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To my annoyance, my call to him rang four times then went to voicemail. After the beep I left a message that was somewhat vague about how his uncle had gone on an “unexpected trip” and that he really needed to call me as soon as possible. My shoulders sagged as the weight of the entire screwed up day finally came crashing in. Back in my old, pre-zombie life, I’d have popped a couple of Percocet or Xanax to take the edge off and make the bad shit seem not so bad. Those sort of meds didn’t work on me anymore, but every now and then there was a tiny part of me that wished they did. Not that I wanted to go back to being a druggie—hell no!—but having the parasite also meant that I couldn’t use legitimately prescribed meds for anxiety or insomnia or anything like that. Yet, at the end of the day, I had to admit it was better that none of that shit affected me anymore, thanks to my parasite. It had sure made kicking the habit easy.
Some nice, fresh brain would help take my mind off our crappy situation. I fished the brain out of the duffel, cut it into manageable pieces and divvied them up. Philip and I chowed down as he drove, while Naomi fed chunks to Kyle.
Philip slid a look at me. “Don’t overdo it,” he warned. “We need you fully alert.”
“Oberwoo?” I asked around a mouthful of brains.
“Tanking up puts you at your peak of zombie senses and abilities with no consequences,” he explained. “Over-tank and you’ll get a Super Zombie feeling, but then you’ll crash as your parasite utilizes excess resources.”
“Oh.” No wonder I always needed a nap after sucking down a big load of brains when I wasn’t Hungry, hurt, or super active. I’d always figured it was the same as the human desire to sleep after a big meal. I swallowed the bite and gave him a smile. “I’m good,” I assured him. Okay, maybe I was a teensy bit over-tanked. Reluctantly, I dropped the remaining two chunks of brain back in the baggie and passed it back to Naomi. After being hit with three tranqs, Kyle could probably use the extra.
We rode in silence for another fifteen minutes or so before we pulled into the deserted gravel parking area by the river and the spillway.
“Now what?” I asked after Philip killed the engine.
Kyle made a low noise in his throat. “Kill me . . . or free me.”
“No one is killing anyone,” Naomi snapped. Philip pulled a phone from his jacket pocket and started flicking through the pictures.
I gave Kyle a baffled look. “Why the hell would we kill you?”
“It’s what happens to traitors,” he said, voice almost back to normal. “Right, Philip?”
Philip didn’t respond and simply continued looking through the pictures on the phone. Raul’s phone, I realized. Naomi had gone very still, barely seeming to breathe.
“Are you a traitor?” I asked Kyle, uneasy and unsettled at the tension in the car.
“No,” he replied evenly. “But my opinion isn’t the one that counts.”
“Well, then stop talking about us killing you,” I said sharply.
Philip turned in his seat and held the phone so that Kyle could see the picture on it. The one with K Y drawn in the dirt by Chris. “What do you think?”
Kyle’s eyes went flat as he looked at the pic. “I appear to be a traitor,” he replied.
Philip didn’t move. “The physical evidence points that way. The code leak points that way.” His focus remained on Kyle, and I had a feeling he was weighing Kyle’s reactions against my earlier argument in his favor.
“It’s a setup!” Naomi cried. “Kyle didn’t do this.”
“Naomi,” I said through gritted teeth as I watched the two men, “would you please be quiet for a few minutes?”
She drew back, as stung as if I’d told her to shut the fuck up, but she remained silent.
“Everything points to it,” Kyle agreed, and for the first time I heard the tension in his voice. “I’m not the insider, but I have nothing other than my word.”
My utter hatred of this entire scenario rose to unbearable levels. “Philip, can I talk to you a sec?” Before he could reply I swung my attention to Naomi. “And can you please promise to chill and not do anything outrageous and, well, Angel-like until I finish talking to Philip?”
She folded her arms over her chest and stuck her chin out. “For now.”
I waited until I was out of the car before rolling my eyes at her reaction. To my relief Philip stepped out and joined me about twenty feet from the car.
“What do
you really think?” I asked him, voice low.
He grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck. “It looks bad,” he admitted. “But what stops me is that Peterson wasn’t dead. Kyle isn’t sloppy or careless.”
“That bugged me too,” I said, nodding. “It fucking points to him, hard. Too hard. If Saberton wanted to really fuck us up, this was a perfect way to it.”
