Kelly shook his head. “I’ve done this to others, Miss Bell. I know what I can give, and what I can’t, and still keep a person alive.”
He didn’t understand. The words rushed from me, desperate. “I’m different. Don’t do this. Please, don’t do this.”
“Calm down. This is an engineered version of the toxin, made not to infect you permanently but to burn through you in about half an hour. You won’t even need the antidote to improve.”
“No, you don’t understand. I—”
He stuck me with the needle.
Chapter 26
All the Monsters Want to Play
Many times, as a little girl, I’d looked at the home my father had built and considered it a prison. Only twice had I fought my forced incarceration, screaming and yelling at my parents about the unfairness of it all. Not just for me, but for Emma. She had no life, no friends.
And maybe that was why the two of us had been so close. We’d only ever had each other. We understood each other, because we’d been trapped in the same boat, in the middle of the same storm.
Then my dad had begun to train me in the art of self-defense, and I’d discovered I had a talent for it. It had given me something to do, something to think about, something to look forward to. But when it had come to the zombies, he hadn’t known many tricks.
Those I’d learned from Cole. Under his tutelage, I’d begun to feel confident, maybe, at times even undefeatable. But none of that training helped me now.
Though I struggled with all my might against the hold of the guards, they managed to drag me back to the cage.
HUNGRY!
NEED!
SOON!
MINE!
No longer whispering, the zombie thoughts now shouted through my mind—an echo of my own thoughts. I could smell the sweetest, purest perfume in the air...wafting from the guards, from Kat and Reeve, from Jaclyn.
Mmm...so good...
Z.A. had stepped back inside me, and I could feel her hunger. Why she hadn’t attacked Kelly while she was out of my body, I didn’t know. Unless she couldn’t. She hadn’t gone after Cole or Gavin, either. Maybe, as long as she was tethered to me, she was bound somewhat to my will.
“Stand at the back wall,” one of the guards yelled. Kat and Reeve had rushed to the bars upon spotting me. “Now!”
The girls obeyed, probably desperate and willing to do anything to get to me, and the door was opened. I was thrust inside, the door slammed behind me. Strength had long since abandoned me, and I fell to my hands and knees.
The girls rushed to my side, the sweetness of their scents so strong I had to be drooling.
“Get away,” I croaked. “You have to get away.”
“Do what she says,” I heard Jaclyn demand. “It’s for your own good.”
What would one taste hurt?
“What did they do to you?” Kat demanded.
“Oh, Ali,” Reeve breathed.
“Now!” I crawled away from the girls and huddled in the far corner of the cell. I wrapped my arms around my middle, my entire body trembling from residual pain. From cold and weakness and fear and dread and hunger...oh, the hunger...
I banged my head into the brick. Can’t think about the girls. Can’t think about how easy it would be to overpower them, to hold them down and work my teeth past skin and muscle and into—
No! Can’t think.
I banged harder, faster. So much harder. Black spots appeared behind my eyelids, and I smiled with my first wave of relief. The end of my torment was coming, sneaking in...would soon arrive... I sighed happily as I sank into blissful unconsciousness.
*
When I woke up, the world was, strangely enough, a much brighter place. I hadn’t hurt my friends. I’d been at my worst, hunger-ravaged and desperate, but I’d kept to myself.
Some part of me—my love for Kat and Reeve, maybe—was stronger than Z.A.
I could do this, win this. I could fight and overcome.
This time, I actually believed it.
I put together a new to-do list. Do whatever’s necessary to escape with Kat, Reeve and Jaclyn. Come back with Cole and the other slayers. Destroy Anima—start with Kelly.
To escape, I needed strength.