Page 134 of My Undead Love Life

Keith’s voice came quietly from behind her. “There you go.”

I opened my eyes and looked at him.

“The four of us will take care of her,” Keith said. “And we’ll take care of each other. We’ll make it work.”

Luck nodded slowly. “Yeah. I can do that.”

“Sounds good,” Mad said, giving a short, approving tilt of his head.

I looked at Spencer again. Her eyes were still on me.

“…Yeah,” I said, my voice quieter than I meant it to be. “I’d like that.”

Keith nodded. “Good. You’re all part of this now.”

Luck tripped as he tried to pull his pants off the rest of the way. “This being…?”

Keith looked down at Spencer, then at the rest of us. “Our family,” he said simply.

My heart pounded against my ribs at the mere mention of the word family. Family had always been a dangerous word to me. But this didn’t feel like danger. This felt like everything I’d ever wanted. It reminded me of Olivia’s words before we left. You have a real family now. Pain moved through me at the memory, but for the first time, it didn’t stand alone. Love was there, too.

Spencer tugged me closer again, and I let myself lie beside her. Keith kept his arm around her. She kept her hand in mine. Luck settled on the other side with a soft grunt, and Mad took his place beside Keith.

Wherever Spencer was would be my home. I had known that already. But I hadn’t realized that I’d grown to see her and the guys as my family until now. It finally felt like I would do more than just survive in this world.

24

LUCK

Iwas on the first floor of the warehouse when I heard a faint static sound.

At first, I thought it was the wind slipping through one of the broken windows again. The whole building had been making weirder noises since the storm started to ease. Snow slid in heavy sheets from the roof and hit the ground outside with soft, muffled thumps.

But this was different.

Ssshhk.

I turned slowly, scanning the area. There was nothing out of the ordinary. Only static.

Ssshhk.

“…watch the eastern routes…movement reported near the station⁠—”

My stomach tightened. A voice. An actual voice.

I moved toward the sound carefully, my boots quiet against the concrete. The first floor smelled like dust, rust, old cardboard, and blood. No matter what we did, I could still smell the leopards. Their bodies were covered now, dragged away from the stairs and shoved beneath a tarp, but covering something didn’t make it disappear. Neither did closing a door.

The office upstairs where Frank and Jan died was blocked off now. We had covered them, shut what was left of the door, and shoved a filing cabinet in front of it. It was the best we could do in the middle of a storm with infected animals still somewhere outside. But I kept thinking about it. It was fucked up.

The static grew clearer near a pile of overturned crates in a far corner. A thin beam of gray sunlight pushed through a dirty window, landing directly on something small and black sitting on the concrete.

A radio. Solar powered and crank powered. It was old and scratched to hell. One corner cracked like someone had dropped it from a roof. But the small green light blinking on the front told me it was working.

“…blessed hunters, stay vigilant…the blessed beasts are restless tonight…”

I crouched beside it, my pulse picking up.

Blessed beasts? Nope. I did not like that.