will probably never happen, but it would be nice for a change.

Courtney is already at the house, watching over Stamp, and God knows what those two have been talking about since Dane gave her her walking papers during homeroom.

I've kind of felt bad all day about the look on her face, trying to stay brave even as she knew it was a losing cause. The crumbling kind of disappointment flickering there, just below the surface as she turned from the door and did as Dane asked. The flash of anger at the way he turned back from her without another word, just expecting her to do his bidding.

I've got no love for the kind of girl who will mack on your man and smile all the while, but I have just as little love for the guy who will turn around and treat you both like crap when it suits him. Dane was never supposed to be that guy.

And even now, a part of me still thinks he isn't. Despite all the evidence to the contrary.

“Awkward much?” Lucy asks when no one's talked for a few minutes.

The radio is on but low, some classical, baroque, all-Vivaldi all-day BS station she's got on her presets. I tried fiddling with it on the way to school, but they're all adult-oriented anyway—smooth jazz and talk radio and that malt shop memories stuff Dad would listen to at his desk in the Cobia County Coroner's Office—so I just leave it alone.

“Sorry,” Dane says first, because I'm still too ticked at him to talk. To anyone. “I guess it's been a while since I've been around a Normal.”

She snorts in her dorky way, which makes me smile. She even drives dorky, all sitting up in the seat, two hands on the wheel, 10 and 2, looking left and right every few seconds even though we're
barely
moving. “First time anyone's called me normal all year, especially a boy.”

It falls flat, and that makes me even madder. “Sorry, Lucy,” I grunt. “It's not your fault. We've got baggage.”

Dane snorts and slumps some more. I don't know how. His knees are already pressed against the back of Lucy's seat as it is. If he slumps any lower, his kneecaps will be massaging her shoulder blades in no time.

“It's not about our baggage, Maddy. It's about bringing a Normal into this. No offense, Lacy.”

“Lucy,” we both correct him.

Then I say, “I didn't bring her into this, Dane.”

And she says, “I came to her.”

And we give each other a short Thelma-and-Louise you-go-girl nod. That is, before she turns away and looks out the windshield, as if we might do major damage going 2.67 miles per hour.

“Why?”

I turn around. “Who are you asking?”

He nods toward Lucy.

I nudge her gently. “He's talking to you.”

“Why what?” She gives him a glance in the rearview before quickly pinning her gaze to the back of the school bus in front of us.

“Why did you come to Maddy? What made you approach someone you thought could be a zombie in the first place? I'm just curious because, for most people, that would be a turnoff.”

“She's into it,” I answer for her, because I know that whole turnoff thing was a jab at me anyway. “Knows all about us. I mean, not us us, like you and me and Stamp, but reanimated persons in general.”

“It was also a bit of dumb luck,” she adds, as if I'm making her sound even worse than dorky. “I mean, of all the houses in Seagull Shores, she showed up next to mine.”

I look at her.

Dane looks at her.

I look back at Dane, shrug. “It was foreclosed. I thought it would be safe. Plus, it was like way late. Who knew she'd be up, staring out her bedroom window, the whole time?”