Page 48 of Grave Danger

“I’m okay. Help me up.”

“Yeah, okay. Slowly. Take it slow.”

Cody let him lean back against him as Demetrius sat up. They waited for a bit, Demetrius staring at the body lying beside him. That had been a very, very close call.

“Who is he?” Demetrius asked.

“No idea. But from the looks of him, he isn’t someone who was recently buried. Think you can stand up?”

Demetrius was enjoying the warmth and solid feel of Cody’s chest against his back, but he nodded. “Yeah.”

They got to their feet, and Cody held onto Demetrius’s elbow as they looked down at the body.

“He was eating a rat by the dumpster when I came out the door. It happened really fast.” Demetrius looked up at Cody. “What did you hit him with?”

“That rock we use to prop the backdoor open.”

“Thank God for that, eh?”

“Absolutely.” Cody gestured to the bloodstained rock lying by the body. “I think we’ll probably want to get a new one. That one’s covered in zombie blood.”

Demetrius snorted a laugh, and a shaky warmth chased the cold feeling from his limbs. “Probably.”

“Let’s get you inside and cleaned up a bit.” Cody started leading him toward the back door. “I’m calling Lucia.”

“Yeah, she needs to see this.”

The back door had locked when it shut behind Cody, so they were forced to walk around the building to the front. Once back inside the office, Cody took photos of the blood splattered across Demetrius’s front before he went in the bathroom and scrubbed his face and hands multiple times. He heard Cody’s angry tone as he got on the phone with Lucia, but couldn’t make out the words. Cody stomped back and forth along the hallway outside the door, and when Demetrius finally emerged from the bathroom, he saw the back door propped open. He stepped outside and saw Cody had moved the door rock back to prop the door open, and had covered the body with a tarp from one of their trucks.

“Did you touch the rock to get it back here?” Demetrius asked as Cody approached.

Without saying a word, Cody pulled Demetrius hard against him, arms tight around him. Demetrius closed his eyes and hugged him back, his body soaking in the heat from Cody’s and taking comfort in the familiar smell and feel of him.

“I thought I’d lost you,” Cody whispered. “I thought he’d bit you.”

“I’m okay. I’m dirty and sore and smell awful, but I’m okay.”

Cody pulled back a bit and kissed him softly. “And no, I didn’t touch the rock. I kicked it back into place. I’ll probably have a bruise.”

A siren approached, and Cody looked over Demetrius’s head toward the front door, his expression stony. “The calvary is here. Late again, as usual.”

“She’s got to believe you now.”

“We’ve said that before,” Cody said.

“True.”

Demetrius turned to the front of their office and watched Lucia and Deputy Ryan Zellmer stride in the door, hands on the butts of their weapons.

“Back here,” Cody called. “You’re going to love this.”

“I asked you to come out to Route 118,” Lucia said, lip curling up in a snarl as she stomped toward them. “I did not mean for you to summon us here. I suggest you call your co-worker.”

A chill went up Demetrius’s back. “Jugs? Is he all right?”

“He’s at the hospital, which you would have known if you would have come out as I requested.”

“I’m sorry we didn’t rush right over. We had a situation of our own here.” Cody stepped back and waved them out the back door.