Zahara looked at Agent Vector and grinned. This was some wild shit and it was like life had turned in on itself and was just too crazy to be real. Part of her was absolutely enraged; the agency had sent Agent Vector to punch her ticket and why? She’d not left any evidence of her adventures across the interstates. Was it for some other transgression? Had they already found out about Vegas? Her target had been a werewolf. She would not kill a werewolf. Did Washington know that her target was a werewolf? Was that why they sent her? Or was he just a target who just happened to be a werewolf? It didn’t matter, because they’d called for her retirement. Washington pukes. Well, it was the end of the world now and it was open killing season. The animal within her was pressing on her skin, trying to get out. Her bones ached with the want for bloodshed. She fed her animal-side tidbits along the way, but smelling all this blood and seeing all the mayhem? That was like a drug to her. She felt she might jump out of her skin and she felt excitement roiling through her veins and felt the sizzle of the hunt.
She could tell that even Xander felt it as well. She could smell the heat off of him and the excitement and that made her more excited. All she wanted to do was jump out of the window and maul and attack these things. What fun! Wholesale slaughter and no one to stop her. She looked at Ethan and giggled. His eyes were wide and the smug killer wasn’t looking so certain of his world anymore. She sighed happily and soon the bodies of zombies were falling behind them as Xander maneuvered the truck down the road. She looked in the side mirror and watched the flames and smoke fill the dealership and the road. She settled into the seat and propped her feet on the dash. She checked her weapon and holstered it. No one spoke for a long time.
It was completely dark by the time Xander found a place to hole up. They had retrieved Ethan’s equipment and extra ammo. There was no one in the hotel lobby that he chose. They went to the desk and Zahara punched in the information to make keys for their rooms, which were located near an exit on the sixth floor. Thankfully, power was still on and before they went up, they swung by the hotel’s kitchen. Carrying their gear and bags of food and water to the rooms, Xander made sure to watch for any movement from the silent rooms around them. Here and there they heard groaning or movement, but nothing in the halls. There was more gunfire from outside in the distance. Someone was fighting zombies. If his guesses were correct, they’d never have enough ammunition to kill all those things. Anyone killed by a zombie would be turned into a zombie, he was sure. The more dead the more zombies.
He noticed that Zahara had only made two keys, adjoining rooms. Ethan took the room with the king and he and Zahara took the one with two double beds. He looked at her and she appeared too guileless for his liking. He wondered what she was about. He was tired, stressed and had no clue as to what to do next. They checked the rooms and settled in. Ethan propped the door to the adjoining rooms open and he looked a little better than he had earlier. He’d looked positively gray before but now his natural color was coming back. Xander’s stomach growled and he opened the bag with food in it. There were pre-made sandwiches and chips. Bottles of water, fruit, soft drinks. He walked over to the small fridge in the room and opened it. There were small drinks and he grabbed two of the small bottles of vodka.
Sitting on the end of the bed he let his shoulders fall in exhaustion. He’d been riding on an adrenalin rush for the past couple of hours and he was almost sick with it. Zahara was almost maniacal, moving around the room like her namesake, Flea. It was as though she couldn’t settle. She was starting to get on his nerves. He couldn’t believe she showed her animal with Ethan there. It was no accident because it took effort to let the animal break out, not to mention painful.
“I’m taking a bath,” Zahara announced and he could only nod. She dug around in her bag and then disappeared into the bathroom. Ethan leaned against the adjoining doors staring at him.
“What?” Xander asked.
“A friggen werewolf?”
“There is more in heaven and earth. So, the agency knew where my car was? What in the hell did they want me to come back for? And why were you to retire Zahara? Who gave the order?” He already knew the answer.
“O’Donnell and I don’t know why. I think the agency knows where we are most of the time. I think we fool ourselves into believing we’re under the radar. I won’t ask, but I figure you weren’t in Huntsville when this shit went down. Everything was fine, just a few canceled flights. Then things started heating up when I left the west coast, but then I started hearing about the virus on the news outlets. As I moved across the
