I raised my brows. “There are better fetishes out there, Kitten. I could show you a few.”
“Uh, no thank you.”
“Aren’t you supposed to go to the nearest Costco or something?” Dawson asked, letting the DVDs float back to the coffee table.
I turned to him, incredulous. “And how would you know that?”
He shrugged. “It’s in The Zombie Survival Guide.”
“It is.” Kat nodded eagerly. “Costco has everything—thick walls, food, and supplies. They even sell guns and ammunition. You could hole up there for years while the zombies are getting their nom nom on.”
My mouth dropped open.
“What?” She grinned. “Zombies got to eat, too, you know.”
“Very true about the Costco thing.” Dawson picked up a single kernel and popped it in his mouth. “But we could just blast the zombies. We’d be fine.”
“Ah, good point.” She rooted around in the bowl, picking up a half-popped kernel.
“I’m surrounded by freaks,” I said, resisting a smile. Hearing Dawson talk like…like it used to be was priceless. On the screen, some idiot got a chunk of skin and tissue ripped out of his arm. “What the hell? The guy just stood there. Hello. There’re zombies everywhere. Try looking behind you, douche canoe.”
Kat giggled.
“This is why zombie movies are unbelievable to me,” I went on. “Okay. Say the world ends in a shit-storm of zombies. The last thing anyone with two working brain cells would do is just stand along a building waiting for a zombie to creep up on them.”
Dawson cracked a smile.
“Shut up and watch the movie,” Kat ordered.
“So you really think you’d do well in a zombie apocalypse?” I demanded.
“Yeppers,” she said. “I’d totally save your butt.”
“Oh, really?” I glanced at the screen and got a horrible idea. Concentrating, I mirrored the image of zombie, taking on the gray and loose hanging skin, along with the patchy brown spots and decaying skin along the cheekbones and nose.
Kat shrieked and jerked into Dawson. “Oh my God…”
I smiled at her, knowing my rotting teeth were made of awesome. “Save my butt? Yeah, I don’t think so.”
She gaped at me.
And Dawson…he let out this hoarse, happy sound I hadn’t heard from him in…in years. I lost hold of the mirror image and focused back on Kat. I cleared my throat. “I think you’d suck at zombie apocalypse.”
“You…you are disturbed,” she murmured, carefully settling down next to me.
Grinning, I reached for the popcorn, but came up empty. My gaze shifted to the popcorn-covered floor. I laughed, shaking my head as I glanced at Dawson. He was watching us. The ever-present sadness etched into expression was there, but so was determination.
“Anyone want more popcorn?” I asked. “We have food coloring. I can make it red for you.”
“More popcorn but minus the food coloring please,” she replied as I grabbed the bowl. “Want me to pause the movie?”
I raised a brow, and she giggled again. Heading toward the kitchen, I stopped at the door when one of the zombies’ heads broke the surface of the water. What in the hell were we watching?
Didn’t matter, though, because again, it was like having the Dawson I’d grown up with back, and if he wanted to watch zombie movies from here on out, that was fine by me.
Instead of grabbing one of the boxes of microwave popcorn, I went the old-school route, heated up some oil and popped some kernels. Took longer but tasted a hell of a lot better.
Once done, I headed back to the living room, stopping just short of entering when I heard Kat say, “I’d love to watch some of them this Saturday before we check out the buildings.”
The freaking air I really didn’t need got stuck in my throat. I knew what she was talking about. The ghost shows Dawson used to watch with me every Saturday morning. There wasn’t an immediate response from him, and I started forward again, but then he spoke.
“Yeah, that would be kind of cool. I…I can do that.”
“Really?” Kat asked, sounding completely surprised, and shit, I was shocked.
“Yeah.”
Holy crap. I blinked and shook my head before entering the room. My gaze immediately met Kat’s, and I smiled at her, really smiled. Her lips responded in kind, and unlike this afternoon, her smile did change everything.
Kat was changing everything.
Thursday morning, I sat in my car, watching people hurry across the parking lot, toward the gray PHS building. The scent of cinnamon filled the interior, steaming out of the cup I’d picked up for Kat from the coffee and bakery shop down the road.
“You ready?” I asked.
In the passenger seat, my brother laughed drily. “Not really.”
I looked over at him. Dee had managed to get an inch of his hair cut off. It was still longer than mine. People would definitely be able to tell us apart now. “You don’t have to do this today. It can wait.”
He sat there frozen for a moment. “No.” Reaching between his knees, he picked up his backpack and then opened the door. Cold air rushed in. “It’s better than sitting at home. That’s going to drive me crazy.”
“Understandable,” I murmured, grabbing the coffee cup.
Sliding out of the car, my boots crunched on the snow-dusted gravel as I joined Dawson on the other side. His chin was down, and wavy strands of dark hair shielded the sides of his face. We didn’t speak as we walked into the school, and it wasn’t until then that anyone noticed Dawson.
It started with double takes.
People would look at me, look at Dawson, and then their heads would swing back toward us sharply, their eyes wide and full of shock.
Then the low murmur of chatter started. As I walked Dawson to the locker he’d been assigned, some just openly stared. He’d seemed oblivious to it, completely detached from everything around him.
I quickly scanned his schedule, seeing he had bio with Kat. That was good. I handed the thin slip piece of paper over to him. “You good from here?”
Dawson nodded as he closed his locker door and faced me. “I’m not going to run off.”
I arched a brow. “I hope not.”
His lips twitched into a semblance of a smile. “I’ll see you later.”
We parted ways at that point, and I swung by my locker, grabbed my books, and then made my way to trig. Kat was already in class. She glanced up with a soft smile as I placed the cup on her desk.
“Thanks.” She folded her hands around the cup as I sat down and fished the pen out of the spiral along the side of my notebook. “Where’s yours?”
“Not thirsty this morning,” I said, twirling my pen. Glancing over my shoulder, I grinned at the girl behind me. “Hi, Lesa.”
She sighed. “I need a Daemon.”
“You have a Chad,” Kat pointed out, referencing Lesa’s boyfriend.
Lesa rolled her eyes. “He doesn’t bring me lattes.”
I chuckled. “Not everyone can be as great as me.”
“Ego check,” Kat muttered. “Daemon, ego check.”
From across the aisle, Carissa, the quieter one, fiddled with her glasses, her eyes serious and somber as she peeked up at me. “I just wanted to say I’m glad Dawson’s okay and back.” Two red spots bloomed on her cheeks. “It must be a huge relief.”
I nodded. “It is.”
Carissa whirled around in her seat as I sat back, stretching out my legs. Class started, and I scribbled in the margin of my notebook throughout the lecture. When the bell rang, I stood and waited for Kat to gather up her stuff. We headed out into the hall, and in a second, I knew that half if not all of the school had seen Dawson.
People were standing completely still along the lockers, staring at me. Some appeared struck stupid. Others couldn’t keep their mouths shut. Kat stiffened beside me as she wrapped her hand around my arm.
“Did you see?”
“Two of them again…”
“So weird that he’d come back without Beth…”
“Where is Beth…?”