White Trash Zombie Apocalypse (White Trash Zombie 3)

“Thanks,” I said, then blew out my breath. “About Marcus. Brian told me not to say anything to anyone about the highway fight because of security. Does that include Marcus? We have enough crap between us without keeping something like that from him.”

After only a second of hesitation, Pietro replied, “That situation is settling. Use your discretion and share what you feel you need to.”

“Okay. Great,” I said, more relief than I expected washing through me. “Look, I also called to tell you I saw Philip last night. Twice.”

He fell quiet for a few seconds. I heard a click, and I had the strongest impression that he’d done something to record the call. “What happened?” he finally asked.

I told him about following Philip and what I found in the box under the steps, and about seeing him with Dr. Charish and how she gave him the paper bag with the packets of brains. Then I told him about how Philip came to find me and how I gave him my last bottle of brains.

“I don’t know why I helped him,” I confessed to Pietro. I wasn’t quite ready to share my zombie-parent-compassion theory. “I mean, he’s been nothing but a complete tool to me, but…god, he was so obviously hurting.”

“Angel, you have no idea how thankful I am that you helped him,” he said.

I blinked. “Um. You are?” I asked, baffled. “I don’t understand. Isn’t he working for Saberton?”

“Yes,” he said. “But as an operative for me.”

“Whoa,” I breathed. I fell silent for a few seconds while I wrapped my head around that. “Wait,” I said, anger flaring. “He was working for you this whole time? Even when he attacked me? Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”

I heard him exhale. “Angel, I understand how you feel,” he replied. “There was so much at stake. Is so much at stake. Everything has been on a need-to-know basis in order to protect Philip and his assignment. If the Saberton men with him ever witnessed anything from you other than your genuine reaction to him as one of them, he would be compromised…and so would you. However, as he is due to be extracted tomorrow, there’s little harm in you knowing now.”

“Oh.” I scowled. I hated the answer, but I also understood it. Damn it. “Well, he’s in really bad shape,” I told him, then narrowed my eyes as another piece of the puzzle clicked into place, and I didn’t like the picture that was forming. “Hang on,” I said. “That drop he made…” Son of a bitch. If Philip was an operative for Pietro, that had to mean the stuff he left in the box under the steps was meant for Pietro’s people. There wouldn’t have been any reason for him to be skulking around to pass something to Saberton since he was openly working with them. And good ole Dr. Charish had been there waiting for the stuff…

A brand new anger flared. “Is Charish still working for you?” I walked a little farther away from the Durango. I had a feeling I was going to be raising my voice real soon.

He drew a deep breath and released it, and when he spoke his voice sounded heavy and tired. “I reacquired her a few days after she fled the factory lab incident with you,” he told me. “She is contained and works under Ariston’s supervision.” He paused. “He needs her.”

“Contained?” I spat the word. “Well no one contained her when she was a vicious cold bitch to Philip. He begged for brains, and she jumped his ass for not rationing properly. Then she only gave him two packets when he obviously needed a lot more.” The plastic of my phone creaked, and I forced myself to relax my grip before I broke it.

“She and Dr. Nikas were temporarily at the Tucker Point lab location to monitor the data and samples from Saberton’s zombie research that Philip left at the drop site,” Pietro told me. “However, Ariston had to return to the main lab the night of your fight with the Saberton men out on Highway 1790. Heather needed medical attention, and he wanted to preserve the brain remnants for future use from the zombie she killed.” His voice was a bit too calm and even, and I had a strong feeling he was more than a little pissed off himself. But whether it was because Philip had been wronged, or because the oh-so-secret mission had been jeopardized, I couldn’t tell.

“Great, so he needs help from y’all and gets treated like dirt,” I said, scowling.

“Philip has other means of signaling that he needs assistance,” Pietro told me. “The lab itself was never a contact point, and he wouldn’t have gone there if he’d been thinking clearly.” He sounded oddly weary. “Ariston failed to foresee an interaction between Philip and Charish and so hadn’t left any instructions. Charish knew him only as a Saberton informant working on the movie set.”

My scowl deepened. “Well, y’all need to do something for him now. He’s hurting bad and twitchy.”

“Considering the current circumstances, I’ll get word to him that we’re going to move his extraction up for later today. You said he did get stabilizer?”

“Oh, the stuff that keeps him from shaking?”

“Right. That’s Ariston’s formulation to ease the pain somewhat and keep Philip functional.”

“Yeah. He had two vials. One kinda yellow and the other a milky blue. He drank half of one when he was with me.” I wanted to get pissed off again at the reminder of how Charish had fucked Philip up, but it was getting a bit tiring being so mad all the time.

I thought I heard a low intake of breath. “Angel, are you certain one was a milky blue?”

“Totally.”

“And which one did he drink from last night?” The tension in his voice was palpable.

“The yellow.” I frowned. “Why?”

“All right. There still might be time,” he said, almost as if to himself.

“Pietro? What’s going on?”

“The yellow vial is most likely stabilizer,” he said. “The color varies with the batch as the formulation is improved. It’s the milky blue one that concerns me since that’s the color of the parasite stimulant that Ariston sometimes uses for testing. I’m no doctor, but I don’t think it would react well with Philip’s already unstable parasite.”