“Weren’t they common humans, like me?”
He answered without hesitation. “Yes.”
“Then why didn’t they look surprised when Riley announced you were a vampire?”
His mouth opened, then closed and stayed that way for a long while. By the time he finally responded, they weren’t too far away from their neighborhood and Cloverleaf Drive, where they’d begun their journey.
“I don’t know,” he said at last, each word emerging slowly. “But that’s an excellent question, Edie.”
15
After the First Breach, the government had built an extra line of defense between the zombies’ underground compound and the settlements in Zone A. As Edie recalled, patching Wall One had taken the assigned workers only a few days, but digging the new wide, deep moat between the wall and those settlements had required weeks of noisy construction. Filling the finished barrier with sufficient water had demanded even more effort from the workers.
Numb and cold and lost, she’d walked over to watch them labor every morning.
One particular task hadn’t taken them any time at all, though: building a bridge. Because there wasn’t one. No one and nothing was meant to cross that moat. Not troops or officials, not tourists, and certainly not zombies.
And yet. Here Edie and Max were, staring at the moat. Staring at a makeshift bridge.
The rickety-looking wooden structure stretched from a ragged hole in that first, crucial wall all the way across the water and to the other side. To Zone A. To the place where they lived.
Someonehad built that crossing of destruction, and that someone wasn’t a zombie.
Apparently the government did still post a couple of guards to watch for trouble outside the compound, at least occasionally, because she couldn’t stop staring at them either. At least, not until Max stepped between her and their butchered, headless bodies, cupped her face, and turned it his way.
His voice was soft and tender. “Why don’t you stay in the SUV, ma puce?”
Blinking hard, she shook her head.
“I already know you’re brave to the point of foolishness.” His thumbs stroked her cheeks. “You have nothing to prove, my Edie. Nothing to gain by upsetting yourself.”
“I might notice something you don’t.” Suddenly exhausted beyond belief, she waved a hand as Max began to reply. “Yes, yes, I know all about yourinherent superiorityto humans and our paltry sensory capabilities, but I’m just as smart as you are, and I’m observant. I might see a clue you’d overlook on your own or think of a crucial bit of evidence to check.”
She wasn’t wrong. He knew it. She knew he knew it.
His jaw worked. “Very well.”
Mouth drawn into a grim line, he released her face, stepped aside, and let her study the scene however she wanted.
It wasn’t the worst thing she’d ever witnessed. But it would probably still live in her nightmares for months or years to come.
“I don’t understand.” Before speaking again, she had to swallow down the sour taste rising in the back of her throat. “I scout this area at least once a week, so I’d know if there were guards stationed at Wall One all the time. Did they make their rounds here so infrequently that I just didn’t notice them?”
Sharp eyes still scanning the scene, he lifted one hand and gently rubbed the back of her neck again. “Since I moved to Cloverleaf Drive, I’ve seen no evidence of guards posted at this site. My sources haven’t mentioned any regular presence at Wall One either.”
“Why were they here, then?” Without dislodging his hand, she turned her head to look at him. “Did the government hear rumors of a possible breach attempt and send these people to keep watch?”
“I don’t know.” For a moment, the burden of untold centuries seemed to engrave itself upon his features, and he no longer looked smug or even confident. Simply…tired. “I also don’t comprehend how a swarm of officials didn’t descend on this spot long before now, immediately after they lost contact with the guards.”
Reaching up, she caught his hand in hers, tugged it down from her neck, and entwined their fingers. “I’d think their families would have reported them missing too. Or maybe their shifts normally lasted several days, and they weren’t expected home yet?”
Somehow, the thought of the guards’ families going about their daily lives, happily unaware that their loved ones had already died days ago, broke her heart into yet more pieces.
Her next inhalation hitched, and his grip on her fingers tightened. His thumb stroked over the back of her hand slowly. Soothingly.
“I don’t know,” he repeated, the exhaustion in his tone hardening to stony determination. “But I intend to find out.”
She allowed that resolve, that self-assured conviction, to soak into her bones. To draw her shoulders straighter and stiffen her spine. “Weintend to find out.”
