Page 24 of My Undead Love Life

Mad had tried talking to her. So did I. Hell, even Oxi had attempted it, which was practically a miracle on its own. But none of that mattered. She didn’t hear us, or maybe it just didn’t register.

She just sat there, crying silently until exhaustion finally won out.

I knew why. The poor woman had finally succumbed to the pain of losing her boyfriend. And as much as I hated seeing it, part of me understood. She couldn't outrun her feelings forever. Grief always caught up and dragged you under. I learned the hard way that if you ever wanted to survive the pain of loss, you had to let it hurt.

As misplaced as the thought was, I had to admit to myself that this woman was beautiful. Her bright red hair spilled around her shoulders and across the concrete floor in tangled waves, streaked with strands of white that caught the candlelight. Tear tracks still glistened faintly against her cheeks. Her face was pale now, lashes stuck against her cheeks that were flushed from hours of crying.

She looked broken. And those huge brown eyes…every single time she'd looked at me since we'd met, they'd been drowning in fear and heartbreak.

I found myself wondering what they looked like when she was happy.

“We owe her our lives,” Mad whispered.

“Technically,” Oxi corrected without looking up from where he sat sharpening his cane sword, “we owe her man our lives.” The scrape of whetstone against steel whispered softly through the cramped closet in a steady rhythm.

Shhk.

Shhk.

Shhk.

It was soft enough that the zombies wouldn’t notice.

“But yeah,” he continued after a moment. “That means we gotta take care of her.”

“Of course we do.” I pushed myself off the sleeping bags with a tired grunt and crossed the small space toward her. My knees popped painfully from the movement. Everything hurt after today's run. “We owe it to him.”

The concrete floor felt freezing even through my clothes. Cold seeped through my knees the second I knelt beside her curled-up form.

Spencer had practically folded in on herself. Her arms wrapped around her middle, and her shoulders were hunched. Even unconscious, she looked miserable.

“Taking care of her,” I muttered, “means we can’t let her freeze to death tonight.”

“It’s not that cold,” Oxi scoffed immediately. “She might get sick, but not hypothermia-sick. Leave her be.”

I reached out and brushed a few strands of damp hair away from Spencer's face. Her cheek felt icy and damp beneath my fingertips, still wet from her tears. The skin should've felt warm. Instead, it felt like she'd been lying out in the snow instead of inside a subway tunnel. Even asleep, tiny tremors ran through her body.

“We are three random men,” Mad reasoned tiredly from the floor bed. “One of which already had to examine her naked body tonight. Leave her alone. She can use one of our sleeping bags.”

“Fuck that,” I hissed quietly. “I’m keeping her warm with us.”

Mad frowned immediately. “Luck⁠—”

“A sleeping bag won’t do shit with how cold she is.” I glanced back at him sharply. “Feel her.”

“Luck—”

“Jesus, Mad. Come feel her.”

Mad's expression changed the second he heard my tone. “You serious?”

I nodded. “Feel her cheek.”

With a heavy sigh, he pushed himself upright and crossed the room. The candlelight flickered across his face as he crouched beside me. Carefully, he reached out and touched Spencer’s cheek.

His eyebrows shot upward. “Fuck.”

“Yeah.”