Page 110 of My Undead Love Life

Thankfully, there weren’t many.

By the time we reached the stairs leading up to the second-floor office space, my arms ached and my nerves felt frayed.

“Clear,” Mad said after the last one dropped.

We paused and listened. There was nothing but the sound of the distant storm.

We did one more sweep of the first floor, and then Mad nodded toward the stairs. “Let’s go up.”

The second floor was smaller. There were office rooms with broken glass, overturned desks, and scattered papers that crunched softly under our boots. Someone had taped a child’s drawing to one cubicle wall, the colors faded but still visible.

It was clear up here. There wasn’t a third floor, but one room on the second floor still had a door intact.

“We rest here,” Mad said, walking over to the stairs and hollering for Frank and Jan to come up, and we filed in.

Once everyone made it in, Luck and Frank dragged a heavy desk in front of the door while Oxi stood unmoving near the wall. Mad checked the windows, blocking what he could with whatever debris was nearby. Jan sank into a chair with a quiet, exhausted sound, her hands trembling in her lap.

“Body checks,” Mad said automatically as Luck turned a flashlight on.

Frank’s head snapped up. “Body checks?”

“We check for bites and scratches,” Mad said. “Everyone. No exceptions unless you want to risk it out of this room for the night. Your choice.”

Frank looked like he wanted to argue, but Jan touched his arm. “It’s reasonable. We’ll do it.”

There was nothing sexy about it this time. We were cold, shaken, grieving, and locked in a warehouse with two strangers after leaving a bitten girl and her mother behind in a firehouse. We stripped down in the freezing room, teeth chattering, and went through the motions quickly. Hands, arms, necks, sides, backs, and legs.

The guys checked Frank.

I checked Jan with as much gentleness as I could, trying not to make her feel exposed. She had bruises along one hip and an old scar across her thigh, but no bites or scratches.

Frank turned toward the wall while I was checked, and Jan turned when my guys were checked.

After, we dressed in our underwear beneath our layers of blankets and made a floor bed from what we could spare. Frank and Jan took the far side of the room, wrapped in their own coats and their own blankets. They looked like they wanted to disappear into the wall.

Oxi sat unmoving, staring at nothing. Snow still clung to his hair, melting slowly and dripping down his face like tears before the real ones started again.

“Oxi,” I murmured, wrapping my arms around his waist.

“I left her,” he whispered.

My chest tightened. “You didn’t⁠—”

“I left her,” he said again, louder now, his voice cracking open. “She was right there, Spencer. I could’ve…I should’ve—” His hands curled into fists, shaking. “I should’ve stayed.”

“She was dying, and we did what we had to,” I said gently. “To get home.”

“I don’t care!” he snapped.

I flinched, my arms dropping from around him.

The pain that crossed his face after he saw it nearly ruined me. “I don’t care,” he repeated, quieter now. “She was my sister.”

“I know,” I whispered.

I couldn’t imagine what he was going through right now. To finally reunite with his sister, only for her to have a death sentence in mere hours. To hear her say she believed him after years of hate and lies, then have to walk away before she stopped being herself.

“She believed me,” he whispered. “After everything…she finally believed me.” His breath hitched. “But I didn’t even get to fix it.”