Alice in Zombieland

“Burn,” one of his friends said.

He shoved the boy away. “Don’t be that way,” he pleaded to her, and I would have bet he was only halfway kidding. There was a desperate gleam in those dark eyes.

“Don’t tell me what to do. And by the way, I’m not teasing when I do this.” Kat flipped him off times two, and all of his friends erupted into a fresh round of snickers.

His confident facade faded, but still he said, “I’ll change your mind and I’ll win you back. It’s just a matter of time.”

“Actually, it’s just a matter of time before I feed your balls to my dog.” In an aside to me, she said, “Remind me that I need to buy a dog.”

The black-haired one finally glanced over at us—yeah, I’d returned to staring at him—and I forgot all about Kat and her problems. Violet, I realized. Those eyes of his were the most amazing shade of violet. I’d never seen so beautiful a color.

Had to be contacts. Right?

He gave Kat a once-over and grinned a hello. I barely stopped myself from chewing on one of my nails, a disgusting nervous tic I’d broken years ago. Would he look directly at me?

Answer: yes.

The moment our eyes met, the moisture in my mouth dried up and I lost focus of my surroundings. He was all that I could see, all that I wanted to see. And in the span of a single second we were no longer across the hall from each other—

—we were pressed together, his arms wrapped around me, my arms wrapped around him, and we were kissing. Miracle of miracles, he was five inches taller than me, practically dwarfing me. I loved it! And oh, glory, I loved what we were doing....

I had never been kissed before, but his tongue was definitely in my mouth, and my tongue was definitely in his, and we were practically eating each other’s faces.

“Ali,” he breathed as he drew me closer, squeezed me tighter.

“Cole,” I breathed back. I couldn’t get enough of him and never wanted to stop. He was so warm. So very warm, when I’d been so cold all summer. No matter how many blankets I’d piled on top of me, I’d been cold. I wanted to stay here, just like this, forever.

My fingers tangled in his hair, knocking off his cap. He angled his head, taking my mouth deeper, harder.

“You taste good,” he rasped. He smelled of sandalwood and something fruity, like a strawberry lollipop just freed from its wrapper.

“Talk later. Kiss now—”

“—Ali. Ali!” Kat stepped in front of me. She was frowning, waving. “Hello? Anyone home?”

I blinked and realized I was in the same spot I’d occupied before. And with that realization came another. I’d never crossed the hall, never met the boy in the hat halfway—Cole, I’d called him—never plowed my fingers through his hair. Never touched him, and absolutely never kissed him, yet my lips tingled and I was having trouble drawing air into my lungs.

“You okay?” Kat asked, her concern evident.

She was so short I had no trouble peeking over her shoulder at the group of boys. Nearly everyone else had abandoned the hallways. Maybe because the tardy bell had been ringing—and was only now fading. Crap. Crap, crap, crap. How long had I been staring at that boy?

At least he was staring at me, too. Or maybe that wasn’t such a good thing. He was scowling at me, and it was the kind of scowl you saw on a guy in a dark alley just before he crunched your face into the dirt and stole your purse. One of his friends was tugging on his arm, trying to get his attention.

Red Hat snapped his teeth at me and turned away to stomp out of the hall. His remaining friends traveled after him, one of them muttering, “Mind telling us what that was about, my man?”

I leaned against the lockers to find my balance. Only then, with distance between us and his gaze unlocked from mine, did I manage to catch my breath. “The one with the hat,” I said to Kat. “What’s his name?” I probably should have assured her of my mental competence first, but I craved info about him too badly. And really, could I assure anyone of my mental competence just then?

Kat’s head fell forward, as if suddenly too heavy to hold up, but her penetrating stare remained on me. “Why? Are you interested in him?”

My mouth floundered open and closed. I was interested in knowing what had just happened. How I had just…envisioned kissing him. How that vision had seemed so real that I’d felt his heat, his strength. So real that my body had reacted physically.

“Just curious,” I finally said, trying for a nonchalance I didn’t feel. But my words were the straight-up truth. I was curious.

She wasn’t buying. “That’s Cole Holland, and girl, you so don’t want to date him. Trust me.”

Shock blustered through me. His name really was Cole? But…how had I known that?

You heard someone else call him Cole, that’s all. A subconscious thing.

Maybe. Probably. “Why?” I croaked.

“Because I’m totally trustworthy. Hello, you’ve met me, right?”

If I hadn’t been in such a state of upheaval, I would have rolled my eyes. “Not why should I trust you. Why don’t I want to date him?”

“Oh. Well, for starters, because you’re intimidated by him.”

“I’m not intimidated by him.”

She rose on her tiptoes to pat the top of my head, and said, “Since you won’t admit that little truth, how about this one? Because he’s the leader of that rabid pack of animals and he’s totally dangerous.”

Dangerous. Yeah, I got that. “You dated one of his friends.”

She spread her arms, as if I’d just made her point for her. “And look where I ended up—cheated on and brokenhearted.” The soft snick of closing doors filled the hall, and she glanced around. “Come on. Let’s finish this on the way to your class.”

Now that the halls were deserted and I could move freely, I should have relaxed. But I felt like I’d been plugged into something. A battery, maybe. I had energy. And there was a soft buzzing sound echoing in my head. Even the lights in the hallway seemed brighter.

“Cole’s, like, the worst of the lot,” Kat said. “He speaks, and the rest of them jump to obey. They skip school a lot, and do…well, your guess is as good as mine. No, probably not as good, but close. And yeah, you’d think I’d know for sure, but Frosty was stellar at keeping secrets. Obviously. Anyway, they’re always wounded, so you know they like to throw down in the nastiest way possible. And did I mention that they’re secretive? Cole is the worst, but Frosty is second in line for the title of The Vault, I promise you.”

“Frosty?”

“My ex.”

“I got that, but his name is…”

“A nickname, yes. He accidentally locked himself out of his house one winter. By the time he was found he was covered in ice and completely frostbitten. They nearly amputated all of his limbs. True story.”

“Really?” Because I hadn’t noticed anything missing, and if they’d nearly amputated all of his limbs, surely they would have taken a few of his fingers, the most vulnerable part of the hand.

“Fine, he only lost a toe, but frostbite is treacherous. Anyway, the only girls who get to hang with them on their private little adventures are Mackenzie Love—Cole’s ex—and Trina, who you had the misfortune to meet earlier.”

Cole still hung out with his ex? That had bad news written all over it. Not that I cared. Or wanted to, I don’t know, go on a date with him, marry him and have his babies. I just wanted answers. Really.

What had happened in that hallway—or rather, what had not happened—was freaking me out. I mean, I’d always had a strong imagination, as evidenced by the monster in the wedding dress I was convinced I’d seen, but this little mind-vacay of making out in the hall with a strange boy I hadn’t officially met far surpassed anything else I’d ever thought up.

“Just a warning,” Kat said. “If you hang with them, Mackenzie will corner you and threaten your very existence. Oh, and your friends will drop you and you’ll be known as trouble.”