White Trash Zombie Apocalypse (White Trash Zombie 3)

“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.

I glared up at Philip. I despised his sorry ass, but the severity of his condition tweaked something inside me. It was like hearing a puppy crying for its mama—that sound that makes you want to pick it up and cuddle it and make it better. Except that Philip wasn’t any sweet puppy, and the ludicrous concern for him that nagged at me made no sense.

“She really messed you up, didn’t she?” I said, knowing damn well he’d know that “she” was Dr. Charish.

He looked down at me, pain evident behind his eyes and in the lines of his face, and I had a feeling he had no idea how much it showed. Tremors, the extreme twitching, and what sure as hell looked like terrible pain—and that was only what I’d seen in our short encounters. Asshole or not, that was a crap thing to do to anyone. Fuck Charish. Fuck. That. Bitch.

But Philip merely snorted. “Nothing that’s not manageable.”

I felt the woman’s hands on me as she swiftly tied the tourniquet and palpated for a vein. I bit back a yelp as she shoved something that felt the size of a ball point pen into my arm.

Philip convulsed hard, his weight grinding the gravel into my back. I snapped my eyes back to his, focused, connected with his pain, with the wrongness in him. A shuddering moan escaped him, though he clamped his lips tight to try to stop it. With a soft exhalation, I bent my free arm, laid my hand on his hip, desperately seeking a way to comfort him, ease the pain.

Beside me I felt the woman drawing multiple vials of blood. A tiny, distant part of me knew I should be worried about what would happen to me once they got what they wanted—the same part that wondered if I was going batshit insane.

I locked my attention onto Philip. “Let me help you,” I murmured, softly enough that he was the only one who could hear me. And I meant it.

Batshit insane! the small part screamed.

Philip leaned down so that his face was about an inch from mine, eyes intense and deadly serious. Rain dripped from his hair onto my cheek. “I’m only going to say this once,” he said just as softly, “so listen carefully.”

I held his gaze, trembling very slightly in anticipation of…something.

His lips pulled back from his teeth. “Fuck…you,” he rasped, then straightened, a sardonic smile playing on his mouth.

I clenched my teeth as my hatred for him flared white hot, totally burning away the irrational compassionate bullshit. I began to struggle again. It still didn’t do any good, and I couldn’t sustain it for long, but it felt a helluva lot more sane than the crazy urge to soothe my hateful, asshole zombie-kid.

The woman removed the pipeline from my vein, and I shifted my I-hate-you gaze from Philip to her. She flicked a quick glance at me as she packed the vials of blood into the tackle box, but hurriedly looked away when she saw me glaring at her, then stood and moved back.