Bad Blood (Battle of the Undead Book 1) by Nicky Peacock

something else.”
    “You mean apart from the spitting image of your dead love in the next room?”
    “You touch him, and I’ll —”
    Too quickly , he was on top of me, knocking me over and pinning me to the floor. He’d fed and was strong. “You’ll what?”
    I wriggled uncomfortably. His breath still smelled of Tracy’s blood. I pushed and dislodged his body weight long enough to flip upright. He fell backward then regained his composure.
    “I’m not your enemy. I never have been, Bria …Britannia.”
    “Tell it to someone who gives a crap!” I waved my hands around in an over-exaggerated shrug
    “What were you going to tell me?”
    “What?” What had we been talking about? Oh, yeah. “Langdon says that he saw a zombie that looked like it was in charge.”
    “Josh saw an alpha zombie?”
    I chided myself again. “Yes, Josh did.”
    “I’ll speak with him.”
    I leapt forward and pinned Nicholas against the wall, my eyes radiating molten anger and my arm firmly across Nicholas’ throat.
    “They’ll be nice words,” he added.
    I let him go along with a breath. Stupid lungs and their unnecessary reflexes.
    I stormed back up to the pub and sat by Danny. I could smell that he was getting worse. I saw the looks that all the other wards were giving him. If he couldn’t get the medicine he needed, then his life expectancy was short at best. At worst, he was a liability to the rest , yet another problem to lump into the undead cocktail of crap that my life was fast becoming. I put my arm around him and hugged him. For the first time in a long time, I felt that everything was spinning out of my control. Like I was some angry character in a supernatural novel lurching from one disaster to another—all at the whim of a twisted author out to titillate her readers at my expense.
    “You okay?” Danny looked up at me.
    “I should be asking you that,” I replied.
    He strained to smile at me. He was exhausted . Being chased by ravenous animated corpses will do that to you. I was conscious that if I hugged him too tight I could break his bones, so I settled for resting my chin on the top of his smooth head.
    “I know what you are,” he whispered.
    “You do?” Here we go again.
    “I won’t tell.”
    “What do you think I am?”
    He looked up at me, grinned, and then whispered, “You’re an angel.”
    Thankfully, my hair was still loose, so I could cover my face and hide the stray tear that dribbled down my cheek.
    We slept. Tracy kept guard over me and Nicholas. Although we stayed with everyone else, our sleep was more like a coma. We had to do our nine hours before we set off. It was a long time to leave them all to their own devices, but I trusted them. Well, not Green . He kept giving me sly looks of condemnation. But I trusted Langdon. He’d watch over me and mine.

    Chapter Eight
     
    Everyone was still asleep when I awoke, even Nicholas. I carefully laid Danny on his side. His breathing was shallow, and his sweat smelled faintly of rotten chemicals.
    “What’s wrong with him?” Josh was still lying near me, his beautiful hazel eyes now open.
    “ Leukemia,” I replied.
    “Green wants to put him out of his misery. He says he’ll slow us down.”
    I looked over at the sleeping Green, who was now sporting a fresh black eye.
    “I didn’t agree with him.” Josh sat up.
    I wanted to crawl over to him, to push myself into his embrace, drag my lips across his neck, and kiss his thrumming pulse beneath. I didn’t. Instead, I moved to sit next to him. We were so close that the tiny hairs on our bare arms were standing up and dancing with each other. I looked down. His arms were strong, tanned, and with just enough muscle. Mine were thin and pale and could have crushed a block of marble.
    “I thought Iraq was bad,” he said.
    “Are there zombies in the US?”
    “Don’t know. We came back to a base here. We were on leave, doing the tourist thing in London.”
    “Saw more than you bargained