“They’re close,” he said abruptly. “I can hear them. Come with me.”
She heard zilch. “No, really, I can—”
The next thing she knew, he was dragging her back up the steps, across the sagging porch, and through his front door, her wrist caught in his painless but inexorable grip. He flipped over a faded rug in the hall and opened a discreet hatch in the floor. A wide metal ladder descending into an inky void suddenly appeared at their feet.
“Down,” he ordered. When she hesitated, his tone turned biting. “I’m waiting, human. Dither much longer and we’ll both die.”
He could have torn out her heart a hundred times by now if that were his goal. Then again, perhaps he simply preferred murdering at a more leisurely pace. Like the homicidal equivalent of the Slow Food movement.
Whatever. Either of the two zombies would have killed her if he hadn’t intervened. She was willing to gamble that his intentions were good, or at least good enough for now.
Once she began clambering onto the ladder, he reached out to steady her, his grasp light and careful on her hips, her shoulders. “When I close and secure the hatch behind us, it’ll be completely dark. Keep hold and keep descending.”
Fantastic.
She began climbing down. He maneuvered onto the ladder above her, then reached for the hatch. Her palms turned damp, and she grasped the sturdy metal rungs tighter.
Thud. Thump. Click. Click. Screech.
The hatch was closed now. Closed and locked.
Absolute blackness, as advertised. She might have been in a cave, miles underground. She might have been in a coffin, buried alive.
Her chest tightened, and she couldn’t seem to slow her breathing.
She halted on the ladder.
What had she done? Why had she let herself be locked into a godsdamned tomb with someone who could tear out her heart with a single thrust of his hand and twist of his wrist? And why had she done so based on his claim that he heard zombies when she hadn’t heard a thing?
“Human?”
She gulped for air.
“Edie.” Before her next rushed, rasping breath, he somehow managed to climb over her until he was leading the way down the ladder, a rung or two below her. He shingled his body atop hers, using it to brace her from the shoulders down. “Edie, listen.”
The ladder was wide enough that he could grasp it on either side of her waist, and his hard belly pressed against her ass. For all intents and purposes, he was holding her in his arms.
Her brain promptly blue-screened. Her anxious thoughts sank beneath a tide of sheer physical awareness and pleasure, even as the chill of his half-clad frame, its solid support behind her, helped her breathe more easily.
Damn, she thought dimly. If she’d known he felt this good wrapped around her, she might have lured Bro Chad to her house withGrand Theft Autoand a bong freakin’yearsago.
“Listen,” he repeated, and her synapses began firing again at the insistence in his tone. “What do you hear?”
Then she caught it too. A few feet higher, through a single locked hatch…
Faint scratches. Grunts. Shuffling.
The half-forgotten sounds came from above this time rather than below. Still, they made her shudder. He hitched tighter against her, keeping her pinned to the ladder.
Dammit, he was right. This go-round, she wouldn’t have made it to her attic in time.
With his superior hearing and because of his insistence that she accompany him to his own shelter, he’d saved her life. Again. Which she was thankful for, obviously, but also found somewhat irritating since she’d initiated this entire delightful encounter for the sole purpose of savinghim.
When she swallowed, her spit tasted metallic. “You’re sure they can’t get in?”
What if the zombies had somehow evolved after the First Breach and broken through Wall One without outside assistance? The compound no longer had any real oversight or governmental presence. How would anyone even know?
“Yes.” When she didn’t resume her descent, he elaborated. “There are still a few functional cameras within the compound. They’re monitored at all times, and nothing has changed. The creatures can’t use even simple hand tools. Penetrating my hatch would require explosives.”
