Cassie stepped up between them, charge baton crackling in her hand.
“Good,” she said, though her voice shook.“BecauseIamnotbeing left on zombie planet with either one of you idiots.”
Ravik barked out a laugh.
Then theInfectedcame over the platform rail in a wave.
48
CASSIE
Cassie had always wondered what her last thought would be.
She had hoped it would be something meaningful, like how much she loved her family or how grateful she was for the good parts of her life.Shehad imagined, in a vague and distant way, that if death ever came for her, she would have some kind of peaceful moment of clarity…some noble final realization…some shining truth.
Instead, as theInfectedcame crawling over the platform rail with their milky white eyes and snapping black-red jaws, all she could think was,
Well, this is it.Thisis howIdie—as a zombie snack.
Honestly, it figured.Thiswas how her life was going lately—why should her death be any different?
Ravik andSeverinclosed ranks in front of her without a word.Onesecond they had been standing on either side of her, all anger and bruised feelings and unresolved male bullshit, and the next they were shoulder to shoulder like they had been fighting together their entire lives.
Which,Cassiesupposed, they had.
Ravik swung his shock blade in a wide, brutal arc, cutting down the firstInfectedthat lunged at them.Severinfired his plasma pistol with cold precision, each blue-white bolt taking anInfectedin the head or throat or chest.Cassiestood just behind them with the charge baton gripped in both hands, her heart hammering so hard she could feel it in her teeth.
The creatures just kept coming.
They climbed over each other, clawing at the metal platform, their longVisskousfingers digging into the grating as though pain meant nothing to them.
Maybe it didn’t, she thought.Severalof them were missing pieces—one had no lower jaw, another dragged a shattered leg, and another had a hole burned through its chest but still kept crawling.Theirmouths clicked and snapped and hissed, and the smell of them was so awful thatCassiehad to swallow hard to keep from gagging.
Ravik kicked one in the face and sent it flying backward into the mass below.
Severin shot another before it could sink its teeth intoRavik’scalf.
Cassie shocked a clawed hand that reached between the two males and grabbed for her ankle.Thebaton crackled, blue energy flashing, and theInfectedshrieked as it lost its grip and fell away.Forone wild second, she felt almost proud of herself.
Then three more came over the rail and her pride disappeared to be replaced by dread.Therewere justtoo manyof them.
“OhGod,” she whispered, her voice small and squeezed.
Ravik heard her, though.Evenwith the shrieks and the metal groaning and the horrible wet clicking of theInfected, he heard her.
“Stay behind us!”he roared.
“I’m trying!”Cassieshouted back.“Thereare a lot of them!”
Too many, she almost added, but swallowed the words before they could come out.
Severin’s pistol made an ugly sputtering sound andCassiesaw his face change.
“That sounded bad,” she said.
“Power cell is nearly drained,” he said, firing again anyway.Thebolt took anInfectedthrough the eye, but the glow at the end of the pistol flickered weakly afterward.
“Please tell me you brought extras,”Cassiesaid, though she already knew the answer from the look on his face.
