White Trash Zombie Gone Wild (White Trash Zombie 5)

No. Oh god, I couldn’t lose control. I didn’t want to kill Rosario, even if he was an asshole. My body count was already way too high. Teeth clenched, I took a step back and tried not to breathe in the tantalizing aroma. “Get out of here,” I choked out. “Now!” Didn’t want Nick to see me kill and eat a human being.

Rosario must have seen his death in my eyes. He snatched up the Taser and dashed to his vehicle with Marla right beside him. I crushed the urge to chase him down like a psycho cat after a mouse and instead sprinted to my car.

“Angel!” Nick burst from the morgue, phone in hand as Rosario sped off. “The cops are on their way. Are you all right? Who was that?”

“I’m fine. I’m really sorry about your window and the hood. I swear I’ll pay for the damages. But I gotta go before the streets close.” I scrambled into my car and slammed the door on any further questions. Nick waved his arms and yelled, but I made it out of the lot before he could get close enough to try and stop me.

I headed in the opposite direction Rosario had taken, then tried to figure out my next step. Rosario’s kidnap attempt had been sloppy and rushed which made me think he’d received a “Grab Angel ASAP” order. I’d beaten the asshole this time, but he’d be back and better prepared. Son of a pissing hell bitch. This was a mess wrapped in a shitstorm and stuffed into a clusterfuck.

My elbow flared in pain as I took a sharp left turn to avoid parade traffic. Glass shifted beneath the skin when I probed. I scowled. Hungry or not, the parasite would have normally dulled the pain by now. Great. Yet another way I’d fucked myself with the V12.

Before I could grab brains from the cooler, my phone rang. Nick. I put it on speaker. “Hey, Nick.” I filled my voice with as much casual cheer as I could squeeze in. “I’m fine, I promise. Sorry I had to run off, but I forgot I had to meet someone, and now I’m running late.”

“Who the hell was that? What did he want?”

“Dunno who he was. Some asshole who’d been drinking since morning.” I clung to the hope that Nick had raced downstairs the instant he saw me in trouble and therefore only witnessed the initial part of the attack when Rosario was acting drunk. No way did I need the cops involved in this. “Lucky for me, the dude ran like a little bitch when I grabbed your tranq gun,” I continued. “And I really am sorry about the broken window. I guess I panicked and went into Angel-Smash mode, but at least it scared the guy off.” I tried for a laugh. “If it wasn’t for the broken window, the whole thing might be kinda funny.”

Nick laughed with me, and I melted in relief. He’d bought it. “Windows can be replaced,” he said. “What matters is that you’re okay. Do you have a description for the cops?”

I rattled off a description vague enough to fit a quarter of the parade-goers in town since I didn’t want the cops involved At All, reassured Nick yet again that I was fine, then finally disconnected.

Hunger grumbled, and I reached for my cooler to grab a brain smoothie.

No cooler. Not on the front seat or the floorboard.

Dread rising, I checked my mirrors for any sign of Rosario, then pulled over and looked for the cooler in the back seat. “No no no no no no,” I breathed then ran to the trunk on the slim chance I’d had a brain fart and stuck my cooler in there.

Nope. Just the usual junk. I held back a shriek of rage with effort. The asswipe had broken into my car and swiped my entire stash of brains while I was in the building. Hands shaking with fury, I slammed the trunk and got back in the car. No doubt he was also the prick who’d stolen my gun at the Fest. Maybe his plan wasn’t so sloppy after all.

Didn’t change the fact that I wanted to kick his brain-stealing ass more than ever.

But first, I needed to find my next meal.

Chapter 29

Dante Rosario wanted to kidnap me, but this wasn’t my first let’s-get-stalked rodeo. A little over a year ago, Dr. Kristi Charish had ordered William Rook—a mercenary-operative-hitman, a.k.a. Walter McKinney—to bring me in. After several failed attempts, Rook succeeded, but I’d learned a few things from that experience. First, I hated Kristi Charish with the fiery heat of a thousand burning suns. Second, I hated Nicole Saber with the fiery heat of a million burning suns. Third, if I was going to be hunted again, I needed to be ready and well supplied with brains. And fourth, but most importantly, I needed to make sure my dad was safe in case Rosario decided to take a page from Rook’s playbook and grab my dad to get to me.

“I’m okay, I promise,” I said the instant my dad answered his phone. “But I need you to go hide.”

“Jesus, Angel, I just put a damn pizza in the oven and I got The Godfather in the Blu-ray.”

“Jesus, Dad,” I mimicked. “Turn the oven off, and you’ve already watched that thing a billion times. Get out of the house and go someplace no one would expect.”

“Shit. Fine. You ain’t lying to me about being okay, are you?”

“I’m not lying. But I need to know you’re safe.”

I heard the beep as he turned the oven off. “I think I liked it better when you was just a druggie car thief,” he grumbled.

I laughed. “I love you. I’ll call as soon as I can.”

“Love you too, Angelkins, and you damn well better.”

That took care of a big chunk of my worry. But my nerves ratcheted back up when I called the lab and it continued to ring and ring. After at least ten rings the line clicked, and a woman’s voice answer

ed. “Delancey.”

Uggghhhhh. Rachel Delancey. “It’s Angel. I have a problem and need to speak to Dr. Nikas.” I grimaced then added, “Please.”