Despite his impatience, his hand—planted between hershoulder blades, hurrying her toward his bedroom and down the hall—wasn’t rough or hurtful. When they reached the door at the end, he unearthed a small key. With a twist of his wrist and a quietclick, a library of sorts opened to them both, softly lit by stained glass lamps and decorated in blues and ornately carved honey-toned woods.Old-fashionedwas one word that came to mind.Cozyandwarmwere others. The room’s aesthetic emphatically rejected the minimalism and modernity of the rest of Max’s home.
And he’d locked it away from her.
All his other doors had remained open, both last night and this morning. She’d had ready access to that godsforsaken ladder too, which meant he hadn’t been preventing an escape. So what about this room in particular made him unwilling to allow scrutiny?
He strode across the room to reach for a thick book on a tall shelf. Something gave a decisive, muffledthunk, and the entire wall opened to reveal an elevator.
It was undeniably awesome. Like something from a movie. Also very over-the-top.
“Drama king,” she murmured.
The narrow elevator car was lit by an intricate crystal chandelier, paneled with satiny stretches of wood, and carpeted thickly. It was also clearly meant to be a one-man—one-vampire—elevator. She stepped in anyway, curious as to whether he’d try to make the cramped space fit both of them. After entering a code on a discreet electronic panel, he half turned away from her and grabbed something small, round, and silver from a desk drawer, then shoved the object into a hoodie pocket before she could see exactly what it was.
When he squeezed into the elevator car beside her, there was no way to avoid contact. Either they plastered themselves against each other, or the door wouldn’t close. Surrendering to the inevitable, she simply blew out a breath, looped her arms around his waist, and leaned into him. His entire body stiffened in her loose embrace, then gradually relaxed again.
The door closed, and the elevator began its slow ascent. She huddled closer to him.
After a few seconds, one strong hand settled on the small of her back. The other alighted on the nape of her neck and squeezed lightly.
“Claustrophobic?” he asked, his voice low and gentle.
When she shook her head, her hair rubbed against his leather-clad shoulder. “Zombie-phobic.”
“I see.” Something nudged the top of her head. His chin? His mouth? “Based on what I saw last night, I wouldn’t have guessed that.”
“I didn’t have time to think.”I didn’t have time to remember. “Now I do.”
The relative chill of his body seeped through his clothing and calmed her. She tended to run hot, and this hug was like cuddling up against a cool breeze made flesh. A cool breeze that filled her lungs with the scent of eucalyptus and apparently worked out quite a bit. Like,a lot.
They rested in each other’s arms, his hand slowly sliding up and down her spine. The scent and feel of him dizzied her in the best possible way. Comforted her.
If it was her last hug on this earth, it was a good one.
“We don’t have to go, Edie. One push of a button, and we can—”
“I have to go.” She nuzzled her cheek against his chest, gathering strength from the soothing contact. “You don’t, but I do.”
He sighed, still stroking her back. “Very well.”
“You’re sure you want to do this?” she asked one final time, for the sake of her smarting conscience.
“I’m sure.”
When the elevator halted and its door opened, he dropped his arms with another sigh, squeezed her behind him, and exited first. Another hidden mechanism let them into a part of his aboveground home she’d never seen, full of splintered furniture and other signs of thwarted, hungry rage.
He led the way to the broken front door and scanned their surroundings before stepping outside. She inhaled deeply and looked around too.
The sun was bright that morning, and she squinted a bit, her breath fogging in the frigid winter air. “I don’t see any—”
And, of course, that was when two zombies leapt onto the porch and lunged toward her and Max.
7
Two against two. The odds could have been worse, Edie supposed.
One of the creatures, she was leaving entirely to Max, but he couldn’t fight both at once. And he didn’t need to, because the other zombie had clearly chosen her as its prey.
She managed to dive to one side, avoiding its first fatal leap and snapping jaws. As it whipped around, recovering its balance and pinpointing her new location, she wrenched her cell from the pocket of her coveralls, jacked up the volume to max, yelled out a voice command, and tossed it halfway across the lawn onto a small patch of snow.
