When it was Frosty’s turn to speak, he stood and walked out of the room. Without uttering a single word.
The throb...out of control now, consuming me, hurting me. I hunched over, gasping for breath. An image flashed through my mind. The dark-haired girl with hazel eyes. Helping me tie Get Well balloons on roadkill. Loving me when everyone else turned their backs on me. Laughing, always laughing. Living.
Where was she? How come I hadn’t gotten to speak to her? Because she was joy, and she was love, and I wanted so badly to—
To bring her back.
Yes. To bring her back. But I couldn’t. She was dead, gone.
Her eyes, dull. Her body, immobile. Blood, all over her.
Kat!
The name screamed through my mind, the pain that came with it...too much. Tears rolled down my cheeks. “Kat.” I said it. I had to.
“Her funeral is tomorrow,” Mackenzie said with a sniffle. “She would want you there.”
Her name. I’d gotten it right.
“We think Frosty has seen her spirit, that she’s a Witness like Emma and Helen, but he won’t confirm or deny,” Reeve said, wiping away a tear.
I rubbed at my heart. Where was Cole? I needed Cole. I wasn’t sure why.
As if I’d summoned him, he walked through the crowd. Maybe I had summoned him. There was a connection between us. His eyes never left mine. I reached for him, and he picked me up to carry me to his bedroom. He placed me on the edge of the bed. As my gaze lifted, the reason he hadn’t been part of the storytelling party became clear. He’d been hanging poster-sized photos of us all over the room.
In them, we smiled. We laughed. We kissed.
My already raw nerves kicked up a fuss as he crouched in front of me and smoothed the hair from my forehead. “No more stories,” I said. “Not now.”
“Sorry, love, but we’re going to bombard you until your memories are completely uncovered. And if it can’t be done, well, we’re going to start building new ones. And we’re going to start now.” He fisted his T-shirt at the collar and pulled the material over his head.
I gasped at the beautiful buffet suddenly displayed before me. Strength and vitality—life. He was bronzed and muscled. Tattooed—good glory! That was my name etched across his chest, stretching from one nipple to the other. Ali Bell, not Sami. And one of those nipples was pierced!
He could not be any sexier.
I reached out before I’d realized I’d moved and flicked my fingertips over the silver loop. The metal was cool, solid. His pec tightened up, and he hissed in a breath.
“Gavin has started calling you the queen of zombie hearts,” Cole said. “And you know what, he’s right. It fits. Before you, I wasn’t really living. I was existing. Moving from girl to girl. Killing zombies. I was as good as dead, but you brought me back to life. And you are most definitely the queen of my heart.”
Melting me...
“You know what else I realized?” he said. “You were never the ‘she.’ Your mother was.”
The she? “I don’t understand.”
“Because of her, what she died doing for you, the rest of us had a chance.” He fisted two handfuls of my hair. “I can’t really regret the past, because I have you in my future.”
“Cole.”
He pulled me forward and kissed me. His lips pressed against mine, his tongue thrusting into my mouth, and I tasted the strawberries I’d scented on him every time he’d neared.
I found my arms wrapping around him of their own accord, my head tilting to welcome him in and take him deeper, my legs even parting in a silent plea for him to scoot closer. A plea he must have heard. His hands lowered to my backside and yanked me forward so that the hardness of him was flush against the softness of me.
My blood heated...and heated...and I began to move without conscious thought. My fingers, tangling through his hair, then lowering, riding the ridges of his strength. My hands, playing at the waist of his pants, opening the fly and the zipper before I could process what was happening.
When I did, I wasn’t frightened. I was excited.
Cole tore off my shirt, unsnapped my bra. He kissed the skin he’d bared—and I had a flash inside my head. Of a time before, when he’d stripped me on a rug, and I’d opened up to him, and he’d taken my virginity.
He’d branded himself on me. Spirit, soul and body. Had left no part of me untouched. I was his girl then, and I was his girl now. The knowledge bubbled inside me, unable to be covered for long.
“Cole,” I exclaimed, and he stilled. “We’ve done this before.”