A Mad Zombie Party - Showalter Gena - Страница 69

Except, it doesn’t last for long. Thanatos springs forth with new life, pouring out of me, flames blistering me, melting me, but it’s worse now, it’s so much worse...until it’s not. Until I start to heal again.

“Three layers,” Ali pants. “One more.”

Before the last word leaves her, the pain kicks up yet again, and it’s worse than the first two combined, but it doesn’t last nearly as long, and when it’s gone, it’s gone. I’m free! I’m healing!

Thanatos might have covered my inner light, but it could not destroy it.

Not too strong, never too strong.

“Tell me,” Frosty demands.

“She’s going to survive,” Ali replies.

Callused hands I know belong to Frosty skim over my torso, checking for wounds while also imparting strength. “She’s really healed.”

His shock matches my own. We did it. We did it!

“Thank God,” Ali rasps.

Light and dark cannot coexist.

If we’d given up after the first layer...if we’d given up after the second...nothing good would have come of it. We had to fight till the very end, till we had the results we wanted.

Finally I have the strength to open my eyes and keep them open. “Frosty,” I say on a raspy catch of breath.

“I’m here.” He’s shirtless, sweat dripping from his face, tension pulling at features I love and adore. Features I’m overjoyed to see again. “I’m here.”

As I take his hand and twine our fingers, a single golden flame sparks between us. In seconds, it travels up his arm, his neck...soon, golden flames are dancing in his irises, and it’s a radiant sight, absolutely mesmerizing. His wounds begin to heal.

“Rebecca snuffed out our lights. It’s why we couldn’t use our abilities.” Ali stumbles to the bed—she’s as naked as I am—and tosses a sheet at me before draping the mattress pad around her shoulders. “If a pilot light is out, you can’t start a fire. She relit mine with a special antidote, and Milla, you just relit Frosty’s with dynamis.”

I sit up and kiss him, because I can’t not kiss him. Once, twice...three times.

He kisses me back, then helps me rip holes in the sheet to create a dress. I fit the material over my head saying, “If everything went according to plan, the others are here, and they need our help.” I look around. The exit is closed. The only other door is a fiery hole in the wall that leads to the room I assume Ali just vacated. “Dude. Did you punch your way through?”

“A girl does what she’s got to do.”

“No worries. I’ve got this.” Frosty stands, revealing charred patches in his jeans. He carries the dead-as-a-doornail Rebecca to the entrance and places her palm on the scan. The door opens with a soft snicker.

“Your heart is too soft,” I say. “You should have cut off her hand.”

“Next time, sweet pea.”

He unceremoniously drops Rebecca, and with Ali watching our six, we exit the room together. There’s no crack of gunfire to be heard, but the smell of gunpowder is thick in the air, the hallway littered with motionless bodies. No one I know, thank God.

Rebecca’s men paid the ultimate price for aligning with Team Evil. And yeah, even Tiffany paid it. I find her slumped over in a corner, a wicked gash on her forehead, blood splattered on her face, her dull, cloudy eyes staring off in the distance.

The macabre trail leads us to the end of the hall...where Cole removes the head of the last agent standing.

I study my friends. Some are standing, some sitting. Justin, Bronx and Gavin have bullet wounds in their chests. Cole has a few cuts, nothing more. Chance, Love and Jaclyn are beat to hell, and River is without a single cut, bruise or wound. After years of our father’s abuse, he learned to duck and dodge before anyone can land a blow.

“Ali!” Cole rushes to his girl and sweeps her into his arms for a bear hug.

“Milla.” River does the same to me.

After a few seconds, I pull back. “I need to light your fire.”

He releases me in a hurry. “I suddenly want to vomit.”

“You know what I meant.” I step out of my body, and I’m not sure whether I’m remembering things from the seconds I spent with Kat and Emma, connected to that stream of consciousness, but my next actions are automatic.

I reach past Frosty’s skin and take his hand to free his spirit. I do the same to River. “Everyone separate and form a circle with us.”

Ali takes River’s hand, and offers the other to Cole. Jaclyn moves to Frosty’s other side. Gavin latches on to her and Bronx to him. Justin joins us, then Love and finally Chance, who takes hold of Love and Cole, closing the circle.

“Summon dynamis,” I say to Frosty and Ali.

A second later, white flames burst from each of us. Those flames jump from person to person, until everyone is ablaze. There’s a chorus of hisses and groans as bone, muscle and flesh weave back together, but my friends smile through it all, happy to be relit.

You can knock us down, but you can’t keep us there.

Suddenly we’re lifted off our feet by a blast of energy that comes from...us? We dangle in the air, the ends of our hair pointing toward the ceiling as if we stuck our fingers into a power outlet. And the peace! The most magnificent peace. I lose myself in a place where time no longer exists and nothing is impossible. I can do anything I can imagine. I can fight any fight and win any war. Nothing frightens me, because I know that I’m here for a reason; and I’m not alone. I have friends in high places. Friends here. Friends up there.

Victory is mine.

Faith, I realize. I might not be up there with Kat, but right now, I’m connected. I’m being filled with new faith. And for me, for all slayers, there’s no greater power source.

As quickly as the energy appeared, it leaves. We lose our grip on each other and topple to the floor. Breath rushes from my lungs. When I recover, I sit up, and the others do the same.

Someone laughs. A second later we’re all laughing.

“How did that happen?” Ali asks.

“No idea,” Gavin says. “But let’s do it again.”

“Better than an entire bottle of vodka,” River says, and the laughter starts up again.

Frosty moves in front of me to cup my cheeks, his features serious. “Are you okay?”

“Hundred percent. You?”

“Better than.” He hugs me, and I cling to him. He’s safe. I’m safe. The vision came true, but we both survived. The war is over. Finally. Blessedly.

Now...now we live.

“I’m sorry I made you think I was going to betray the group,” I say. “Even for a little while.”

“I never thought you would.” He stands and offers me a hand.

I take it and he pulls me to my feet. “You trusted me.”

“I did.”

No wonder I love him. From the beginning, I’d chemistried him. The more time I spent with him, the more I got to know him, and the more I liked him. Sometime during our acquaintance, love clicked into place, a decision made by the very heart of me.

“I did. I do. Milla, I—”

Pop! Pop!

Two shots slam into my back, burning and stinging, throwing me against him.

He catches me before I fall and swings me around to shield me from any further shots.

“What the hell?” River shouts.

“Milla!” Ali calls.

“Rebecca,” Gavin growls.

Rebecca is alive?

My view is blocked as every slayer rallies around us.

I catch my breath quickly and say, “I’m fine. I’m fine. Flames might not crackle over me, but my body is already healing.”

The horror fades from Frosty’s features. He presses a fingertip into the hole in the sheet one of the bullets caused. His eyes go wide.

“She’s a zombie,” Jaclyn says on a gasp.

Rebecca? Together Frosty and I step to the front of the crowd.

Rebecca is alive. Her hair is tangled around her blood-smeared face, her skin a hideous shade of gray...her eyes glowing neon red.

She’s in bodily form, but she is a zombie.