Waking Up Dead

“Come on.” It was Pete, his gruff voice so close to her as he reached out to lift her up, his knees bent.

Jackson didn’t even think. She moved swiftly, with the deadly accuracy that had kept her alive for more time than she could even fathom. The accuracy that had been there from the very beginning, it and the strength, almost like she’d been given the good parts of the zombies, but never the bad.

Almost like she’d been a little bit of them all along.

A flick and a turn and she smacked Pete in the nose, hard. He reeled back, hitting the floor straight on his ass.

Mandy was there, right there next to the obese zombie and Jackson reached across to grab her, the effort making everywhere throb, but in a distant sort of way, as though she was already past even that. Pete staggered up just as Jackson stood, her knee almost failing her.

“Don’t do it,” he roared. “You won’t be able to come back! Don’t!”

But he didn’t even realize, did he? She had no intention of coming back. And so Jackson lifted her arms high, tears filling her eyes, blurring her vision, taking away every single little bit of herself that she had left.

“I love you,” she whispered and then Jackson moved to bring the blade down.

Chapter Thirty-nine

The blade stopped a mere two inches from his head, and Luke’s eyes widened on it, the metal glinting, the gore quivering off it.

A strangled cry. “Luke?” and then the blade was no more and a body crumpled against his. “Oh my God it’s you.”

Everywhere hurt, every single cell within him, but he was him and he knew her and that meant only one thing.

“I’m not…”

Sebastian rushed into his vision, and the doctor was there pulling and poking and prodding before a grin creased his face. “No. You’re okay. Damn it to hell, Luke. You’re okay!” He injected another needle before Jackson could stop him. “Pain relief,” he said. “That’s all.”

“He’s okay. He’s okay.” Jackson chanted the words across him, her hands running up and down, up and down, not even noticing what Sebastian was up to.

Liquid cool raced through Luke’s veins. The pain started to recede. “I’m not one of them. Fucking hell…”

“You’re you,” she whispered. “Just you.”

“You were going to behead me,” he said, the image of Mandy’s blade dancing through his mind.

“Yes.” She planted a kiss on his cheek. “I’d never let anyone else. Just like you’d do it for me. How could I watch someone else remove your head? No, it would be wrong.”

“But you didn’t,” he said and he couldn’t even feel the burn on his shoulder anymore. “Why?”

“I saw your eyes,” she said, and he couldn’t help but notice that her eyes were ever so slightly crazed. What else was new?

“My eyes?”

“The blue,” she said. “The you. And no zombie could ever look like that. Of course it was you. You’re just really lucky that I realized in time and that I’m so weak right now. If that’d been a full-on swing, I wouldn’t have been able to stop.”

“Come here.” Luke raised his good arm and wrapped it around her. She sort of collapsed even further against him and he swallowed unsteadily. How close it had been and how fucked-up that he totally got what she meant? That yes, in the end, perhaps their love in this world came down to things like that. To being willing to take off the head of your other half because it was the right thing to do.

“I shouldn’t have made Pete pull you away,” he said slowly. “It was wrong to take the choice from you. I just worried that you wouldn’t be able to come back from it.”

“Well I wouldn’t have,” she said. “But it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. I was only ever going to be a step behind you.”

“Jack…” he whispered. “Don’t talk like that.”

“It is what it is,” she said. “But, Christ, I never want to have to make that choice again.”

“I never want to make it at all,” Luke said. “Never.”

He pulled her closer, holding tight, and all at once he knew that no matter what they did from here on in, it would be together. Beheading and all.

“I love you,” Luke whispered and he felt her smile against him.

“Love you too, baby.”

Their lips touched briefly and maybe if he wasn’t exhausted, and she wasn’t still dripping blood, everything would have dissolved in a haze around them…a haze that had the distinct smell of something…but this wasn’t a romance novel and with their combined wounds all they could do was slump against one another, relief filling them both.

When they finally pulled back slightly Jackson looked up into Luke’s eyes, and he into hers. Those perfect green eyes which would be his forever now—zombies or not, and vice versa, and then she smiled, and he knew he’d never forget the sight of her blood-splattered face, filled with relief and love, not to mention the jagged cut.

Not now.

Not when he was an old man reminiscing about the past.

Not ever.

Not until the end.

“You look kinda crazy,” he said and she laughed, shaking slightly.

“Was teetering on the edge there, baby, not gonna lie.”

“I’d have pulled you back.”

“You’ll always pull me back.”

“We need to fix your cheek,” he said, moving slightly to lift himself up. Whatever Sebastian had given him was fucking fantastic. He couldn’t even feel the bite now. “It could get infected.”

“You both need treatment,” Sebastian said. “As soon as we’re back at camp I’ll sort you out—though I make no claims to being a proper doctor so you’ll both just have to make the best of it. It is bed rest for both of you for a good few weeks though. I can promise that.”

“I think she broke my nose,” Pete said and Jackson turned to him.

“I’m sorry, Pete.”

“No you’re not.” He sighed, wiping away a splatter of blood. “But it’s fine. I’ve been there, remember.”

“I’ll treat you, too,” Sebastian said. “Perhaps some sort of compress? What about Jay?”

“I’ll go look,” Pete said. “He was beheading the last of them.”

Jackson pushed a hand under his arms and helped Luke lift up into a sitting position. He shuddered slightly because though the pain relief felt great, he was exhausted. He wanted nothing more than to curl up with Jackson in his arms and sleep for a week.

“We should get moving when Pete gets back,” he said.

Sebastian nodded and began to pack things up. “That we should. Gonna have to move to my other base as well now. This place is compromised.”

“You have another?”

The doctor nodded. “Never put all your stars in one stellar nursery, Luke.”

“We should…” Jackson paused and lifted her head. “Did the accelerator have citrate in it?”

Sebastian frowned. “Of course not. The formula is made up of—”

She waved his words away. “I don’t need to know.”

“It’s just stuff to make every single part of my body scream like it was on fire,” Luke said, shivering at the memory. He pulled her to him and squeezed because the feel of her exhausted body against his was enough to