“Yeah, I saw—” I hadn’t seen his face. Biting down on my lip, I glanced down the hall. Students piled out of the cafeteria, pushing into one another, laughing. I swallowed. “I didn’t see his face.”
He let out a long breath. “Okay. What did you see?”
“A hat—a trucker hat.” God, that sounded lame. “That had a surfboard on it. And I saw his hand…” And that sounded even worse.
His brows arched up. “So, let me get this right. You saw a hat and a hand?”
“Yeah.” I sighed, shoulders slumping.
Daemon smoothed out his expression and placed a heavy arm around my shoulder. “Are you really sure it was him? Because if not, that’s okay. You’ve been under a lot of stress.”
I wrinkled my nose. “I remember you saying something like that to me before. You know, when you were trying to hide what you were from me. Yeah, I remember that.”
“Now, Kitten, you know this is different.” He squeezed my shoulders. “Are you sure, Kat? I don’t want to get everyone freaking out if you’re not sure.”
What I’d experienced was more of a feeling than a true sighting of Blake. God knew that a ton of boys around here broke the dress code with atrocities such as trucker hats. The thing was, I hadn’t seen his face and looking back, I couldn’t be 100 percent sure it had been Blake.
I looked into Daemon’s bright gaze and felt my cheeks burn. There wasn’t judgment in his eyes. More like sympathy. He thought I was cracking under the pressure of everything. Maybe I was imagining stuff.
“I’m not sure,” I said finally, casting my eyes down.
And those words soured in my stomach.
…
Later that night, Daemon and I did babysitting duty. Although Dawson had promised not to do his own search-and-rescue mission, I knew Daemon wasn’t comfortable leaving him alone and Dee wanted to get out tonight, go to the movies or something.
I wasn’t invited.
Instead, I was sitting in between Daemon and Dawson, four hours into a George Romero zombiethon, with a bowl of popcorn in my lap and a notebook resting against my chest. We’d been making plans to look for Beth, getting as far as listing the two places that we knew to check before deciding to do surveillance this weekend to see what kind of security they had going on now. By the start of
And I was having fun.
“I had no idea you were a zombie fan.” Daemon grabbed a handful of popcorn. “What is it—the blood and guts or the in-your-face social undertones?”
I laughed. “Mostly the blood and guts.”
“That’s so un-girlie of you,” Daemon commented, brows knitting as a zombie started to use its meat cleaver to break through a wall. “I don’t know about this. How many hours do we have left?”
Dawson raised his arm and two DVDs shot into his hand. “Uh, we have
“Great,” Daemon muttered.
I rolled my eyes. “Wussy.”
“Whatever.” He elbowed me, knocking a kernel of popcorn between my chest and notebook. I sighed. “Want me to get that for you?” he asked.
Shooting him a look, I dug it out and then tossed it in his face. “You’re going to be grateful when the zombie apocalypse occurs and I know what to do because of my zombie fetish.”
He looked doubtful. “There are better fetishes out there, Kitten. I could show you a few.”
“Uh, no, thank you.” But I did flush. And there were a lot of images that suddenly polluted my brain.
“Aren’t you supposed to go to the nearest Costco or something?” Dawson asked, letting the DVDs float back to the coffee table.
Daemon turned to his twin slowly, face incredulous. “And how would you know that?”
He shrugged. “It’s in the
“It is.” I nodded eagerly. “Costco has everything—thick walls, food, and supplies. They even sell guns and ammunition. You could hole up there for years while the zombies are getting their nom nom on.”
Daemon’s mouth dropped open.
“What?” I grinned. “Zombies got to eat, too, you know.”
“Very true about the Costco thing.” Dawson picked up a single kernel and popped it in his mouth. “But we could just blast the zombies. We’d be fine.”
“Ah, good point.” I rooted around in the bowl for a half-popped kernel—my favorite.
“I’m surrounded by freaks,” Daemon said, looking dumbfounded as he shook his head, but I knew he was secretly thrilled.
For one thing, his body was completely relaxed next to mine and this was one of the first times that Dawson was acting…normal. Yeah, talking about zombies probably wasn’t the biggest step known to mankind, but it was something.
On the flat screen, a zombie took a chunk out of some dude’s arm. “What the hell?” Daemon complained. “The guy just stood there. Hello. There’re zombies everywhere. Try looking behind you, douche canoe.”
I giggled.
“This is why zombie movies are unbelievable to me,” he went on. “Okay. Say the world ends in a shit storm of zombies. The last thing anyone with two working brain cells would do is just stand along a building waiting for a zombie to creep up on him.”
Dawson cracked a smile.
“Shut up and watch the movie,” I said.
He ignored that. “So you really think you’d do well in a zombie apocalypse?”
“Yeppers,” I said. “I’d totally save your butt.”
“Oh, really?” He glanced at the screen. Then he faded out and something…something else replaced him.
Shrieking, I jerked into Dawson. “Oh my God…”
Daemon’s skin was ghastly gray and hanging loose from his face. Patches of decaying brown skin covered his cheekbones. One of his eyes was just…a hole. The other was glazed over and milky white. Clumps of hair were missing.
Zombie Daemon gave a rotted, toothy grin. “Save my butt? Yeah, I don’t think so.”
I could only stare.
Dawson actually laughed. Not sure what was more shocking: that or the zombie sitting next to me.
His form faded out and then he was back—beautiful, carved cheekbones and head full of hair. Thank God. “I think you’d suck at the zombie apocalypse,” he said.
“You…you are disturbed,” I murmured, carefully settling down next to him.
With a smug grin, he reached for the bowl and came up empty. Some of it might have been on the floor. Feeling eyes on me, I glanced at Dawson.
He was staring at us, but I wasn’t sure if he was even seeing us. There was a reminiscent expression in his eyes, tainted with sadness and something else. Determination? I didn’t really know, but for a second, the green hue brightened, no longer dull and listless, and he looked so much like Daemon that I drew in a shallow breath.
Then he gave his head a little shake and looked away.
I glanced at Daemon and I knew he’d noticed. He shrugged. “Anyone want more popcorn?” he asked. “We have food coloring. I can make it red for you.”
“More popcorn but minus the food coloring, please.” When he grabbed the bowl and stood, I caught him sneaking a relieved glance at his brother. “Want me to pause the movie?”
His look told me no and I giggled again. Daemon sauntered out of the room, stopping at the door when the zombies crested the water. Then he shook his head again and left. He wasn’t fooling me.
“I think he secretly enjoys zombie movies,” Dawson said, glancing at me.
I smiled at him. “I was just thinking the same thing. He has to, since he’s all into ghost stuff.”
