“Ali.” I grab her hands, hold them down. What little numbness I have left shatters. I am nothing but panic and fear.
She came into my life, a tornado I couldn’t stop. Now I’m addicted to the violence of the wind. Deny my feelings for her? Impossible. She broke me down and put me back together, and I’ll be damned if I allow her to be taken from me.
“Feed me.” Her voice is a broken rasp.
If feeding her would actually help her, I would do it. Nothing would stop me. But her hunger isn’t for food. She’s infected with zombie toxin, and she wants my spirit.
I’ve experienced the effects of a Z-bite firsthand and know she’s trapped in a bottomless ocean of pain and agony, trying to tread water but swiftly sinking. I would cut off my arms if it meant I could take her torment into myself and fight it for her.
She shivers, cold again. I release her hands to cover her. I stroke her cheeks in an effort to ease her in some way. Any way.
She jerks away from me. “No. Don’t.”
“Ali.” Her name is a prayer, a demand. Heal. You have to heal.
She turns her head in my direction and attempts to bite me. Her eyes are closed. She’s acting on instinct. Zombie instinct. I despise soul-eaters to the depths of my being, and yet still I battle an urge to give her what she craves; it’s a need. Denying her is torture.
My dad strides into the room and, with a curse, pins Ali’s head to the pillow. It’s a terrible sight to behold. One person I love restraining another.
“She can’t go on like this,” he tells me.
I know. “I administered a double dose of the antidote hours ago.” I tangle my fingers through my hair and yank at the strands. “Why isn’t she better?”
A muscle ticks in his jaw. “Give her another.”
Another? To my knowledge, no slayer has ever had so much in so short a time. We don’t know the long-term effects. “Can she take it?”
His eyes are bleak. “Do we have a choice?”
No. No, we don’t. If she continues along this path, she will die, and her spirit will rise from the dead, a shell housing absolute evil. Ali will be forever gone, forever out of my reach.
I imagine having to fight a zombie that wears her beautiful face and think I’d rather die. I grab one of the syringes resting on the desktop and plunge the needle deep into her neck. At first, she continues to writhe and snap at me. Finally, blessedly, she sags against the mattress, her head lolling to the side.
“Good. This is good. The worst is over,” my dad says.
Relief is a surging tide inside me. I struggle to remain on my feet.
My dad places Ali’s iPod in its dock. He pulls a chair behind me and I just kind of fall into it. He says something to me, but I am lost in my thoughts and the words are distorted. I think he leaves. I remain in place. I don’t care how long it takes for Ali to wake. I will be here when she opens her eyes. I will hold her.
I need to hold her.
Things have been strained between us lately. I’ve been keeping secrets from her, meeting with a slayer I shouldn’t trust, believing him when he says there’s a spy among a group of friends I know. But then, his proof is irrefutable.
Ali knows me, knows something is wrong with me. I refuse to talk to her about it, and it hurts her. I’ve tried to stay away from her in an effort to ease the source of the hurt while I continue to dig for the truth. If she knows what I suspect, she will want to help me. Will insist on it. She’s stubborn like that. But to investigate the wrong person is to invite their wrath, maybe even their hatred. It’s happened to me, and I won’t put her in that position. I’ll deal with the consequences myself.
“Ali, I need you to wake up, okay?” I’ve never come so close to begging.
Her eyes begin to roll behind her lids. She is fighting with everything she’s got.
“Good girl,” I say. “That’s the way. Come back to me, sweetheart.”
Though she tries for a while longer, the effort tires her and she sags once again.
A hand roughly pats my shoulder. “I’ll watch her if you want to take off and shower—and, dude, I highly recommend you shower.”
I look up. Gavin stands beside me. I’ve known him a long time. Years. I’ve always liked him. We used to hunt brunettes together as eagerly as we now hunt zombies.
“No. I—”
—the world around me fades, a new one taking shape.
For the first time in our history, a vision ensnares us. I’ve only ever had visions with Ali, but there’s no time to process why I’m suddenly having one with someone else.
Gavin and I are walking through a doorway in Ankh’s house. This house. Downstairs. In the entertainment room. Details hit me like bullets. A celebration is winding down. Ali is several feet away from us. She is more beautiful every time I see her. Tall and slender with a fall of white-blond waves that frame a face straight out of a storybook. She is the princess who will save an entire kingdom. The girl with a purpose she’s only just beginning to understand.