Problem was, I’d been doing that. I actually liked my job and had no issue going the extra mile and so on. I showed up early and left late—most of the time at least. But all of that wouldn’t save me if Allen found out about the brains. And it wasn’t as if I could simply stop taking them from the bags—not without dipping heavily into my stash.
Less than twenty-four hours earlier, I’d charged two gunmen to help save Heather’s life. And now a stupid encounter at work had me worried I might lose my source of brains at any time. Fuck my life.
I finally drove out to the Tucker Point public boat launch and parked, dismayed to see that the water was well over the dock. Another foot and the whole parking lot would be flooded. Which means they’ll almost certainly open the spillway soon. I was seven years old the last time the spillway was opened. Mom and Dad and I had gone down to the edge of the bayou that ran behind our house and watched in awe as the normally placid Cole Bayou became a churning rush of mud-brown water. But then the water levels had crept up until the road to our house had several inches of overflowing bayou on it, and I got to listen to my dad bitch and moan about people driving too fast through the water and sending waves lapping over our bottom step. Fond childhood memories, to be sure.
However, right now the high water on the Kreeger River ensured that no one was using the boat launch, which meant it was a perfect place for me to chill and get my head back on straight. Or at least get to the point where I wasn’t about to throw something.
Exhaling a gusty sigh, I leaned my seat back and gazed up at the worn headliner of my car. Too damn much going on. Three more days until the damn GED. A pain in the ass boss. The usual angst and uncertainty about Marcus. My dad being his typical ornery self. The bizarre situation with Heather, Saberton’s connection with both Philip and Dr. Charish, as well as their disturbing interest in Pietro and others associated with him, including me.
It was a lot to think about and process, but it was that last item that had me frowning the most. Heather had known Kang—been good friends with him even. And Kang and Sofia had been up to something with her fake brains research that caught Saberton’s interest. Sofia was dead and gone. But Kang…
Kang might have some answers. Pietro had Kang’s head, and was supposedly trying to regrow it. Or rather, he had “his people” trying to regrow it. Did he really, or was that just a line of bullshit to string me along? I wouldn’t put it past him.
I glanced at my watch. Five thirty-two. Still early enough to make a civilized phone call to Pietro.
Rain began to patter my windshield again as I brought the back of my seat upright and reached for my purse to get my phone. Movement flickered to my left, followed by a startling crash and a shower of broken glass as my side window shattered. I let out a scream and instinctively threw up my arms up to shield my face, even as a hand reached through the busted window to hit the unlock button.
Before I could react, my attacker yanked the door open, fisted his hand in my hair close to my scalp, and dragged me from the seat and onto the wet gravel of the parking lot. I screamed again, this time in pain, and clutched at the hand in my hair. “Let me go!”
“Been through this before,” my attacker said. Philip! My blood ran cold, and I jerked my gaze up to his face. “But Archer’s not here to save you this time, darlin’,” he continued, voice slightly raspy but with a harsh, uncompromising undertone.
Terror sliced through me as he dragged me farther away from the car. I struggled harder, kicking and clawing for all I was worth.
“Bell!” Philip growled at another man as he tightened the grip in my hair. One glance told me this was the other zombie from the Gala—Tim, the crooked-nosed one who’d bitten me. “Get her goddamn legs!”
Tim Bell. Great, well at least I had the full name of one of my attackers. Didn’t do me much good right now, though. Tim made a grab for my legs, but the rain helped me squirm out of his grasp. I kicked savagely at him and landed the heel of my boot solidly in his chest, forcing him to stagger back a step. Philip locked his other hand around my left upper arm while I filled my lungs and let out a scream. Sure, I’d picked the most isolated spot I could think of to do my mopey navel-gazing, but there was still a tiny chance someone would hear, so I had to at least try.
Philip snarled and shoved me to my back on the ground with the grip on my arm and hair. Tim got hold of my right ankle, and I let out another scream while I struggled and twisted and kicked and clawed like a crazy bitch. With the way the two men were handling me, any onlooker would think they were trying to rape me, but of all the possible threats to me right now, I doubted rape was one of them.
Another man stood a few feet away, holding what looked like a walkie-talkie in one hand while he calmly watched the two zombies attempt to subdue me for whatever-the-hell reason. Light-eyed, balding, and…non-zombie, noted the part of me that wasn’t fighting for my life, the hungry part that locked onto the closest source of edible brain. The extreme exertion was burning through my brain reserves fast but, with Philip involved, I knew this had to be a Saberton Corp operation, and I didn’t dare let up.
Tim got hold of my other ankle and made a move to straddle my legs which I thwarted with violent thrashing. Twisting, I tried to sink my teeth into Philip’s arm, but he shifted away before I could do more than graze his skin. He abruptly released my hair, but the instant of relief vanished as he shoved his hand into the center of my chest and pressed down hard.
“No one to hear you,” Philip said in a hard, cold voice. I fought to get a full breath, continued to punch at him, but he was smart enough to keep his head pulled back from my crazy-desperate flailing. In my peripheral vision, I saw the Saberton guy pull a gun, but getting shot seemed like a minor threat compared to other possibilities. Like becoming Charish’s zombie guinea pig again. That blood-chilling thought inspired a whole new wave of desperate thrashing.
Philip’s breath hissed noisily through his teeth as he did his best to pin me down. “This is going to happen,” he told me, lip curling. “It’ll be a lot easier on you if you cooperate. I can go either way.”
“I’m not…gonna just…let you take me!” I gasped out. Squirming, I managed to get a leg free and landed a hard kick in Tim’s face. He bellowed a curse, then threw himself bodily across my legs.
I punched again at Philip but didn’t have much power behind it. Growing fatigue weakened my efforts, and the hunger tightened its hold on me. Even as a zombie, I could only maintain this level of resistance for so long.
Beside me, the Saberton man scowled and switched to a different gun. Philip saw it, shot a quelling look at the man.
“Do not tranq her yet,” he snarled. “You’ll ruin it.”
Ruin it? Yet? I fought back a sob of frustration as my struggles grew less and less effective. The two zombies simply had to let me tire myself out, and then they’d be able to do whatever the hell they wanted.
Philip shifted to straddle my chest, put his knees heavily on my shoulders and sat back, pinning me solidly. With Tim on my legs and Philip anchoring me shoulder to hip, all I could do was flail my forearms. After a few seconds of that useless waste of energy, I lay still.
“Please…don’t,” I gasped, a sob of frustration welling in my throat. I didn’t know what the hell they had planned for me, only that it wasn’t likely to be anything I’d find fun and relaxing. Didn’t help that it was starting to rain harder, and I couldn’t do anything to shield my face. Like goddamn water torture.
“It’s going to happen,” Philip repeated. “Nothing you can do about it.” Though he’d been steady enough before, he’d obviously burned through some brains while wrestling with me, and the results weren’t pretty—or normal. His head twitched violently to the side every few seconds, and I felt a tremor shake his whole body. He looked over at the Saberton guy. “It’s clear. She can come in.”
Saberton guy nodded. “Clear,” he said into his radio.
I scrabbled again for a few more seconds, then gave up as I utterly failed to shift the two zombies even a bit, much less off of me. Breathing harshly, I felt my lips curl back in a snarl as I memorized the Saberton man’s features, then shifted my attention to Philip. “What’s going on? This is all you’re good for? Attacking women half your size?”
He gave me a cold smile. “Merely following orders, Angel.” Another heavy twitch jerked his head to the side. “I volunteered, remember?”
“Not your best life decision,” I managed to sneer, pointedly following the abnormal head movement with my eyes. Even as I did so, my gut clenched at the evidence of pain in his eyes and the severity of the ugly twitching. A weird desire rose to help him, to ease his suffering. What the hell?
Something flickered in his expression but was gone before I could identify it. “I’m not the one pinned on the ground,” he retorted.
Asshole had a point.
The scent of a tantalizingly delicious brain teased my nose, and I snapped my gaze to the left as a petite, black woman carrying what looked like a tackle box and wearing a dark blue raincoat approached. My fear spiked again as I tried to determine what the hell these people were up to. She moved cautiously to my left side and knelt out of reach of my hand. My heart gave a sick thud as she removed a rubber tourniquet thing from the box.
“What’s going on?” I demanded, hearing the quaver in my voice. I shook my head and blinked to get the damn water out of my eyes. “What are you doing?”
She didn’t speak or meet my eyes, simply shifted to try and get the tourniquet on my upper arm. I struggled to twist my arm away, but the Saberton man grabbed my hand and pushed it down to the ground, then planted his foot directly on my upturned palm.
I let out a strangled cry of pain, and he leveled a smirk at me. Obviously he didn’t mind using unnecessary force.
“Hold still, or he’ll step harder,” Philip warned me, twitching erratically.