Tall, Dark & Furious (Pyte/Sentinel 6)

“What’s a video game?” Trace asked, watching as she gave up trying to make sense of what she was reading and focused her attention back on the wires connecting the small black box to the television.

“Something men play with to kill brain cells,” Samantha explained, making him frown before adding, “They seem to enjoy it,” with another heavy sigh as she gave up trying to play with the wires and reached for the papers again only to end up releasing an excited squeal and an adorable smile as she pointed towards the television with a, “It works!”

Frowning, Trace shifted his attention back to the television and-

“Sweet Jesus!” he shouted when he found himself faced with a rotting corpse taking a bite out of a little old woman.

“They’re zombies,” his wife said as she gestured absently towards the television with the other controller.

Frowning, Trace watched as her fingers moved over the controller as a man on the screen moved, pulled out a gun and-

Oh, he liked that, Trace thought, shifting his attention back to the controller in his hands and began pressing things, making another man on the screen turn around in circles as he periodically pulled out weapons and fired them only to end up walking into a wall.

It took him several minutes before he realized that his wife had stopped playing. He glanced over to find Samantha curled up in a ball with her back towards the television and mumbling, “Is my guy still alive?”

Glancing back at the television, he couldn’t help but cringe in sympathy when he spotted the man that she’d been able to make move, being torn apart.

“Yes, he’s fine,” he said, mostly because she drank the last cold Coke.

With a relieved sigh, Samantha rolled over and ended up squeezing her eyes shut on a whimper that turned into a grunt when she fell off the couch, which ended with a groan and a mumbled, “Stupid zombie.”

Chapter 28

“Can you just look again?” Samantha asked, worrying her bottom lip as she continued cowering beneath the blankets as she tried to ignore the headache that had been threatening to turn into a migraine all day.

“Wife,” Trace said, sighing heavily, but since they both knew that she wasn’t going to be able to fall asleep until he did, he double-checked beneath the bed. “There’s nothing there.”

“Are you sure?” she asked as she took a deep breath and slowly, just in case he was lying, peeked out from beneath the blankets to find him glaring down at her as though this was somehow her fault.

“Yes,” he said firmly as he made a show of checking again.

“And the closet?” Samantha asked, pointing towards the small closet that she’d made him check a total of eighteen times now.

Allowing his eyes to turn red, he grumbled something, stormed over to the closet and-

“Oh…oh, my god!” Trace said, slamming the door shut seconds before he pressed his back against the door and yelled, “Run, wife!” as she sat there, narrowing her eyes on him.

“Hurry, before it’s too late!”

Nodding slowly, she crawled back beneath her blanket, grumbling about all men being assholes while the asshole that she was stuck with chuckled. She hated him. She really did, Samantha decided as she blindly reached out to grab the iPad that was going to have to keep her entertained until she managed to pass out.

“Would it make you feel better if I slept in here tonight?” the man that had been sleeping in the other room since the ceiling incident that they weren’t talking about, offered.

“Maybe,” she muttered petulantly, mostly because she was still pissed at him.

“What if I apologized again?”

“You never apologized,” she pointed out before adding, “You laughed.”

“It was amusing,” the man that deserved the beating that she gave him with the throw pillow earlier, said.

“No, it wasn’t,” she said, determined to ignore him. Unless he tried to leave, that is. Then she would throw another pillow at his head.

“I eventually told you the truth,” the man that thought it was funny to tell her that goblins existed, said.

She hadn’t been sure exactly what goblins were until he’d casually mentioned that she might want to sleep somewhere else for a few days since he saw one crawling beneath her bed this morning. That had led her to search Google for an hour, double-checking all the doors and windows, and banging a spoon against the bottom of a pot, hoping to scare them away all while Trace laughed his ass off at her.

He really was an asshole.