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“I need to call Marcus again,” I said after a moment. “And Pietro. He needs to know.” I frowned. “Shit. I don’t have his number.”
“I know his number,” Ed said. Then he gave me a puzzled look. “But what does Pietro have to do with any of…” His expression abruptly shifted to one of shock. “Oh, my god. He’s a zombie too, isn’t he.”
“Yeah, he’s another Zombie Leader. I think Sofia was playing Kang and Pietro off each other. In fact,” I said, musing, “I bet it was Kang’s murder that started getting her all freaked out.” I considered this for a moment as I fought to get all the pieces to fit together. I was still missing something. “You’ve known Pietro a long time, haven’t you?”
His throat bobbed as he swallowed. “He and my parents were friends.”
A horrible suspicion came over me, but I didn’t want to say anything just yet. However, Ed wasn’t stupid.
“How long has he been a zombie?” His voice was calm, but I had the feeling that if he tightened his grip on the wheel any more it would crumble.
“Um, a pretty long time, as far as I know.” I watched him, wary. Dude was about to snap. “He’s the one who turned Marcus,” I continued. “Marcus got bit by a raccoon or something and got rabies.”
Surprise flashed over Ed’s face. “I remember that.” His shoulders slumped and his death grip on the steering wheel relaxed a fraction. “He…Marcus told me he got the shots in time.”
“He didn’t,” I said. “He didn’t know he was infected until he started to get symptoms. It didn’t even occur to him.”
Ed shuddered. He was medically trained and knew that it was almost always too late by that point.
“He was going to die,” I went on. “So Pietro…saved him the only way he could.”
Ed didn’t respond. He stared at the highway ahead as we drove. I didn’t ask him where we were going. Right now it didn’t really matter.
“He’s the one who killed my dad,” he finally said in a voice so raw it made me shiver.
I didn’t ask him if was sure. He was. I could see that. His eyes were on the road, but memories flickered behind them.
“He killed my dad,” he repeated. “But not my mom.” His throat bobbed again as he swallowed hard. “He loved her.” His voice broke on that, and then it was as if the dam opened up. He began to sob, and I quickly put out a hand and took hold of the steering wheel. To my relief he slowed down, retaining enough control of himself to pull over to the side of the road and put the truck in park before completely breaking down.>The world leapt into green and black focus, just like in the movies. “These are so cool,” I breathed.
“Can you shoot a gun?” he asked.
“I’m not a great shot or anything, but I know which end to point at the bad guys,” I replied.
“Good enough.” He pressed the butt of a pistol into my hand. I couldn’t see details with the goggles on, but it wasn’t a very large gun. Some kind of automatic. Bigger than a .22 but smaller than a .45. And that was about the extent of my gun knowledge.
He began moving through the trees, and I followed, doing my best to be quiet but certain that we sounded like a pair of rampaging elephants. It probably took us close to fifteen minutes to get through the stretch of woods, part of which was a swampy section that we had to wade through, soaking us to our knees. I kept scanning but didn’t see anyone lurking in the woods lying in wait.
We dropped to the ground a few feet from the other edge of the woods and watched the house for several minutes. Finally Ed turned to me and pulled his goggles off. “Too much light around the house for night-vision now,” he said in a barely audible voice. I quickly tugged mine off, then had to blink a few times to get used to normal vision again.
“I don’t see anyone,” I said, doing my best to match his low volume.
“Me neither.”
I took a deep breath. “I don’t smell anyone either.”
He shot me an uncertain look. I shrugged and smiled sweetly.
“Uh, okay,” he muttered. “Well, I think we should go for it.”
We shifted into crouches, then moved quickly through the back yard and pressed ourselves up against the house. I edged to the door and started to reach for the handle, but Ed grabbed my arm before I could touch it.
“No gloves,” he hissed, giving my hand a pointed look. I winced. Oh, yeah. Probably best not to leave fingerprints.
But he didn’t release my arm. “Look at the door frame,” he said.
I followed his gaze, cold settling into my gut at the scrape marks around the lock.
“Lock is broken,” he whispered, grim expression coming over his face. He gave the backyard another quick scan, then—since he did have gloves on—gently tugged the back door open.
