Death 07 - For the Love of Death
Author: Tamara Rose Blodgett
Date: 2014-09-05 00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Literature & Fiction; Science Fiction & Fantasy; Science Fiction; Dystopian; Genetic Engineering; High Tech; Horror; Dark Fantasy; Hard Science Fiction
Description: The year is 2049 and in the new dystopian order, the Randoms have risen to the top. Because of the Helix Complex and their illicit use of mass sterilization, Earth faces dire consequences. The virulent Zondorae concoction of 2030 made many who could have children into mules. Now middle-aged, Death's children do their best in a world where technology and paranormal powers collide in a mix of tragedy and circumstance. Those in power have raised zombies for the slave trade. Paxton and Deegan Hart are grown and on the radar for those that understand how critical they are for future exploit. The ti

Praise for the DEATH Series:

“... For those of you who have read the entire series and are awaiting this final novel, I believe you will love it just as much as I do. It couldn't be any more perfect. And for those of you who haven't read any of the series, or only part of the series, well, this is a series you will not soon forget. It's full of wonder and true-to-life characters, dialogue, and situations that will make you connect to the characters in ways you didn't know you could connect to fictional characters from a book. I highly recommend this series, and am hoping that maybe, just maybe, a spinoff series is in order. Five stars for a truly perfect ending ...” Shana, abookvacation (Unrequited)

“ … Tamara Rose Blodgett's writing pulls me into the world of Caleb Hart and his friends. I found myself emotionally invested in the lives contained in the pages of these books. I can't imagine how it could have been better. It's also exciting that a door seems to have been left ajar. . .will we be seeing some of our favorites in another book? I really hope so. Ms. Blodgett is such an original. It has been amazing to indulge my paranormal cravings with such original and well crafted works. Will happily purchase upcoming releases ....” LBLanding, Reader (Unrequited)

“ … I love this series and am glad there will be more! The transition from a ya series to an adult one was very smooth and natural and made major sense for the progression of the story line. To stay young adult would have been impossible to say the least! I cannot wait for the next book to come out ...!” Nocturnus, Reader (Unrequited)

“ … ....The storyline was deep and rich, and the characters were amazing and super realistic as usual. The world that Tamara [Rose Blodgett] has built is deep and immersive.....” Logan Rutherford (Screams)

“ … It does not matter which book you read, you, WILL, go out and get the entire series. Not only is it inexpensive, it is so entertaining. I won't give any spoilers, it would just ruin it for you, but, I read through these in very few days, as I just could not put it down. I love caleb and, though, sometimes you can guess which way things are going to go, it doesn't stop you from going on and on. She has one more book, of this series, coming out in September of 2014, and, I cannot wait for it. I really hate to start a series and find out they are still being written, because it takes to long to wait. I will be re-reading these ones. can't help it...” Monica S. (Weeps)

“ … I'm a grandmother, but, I still enjoyed reading this book. I've read the first two books in this series and now I'm ready for the next book. They are very entertaining...” Kathy (Speaks)

“ … This is a great author, if you like to read about other worlds and science fiction these are the books to read. Once I got started on her books, I have gone to reading other books written by her. I've enjoyed everyone. There is time travel, as well as different forms of people made by mad scientist...” Carol Brooks (Inception)

“ … The plot was well thought out and written. Did not want to put this book down and am looking forward to reading the rest of the series. Would recommend this book for13+ (adults included)....” Bre (Whispers)

Table of Contents

Praise for the DEATH Series:              1

DEDICATION:              5

[Main] Character Index:              7

CHAPTER ONE              9

CHAPTER TWO              14

CHAPTER THREE              20

CHAPTER FOUR              27

CHAPTER FIVE              33

CHAPTER SIX              39

CHAPTER SEVEN              44

CHAPTER EIGHT              49

CHAPTER NINE              54

CHAPTER TEN              60

CHAPTER ELEVEN              65

CHAPTER TWELVE              70

CHAPTER THIRTEEN              75

CHAPTER FOURTEEN              81

CHAPTER FIFTEEN              85

CHAPTER SIXTEEN              91

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN              96

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN              101

CHAPTER NINETEEN              106

CHAPTER TWENTY              111

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE              117

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO              122

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE              126

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR              130

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE              135

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX              140

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN              146

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT              151

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE              157

CHAPTER THIRTY              162

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE              167

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO              174

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE              178

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR              184

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE              189

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX              194

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN              198

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT              202

THE REFLECTIVE-excerpt              211

Acknowledgments              229

More Books by Tamara Rose Blodgett              230

Books written under the pen name, Marata Eros              231

About the Author:              233

The year is 2049 and in the new dystopian order, the Randoms have risen to the top. Because of the Helix Complex and their illicit use of mass sterilization, Earth faces dire consequences. The virulent Zondorae concoction of 2030 made many who could have children into mules. Now middle-aged, Death’s children do their best in a world where technology and paranormal powers collide in a mix of tragedy and circumstance. Those in power have raised zombies for the slave trade.

Paxton and Deegan Hart are grown and on the radar for those that understand how critical they are for future exploit. The tight-knit circle of friends are forced to network for solutions to the depravity that has taken hold.

Can the original group protect a new talent, so dangerous it shouldn't exist? Will the new generation of Randoms find a solution for propagation, or will their power base cannibalize those who choose harmony over greed?

FOR the LOVE of DEATH

Book Seven: The Death Series

Copyright © 2014 Tamara Rose Blodgett

Kindle Edition

ISBN-10:1475210507

ISBN-13: 978-1475210507

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher.

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

All rights are reserved.

Edited by Red Adept Publishing

Proofed by Linda Palomera-Terpe
bigstockphoto.com: stock photo by :Ando6

Font art: Bookish Brunette Designs

DEDICATION:

Shana Benedict

A book all to yourself~

Words aren't enough.

Music that inspired me during the writing of this work:

Gravedigger

David John Matthews

Arranged by Timothy C. Takach

Gravedigger~

When you dig my grave,
could you make it shallow?

So that I... can feel... the rain....

[Main] Character Index:

Paxton Hart

Deegan Hart

Caleb Hart

Jade LeClerc-Hart

“Jonesy” Mark Jones

Mia Cote-Weller

“Bry” Bryan Weller

“Tiff” Tiffany Weller-Terran

John Terran

Lewis Archer

“Soph” Sophie

Gram/Ali Hart

Gramps/Mac O'Brien

Grandpa/Kyle Hart

“Mitch” Mitchell- Deegan's zombie

Clyde Thomas- Caleb's zombie

Bobbi Gale-Thomas

George & family- Paxton's zombie family

Brad Thompson

Jeffrey Parker

CHAPTER ONE

2049

Pax

Gramps takes Gram's hand.

“Pop, don't. It won't help. There's nothing more they can accomplish here.”

My eighty-year old great-grandpa pushes a stray silvering hair away from Gram's face, tucking it behind her ear.

It's my turn next.

We all have to say goodbye.

Like a sixth finger, a slim needle punctures skin thinned by cancer, dehydration, and age. Gram’s skin resembles a drug user’s, riddled with pockmarks from many different needles. Those veins have retreated as though in fear. Now the only spot they can stick is her hand.

The hospital is some sick insult.

I swallow my disgust. My anger, so like my dad’s, bleeds underneath my skin.

Pulse monitors instantly recognize her pain levels, and Gram gets another squirt of morphine and saline.

Like a goddamned camel.

I turn away and listen instead of watch. Easier without the truth beating me over the head through my gaze.

“Ali—Peanut…”

I clench my teeth. My fists follow. A vein in my forehead throbs in time to my heartbeat.

A doctor breezes in, and I splay my fingers. My eyes, the exact shade of my dying grandmother’s, tag his progress. My heartbeat thuds in my ears. Solid.

Dr. Shreya’s espresso skin begins to molt. Every beat of my heart steals his vitals.

I know I'm out of control. I get it.

The doctor throws his hands around his throat, his pulseboard clattering to the white floor.

Gramps stands then looks at me. “Pax. Cease and desist.”

I shake my head. It's the doctor's fault. Technology is too advanced to let my grandma die.

Cancer's for chumps.

My arms are stiff tortured stripes of rage by my sides, hands clenching and unclenching.

Gram tries to sit up. Can't. Lies back down. “Pop, do something.”

The vitals pulse monitor on the wall sounds an alarm.

Gramps approaches me cautiously. “Trying, Peanut.”

“He’s having a fit,” she says, code for using talents I don’t have a handle on yet.

Like now.

The doctor falls on his ass, his face turning an awesome shade of bruised plum.

Gramps’ low, even voice filters through. “Control it, Paxton. Pull it back, pal.”

The shame is so bright, it feels like internal combustion as a hot, fat tear rolls down my face. “I don’t want to.”

“I understand son—boy, do I. But this isn’t the way.”

The door swings open, and John Terran strolls in. “Hey, Pax, I could feel you from the North Pole.”

I scream, “She’s fucking dying, Uncle John!” The tears scald trails of fire on my face. Then I’m in his arms, a twenty-year-old man acting like a damned infant.

I hate this. I hate me.

I hate.

Great whooping exhales sound behind me on the floor as the doctor regains the use of his lungs.

John hugs me tight. “I’m here, Paxton. Don’t let it rule you. You’re in charge. Only you.”

“I’m in charge,” I repeat, as though from a distance. He grips my shoulders as I gaze into his pale blue eyes, measuring my breathing.

“I’m in charge,” I say again. I can’t stop the tremor in my voice.

That feeling I get when John Terran is near sweeps over me, and my horrible abilities go back into the box where I store them.

There are no words for the relief.

*

I can hear my parents arguing in the next room. Not a fan.

Probably because I'm not used to it.

Caleb and Jade Hart are the perfect couple.

They just have two shitty kids.

How does that happen?

I stare up at the ceiling, checking out the same tic-tac-toe pattern of wood beams I have from this couch a million times. I jerk the wool afghan up to my chin and give a rough exhale.

My gram made it for me. To match our eyes, she said. It’s a million colors of blue, from slate to gray, pewter storm clouds to the true blue of the Caribbean Sea.

I toss it onto the floor.

“You can’t do it!” Mom fumes. I visualize her throwing her arms in the air, because it’s impossible for Mom to talk without using her hands. We’ve tried it and no, it doesn’t work.

I sit up on the couch.

I’d love to have a cig.

Bet Gramps has a stash.

Dad raises his voice. “Jade, if I can do Clyde… I can do Mom.”

Uh-oh. It’s the old “make Gram a zombie” convo.

Yeah.

It isn't going to work. Gram's okay with dying. Doesn't matter the rest of us are pissed as hornets about it.

She’s a goner, and we’re left to deal.

Blows goats.

I bounce up and walk into the kitchen. Mom’s face is pink, and she turns her head. Her long black hair swings to cover her face. Mom hides when she’s embarrassed or angry. Like it’s not cool to feel anger. But the way she was raised, it was always Anger Central. Getting caught arguing with Dad qualifies.

“Pax,” Dad starts, and I hold up a hand.

“Not interested in exhausting the why, Dad.”

His lips thin, and I tread softly. I don’t fuck with Dad. Or Gramps. Ali and Kyle, as grandparents, are the tightest. They’re softer on me. I guess living has rounded the hard corners.

Gramps missed the whole round corners thing.

Dad rolls his brown eyes. His short buzz cut hides the gray through length alone, but he’s not old. At forty, he could still kick my ass. And if he can’t, he could bring the undead. They’d take care of business.

Of course, so can I. I’ve been taught by the best.

“We’re discussing the thing at the hospital.”

“The thing?” I tear open the fridge door and look at all the healthy food.

Disgusting.

I slam the door and Mom is there, holding out a sugar-free pudding. I carefully pluck it out of her hands.

We avoid touching.

Common courtesy with Empaths. I’m a low level, but first-degree relatives amplify it.

Then her fingers wrap my wrist and a fractured river of jagged thoughts intrude.

Sympathy.

Love.

Understanding.

She lifts her hand and looks at me.

“God Mom, ya think I don't know that?”

“Pax,” Dad warns.

Mom lifts a shoulder. “Sometimes it's faster.”

Every time, is what she means.

I plow my fingers through hair the same shade as Mom’s. Black. Sometimes I hate looking like anyone. I just want to look like me.

But I can’t escape genetics. The entire bullshit strand has been passed down. I have Dad’s straight Roman nose, his mouth, my mom’s wide eyes and hair color, Gram’s exact shade of blue irises, and Dad’s build squared.

We few kids keep getting taller. Must be those hormones, outlawed by the time I was ten, in the meat and milk.

I’m six-foot-three. I’m not a mountain like Dad’s friend Alex Sims, but I’m working on it.

“You can’t kill the doctor ’cuz you’re pissed about Gram,” Dad says, trying for reason.

It’s so ridiculous said aloud I bark a laugh.

I agree. Too bad my power has a will of its own and it’s so closely linked to my emotions.

I spin to face him. He’s a hair shorter, but Dad always feels big. A son always wonders if he can take his dad. I gave up about five years ago, but sometimes I have a spot of amnesia.

We stare at each other like dogs fighting for dominance.

“Don’t, Pax. We’re past this. We have to honor what Gram would want.”

“You don’t want to, any more than me.” I jab my thumb into my chest.

Dad swipes a palm across his nape.

Death energy flexes and Dad’s doses me, stealing my breath. His ability is a thing of legend. The company he works for keeps him busy relocating the dead.

It’s either that, or he raises them in his dreams. Which, irony-much, is kinda nightmarish.

“That’s what you and Mom were arguing about,” I add.

Dad exhales roughly. “She’s my mom. I want her to live. I’m as pissed as you.”

I shake my head. “I don’t think so.”

Dad narrows his eyes, and his trim body tenses. “You think I wouldn’t do anything to keep Gram here?”

I chance a glance at Mom. Tears litter her face, and guilt swamps me.

I know I’ve been a first class A-hole for the last year since Gram’s been sick.

Deegan says I’m heartsick. If that’s true, then I don’t have one left.

They used to say men don't cry.

They just don't say what's happening inside a man when he doesn't. Where do those unshed tears go?

So yeah, heartsick works.

I sweep Dad’s hand from my shoulder. “No—eff that. I’m taking off.”

He opens his mouth, and Mom’s hand falls on his arm.

I throw the parental unit a crumb. “Don’t say it—I’ve got Uncle John’s number. If things get saucy, I’ll pulse.”

Although we don’t really “pulse” anymore, the term sticks. Everything is Brain Impulse Disc to Disc now. Dad used to carry around a physical pulse. It’s laughable how lame that was.

Many Randoms have “sponsors.” We’re not the alcoholics of the past, but we still need a go-to. If I get into trouble like earlier today, John Terran is alerted through a special pulse-to-mind link. It’s a safety measure.

He’s Null enough to shut my shit down.

At least I don’t have a Null guard like Dee.

Today was scary because I wasn’t sure I wanted “help.” It had felt so good, so right, to steal Dr. Shreya’s air in a telekinetic swoop.

I know it’s wrong. That my emotional spikes create a “ready pathway” for talent travel.

I just hadn’t given a shit.

All I can think is Gram’s dying. And how she gets me.

Only a handful of people do.

I take off running and go straight to Gramps.

He’ll have some words of wisdom. Or he’ll kick my ass.

That works.

CHAPTER TWO

Pax

My Toyota skates along paved roads that haven’t kissed rubber in fifteen years. It’s not exactly a hover car like some of the lame-ass twentieth century science fiction movies portrayed but a strong repellent to a magnetized undercarriage.

Pulse tech again. This time, in the guise of invisible rails that repel what the car can’t land on. It’s pretty cool. It had pissed off the fuel tycoons, though.

I smile at the thought of authority getting the shaft. I’m a major fanboy over whatever works them up.

I think music and the car’s Paxton Hart pulsewave syncs with my command, filling the car with oldies. Real old.

Gramps gave me a bootlegged copy of Loverboy from the twentieth century. Love those synthesizers.

Volume thirty-five.

<Prohibited volume>

Eff me.

I always forget the anti-deafness clause in all volume controls.

I think what the highest volume allowed is.

The pulse sensor sets it.

<Memory sync>

I lean back. Night has fallen, and my second eyelid membrane folds over my eye. A thin, opaque covering absorbs starlight, moonlight, firefly, and light pollution in a fifty-mile radius.

I see like a cat in the dark.

The scientists haven’t been able to explain that one. I was a Random. A should’ve-not-been. Yet here I am, born of a supposed mule with a five-point AFTD marker and a lick of precog. Yep, I’m an unknown.

High school had sucked.

They’d parked a Null on my ass at every class. One guards my house even now. Mandatory for all five-point Randoms under age eighteen.

Hell on a love life.

Paxton Hart is a pariah to girls. Who wants to date a Random with second eyelids, who can raise a cemetery? “Unsexy” doesn’t cover it. There’s no game on for that skill set.

<Destination?>

Gramps.

<Mac O'Brien>

I close my eyes, and the car sings about being on autopilot, with a bunch of additional garbage about the best route and Gramps’ vitals, age, history.

Blah, blah, blah.

Pax?

My eyes pop open. The black ribbon of road appears gray under my translucent lid. I can see every displaced pebble on its surface.

Another car passes me, going in the opposite direction. Our side mirrors almost touch.

Yeah?

Where are you? I don’t feel you.

Going to Gramps’.

Mom and Dad are freaking out.

Yeah.

They’re not the enemy, ya know.

Girls.

I heard that.

I roll my eyes. I know she can’t hear that. However, she’s a new class of Random: Emotive. They feel in shards of sensation.

Stop rolling your eyes, Pax.

Stop getting up my ass about the parents, Deegan.

Silence.

I shouldn’t say that. Sometimes, all we’ve had is each other.

I mean… God, ya know what I mean.

I know you’re pissed about Gram.

Aren’t you? I think at her.

Yes. But mainly, I’m so sad I can’t get past that part.

Gramps’ perimeter barricade appears like reverse stakes pointing at the sky.

You there already?

Yeah.

Don't come home late. Think something at Mom so she knows you're okay.

A few seconds swell between us.

Yeah, okay.

I love you even though you're cantankerous.

Dee's on a new vocab kick. Just another teen phase to live through. It makes me smile, though.

I love you too, Tinkerbell.

I grin at the nickname. She puts up with it. She has to, it suits her.

There's more space when she leaves my head, and the pulse scan begins. For an old dude, Gramps really gets on board the tech stuff. He has embraced the regeneration experiments for life expectancy.

His reversal worked well.

Too bad that doesn’t work on cancer patients.

I shove my grief aside. The anger is easier to embrace.

The gate slides open, and my bullet-shaped car automatically glides into a backward position between two trees. Gramps has cleverly used what would be a perfect hammock space as a hanger for my wheels. Not that I have those.

I feel the jolt as the magnetized rails align with the receptors.

One heartbeat goes by and the air pressure shifts in the car, popping my ears.

The door opens and swings to the top. When I step out, the solid aluminum chassis bounces. Without my weight, the car lifts a half-meter, suspended by invisible pulleys.

The pulleys aren’t invisible to all.

I see them with my night vision eyelid. It’s creepy. Mainly because I’ve told the scientists who regulate my abilities only what I think is safe for them to know.

They’d shit a Granny Smith if they knew I could see the veil between the worlds.

And how many there are.

*

Gramps stands out on the stoop, a small red ember blazing like a third eye inside his cupped hands.

A puff of smoke drifts into the air, and I grin.

Gramps is not responsible about the environment.

He’s so responsible about his family. The important crap.

“Pax.” Gramps peeks over his bent fingers.

He doesn’t say more but moves into the garage. Like I didn’t just put the telekinetic whammy on the good doctor earlier today. I blink, my night-seeing eyelid retracting.

My vision dims, becoming soft and inefficient like a normal person’s in the dark. Gramps will have the old florescent bulbs juiced up in the garage in no time.

Light swamps the drive pad, and my second eyelid retreats further.

I’m not dumb enough to use it in artificial or natural light.

That went bye-bye along with successful potty training. The night vision lids retreat automatically now.

The Camaro that used to be Dad’s sits up on blocks, the spoiler primered and ready for a junkyard replacement. Kinda unlikely. But there’s always Kent Refuse. Gramps has some luck there.

I run a hand down the crunched spoiler. I’d heard the story a million times, but sometimes repetition is comforting.

“That goddamned bear,” Gramps mutters, the cig’s ash five  centimeters and burning.

It’d make a damned mess on Gramps’ perfectly epoxied floor.

He flicks the ash into a Folger’s tin coffee can set on his tool slide-out. It’s so rusty the G is missing from the logo.

I know from experience fine beach rock from the lake sits halfway deep in the thing.

My gaze travels to the water.

It won’t be long before they take the water for the dam. Right now, it’s a dark mass, a monster that never rises.

Faceless and nameless.

“So?” Gramps moves around to toe the creeper out from under the blocks. “Let’s change the oil on the old girl.”

Fossil fuel. Weird.

Gramps is grandfathered. Whenever someone of authority tries to tag his ass with another tree-hugger law, he flips them the card.

Or the bird, as he calls it and cackles.

He has an actual card with a large, stamped holographic world-logo of exemptions. Gramps gets cigarettes, fossil fuel, an acre of lawn, toilets that flush five gallons of water per use, and all the guns he likes. As with other pre-1970s, the government has made allowances. There’s a high rate of non-compliance in that age sector.

Gramps has taught me to change out an engine on a car no one drives. Sure, he can drive it on the auto-only roads. But they're such a small loop anymore, it's not worth it.

Gramps jerks his jaw at the creeper and I lie back, shoving off with my heels and get underneath the oil pan.

The car is simple. My life is complicated.

Tension releases, bleeding out with the dirty oil. I drain it.

Gramps talks while I work.

“Let's talk about Gram.”

God, no.

“I’m mad, Gramps. I’m mad about her… going.”

“Me too.”

Surprised, I hook my heels against the concrete and inch myself out. Finally, his face comes into focus. Hard, not handsome, he peers at me from behind a shroud of smoke. He’s still regenerating. A face that should be craggy and lined is looking around sixty. It’s the newest technology, but it doesn’t work on everyone. Whoever finds out why will make a trillion bucks.

“You are?”

Gramps nods, taking a deep inhale. He’s already had one lung transplant.

The surgery is killer, but med scientists grow replacement parts for us all. Life expectancy is now one hundred twenty-five without regeneration.

There’s not enough precedence since regeneration began to estimate life expectancy for those who go through the process.

“I’m so mad at Caleb I could spit.”

I sit straight up and blink.

Those hard eyes meet mine, and they’re shiny.

I stare at my great-grandpa, who I know has never cried in his long life, and wonder what is so bad he would break form now.

Apparently, his only child’s oncoming death.

“I want my peanut, son. It's not natural for a child to die before its parents.”

I hadn't thought about that.

He had.

A lot.

“Your dad can keep her. He can do it.”

I nod.

“I can do it.”

He inclines his head. “I know. But none of us would put that weight on your head, son. Ali doesn’t want it. She doesn’t want to be like Clyde.”

“Nah. It’s not that she doesn’t want to be like Clyde. She doesn’t want to be a zombie slave.”

Gramps winces, scrubbing a hand over his face. “You’d think they’d give an exception…”

“Ya know they won’t. Any zombies made after 2035 are automatically sanctioned. Her card gets pulled and she—she…”

I can’t finish.

“It’s so unnatural, what the Helix Complex did. Now we don’t have enough people to pick up the trash.”

“Flip burgers,” I add.

“Just enough,” Gramps says thoughtfully.

“That’s really why Dad won’t.” I look up at his solemn face. “He’d blow off Gram in a second if he thought it’d give her more time. But he knows all it will give her is a potential to be used.”

Gramps knots his gnarled hands together, hands slightly less arthritic than they were last month. “If I could just get her underground….”

I stand.

We look at each other.

Gramps holds his arms out, and I allow myself to be hugged for the second time that day.

Neither of us says anything when his shoulder grows wet.

CHAPTER THREE

Deegan

A ghost floats by, and I keep walking. My reluctant nod to exercise. All my girlfriends do Zumba Twenty. I hate it. It’s my parents’ fault; they’re old-fashioned and have always walked.

Whenever I trot by the old Scenic Cemetery, ghosts sense me and float over. They’re an annoyance. Some people have seasonal allergies or constant ticks in a body part.

I have ghosts that tag-team me. It could be worse. I could have it as bad as Pax.

The worst I have to survive is the spirits moving through my body to get my attention. It feels wet and warm, as though a giant has licked the inside of my body like an ice cream cone. It's part of the much-faceted AFTD fun, I guess.

I shudder, moving on, and the troublesome spirit drifts away. I walk when I’m stressed out.

I’ve been walking a lot lately.

Gram is dying. She of the cookies, breads, pizzas, handmade everything, and overall Comfort Goddess.

I suck in a shaky breath, and it rattles like a bag of marbles let loose inside me. They make noise as they ceaselessly move. I can’t stop them. A metaphor for my sadness.

It keeps digging a trench in the endless cavity of my soul.

My spirit sags under the weight of Gram’s inevitability. I don’t reach out to Pax. He’s as burdened as I am.

Besides, he’s at Gramps, and they’ll male bond or whatever. I love Gramps, but he’s all thumbs with me. Pax gets him.

Gram got both of us.

She fed Paxton and was the constant rock. Always home, always baking and cooking.

Always there. Just her sheer availability made the burden of being what we were easier to bear.

Randoms.

Now she’s going, and we don’t know what to do. We’ve been set adrift and off course. Directionless.

Walking soothes me.

Scenic Hill Cemetery is near Kent Refuse, and I pause in front of the gate. It’s been a billion years since I was inside.

I know I shouldn’t, but I’m dying for a distraction.

The pulse lock is gone, replaced by a pulse link pad.

If I had the code to enter, I’d just think it at the pad. The new tech should be cool, but it’s a multi-faceted tool for identification, security, and tally. So in the world of Deegan paranoia, it’s a way to track me.

If I open the lock legitimately, in theory, they’d know who opened it and why.

But since I have dominion over all locks, nothing stops my progress.

My mind sweeps the lock, and it begins to smoke.

I’ve disabled and ruined the pulse link in one brainwave. That’s the sucky thing about being almost seventeen. I simply hadn’t gotten the hang of doing the small things. Gram always says experience is the best teacher.

Gram. I suck in a sob, imprisoning it so it can’t escape.

It doesn’t trip me up. We Randoms have to do the strange and unusual to survive. In a school of only one hundred kids, there simply aren’t enough of us.

That's a hundred kids in the entire school, kindergarten through seniors.

There’s only one school in Kent now. Actually, it’s one school in the state’s four quadrants.

Roughly four hundred children in the state.

Of course, more children are finally being born.

Just now.

It’s been a fifteen-year drought.

Play yards as ghost towns are the norm. Laughter for no reason is scarce. Colors have muted to shades of gray.

When a child dies, people cry on the street for days. I guess the adults never thought much about the effect of an entire generation unable to procreate.

There are no squeals and shrieks of small people running around, filled with nothing but joy over being alive.

The silence is complete but not absolute. Even the children who remain are somber, as though nature grieves the anomaly.

Adults are so quiet. Their tangible sadness at the void of humanity has spilt over us.

My morbid thoughts follow me to the giant pink fridge where a secret entrance lies. This mid-twentieth-century model will be a hundred years old next year. It ran on Freon. Made the atmosphere like Swiss cheese. Nasty crap, invisible and deadly.

I rest my hand on the chrome handle shaped like an oblong dart. Then I open it and walk inside.

*

When I wake up, the darkness is so complete I momentarily panic. Then I remember I’m inside the hideaway, lying on a cot  too dirty for a nap. But I’m alone, and that’s what I need.

Someone’s been here recently. Wine glasses in rapid decomposition are lying around. The newest variety. They begin to decompose within twenty-four hours of consumption. Garbage has a new role.

It becomes. Grandpa Kyle says it morphs into its environment. It molds to become like whatever surface it’s placed on.

I love Grandpa. He’s the smartest man I know.

I sit up, rubbing my eyes with the heel of my hands.

I think my question. Time.

Five forty-three p.m. Pacific Time.

Crap, the parents are going to skin me alive. We always have supper at six sharp.

I take one last, loving look at the hideaway my parents began with their friends so long ago and sigh. Nowhere else on the planet is as peaceful as the strange place with ceilings of crushed twentieth-century autos, carved and shaped by Dad’s zombies.

A nap in the right place didn’t erase my troubles; it just put them off.

I make my way through the narrow tunnel and out the fridge door, smelling things no longer in use but when combined trigger a scent of comfort. Oil, rust, molding non-synthetics, and metal all come together like a great cup of hot chocolate or plate of mac and cheese.

I shut the fridge behind me and stop at the sight in front of me.

Some teens are sitting in decaying lawn chairs, the rotting plastic hanging down underneath their butts.

My heart does a flip-flop.

“Hi Dee-gan,” Brad Thompson says with a smirk. He deliberately butchers my name, and his voice brings unbidden, uninvited panic. This guy’s a turd bird.

I slap a false smile on my face to hide my anxiety, keeping my nervous eye flicks to a bare minimum.

Unlike Pax, my second eyelids magnify peripheral vision, bringing it closer as straight-on vision would appear.

His friends heave themselves out of their respective thrones and I resist running by a thread. At our age, I’ve reached my full physical potential. They have not.

Unfortunately, I'm built like Mom. Small.

They're built like guys. Bigger.

“What do you want, Brad?”

“Who, me?” he asks innocently, flipping his longish hair. It falls back over one eye. Those eyes puncture holes of twin gold, such an amazing color, through me. Arresting. It’s so sad he aims them at me with hate. It’s an emotion I buffer with some frequency. Randoms are generally hated.

“What I always want: a Random on a stick.”

I fold my arms at his old argument. “You’re a Null, Brad.”

He’s cutting the distinction pretty close.

His torture twins edge closer, moving in for a flank. My heart ticks faster. My arms fall to my sides in a studied casualness I don’t feel.

I’m trying not to bring in Pax like an baby. I’m almost seventeen, and I can’t always rely on him. Not only that, he’s not stable right now. He just about wiped out that doctor. It’s another strike against him.

Three Random incidents and it could lead to incarceration. Pax had two during his juvenile period. He doesn’t need one on his adult record.

I swallow hard, and my throat clicks painfully.

This is pure posturing here. I can do this. “Call off your dogs.”

Brad cocks his head to the side and taps his long finger on an angular chin. “Ah… no. I think not.”

My shoulders sag.

My power begins to build, and Brad wags his finger.

“Don’t even think it, Deegan.” He tips up his chin. “It’s a first-class felony for you to use your powers against a mundane.”

I clench my fists. “You. Are. A. Null,” I seethe.

His dark eyes hold mine. “However, our wonderful government has seen fit to include me with my contemporaries.”

I grunt in disgust. The ass bone.

“Eric, Carlos, come.” Brad cups his hand.

I smirk. “See, dogs.”

I’m not always smart, though my IQ is the highest recorded in Washington State, courtesy of my grandpa.

It doesn't mean I always use it.

The dogs, Carlos and Eric, snarl. Well, that’s not exactly accurate. They say words, but I just hear sounds.

Woof, woof, woof. Barking I ignore. Happily.

I flex my paranormal muscle, and they blow off their feet, landing on their asses. Their shoes separate from their body as diseased plastic thrones kick back, taken with them in their impromptu flight.

Brad smiles at my display, and dread covers me in a shroud.

A numbing wash engulfs me.

It’s horrible. It’s wonderful.

There’s something great about a tide that comes to your shore when it brings peace. Like Uncle John.

Pax and I both agree it’s so peaceful to be around John. All the abilities take a break.

Not with this POS. What Uncle John does with tenderness and finesse, Brad Thompson does with a hammer.

And I’m the nail.

I stagger, dropping to my knees.

Too bad the authorities don't understand how he steals power as well as he squelches it. That's certainly not part of the Null repertoire.

Brad throws his head back, basking in the energy suck.

My energy.

A stealthy sound breaks through my fugue. Brad doesn’t hear, but I feel him like a balm to my soul.

Clyde.

“What in the seven hells is happening here?” The rich timbre of his voice slices through the fog, and I kick up my chin. My senses sharpen as they always do around the dead, though I can’t raise them. Well, not all.

I’m still so weak I don’t move my head. Can’t.

“Clyde,” I whisper. My mind throws one of the old-fashioned white donut rings into the water. I envision Clyde pulling me in from the sea.

S.O.S.

I shouldn’t have ditched my guard. It was beyond dumb.

“No, let the corpse into our little soiree. Welcome.” Brad sweeps his arm back to include Clyde.

Clyde looks every bit the thirty-year-old he was when he died saving a busload of kids in 1929.

He carries himself differently from anyone I've ever known. His ethics and history hang off him like a finely tailored suit. Clyde moves with grace and purpose, living in the moment, owning it.

I struggle to my feet, and Clyde’s hard hazel eyes sweep me head to toe. Then he turns his attention to Brad.

“I am not privy to what is happening here, swine. However, I am not beyond teaching a lesson where one is warranted.”

“I see,” Brad says thoughtfully. He wrenches me up by my elbow, and I suck in air, biting my lip to keep from screaming.

Clyde hisses, his body tensing.

You can take the man out of the zombie but not the zombie out of the man.

“Unhand her, vile excuse for a man.”

“I shall not, for I choose not to.”

Did I mention how much better teaching we receive with the great teacher-to-student ratio? There has been a return to more formal speech. I liked slang.

Brad buries his fingertips in my black hair, jerking me painfully the rest of the way. My scalp catches fire.

He shakes me and Clyde steps forward, unbuttoning his cuffs and rolling them to the elbow.

“Your moral compass spins, ne’er-do-well. I shall right it.”

“No ya won’t!” Brad sings, spinning me into Clyde. He grasps my shoulders to stop the momentum, and I flinch from his strength.

“Are you unharmed?” His eyes hold mine for a second of profound tenderness.

I think of all my psyche’s small wounds but shake my head. “I’m fine.”

“You”—Brad points at Clyde—“should think better of dancing with someone like me. You’re one of the horde that has a pass. But if you transgress against the living, you will be put to work. And I know just the person to select your station.”

Stations are occupations for the dead, and some are better than others. AFTDs run them. A two-point or higher within a few meters arrests the zombies’ decomposition.

“A nice mile-deep mineshaft would be a good fit for you.” Brad rocks back on his heels, arms folded as though considering it.

Clyde’s body tension ratchets higher. No AFTD is down there. The zombies would rot then be renewed when they were no better than sludge.

“You cannot abuse your power due to your familial tie.”

Brad chuckles. “Why ever not? And speaking of which, how much time do you have from wifey before your shit slides downhill?”

Clyde doesn’t have long. If he’s away from Bobbi Gale for more than several hours, he will begin to rot. The earth is always waiting to reclaim its dead.

“Accidents happen,” Clyde says lightly.

Brad narrows his eyes at Clyde. “To whom?”

“To everyone, of course.” He gives Brad the weight of his hazel eyes. They glitter their intent.

Brad stares back, the gauntlet thrown.

Without a backward glance, Clyde takes me out of the dump.

Brad's laughter follows us.

CHAPTER FOUR

Pax

We break apart. Gramps holds my gaze, and I let him. It should be totally awkward, but here’s the deal: it never is with him. We’re both broken up by Gram’s impending death. We’re in the same headspace.

He’s old school, so his eyes are dry. I cry for us both. I’m from another era. We’re not above crying if our lives get flushed down the toilet.

He claps me on my shoulder, handing me the grease rag, and I rub my fingers off.

“Better clean up—use the mechanic soap.”

“Yeah, I know, Gramps.” I smile.

It’s short-lived, that little reprieve. I feel him.

Clyde.

And Deegan.

“Gramps,” I call, and his sharp gaze finds me.

No preamble, no pleasantries.

His eye slim down on me, interpreting my expression. “We got a little disaster making its way here?”

I nod.

“Well.” Gramps hikes up his old-guy pressed blue jeans. “Bring it.” He pops open his door and grabs the twelve-gauge.

A guffaw bursts out of me. “Gramps—damn, settle. It’s just Clyde and Dee.”

Gramps’ tension doesn’t ease up. “Yeah?” He jams a new cig in his mouth and lights it one-handed, scowling through the smoke. “We’ll see if they’ve got a tailwind of bad.” Gramps of the Paranoia squared. ’Course, he’d been through some heavy shit in his time. Dad had told me some of it.

Not all.

And Dad couldn’t say dick to me about my temper. His had been legendary. I think it still could be, given the right circumstances.

Clyde appeared holding Dee in his arms. Gooseflesh sprouted like a disease over my arms. I was moving before I knew I’d begun.

“What the fuck, Clyde?” My gaze roamed my sister for injury.

“Language, young master.”

I scowl. “Yeah, okay, but you’re coming in here like a cannon with Dee all, I don’t know—what’s wrong with her?”

I looked my sister over. At first glance, she looks like Mom. But even a casual scrutiny brings out what she really looks like. One hundred percent Native American.

And boy, in this time, it's as rare as red hair.

Gram and Grandpa did the genealogical testing to determine their origins. Because that’s just the way Grandpa Kyle rolled, being a geneticist and all, and they’d found Grandpa was an eighth-blood. Hadn’t even known it. With the Indigenous Peoples Act, all native blood was sacred.

So when my Cherokee mother had married my dad, the drops mixed, and Deegan turned out looking more like full blood than the half she possessed.

Right now, her dusky skin was a little on the pale side.

Not that I let her know my concern. Not on a bet.

Gramps cocking the shotgun one-handed made us all flinch. Not an easy skill. Gramps can bring it.

“What in the blue blazes is going on, Clyde?” A billow of smoke wafted between us.

Clyde’s nose twitches. “Mac.”

Dee's eyes pop open. “I’m okay, Pax. Chill.”

Clyde sets Dee on the ground, and she comes to my shoulder. I drag a hand through my hair. “God, you had me sphinctering out.”

“She was at the dump,” Clyde explains.

I frown. “Why, Dee?”

She shrugs. The knees of her jeans are full of stains. “I just went for a walk….” She looks down at her feet. “Ditched my Null.”

Dumb. “God! Dee, ya could’ve—eff me. Something bad could have happened.”

“Clearly, something did, Paxton.” Gramps holds his loaded shotgun at his side, stamping out the offending cigarette with a boot. Meaty treads demolish it into cement older than Dad.

“Okay, start from the beginning, Dee.” I say it calmly, but I’m getting worked into a lather. Dee doesn’t like to bother me with issues. But then there's the consequence. It's always worse. Always.

She says quietly, “I don’t want you to get another strike, Pax.”

I tie my longish hair in a band at my nape. “Here’s the thing. We’ve got us”—I point to her then my own chest—“and that’s it.”

“Bull hokey,” Gramps says.

I move my gaze to his shotgun and wave a palm in the air. “You know I dig ya, Gramps. That’s not what I mean. I mean—I think I know what this is about, and I gotta say, I needed you to reach me, Dee.”

“Who was it this time?”

Clyde turns away, stuffing his hands in his trousers and pacing off. He watches the small waves in distant Lake Tapps, and I turn back to my sister.

“It’s that energy-sucking Null.”

I narrow my eyes, and she shrinks. “I’m not mad at you, Dee, but I want to kick his ass. Thompson, right?”

She nods.

I slap my fist into my palm. “I effing knew it.”

Gramps puffs on his cig, the end a cherry on fire. “Who’s this punk?”

I slide a glance his way. “Probably don’t need the shotgun, Gramps. It’s not a load and go.”

Gramps makes a noise of disbelief in the back of his throat. “Yeah?” he asks casually, when he’s anything but. “Is he over sixteen?”

Shit. “Yeah, Gramps.”

Deegan giggles. I turn to her, and she tries not to laugh. From personal experience, it’s nearly impossible to restrain myself once I feel like laughing. Dee’s the same.

“Don’t encourage Gramps’ manic shit, Dee.”

“Young man, you have a foul mouth,” Clyde says to the water.

“Yeah, I know.”

Gramps sighs. “We’re all upset about Ali. I understand you kids need to work out your”—Gramps waves around his free hand, obviously searching his emotional framework for the right word. My lips twitch. A total challenge. He gives me a look. “Grief.”

He’s triumphant, and even Clyde gives a small smile. Now that’s a hard dude.

Zombie.

His death energy beats like the heart in my chest.

I’m a five-point AFTD like my dad. Everyone is constantly romancing me for zombie work.

Doesn’t interest me.

Deegan’s a four-point, and personally, I think her brand is worse. She claims she can’t raise corpses, but that’s a ready defense mechanism from the trauma of what she can raise. People who die violently. People who have killed the same way.

Well that's a helluva lot, actually.

I answer Gramps' question. “He's this douche nozzle that is a champion for all the mundanes, but he's really a Null.”

Gramps' face scrunches. “Let me put on my thinking cap.” We wait. Gramps isn't big on interruptions when he's puzzling through something. He wags a finger at me. “If he's a Null, he's a Random.”

I shake my head.

Clyde says, “No. Our wonderful government has taken it upon themselves to catalog Nulls as mundanes.”

“You said this putz sucked on Deegan?” Gramps pushes his teeth out. “Like a vamp?” He cups his hands slightly by his shoulders, in a ready pouncing stance.

I laugh. Vampires, what a load of shit. “Kinda. But he’s some siphon who hasn’t been caught. There isn’t a category for Drainers.”

Gramps sweeps his palm to me. Throwing the safety of his shotgun on, he gives a last wary glance into the gloom outside his fortress. “You got a name for him?”

I put my hands on my hips, see grease in my fingernails, and let them fall. Mom will have my ass if she has to degrease another pair of jeans. I shrug. “It’s just a made up thing. Like Dad’s name for the Helix Complex.”

Gramps tips his head back. “Ah, the Graysheets.”

“Turd central,” Dee mutters.

Gramps gives Dee a hard glance. “Did they hurt you, pumpkin?”

Dee keeps her crap together, but I note the fine tremble of her lip. “Not really. He just scared me. Him and his goon squad.”

Gramps nods. “Yes. There’s a ready solution for that.” He looks like he’s going to offer something, but we all say no at the same time.

He kinda growls low in his throat, part affirmation, part disgust. “How do I know these ruffians won’t be stopping by?”

“He got what he wanted,” Dee says.

My eyes meet Clyde's.

“And Clyde happened along, missy?” Gramps asks.

She nods and Clyde's eyes go to hoods.

Gramps studies Clyde's expression. “Bullshit. You're keeping an eye on the youngsters.”

Youngsters. “Gramps…”

“Save it, Pax. When you’re older than dirt, everyone is young.”

“Except me,” Clyde says neutrally.

Gramps stares at him for a long moment. “True.”

His gaze goes to Deegan. “Did ya call Clyde?”

Dee shakes her head. “Not on purpose.”

Gramps palms his chin, a five o’clock shadow rasping with the movement. “I don’t like that Deedie has no way to defend herself if these losers come calling. They had to have been following you.”

He doesn't wait for confirmation.

She nods and gives me an uneasy glance.

God, it just gets worse and worse. This is why I don't want to take some of those seven figure jobs they keep enticing me with. Who's here to protect the fam?

Nobody. I look from Clyde to Gramps. Not that Clyde can't toss cars.

Not that Gramps can't bring the home defense. Hell, Dad told me about his creativity with a socket wrench incident.

If you're a Random, you need another Random to watch over you.

“I can take care of myself,” Dee says softly.

Clyde arches an eyebrow, his hands knotted behind his muscular body. My gaze goes skyward.

Gramps’ gaze narrows. Whether to see through the smokescreen he creates or because he wants to force her to confess, I can’t tell.

No, Dee, I say silently.

I’m tired of hiding, Pax. So tired.

I close my eyes in resignation. Two kids born of parents that should have been sterile. One powerfully gifted in Affinity for the Dead, the other a strong Empath. And that's the paranormal tip of the iceberg for us.

Caleb Hart’s latent genome possesses all paranormal markers. Dormant until passed.

Recessive until realized.

Deegan looks up at me with crocodile tears in her mossy green eyes. “I could have taken care of them.”

Jesus, Dee. I scrub my face with my palm. She might not get over that. Like ever.

“What?” Gramps stamps out his cig and grips her shoulders, his gaze going to me.

“I can send them away.”

“I beg your pardon?” Clyde’s eyebrows draw together as he comes to stand beside us.

Dee flicks her gaze to Clyde. “Somewhere…”

“You mean a Dimensional,” Gramps says hopefully, while he and Clyde reserve a disquieting stare for each other.

I shake my head.

“No, like a black hole.”

The silence is its own presence.

Gramps is speechless while tears stream down Dee’s face.

Clyde wraps his arm around her shoulders. “Don’t fret, dear heart.”

Dee swipes at her nose, and Clyde offers her his handkerchief. “That’s a very interesting talent,” he offers. But I see his face.

Gramps’s gaze is for me.

I exhale in a rush. “Yeah, you can say that.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Deegan

Shame fills me. I shouldn't have told. Even if it is Gramps. And Clyde.

Dad told me never, ever. Never.

Tell.

I press my forehead against the car window. It’s a polymer mix of glass and Lucite. Shatterproof.

I can’t stop the tears.

The steering wheel creaks under Pax’s grip. He’s pissed.

“I’m sorry.”

My words fog the window.

“I know.”

Silence. Then, “It’s just… if anyone finds out you can will those things into existence…”

He doesn’t finish.

He doesn’t need to. They won’t study me; they’ll kill me. The HC is gone, but our government is still active.

There will always be plotters, Dad says.

“It's like you,” I say.

I shake my head. “No. Me seeing other dimensions alongside our world, traveling to them, is not... hell—collapsing it.”

I turn on him. “Do you think I want this?” Fury rides my voice like a passenger.

He pulses the car to autopilot, and the iconic green figure of a man blinks on in the middle of the odometer, casting eerie emerald phosphorescence on our faces.

Pax looks at me, his eyes so much like Gram’s it makes my breath hitch. Trees hurtle past as we move at one hundred fifty-five miles per hour. The sensor softly beeps, alerting the car to obstacles.

“You know I don’t think that,” he says.

My lip trembles. “Don’t be mad, Pax.” Another tear leaps out of my eye, escaping like a traitor down my face.

“Come ’ere.”

He holds out his arms, and I climb onto his lap as I used to back when the talents started to hit me.

Like a punch. One after another, after another.

The car blasts us toward our house as I sit in Pax's lap in comfortable silence.

The sensor bleats like a goat and we jerk our eyes to the windshield.

Another car is parked in the middle of the road. The middle of the sky.

Pax's arms convulse around me, his casual embrace going to crushing instantly.

Our velocity is too great. We’ll crash.

“Dee!” Pax hits the red button where dome lights used to reside back in the day. In the year 2049, we think our needs. Except for the one Pax executes.

Fine netting bursts out of the interior seams, capturing us in a web so fine and tight I can’t breathe.

“Pax!” I grunt, panicking.

The car flips as though in slow motion, in a maneuver to avoid the car in front of us. Our speed makes it impossible to compensate, and it lands against the invisible pulse rails, hitting the ground once and bouncing hard. My stomach heaves, but I’m too frightened to puke.

The roof caves in as we tumble.

The net holds me against Pax, and I scream. He tightens his arms around me a second time, and my ribs shriek in protest.

One of his arms bursts through the webbing, a tensile strength seventy times the human capacity to stretch to breaking.

He slams his palm into the roof, keeping it from crushing us.

“Pax,” I whisper.

His arm snaps, and he yells.

The car flips one more time and lands upright.

It spins slowly in a single revolution, righting itself on the tracks. The correction is possible. Pulse tracks cover the entire surface of the earth, even houses.

<Safe arrest of moving vehicle reached> the auto sensor proclaims.

A breath shudders out of me.

I wipe away the netting, and Pax groans. “That fucking hurt.”

<Humerus fracture detected>

We burst out laughing.

“That’s a no shit.”

Pax tries to move. Falls back. “Unlock.”

<Hart, Paxton; voice recognition authenticated>

“I hate her voice.”

“Bee-otch for sure.”

Pax groans.

We smile.

The door opens and I crawl over my brother, half-falling outside.

<Medical assistance necessary> the tiny voice grates.

“Yes,” Pax says with a heave as he rolls out.

A whir and clicking sounds and I frown, looking at the sensor gauge.

<Override>

Pax straightens outside our car. Its beat up roof looks like a crimped bullet. He staggers forward, his own frown holding steady, and grips the door rim with his good hand. He grits his teeth.

“Authenticate.”

<Override>

My eyes meet his.

We turn, looking at the moron who blocked our path. We shouldn't have gotten in an accident anyway. All vehicles are equipped with safety avoidance. It's been in place for a decade.

The car is gone and men stand where it was.

Men with guns.

*

“Dee,” Pax says.

I swallow. “Yeah?”

Be ready.

Yes, I mind-whisper back.

I chance a glance at Pax and his skin has a grayish-white tinge.

Shock.

“Pax… you’re scaring me.”

He’s holding his arm, jerking his jaw toward the crew of men in suits. “They’re scarier.” He flicks his gaze to mine. “Get behind me, Dee.”

I do as he asks.

“Hello, Mr. Hart,” Mr. Cheerful greets us.

I scan the area for witnesses. However, with the void of children, that translates directly to no games, no school, no… whatever.

No soccer moms are whizzing by to see a big brother moment.

The man before us moves like a spider.

I figure he’s Random, but I can only guess. It’s not like my best friend, Pritzi. It’s her gift. She knows and can locate any Random in the world. Of course, she’s keeping that part to herself.

There are five of them. All early twenties.

No, one is older.

“We have been inviting you for a long time, Mr. Hart.”

Pax grimaces. “Listen, I keep looking around for my dad when ya say my name like that. And”—he moves his body fully in front of mine, utterly blocking their view of me—“I’m not a fan of your techniques.”

Spider lifts the muzzle of his gun.

“Don’t,” Pax says.

He says it like a warning, not a suggestion.

“We're not here to harm, Paxton.”

“Clearly,” I mutter.

Quiet, Dee.

Pax's teeth begin to chatter. The losers move closer.

Fuck, they've got a Null.

How many? I ask.

Five points, of effing course.

“You won’t listen to our business proposals, so we became creative.”

“Is it because I wouldn’t go out with you guys? Feelin’ all rejected and shit?”

Oh, Pax. He has to stir the hornet’s nest.

The man’s face falls into hard lines. His gaze tries to find me behind my brother’s body.

“What about your sister? Does she want to ‘go out’ with us?” His smile is cruel.

Pax tenses.

They find his weak spot. He’d let someone take off his legs like an ant underneath a magnifier. But if they were to threaten me…

“You touch her and you die.”

Yep.

“Tsk, tsk, Paxton. You have a very unfortunate temper.”

“Good thing you’re aware, now buzz off.”

I breathe in and out slowly. The other four inch closer.

Twilight edges toward us, stealing daylight. Pax notices.

My heart thuds, palms slicking with sweat, mouth going dry. Pax, I'm going to do something bad.

His emotions come hard and fast in my head like an old-fashioned shutter of a camera.

Guilt, responsibility and love coalesce, bursting over his words: No. You won't have to.

They wear all black, moving in the growing shadows as the sun sets below the horizon. Tangerine bleeds over us, the colors wash their clothes to the color of a bruise.

I glance at Pax as the sun sinks.

He blinks, and a thin iridescent sheath slides over his slate blue irises.

Hang on.

Spider sighs, waving his hand. “Get the sister.”

Pax takes my hand. “The fuck you will.”

One of the other's screams, “His eyes!”

Spider's gaze arrows down on Pax and he bellows, “Get him!”

Too late.

Pax blinks again and we're gone.

Yet we still remain.

Pax has tried to explain it to me. As though our earth is a hard cover book from the past set upright, each page almost touches the next as it fans between the back and front cover, thinly separated.

Multiverse theory. Proven by the late physicist Stephen Genning. Each paper-thin slice is another world. Another dimension. But Paxton can see the other worlds with his second eyelid.

Proven but unexplored. Until now.

He brings me against his side, and the assassins whirl around inches from us.

Worlds from us.

As long as Pax touches me, I can see too.

When Pax begins to slide, I go with him.

“Pax!” I scream.

Don't pass out!

He falls to the ground in this world and I hang on. As long as I touch him, I can see.

His eyes flutter. Then shut.

The men in our world appear to swim behind a transparent veil, though it looks like a sheet of running water separates us. I'm on my knees next to my brother when I hear a furtive noise behind me.

“Well, well. If it isn’t the bitch Dee-gan.”

I look up, and Brad Thompson stands before me. Not the Brad Thompson of my world but of this one.

His hair’s longer, I notice randomly. I swallow hard. “Get out of here, Brad.”

I roll my lip into my teeth to keep the panic at arm’s length, gripping Pax’s hand so hard I’m probably cutting off circulation.

“You just pop up like a bad penny, as they say.”

His creepy use of Gramps’ expression deepens my unease.

“What?”

“I got rid of you, yet here you are. With your undead brother along for the ride.” He swivels his gaze to Pax, peacefully sleeping in an injury-induced unconsciousness.

“That’s okay. It was so fun killing you the first time, I’m not going to question the unreality of you showing up again. This time, you’ll stay dead.”

In that moment, I want to be a Body like Pax so much. I hurt with the want of it. I could crush his windpipe, protect myself with that Herculean strength.

Instead, Brad tears me off Pax. The world goes black, our contact severed.

I'm blind.

Helpless.

CHAPTER SIX

Caleb

I jerk the receiver off the old rotary wall phone, punch in Gramps’ number, and wait.

Maybe a thousand landlines still exist in all of America. Because of our house’s age, we’re grandfathered. Even with my penchant for the antique and vintage, it’s still awkward and heavy to use. I press the circular celluloid earpiece against my ear and wait through five rings. Of course, Gramps doesn’t have an answering machine. His thoughts would be, If he’s home, he answers.

Jade’s wide eyes stare up at me.

I shift my weight.

“Hello?” Gramps voice bellows into the phone like falling gravel.

“Hey Gramps, it’s Caleb.”

“I know who it is. I’ve got caller ID as part of my bundle, y’know.”

Caller ID. The most archaic thing on the planet.

Jade’s lips quirk, easily making out his side of the conversation, seeing as how he’s shouting.

“He needs another ear replacement,” she says quietly. I nod, putting a finger to my lips.

“Right. Listen, Gramps… Deegan and Paxton are MIA. Ya know where they are?”

Jade and I stopped at two kids. Felt like ten. There wasn’t enough protection in the world for our kids as Randoms. We still worry.

The open line buzzes. “Both the kids were here. Pax and I changed the oil out on the Camaro…”

Good, Pax needs that connection.

“There was a little incident with Deedie.”

Jade covers her mouth with a hand. I wrap her forearm with my hand. Images flow. She nods, taking a shaky inhale.

“What’s going on?”

“Clyde brought her. Some ruffian is trying to vamp her psychic energy right out of her.”

“Brad Thompson.” Jade throws her arms down by her sides, color spreading across her cheekbones.

I’m so pissed it should be illegal. I can feel my old friend Rage come knocking. I concentrate on my breathing.

I hate some of these Randoms. My prejudice is worse than everyone else’s is, because I was part of the problem.

Now we have abilities in the few kids left who aren’t catalogued. Like trees, they have all kinds of branches.

This shitty Null is also a Drainer. Our government won’t give them a name, but we leftovers will.

What Thompson is doing is illegal. His father is also the head of the Sanctions. He pulls every undead legislation he can.

The prick.

Jade plucks my sleeve, and I cup the back of her head with my free hand. “Is she okay, Caleb?” She worries at her lip with her teeth.

Gramps says, “She’s okay, Caleb—just shook up.”

A breath whistles out of me.

“Okay. So here’s the $64,000,000 question: where are she and Pax?”

Silence.

I hear Gramps do a swipe of his face with his palm. Deep exhale.

“Should’ve been home ’bout now, son.”

Jade shakes her head. “They’re not,” she whispers.

I say into the phone, “They’re not, Gramps.”

I don’t ask why my zombie, Clyde, happened to be corpse-on-the-spot for Deegan. I don’t ask why her Null guard was absent. I don’t ask any of that. “Gramps…”

“I’ll find her.”

“And Pax?”

“Don’t worry about him. He needs to figure out his own way about Ali, son.”

The mention of Mom’s impending demise is a wound that continuously seeps.

I open my eyes, and my wife cups my face.

I tip my head, putting my forehead to hers.

“Do I need to raise the dead?” I ask, my breath caressing Jade's face.

A beat of time drums between us.

Can’t take that shit back.

“Not yet. I'll roar out there in my Bronco and flesh out this bullshit.”

My lips twitch.

“Be careful, Gramps.”

He barks a laugh into the phone and I straighten from Jade, holding it away from my ear.

“If anyone's touched a hair on either of those kids' heads, there will be a shitstorm they'll never recover from. They'll stink until they die.”

Gramps.

“I'll meet ya,” I say, ignoring his paranoia rant.

“Do ya know what route Pax generally takes?”

An alarm sounds and Jade yelps, throwing a hand over her heart.

“Hang on!” I give the phone to Jade.

I stride to the wall and depress my thumb on the pad, also obsolete. Many people have full cognitive pulse operation. Mind to signal.

I'm not ready for that.

<Authenticate, Hart, Caleb>

The message appears as scrolling letters.

<The vehicle registered to the above name and address has been in a collision>

<Repeat>

<The vehicle registered to the above name and address has been in a collision>

My heart stutters.

Pulse cars don't get in accidents.

They have monitors sensing obstacles and implement counter measures to avoid them.

I race back to the phone and tear it out of Jade's hand, mouthing sorry as I do.

I grip it so hard the plastic squeaks in protest.

One word. “Gramps.”

He hears me because he listens so hard.

He always has.

“I knew some strange-ranger shit was going to go down.”

“How?” I ask. “You're not a paranormal.”

“Pfft.” He grunts. “Gut instinct.”

“This changes things.”

“Not really… the guns were always gonna go.”

I roll my eyes.

“Probably don't need the arsenal. Organics will be there already.”

“Not if the wrong people show up.”

Adrenaline comes to fuel Rage.

Swell.

Jade's eyes widen at my emotional signature.

“I'll meet you,” I say.

“Call Clyde.”

I hit him like a ton of bricks. My summons is pure, strong. Agonized.

The response is nearly instantaneous. Master.

The kids, Clyde, they've been in a car wreck.

A second of tomblike silence.

I will be at your home momentarily.

Then he is gone from my consciousness.

“I just put out the SOS, Gramps.”

“Good. Going to blast off and see if the kids are okay.”

“Okay, see you soon.”

An empty dial tone sings in my ear.

I gently replace the receiver.

Jade is coming back from the pulse monitor on the wall.

She grabs my hands.

“Caleb, are the babies alive?”

I reach out to our two children. Both possess high levels of AFTD.

A beacon to my ability, a lighthouse in the fog of humanity.

Like knows like.

I strike out in all directions, my power fanning away from me in great swaths.

Nothing.

Not a return. An echo. A ripple.

I open my eyes.

We're touching.

Jade knows.

“No…” She backs away. “They can’t be dead.”

I quickly shake my head. “No, they’re not dead.”

She leans in, her eyes searching mine. “But are they alive?”

The lie trembles between us. But we only do truths.

I let me hands fall. “I don’t know.”

Tears shatter her face like wet fear.

I don’t explain because I don’t need to.

Jade knows where I’m going.

To find our children.

I charge out of the house and catch sight of a familiar silhouette growing larger as it runs at me. And like the mirage years ago when he saved me, he materializes now.

Clyde.

My zombie.

My friend.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Pax

I awaken, and the first thing I know without moving is my arm is already healing.

Crooked.

Fuck me. I sit up and watch the dudes behind the veil between worlds. I blink, and my eyelids lift.

I hate this multiverse bullshit.

Dad told me about Miranda Chen and how she could world-hop. But those Dimensionals are gone now.

I don’t know what I’m called, but I’m sure of one thing; there are more worlds than the few she explored.

I didn’t pay an ounce of attention to what one I went to. Dee and I needed to get the hell out. Twilight came, I used my eyeballs, and here we are.

We.

I look around and gooseflesh crawls over my body, overriding the pain of my busted arm.

Dee's gone.

I jump to my feet. My vision swims at first, doubling. Always the fun of the inter-dimensional transition. Sort of like spin cycle inside a clothes washer.

Not that I’ve ever experienced it.

I walk, holding out my arms in front of me. The left is turned like a corkscrew. I grit my teeth, ignoring the pain.

Great.

Gotta find an Organic. Of course, as I scan my current environment, I note it looks different from my world. Figures. Hopefully I won’t meet myself. I chuckle, finding the perverse buried in the humor.

Why did Dee leave? It’s not like her. I think of her timid personality. It’s the entire reason she does martial arts. That and the fact Dad would have an entire herd of cattle if she didn’t have some skills.

I move through this world with purpose. I know Kent like the back of my hand. Unfortunately, this is not remotely like my Kent.

All the identical houses give it away.

And the robots.

Steam pours out of grates that grow out of sidewalks every three meters.

It’s a different season here. Not late summer like back home but early winter, I’d gauge.

My thin hoodie blows for warmth. My teeth chatter like a bitch. I recognize shock easily. Another bennie of no kids is higher and more diverse learning.

I am a level one medical responder.

I can heal myself. Due to my unusual gene distribution, I’m a certified Organic with a moderate ability to heal, three-point.

Can’t set my own arm, though.

I wade through streets where adult-sized bots walk. Their disconcerting gazes travel over me in a scan-like sweep.

Don’t like it.

They stop and turn to me, all of them forming a loose circle.

Like a gang.

Obviously, there isn’t a plan for them to look remotely humanoid. Sure, they have arms and legs on their sexless bodies made of an unidentifiable silver-colored alloy. No hair on their skulls, reflective eyes, nothing remotely human.

They blink with lids that eerily mimic my own.

Creepers.

“Identify,” one spits out in a metallic crunch of syllables. Then, “Scan detects compound fracture in the left humerus.”

Brilliant, guys. My disquiet deepens. However, I’m not quick to panic.

I shrug. I’m not in any trouble. “Paxton Hart.”

A siren wails.

Not a siren. A bot’s open mouth opens, and a horrible high-pitched bellow rings out. Sort of like that old Body Snatchers movie Gramps has.

I crouch instantly and feel the breeze from metal arms as they fold over the air where I just was.

I blink, and the veil of my eyelid skates over my pupil. I make the bot’s weakness. I swing out my right arm and pound the flat of my hand into bot-boy behind me. He sails through a sheet of glass that used to be a storefront picture window. A tinkling rain of glass shatters from the impact.

They all look alike. I quirk my lips as the wailing one is silenced, dropping my foot to the ground from the roundhouse love I put on it.

Another topples like a bowling pin, head canting to the left.

Two down, three to go.

Then more come.

My arm throbs as my gaze bounces around at all the bots.

It’s not fun anymore. Dee is missing, my arm’s busted, and a posse of creepers is trying to do me in.

“Clean subject,” the first bot announces.

They swarm.

I flex my right arm and it bursts to muscular life. I slap the bot who spoke and its head spins off, landing with the sound of a tool box dropped from a roof.

“Smart ass,” I say.

“Paranormal level five, full sanction protocol.”

What?

Okay, so done with this noise.

I smack two away and my Body strength sends them flying into the ones who come after them.

Twenty count now.

I can't get out of this.

Deegan! I yell in a psychic scream I send like a net.

If she is here—and boy, she had better be—I can stand some help with the tin herd here.

Nothing.

Shee-it.

She's sleeping or unconscious.

I don't allow myself to think about the alternative.

Twenty-five bots mill around, communicating with metal clicks and chirps.

Sounds like insects. With a plan.

I close my eyes as a hand descends on my wrecked arm.

The pain melts as I ring the supper bell.

I feel them all around me.

Rise, I command.

I open my eyes and chop the bot’s arm with my right hand.

It collapses and I tear it out of the shoulder socket. Apparently, that affects balance and it staggers away, sputtering and illuminating the two meters around it with a light show shooting out of the gutted joint.

“Corpse revival detected,” several of the bots announce in a simultaneous stutter.

“Yeah. Roger that,” I say, feeling queasy.

Shock's progressing nicely.

The horde is different here, yet so much the same. My heart does that weird gallop thing inside my chest.

Bound to happen when my entire family responds to my summons. Including myself.

As a corpse.

*

I face myself. Looking at me as a corpse goes on the top one hundred list of the strangest brand of shit I've ever lived through. Yet.

“Master,” the Paxton of this world says in way of greeting, question and answer.

A bot lands on me and I collapse under its weight. Color me stunned.

Help!

The bot's weight is gone and Paxton Corpse twists its head around.

A bot's hand becomes a knife-like bayonet morphing into a single, stabbing implement, and it slams through Paxton Corpse's guts.

His intestines wind and slide around the spearing metal as it spins.

Paxton Corpse frowns as though it puzzles him this bot just stabbed him. Both his elbows slam backwards and the bots knife-hand slides out.

“Better,” Paxton Corpse comments.

Wow.

Disable, I think at the collective horde.

I stagger to my feet and my family is there.

Gram looks better as a corpse in this world than as a dying human in mine. Cancer is the queen of all bitches.

I stand in the middle of the melee as my eyes burn with the most intense need to cry I've had in my life.

Their gazes move to me.

I swallow what feels like a brick.

I say, “Disable them all.”

The bots are outnumbered as the zombies descend. I back away as my sister, Mom and Dad, and the grandparents tear limbs and heads off the bots.

They’re simply no match for the animated strength of the undead.

I back further away, but the sight of Gramps as a zombie freezes me. He moves through the bots like water, a tornado of arms, legs, and flying fists.

They fall like metal dominoes.

I’m not surprised when Clyde, the Clyde of this world, joins the fray.

His gaze reaches mine.

Go, young Master, he broadcasts in my mind.

I clench my teeth, jogging away in an unsteady gait.

I have to find an Organic.

Gotta break my arm again.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Deegan

The slap wakes me first.

My face hits the other side of the hard surface.

“That's it, princess.”

I open my eyes like slits. They're special, like Pax's, but different.

Instantly my second eyelids reveal the Brad of this world. Apparently, he hates me here, too. Of course. It all makes sense. Multiverse is a study in Murphy’s Law. It’s not that bad things will happen. It’s that anything that could happen, will.

Like now.

My legs are unbound but not my hands.

I wait until my perfect peripheral vision locates the prick, then I grab him with my legs.

His hands fly to my shins squeezing the sides of his head.

He makes a satisfying choking sound that ends in a gurgle.

I cross my ankles and rotate my heels opposite each other. It twists his neck. Sounds like pop rock machine gun fire light off.

Thompson drops.

I jump down, sway, and land on my ass.

The breath leaves me.

Jerk drugged me.

My vision trembles, tripling. Suddenly, there are three Brads. Not a good development.

I take several deep breaths, oxygenating myself as I scan my environment. Commercial building. Old, mid-twentieth-century cement dungeon with glass block windows.

Doors are barn-style with a huge steel bar across the center.

I move my butt backward, heaving it over the bound circle of my arms.

I gasp as a powerful summons for the dead covers me like a shroud.

Paxton.

I’d know his death call anywhere.

But we’re not in our world, and I’m blind here. I can’t see our world if I’m not touching Pax. I can’t get home.

My throat closes. A lump forms, begging to shed tears.

I clamp down on it, taking my butt through my arms. I bring them in front of me.

Old-fashioned zip ties. Why are they still using petro here?

Doesn’t matter. They’ll be awful to get off.

My eyes flick to Brad. I scope for movement. I don’t know if this world has auto-heal features.

A finger jumps.

Yeah.

I look for something sharp.

It’ll be a little while for Brad to heal up from a spine injury.

But he will.

I spot an old electric-powered table saw like the one Gramps has in his garage. The spinning serrated disc climbing out of the center appears to have teeth covered in cobwebs.

That'll work.

I stagger to the saw and dip my wrists to the blade. I move them back and forth where the zip tie meets, the thick opaque white binding snags against the tips of the metal. I reposition again.

Then again.

I chance a glance behind my shoulder.

Brad Thompson's eyes are on me.

Oh god.

I move faster and my peripheral lids catalog his recovery. His toe twitches as his entire group of ten fingers move. They press the concrete underneath him.

“You stupid bitch,” he says, enunciating each syllable.

Voice is working fine.

The binding snaps and I turn.

“Don't even try it, Deegan,” Brad says. He struggles to sit up, manages it and views me sideways.

His head is still touching his shoulder.

The neck's always the last to heal.

I cover my mouth. Then let my hand fall, laughing.

Hate engulfs his expression. “I'll kill you. I have already.”

I nod my head. “Maybe you will, Brad. But right now, I can't take you seriously when you're talking from your shoulder.”

A rage so raw it's naked, meets my eyes. It's absolute—I step back.

An exhale escapes me in a rush.

“It's been fun, but—bye.”

I turn to leave, and his voice follows me.

“I don’t know where you came from, if you’re some holdover Dimensional or what. But I’ll tell you this. You paranormals? You’re extinct here. E-X-T-I-N-C-T.”

His words make me pause. I glance back.

Paracide.

He grins. “That’s right; you leave me here and run off. Go ahead. You won’t get two steps before the cyborgs take you down.”

Cy-what? It's like a bad sci-fi novel.

He interprets my expression. “Artificial Life Bots, princess. The ALBs will fuck your day right up.”

I look him over, his lopsided head still resting against his shoulder.

Or is it a little higher now?

Time to go.

I don't wait, I run.

*

I go where the death summons came from. It's as logical a choice as breathing.

Where the dead are, Paxton will be.

I stay to the greenbelts, noting the bare sidewalks with strange grates. Vapor escapes in rhythmic bursts, heating the cement sidewalks in winter. Our world uses solar and wind. Here they must have harnessed geothermal, maybe using the off gassing of nearby industry or… the earth’s crust. It’s not a field trip, but I can’t help my curiosity.

The ALBs Brad told me about cruise up and down the streets with purpose. Many carry personal items, sundries, groceries, and slim notebook type things.

They look straight ahead, neither backward nor sideways.

Then one stops and I meld into the treeline, using a wild growing rhododendron for cover. It's treelike on its own and I climb up into the lower branches, making myself into a ball.

I nest like a bird in the foliage.

The bot appears to see me, though I know the greenery provides enough cover.

I can hear whirs and clicks from here. Innocuous sounds. Scary sounds. I swallow hard.

“Paranormal detected.”

Shit.

The other bots stop their scurrying like ants on a hill.

More clicking, whirring and chirping ensue. I sink deeper into the arms of the bush. Blood rushes in my ears like a river of trapped noise.

I don’t have Pax’s control of the dead. Actually, I’m caught in a volatile age, only having my power manifestation for about two years. A late bloomer, they said.

Fear forms in my chest like an iceberg. Great calves of ice break off and float to my extremities, the beginnings of terror-induced adrenaline.

I shift my weight and begin to topple out of the bush.

The bots’ eyes go to the commotion I make.

Oh no!

Arms catch me, and a hand covers my mouth. My panic is total.

It’s Brad. I know it. Somehow, he’s healed up and ready to hurt me.

Then the familiar, vague, but not unpleasant smell of rot envelops me. Instant comfort.

Not a normal reaction. Not even a human reaction. But a perfectly normal one for an AFTD.

“Shh… I am here, mistress.”

I crane my neck and look into eyes that are deadly, dark, and alive though he’s clearly dead.

He cocks his eyebrows and I nod. My silence is relief, thanks, and agreement rolled into one.

The bots are climbing the hill.

“Your fear tore me out of the earth where I slept.”

I swallow hard.

He traces my jawline with a finger. A tattoo of a sword through a beating heart undulates under the motion of his muscular forearm.

“Such fear, necromancer—where there is no need.”

He was a huge guy in life. In death, he is an unmovable object. His eyes track movement between the branches, and his square jaw sets.

“Don’t…” I begin.

I know my skill level. My control is bad. Paxton could have this guy juggling grapefruit.

Not me.

He sets me on my feet and I come to his shoulder.

His wardrobe looks like late twentieth, early twenty-first.

He smiles, and there’s some teeth missing. I feel guilt then squelch it. My emotions, not a deliberate call, raised him. I’m freaking here and can’t get my shit together.

No one raises a perfect zombie when they’re tripping.

The sound of metal bodies’ stealthy progress over the embankment slides over us as they draw nearer.

“Are they enemies?”

A simple question. His eyes search mine.

“Yes,” I say.

“Why only me?” he asks.

Why did you raise only one zombie? It's a fair question.

“I'm seventeen,” I blurt. A small untruth.

His lips twitch. Dark hair is a vaguely curling cap against his scalp.

“Then we'll run, mistress.”

He gives me his back, bending over, his arms out at his side.

Piggy back.

A laugh leaks out of me and he turns his face, only his profile visible.

“There is nothing funny about the approach of over ten of those things, mistress.”

I sober and climb on.

His arms wrap my legs. Strong ones.

“Ready?” he asks.

I nod, though he can’t see it. “It’s Deegan.”

The zombies all call us the same thing.

The first bot shoves through the thicket.

Its stare latches onto me.

“Paranormal, level four.” It pauses, then, “Reanimated humanoid.”

I swear it smiles before it says, “Exterminate.”

“Not today, jack,” the zombie beneath me says.

Then he’s running, the wind and bots at our backs.

I don’t even know his name.

CHAPTER NINE

Caleb

“Baby, no—ya can't come.”

Jade's emerald gaze narrows down on me like two laser beams.

Damn.

“Do not patronize me, Caleb Hart.”

I don't roll my eyes, but it's an effort.

I try for reasonable, not my best thing. “I don’t know what kind of a snafu the kids have gotten themselves into, or if it’s a volatile situation.” I rake a hand through my hair. “I don’t want to have my entire family to worry about. As you know, the kids are enough.”

She sighs and absently strokes Onyx’s head.

The pack is nervous. The dog scents the cave. Nothing is different. Yet the boy’s worry is bitter in the dog’s nose.

Onyx ducks from underneath Jade’s affection and comes to stand in front of me.

He stares.

It’s all right, Onyx, you’re a good dog.

Thunk, wag, thunk.

The boy makes the good sounds in his head. He wags his tail, yet—the sound does not match the anxiety scent. The dog will watch the pack. Stay alert for danger.

“It’s just, gah!” Jade storms around our small kitchen. Denim and a dark green tee peek out from beneath an apron my mom made for her a decade ago.

Mom.

I shove the sadness deep. I don’t have time for those moments of grief that sneak up when I’m unaware.

She whirls, eyes flashing, and black hair spins around her body. “I’ll go crazy not knowing.”

She studies my face, seems to get an idea of my struggle somehow, and mauls on her lip.

I pull her against me, careful to touch clothes, not skin. “Let me go, Jade. I’ll get the kids handled and pulse communicate what’s happening.”

“Use Deegan.”

Deegan is a psychic conduit. She can relay images like a movie to anyone in the world by touch.

It's faster than pulse, more intimate.

It's also off the government radar. As far as they know, she is catalogued as a four-point AFTD. Among other things. Dee is the latest Random to manifest in the nation. With a genius IQ.

Must've skipped me.

I smirk.

Jade's hands fly to her hips. “What's so funny, buster?”

I tow her behind me, careful to ring her forearm over clothes, and head to the door. We don't have time to waste on talking.

“I'm thinking the kids are all right. Especially Deegan.”

Jade winds her arms around my waist, and I press my lips to the top of her head.

“I'm still pissed you won't take me,” she says against my chest.

“I know. I gotcha,” I say against her hair.

“I love you, you jerk.”

I smile, though she can't see it.

“I love you more.”

I move through the entry door and onto the broad steps that view the grandfathered strip of lawn on the boulevard.

Onyx gives a single sharp bark. It sounds a lot like goodbye.

He and Jade watch through the sidelight windows flanking the solid nine-foot oak door.

She waves once then turns away.

Onyx stays where he is, watching. His tail is still.

*

Gramps stands like the Lone Ranger in a sea of guys in suits, and an eerie calm descends over me.

It reminds me of before.

Before they administered the sterilization. Before we were Randoms. When there were so many paranormals it was just a variant of normal.

I know a Graysheet when I see one. It feels like a twenty year hiatus has come to an end.

Hover cars zip above their heads, the thirty-foot invisible safety ceiling disallowing casualties.

But that can’t be an absolute. As I make my way in my own vehicle, the beeping of the parking security begins as my car descends.

Gramps, plus whoever these clowns are, back away.

<Twenty seconds to engagement> The automated voice recites by rote.

<Five seconds to engagement>

The car locks into invisible pulse-activated brackets. It rocks as it engages and stills.

<Disengaging door locks>

My ears pop as the doors unlock and sweep up like wings. Kind of reminds me of the antique Deloreans of the twentieth.

I climb out, and my car bounces with the loss of my weight.

Gramps’ gaze meets mine. I remind myself again how it sucks to have AFTD and just enough precog to frustrate. What I wouldn’t do to have some telepathy. When I want it.

It’d definitely suck ass to have all the time.

“Gramps.” I flick my gaze to his. A holographic card hangs around his neck via a lanyard. It’s his “get out of jail free” card he calls it.

The guys in black look pretty nervous. Not too many of them have met a free bird twentieth before.

With a twelve gauge shotgun.

Gramps maintains all his amendment rights.

I sling my power out like a net and get a hit from one of the chumps in black.

Nice little round-out there.

They have an AFTD. That means there's a Null. But I'm blind to that. I can only recognize my own brand. Like a fart.

I chuckle.

Gramps clamps his lips around a cig and lights it one-handed, his shotgun tucked underneath his arm. The white noise of the highway above our heads drones like a low-level vacuum machine.

“Hey, son.”

My eyes take in my kids’ vehicle. The roof looks like a shark bit the center of it, didn’t like the taste, and spit it out.

I walk closer, keeping one eye on the suits.

There’s a bump in the center where the driver would be. Knuckle-shaped imprints push out the roof.

Paxton.

Chicken skin rises on my bare skin. Our son tried to stop him and Dee from being pancaked.

I’m so glad I didn’t bring Jade.

I continue to circle the car, trying to squelch my rising panic.

The government lurkers are here.

My kids conveniently total an untotal-able car.

Things are adding up. Paranoia Central comes online.

Breeze from the traffic overhead lifts my hair as I cruise around the perimeter of the once-pristine car. I finally look up from the wreckage.

The first guy (not the AFTD) says, “Net’s been deployed.” His face is cool, aloof. Hard.

I glance inside the driver’s window. Remnants of high-density tensile netting coat the interior like antique Silly String.

I zero in on Arrogant, keeping my temper in check for the moment. “Two questions.”

The man’s eyebrows rise.

Don’t like him already.

Give me a break. Panic is a close friend to Rage, and right now, they’re tag teaming me.

My power swells in response.

The voices of the undead grow louder. Of course, they’re louder now because so many more people have died since the undead fun began.

I breathe deeply. In. Then out. “Why did my kids’ car crash? With a billion avoidance measures, in theory, that’s a no, guys.”

He opens his mouth, and I glare.

He smirks, holding his hands together and rocking back on his heels. Amused. Confident.

Silent.

Neither amused nor confident I smile, more a baring of teeth.

I’m just pissed.

I take in the five Randoms of mixed abilities and know they’re involved. They’re close to Pax’s age. It’s surreal how little things have changed since I ran into this type before.

“Two: what in the hell are you doing here and why?”

I put my hands on my hips.

“That’s three questions,” Arrogant replies.

I can hear only the sounds of vehicles whizzing over our heads at one hundred fifty-five miles per hour. It’s just loud enough to drown out the small noises of mandatory greenbelts and the wildlife that lives there.

I give Gramps a full look, one he can interpret without any paranormal talent whatsoever.

Gramps doesn’t hesitate. He flicks the cigarette toward the asswipe, and Arrogant reacts instantly, batting the flaming cancer stick away.

Gramps hammers him in the shoulder with the butt of the shotgun.

Arrogant staggers back.

Their telekinetic comes out of hiding and slams Gramps on the road with a palm swipe in the air.

Gramps cracks his head, and I engage.

It’s actually more a matter of my power breathing a sigh of relief to be out of its cage. First, I give old AFTD suit a love tap that parks him on his ass, hard.

Raw satisfaction washes through me.

The undead summons falls over the five miles over which I have complete control. The dead cut a path to me like a beam from a lighthouse.

It’s always been a flaw of mine, the lack of preparedness. If I’d been thinking (and who the hell is when your kids are in parts unknown, with government skulkers milling around), I’d have realized that geographically, I’m closer to Gramps than to my house.

The Skopamish rise in a tide of feathers, leather, and war paint.

Oops.

They disrupt the road’s built-in pulse magnetization instantly, and cars spin above us. The other rails instantly reform intersects to stabilize the little disaster I conjure.

Sorry guys, just having a little zombie soiree here in the middle of the highway.

My kids are missing, we have a situation, Gramps is on the ground, and I’ve called the dead. Yet the urge for inappropriate laughter boils inside. Some things never change.

I give in to a chuckle as the chief emerges just a meter or two in front of me. He never ages, plumping out before my eyes the same way every time, as he did when I was a teen. The dead don’t grow older. Whatever age they are at death is what they’ll be forever.

I work for a company that relocates the dead. Land’s at a premium in 2049. Can’t have those pesky gravesites in the way of progress.

Did I mention I hate my job?

The chief’s gaze fills with my energy, plumping to grapes from the shriveled raisins of seconds before.

“Master.” His headdress moves as he talks.

“Chief,” I reply. I tear my gaze away. Arrogant looks less so now, trying to rouse his AFTD cohort I put into a fugue a minute ago.

Good luck with that.

“How may I serve you?”

“Injuns again, Caleb?” Gramps chirps from his back. I spare him a glance, smiling despite the grim circumstance.

“You okay?” I yell.

He gives a little smile. “I'll live, got my bell rung.”

I nod at Gramps even as I swing my head to look at the government guys. Maybe time for a little clean up.

The Skopamish track my gaze.

Arrogant’s eyes widen, his hand falling away from the shoulder Gramps whacked.

No words are uttered, but tomahawks are loosened from their bindings. Metal makes a distinct sound as it escapes its moorings.

The Skopamish shuffle forward, dropping the undead awkwardness with each step.

Becoming more alive.

Just more.

CHAPTER TEN

Pax

I’m playing hop-along and it ain’t no picnic as Gramps would say. Nausea churns, and cold sweat collects on my feverish flesh.

My arm’s a numb horror, and I can’t think for it.

I stay in the greenbelts where the bots don’t roam.

Like buffalo.

I cackle. And that’s when it hits me: I’m touched in the head.

I haven’t eaten in hours, my arm’s a pretzel, and Paxton is just a little giddy from shock and exhaustion, so excuse his delirium.

And I can’t leave this fucked up world until I find my sister.

I stumble and fall to my knees. I left my undead fam to deal with the bot bruisers a few kilometers back as I make my way to the clinic where Mom takes me when shit gets saucy.

Like the time I thought I had telekinesis when what I had was a good case of gravity.

That’d been awesome, one broken arm later.

Same one as now. And the hits just keep on coming.

I send out an undead search beam. I’m barely here, the clinic should be just a half mile away, but I can’t make it.

I lower my chin to my chest.

I wait.

They come.

A man, woman and daughter.

I feel guilt.

“Master?” the father says.

I have to ask, “How’d you go?”

“Automobile wreck,” he answers swiftly.

A tooth tumbles out like a decaying pearl and rolls, hitting my kneecap. I take a deep breath.

The little girl sucks her thumb and clutches a teddy bear in her other hand.

She lowers her hand, and the thumb’s gone. Her brows come together, the flesh hanging there like a stripe.

“Your thumb…” I sway, falling on my ass, and the motion sends pain so awful it bugs my eyes.

She notices it’s still in her mouth. “Thank you,” she says as it falls out, and stoops over to pick it up. She looks it over then slides it into her dress pocket.

Disgusting.

I look behind me, panting. The zombies watch my stare.

“I need medical attention.”

The man moves forward.

I did a shit job of raising him. Half his face is gone and one eyeball hangs by a thread.

Can't have that.

I shoot him between the eyes. The bolt of death energy slides out of me like a punch. He stumbles backward, falling to the ground, and his wife and daughter gasp as residual hits them.

Dad’s voice talks to me in memory.

Bind them. Focus, Paxton. It’s like fishing, son. You have the pole; reel them in. Snag then reel.

I do that now. Breathing slow, getting my undead Zen on.

The man comes off the ground like a stiff plank.

He is perfect.

Human and alive. Vital. His clothes are mid-twentieth. Damn, that’ll stick out.

I shift my attention to the wife and daughter. They’re pretty rough around the edges, but they’ll do at a distance.

I don’t tell him what to do. He picks me up as though I weigh nothing. I’m two hundred ten pounds, but a feather in his arms.

He carries me to the clinic. It’s a half-kilometer. I feel his family trail us.

He kicks open the clinic door and takes me to the receptionist desk.

It’s a fucking bot.

It stands while I despair. My feelings choke me.

<Paranormal!> it croaks loudly.

With one arm, my zombie decapitates it. The head slams into the wall behind its headless body and sticks in the drywall like a hunk of beached driftwood.

My zombie lowers his arm. Broken.

I close my eyes.

When I open them, I’m emptier but the arm is whole again. There’s nothing as powerful as my AFTD and Organic powers working together.

“Organic,” I toss out in an incoherent command.

He moves from room to room. All Organics.

“There.” I point to one door in particular.

Jezebel, reads the door placard.

Thank whatever is holy there’s a Jezebel in this world, too.

He swings through and there she is. My Organic from home.

Shock and bewilderment wash over her features.

“Paxton Hart.”

Sweat runs into my eyes.

“Set me down,” I say.

My zombie lays me on the bed, and I yell when the thinnest of cotton sheets grazes my arm.

“You’re dead,” she whispers, clutching at her heart.

I bark out a laugh, catching the irony.

I shake my head, and my vision swims. I take deep breaths. “No.” I jerk my thumb at my zombie. “He is.”

Jezebel moves her gaze to the zombie.

He tips his hat. “George,” he introduces.

She pales in front of my eyes.

Panic surges. “Jezebel, don’t you dare pass out on me!”

She falls on her ass to the chair and throws her head between her knees.

Precious seconds float by.

Finally, she looks at me. “How much time do we have?”

“Not much. My zom—George disabled the bot at the front desk.”

“The ALB?”

I nod without really knowing what the acronym stands for. The metal thing that does the Body Snatcher bellow.

Yeah, that.

“We’re going to have to set that arm.”

“I know. I’m Organic.”

Her brows collide. “You are?”

God.

“Yes. I mean, on my world.”

Her frown deepens.

I wave my hand around. “Just set the thing, and I can heal it.”

She flattens her lips. “I don’t know if you’re in any shape to do anything, young man.”

I roll my eyes.

“Fine.” She reaches her hand out, hovering above my core.

George looks on with interest.

Jezebel scoots her chair further away from him.

Her hand holds position for about three seconds. “No, your energy is depleted.”

I grit my teeth, and our eyes lock.

She makes a disgusted noise.

I scream when she straightens my arm.

Then blackness swallows my vision.

My consciousness disappears along with it.

*

I wake in jagged pieces of awareness.

Of course, the yelling doesn't help.

“I have jurisdiction here. This patient falls under HIPAA privacy.”

“This human scans paranormal.”

“So we turn away another human being who needs medical attention because they’re different? If this isn’t segregation, I don’t know what is!”

I crack an eye open at the S word. Haven’t heard that in forever.

George stands guard. His readiness tells me the poo-poo is about to hit the oscillating device.

Two bots crowd the hole in the open door. An actual human being scans the interior of the small clinic room I’m in.

“His ALB-scan comes up deceased,” the man says from the door.

The human dude.

He folds his arms across his chest, glaring at Jezebel. “Explain that.”

“I can’t. But I can say his broken arm needs time. It was a compound humerus fracture and had begun to heal wrong.”

He ignores her. “We will take him for questioning.”

I shut my eye on instinct, and his stare burns over me.

“My ALBs also detect reanimated humanoid.”

I blink my eye open again, and he’s already moving his gaze to her.

Jezebel sweeps her hand around the room. “Do you see a corpse, Dale?”

I can feel him stewing in his own shit.

Loving it. It’s the little things.

“No,” he admits.

“Just go. I will pulse-communicate when he awakens.”

The silence builds.

“Fine.” A pause. “But you understand the error rate on an ALB scans—”

“Is nearly zero,” Jezebel interrupts. “Yes, I'm aware.”

“Pulse me,” Dale the Douche barks.

“I said I would.”

The door slams shut and she throws what sounds like a bolt.

They couldn't have missed the headless bot out there?

George is there, hands underneath my armpits.

Jezebel turns to me. “Now tell me I didn’t just invite incarceration for no good reason.”

“No.”

Jezebel looks to George again. “And what’s with him?”

“Can you?” I point to my mending arm.

She nods, holding out her palm.

I slip my right hand into hers.

Our power bursts over us, flowing from our connected hands to the palm she holds over my arm.

Blissful relief flows over me as the pain moves to aching.

After five minutes, it's gone.

We let go and I lay back and begin to speak.

She doesn't interrupt once.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Deegan

The low keen of a sirens wail in the distance as I hold on for dear life.

More dear now that I’m lost in a world where an enemy has already killed me and heals as I escape.

We stop, and my zombie’s arms loosen as I slide down.

Did I mention I suck at control? I long for Pax. He’d have such a handle on this.

The zombie turns and I gasp.

He’s beautiful and alive.

His eyes, so deep a midnight blue they’re black velvet kissed by the ocean. His olive skin is rich and dusky, not a hint of ruddiness, cafe au lait. Truly black hair, like mine, is a tight cap just shy of curly that covers his head.

He grins and his mouth is pink, every tooth straight and whole.

This is where my control really is bad. I raise him by accident then do a mediocre job. Like a rotting cherry on top, my death energy leaks all over him, and now he looks all lovely and alive. Somehow.

Wow.

The worst part is he's a killer.

And he's all mine.

“Mistress?”

I clear my throat, smoothing my riot of hair out of the way. I grab the hair band off my wrist and tie the mess in a huge knot at the base of my neck.

“It’s Deegan,” I say quietly.

His pupils contract as a slice of sunlight spears the forest, turning his dark eyes to cerulean blue. All colors. One.

I swallow, slopping through some manners finally.

“What's—what's your name?”

“Mitchell,” he says.

Then there is nothing.

The question hangs between us. He's just waiting for me to ask.

“Who did you kill?” I ask in a soft voice. I don't have to be afraid. There's never been a documented case of a zombie killing an AFTD. It's as though there's a fail safe. We control the dead.

I am still afraid. His physical presence is intimidating.

He cocks his head. “How do you know I've killed anyone?”

His face tells me nothing. Cheekbones like forward slashes sculpt a young, hard face.

I look down at my hands. “I can’t raise… anyone who is not a murderer.”

Shame makes my face hot.

Then he laughs.

I snap my head up. Hands to hips, lips thinning. “What is so funny?”

Because it’s not.

He's not chuckling, but laughing deeply, from his belly. “First, I don't know how you can know that. Second, I don't know what I am, why you matter, what in the hell is going on, and third—I don't want to go back.”

I retreat a step. Out of all the zombies I have to raise, it’s one of the really bad ones. Of course, when all I can raise as a four-point are murderers, the choices become limited.

I don’t want to go back, he said.

I do. I very much want to go back.

So what does an almost seventeen-year-old girl do? She bursts into tears.

Arms envelop me.

The smell of rot is gone because my emotions are all over the place, and I can’t control the leakage.

I smell many things. The main thing is death.

For an AFTD, death is home. I take a shuddering inhale and grip Mitchell the Zombie’s shirt.

The flannel is soft beneath my fingertips.

The heart I made beat strokes my face with its rhythm, and I cry harder.

His hand comes to the back of my head. “I am here, Mistress.”

“I know,” I sniffle, supremely pissed at myself for losing it.

I pull away, and he thumbs my tears away.

“Deegan.”

Mitchell smiles. “Deegan. And what a funny name that is.”

I nod. The parents weren’t great on picking our names. I love them anyway.

I give him a watery smile.

“I murdered the men responsible for killing my family.”

I look into his face. The unforgiving and matter of fact way he says it brooks no argument. Uncompromising.

“Oh,” I answer in lame reply.

His expression tightens, his eyes glazing to a faraway look, his hands unconsciously clenching into loose fists.

“I was in college, close to home, living with my folks, and I was in charge. They were out of town, see.”

I did see.

Anguish.

Guilt.

Responsibility.

I see it all.

He stares at the ground, exhaling in a rush, and gives a harsh scrub of his head. “Some chumps thought they had easy pickings. Scoping out the neighborhood, I’m sure their plan was to be in an out.”

I shook my head, denying the story to come, and he laughs.

It sounds like choking despair to me, not a bit of humor.

One breath, two… on the third he says it. “They did my sister first.”

His gaze moves to mine. He doesn’t explain.

I close my eyes to the grief. His.

“She was only fifteen.” He pauses. “Then they did my brother. Of course—he was trying to protect her. At twelve.” He shakes his head slowly. “Not a chance in hell. Two guys, twenties.”

I have many questions. But I let him finish.

He raises his eyes, locking with mine. Full of malice. They glitter as I stand beneath the weight of remembered violence.

“They didn’t know anyone was home. Thought the entire family was MIA.”

I have to ask, “What were you doing?”

His eyes never leave mine. “Getting pizza.”

It's funny really. Your siblings killed because of a pizza run. His face isn't funny. It's etched with sadness.

“Cory was still alive when I came in.”

“Your brother?”

He nods.

“What did you do to the men?”

Mitchell puts his hands on his hips. “I beat one of them until his brains came out.”

I grasp my hands. I know how hard the human skull is.

“Weaponless?” I clarify because I have to.

He raises his hands, waving them side to side.

I gulp.

“Then I cut the guy's dick off that raped my sister.”

I gasp and retreat a step.

Mitchell stares at me.

“He took a while to bleed out. I took my time with him.”

I raise a palm. I can't. I just can't hear anymore.

“I know you’re young. But you asked… Deegan.”

I nod. I did.

“How old were you?”

“Nineteen.”

“How old were you when…” I don’t finish my question.

“Twenty.”

I think. “How come they, how come—ugh.”

A sad smile tweaks the corners of his mouth. “I didn't get in trouble for the murders.”

My eyebrows hike.

“They threw me in a nuthouse.”

I laugh. It's such an inappropriate term for people with mental illness. Gram would have a turtle over it.

I'm instantly sad at the reminder and feel my smile slide off my face like melting candle wax. I remind myself Mitchell is from another era. He died almost forty years ago.

Pre-paranormals.

“There was a big ass public outcry: Save the orphan. Of course, the doctors thought I acted vengefully.”

“Did you?”

His answer is instantaneous: “Yes.”

I can’t blame him. But a human being has to have a certain disposition to… retaliate in the way Mitchell did.

“How can you make me alive?” he asks, deftly changing the subject.

He doesn’t tell me how he dies. Okay.

“After you—ya know, died.” I flick my eyes to him. He returns my stare. “My grandpa is a scientist, and he found anomalous markers on the human genome.”

His eyebrow pops.

“Atypical,” I explain.

He nods, a smile ghosting his lips.

“Then a pharmaceutical mogul gets involved, makes a chemical cocktail that can make these… powers, manifest.”

Mitchell palms his strong jaw.

It occurs to me right then he’s kinda hot, which introduces a mondo-awkward moment.

He’s dead, Deegan.

Thankfully, he’s not paying attention to my discomfort.

“So Grandpa found what kind of genes?”

I swallow, scrambling. “Paranormal.”

He laughs.

I frown.

“What?” he asks. “I know what you are.” He taps his temple. “It’s in my brain. Necromancer, Mistress. I know you rule”—he puts a thumb to his chest—“us.”

I shake my head.

“Not all. I can only raise murderers.”

Now he really laughs again.

I don't.

“You're shitting me?”

I smile despite the circumstance. “I shit you not.”

“Can I say that's not the best ability, or whatever it is you have.”

“Yeah,” I agree, my self-pity begging for a party. I refrain, in the face of his tragedy, I don't think I have the luxury.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Caleb

The Skopamish move in on the suits, and I let them. Feels like old times.

I turn to Gramps, and he’s struggling to get up. I pop my hand out; he grabs on, and

I jerk him to his feet. He only sways a little. Tough old bird.

We survey the murderous Native Americans.

“Good thing Jade stayed home,” Gramps comments conversationally.

“Yeah, she was really jonesing to come.”

Gramps gives me a sidelong glance. “Would’ve been bad.”

Yeah.

The AFTD in the middle of the road throws a wallop of death energy at the Skopamish.

Tomahawks fall, and their mouths open in silent screams.

Gramps makes a low grunt. “What’s this?”

“Another five-point.”

Arrogant walks over the tops of my zombies, and I charge. I let every bit of what I have go.

It bottoms out, leaving me in a mudslide of death.

Arrogant’s in his early twenties. All five-points are documented. It’s so rare there’s a half dozen of us.

Paxton is one. Dee doesn’t count; she’s only four. Of course, the government doesn’t look into her, because four-points can’t raise dick.

Right.

A flock of starlings rains from the sky like a cloud of black death. They’re an annoying bird while alive. In death, their focus is so much more intense.

“You got this?” Gramps asks.

“Yeah.”

“Okay, just askin’.”

I flick an annoyed glance his way.

The birds dive-bomb Arrogant, and he does what I expect. He flings his hands up in front of his face.

I command the birds to peck.

They do.

Arrogant screeches, jerking around like an electrocution victim.

I turn my attention to the Skopamish.

They’re already standing at attention, a few have their  headdresses askew.

As I think it, hands rise, adjusting them to rightness.

I grin, my death muscle flexes, and I meet the eyes of the dead that have come.

They fill what used to be a highway between Lake Tapps and Kent.

The smell chokes Gramps.

I feel an abiding comfort.

The dead.

Mine, I think, mine.

They close in around the suit, avoiding the birds that contain Arrogant.

The Null closes his fist.

A ripple washes through the subjects of my summons. A backlash like a numbing whip strikes me.

My scope narrows to whoever is closest. The rest of the dead stop, my bond weakening before the Null’s force.

I throw my surviving strength to the birds. They peck Arrogant, avoiding the face.

Don’t want murder charges.

“Caleb.”

“I got this, Gramps,” I say through gritted teeth. Sweat runs, burning into my eyes.

A zombie who was a settler in the late 1800s clotheslines the Null.

He stumbles, his concentration stolen.

The death surge covers him like a blanket of arms and legs.

“Caleb!”

“Huh?” I’m swimming. The horde is—good. I float in the throng of dead, a river of rightness and serenity.

“Get your shit together.”

My head rocks back from the slap.

My death radar automatically narrows in on the one who's hit me.

Grampsʼ angry face fills my pinhole of sight.

Dead hands tear at his clothing.

Stop.

The fist of my power closes.

The hands stop.

“Waking your shit up, pal.”

“Gramps,” I say through the fog.

“Hello—snap out of it. We've got a group here, and the birds have made Swiss cheese out of numb nuts over there and we don't have answer one.”

The kids.

I step back into myself. It'd been dangerous for me to use my power to that degree.

Hell, I'd scooped myself out like a jack-o-lantern on Halloween.

Hardy-har-har.

I call off the troops.

One of the Skopamish has taken off a bit of flesh from one of the suit’s scalp.

Whoops.

They always go for the head. The Indians have a thing for the head. Banging it, scalping it. Hmm.

“Rest,” I say aloud.

In my mind, I call out three Skopamish. They move to me like liquid as the rest slide back into the ground.

I walk over to Arrogant, having a grand time with the starlings.

Chunks of flesh decorate the old asphalt. Cars whiz by over our heads, oblivious to the undead carnage below.

Stop.

The birds’ black eyes are marbles of indifference in their collective faces. Blood covers beaks.

One slurps in a stringy bit of Arrogant into its mouth.

“Now that's a sound,” Gramps comments dryly.

Yeah.

Arrogant rolls around, groaning.

“Here's the thing,” I say, “you're gonna answer some stuff.”

“And things,” Gramps adds and I nod, feeling that old teamwork resurrect itself neatly.

“I know who you are, Mr. Hart,” he says, groaning.

I smile. Training forces you to reply neutrally, even when a bunch of you is spread all over the road.

Arrogant looks like he has a case of measles he’s scratched so badly they scab and bleed again.

“Good. So now that introductions are unnecessary, where the fuck are my kids?”

He swings his head. “I don’t know. We’ve been reaching out to your son, Paxton…”

“Oh, that’s rich,” Gramps says.

I hold up a palm, and he harrumphs in the background.

“In any event”—he coughs, and blood sails out to join the chunks of flesh left behind from the starlings.

“He ignored us.”

Sounds like Pax. He’s great at that. Join the ignored club.

“So we thought we’d force him to listen.”

Ha!

“Hart family’s really resistant to that,” Gramps supplies.

Arrogant sends him a withering look from the ground.

“You can thank me,” Gramps says, shooting me a look.

I sigh. “Thanks, Gramps.”

Arrogant scans the environment.

His shoulders slump when he sees the Skopamish guarding the other three operatives.

“Something went wrong with their vehicle. We had a… government ride in the way and somehow, the safety avoidance kicked offline.”

“Horse shit.”

I look at my filterless grandpa. “Gramps.”

Gramps shrugs. “Calling it what it is.” He pulls out a cigarette, and Arrogant’s eyes widen.

“Not a word or I put it out on the one spot the birdies didn’t dig out.”

Gramps raises his eyebrows, and Arrogant clams up.

“Not helpful.” I turn my attention back to Arrogant. “So you wrecked my kid’s car. It still doesn’t explain where they’ve gone.”

I feel terrific now. The kids aren’t dead. Too bad there’s no Amplifier around. I’d latch on to one of them, and Jade would instantly know they were okay. Just… lost.

“They were here. The boy fell out of the car, and the sister came after.” He tries to sit up, falls back again. “We move in, trying to talk him down, but he’s a wild kid.” He gives me accusing eyes.

Like I have control over my kid.

Paxton’s always been willful. And my upbringing extols that. Hard to break tradition.

Kinda biting me square in the ass now.

“They disappeared. Vanished.” He gives me a true glare now. Bleeding and bested by another Affinity for the Dead, he still has enough sack to say, “He must be an undocumented Dimensional. Slips through the cracks. These Randoms…”

“You're Random,” I point out.

We stare at each other.

“We're not what you presume us to be. We're recruiting.”

Yeah, the Graysheets thought they were too.

Their methods sucked.

A yelp distracts me as one of the Skopamish strokes the head of a now-whimpering suit.

Nice.

Cool it.

I don't know how that translates into their language but the indian gives a grunt of pure aw shucks and lets his hand fall.

“Natives are getting restless,” Gramps notes.

“Right. Well, they get it done.”

“True,” he agrees, cig bobbing with his comment.

Arrogant chirps, “You understand the consequence for keeping a Random's abilities hidden.”

“Not my problem. But Paxton is not a Dimensional. I knew one and he's not.”

He opens his mouth.

“Neither is Deegan.”

“Fine.” He coughs again, the flesh of his hand oozing pockmarks of blood. “So where are they?”

Gramps and I look at each other.

No one knows.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Paxton

Shaking. Something is shaking me.

“Young master.”

George. His name is George.

His and two other faces look anxiously into mine. The smell is normal death rot, and it brings me around like smelling salts.

I sit up and feel a little dizzy. Need to mow on food.

“Food,” I croak.

I blink, looking around. Oh shit. We're in the woods again.

“What happened?”

“The Organic put you into a four hour healing coma.”

Swell.

I cough, and it rattles. Bad for me to be supine. Fluids collect. I try a scoop of healing energy and come up empty.

Too empty. Too tired.

Deegan.

Anxiety coils inside me like a snake. Which is really a handy substitute for terror. My sister is somewhere in this effed up circus with all the freaks.

The zombies look around.

No brains.

A tired smile lifts the corners for my mouth. “I need food for me,” I explain, thumb on my chest.

“Ah,” George says, badly covering his disappointment.

“We find a grocery store and get some grub, then I find Deegan.”

Zombies have IQs when they're alive and dead. If they're not the sharpest tool in the shed when they're alive, it plays out when they're raised.

“Let's find a grocery store and then we'll get my sister.”

Nobody moves.

I stand and begin walking.

I tune my pulse disc up, activating GPS location. A map blinks inside my mind.

I see where one is.

I think, deactivate.

I walk to the store, via the forest and scope out a storefront with walls of glass.

It's lousy with bots.

I turn to George.

He looks pretty good. The wife and daughter have to hang around. They really have that waxy gray look.

I explain what George needs to do.

He walks out of the woods and inside the store.

Ten tense minutes pass.

He moves through the glass doors, and breath leaks out of me like a punctured balloon.

Thank God.

Then the bots’ screaming begins.

Fuck.

George doesn’t break stride; he just plows straight up the hill. The purity of undead purpose. Zombies aren’t much for discernment. I am the AFTD. Period.

The bots don’t follow.

I inch closer to the tree line, moving a branch aside.

It's not us they're after.

It's worse.

Deegan is standing behind a huge dude.

He pings my undead radar immediately. Shit.

Dee can only raise murderers.

George comes through the trees, puts the food at my feet and stands. Waiting.

Our cover is blown. They’ve found my sister. She’s in trouble.

George looks at me for his next command.

I net the family.

“Come on.”

The little girl leaves the teddy bear behind.

*

Deegan

I hide behind Mitchell. He slams a fist into the bot.

“What the hell are these?” he bellows.

“I don’t know!” I holler back.

Mitchell uses its arm to whip its body into the one that’s going for me.

“I can’t get them all, Deegan!” he yells.

Then I see my brother jogging down a hill that borders a forest.

“Paxton,” I whisper in relief so profound I feel it in my guts.

“Who?!”

I point to my brother. But Mitchell’s eyes are on the zombies.

A look passes between Pax’s zombies and Mitchell.

“Do you trust me?” he asks, bots holding both his arms. He shifts his gaze over my shoulder.

An image of Clyde flies through my mind. He’s family.

Of course I do. All zombies are trustworthy. I nod.

He grabs my waist as he shrugs the bots off.

He lifts me above his head, and I scream.

Pax’s eyes go round.

Mitchell hollers at the male zombie at Paxton’s right, “Catch her.”

“Yes,” it hisses.

Mitchell tosses me.

It’s an experience I’ll never forget. A zombie’s absolute strength used to make me fly in the air.

Air rushes pass me as I helplessly tumble thirty feet.

Strong arms catch me. The momentum is too much, and I crash into something else.

Two other somethings.

My body buries a woman and a child. I yelp, trying to struggle off them and then give a hiccuping scream as my wrist shrieks in agony.

They’re zombies; all is well. They lift themselves up, brushing off their clothes. “Mistress,” they say simultaneously.

Oh, wow. I back up, stumbling, and the male zombie is taking me by the elbow. Mitchell saved me.

I turn around, and ten bots cover him.

“Paxton!” I scream.

But he's already there.

The bots turn to him and our eyes meet.

“Need ya sis!”

I run down the hill, back to the swarm of bots from which Mitchell tried to save me. The zombies are at my back. I feel it like sunlight warming my skin. Death always feels so alive to an AFTD. Hard to explain.

“Coming!” I scream.

Mitchell’s head pops out of the hill of bots.

“No!” he hollers, struggling out of the mound.

I reach Pax and close my hand around his.

Mitchell grabs my other, and I wince as my wrist grinds in pain.

The zombies at my back? The male grabs my shirt from behind, and the woman and child cling to him like a barrel of hooked monkeys.

Pax blinks.

A thin opaque eyelid covers his iris. I blink, and my own descend instantly.

My peripheral vision comes online.

Hundreds of bots rush like a sea of metal to an artificial shore, hands outstretched to hurt us.

“Paxton,” I have a chance to say, fear making his name a tight slur between my teeth.

Then we leave.

But it's not just us.

*

I'm in his arms, moving.

Pax is running beside us. Traveling between worlds zaps me. Not Pax. He’s the traveler. It’s a known fact that using your own ability is not going to flat line energy.

I feel like I could nap for a year.

I crack a lid open and see the underside of Mitchell’s jaw.

My parents will kill me for bringing a corpse home. I’ll be grounded for like... forever.

I sigh and Mitchell slows, looking down at me.

“Can I put you down?”

I nod, and he sets me on my feet.

Pax stops running, the family who keep time with him not winded at all.

Don’t need oxygen when you’re dead.

“What the hell happened?” Pax asks.

I look around. We’re in our neighborhood. “Parents are gonna have a cow.”

“Ah, yeah.” He rolls his eyes. “A herd.”

“You blinked us… I don’t know, somewhere. Then Brad Thompson was there.”

Pax pulls a face. “No shit?”

Mitchell smirks, and my lips twitch. “Yes. Johnny-creeper-on-the-spot. He hauled me off and had Plans.”

Pax’s face darkens like the promise of thunder.

He turns his attention to Mitchell, giving him a once-over. They’re about the same height. Tall.

Pax asks, “She called you?”

“Not exactly.”

Pax pegs his hips with his hands. “That's like being kinda pregnant. Ya can't kinda call the dead.”

“I'm not that great at it,” I remind him.

Pax smiles. “Not true, buckaroo. You did great. Look at him.”

We do.

Yeah, look at him. I shake it off.

“You even got the mouth right. Dad will be so proud.” He gives me a hug.

Must be grateful I'm alive. Really grateful. Pax isn't much for what Gram calls coochy-coo.

“He's going to be pissed off, Pax.”

He shrugs. “Yeah, he'll get over it.”

“What's your name, dude?”

Mitchell cocks an eyebrow and crosses his arms.

“Mitch.”

Pax’s eyes narrow. “He’s a little stubborn, sis.”

I shrug. “You know how it is when you’re the raiser.”

He nods. “Can you command him?”

Maybe. “Yes, I guess.”

“I don’t like it.”

We look at Mitchell. He gazes back. I stifle the crush-flutter.

“Why? Pax—he chucked me so the bots couldn’t get me.”

“Yeah…” He palms his chin. “I don’t know what the difference will be with zombies from a parallel earth.”

I shrug. Then I think it over. It snaps together like a rubber band.

“Ya think they are autonomous?”

Pax rolls his eyes. “Drop the four-dollar words, Dee.”

“Do. You. Think. That. They. Will. Only. Answer. To. Us?”

I don't contain my sarcasm.

“Yes. I. Do. Drama. Queen,” Pax retaliates in typical sib fashion.

Mitchell hisses at Pax.

Pax turns to him and flogs him with his death energy. I'd know it anywhere. It's a containment net. Like a leash, he's bringing Mitchell to heel.

Which I hate on principle.

He's hot.

Mitchell saved me.

He's mine.

Pax frowns when it doesn't work.

Death skates over him, and the energy surges back over the top of us.

“Wow,” Pax says but not as if he likes it. His face is grim.

“Put him to rest, Dee. Now.”

I don’t want to. I look at Mitchell, and he gives a minor shake of his head.

I smirk. “Can we wait?”

I look at the family he has. “You haven’t put them down either,” I point out.

Mitchell covers his chuckle with a fist.

Pax nails him with a glare. “Can it.”

Mitchell's smile disappears. “Seems like you're not really in a position to tell me jack shit, pal.”

Pax launches himself at Mitchell without warning. They wrap arms and tumble over the small embankment next to the sidewalk, rolling down the wet grass together in a tangle of arms and legs.

“Stop them!” I shriek at the zombie.

He stares, blinking once.

Gah!

I jump down the hill after the men in my life.

Guys.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Caleb

I do know.

Death energy moves through me like still waters, swift and deep.

I’d know the hand of my children anywhere.

“What?” Arrogant asks, flipping over to his hands and knees. “What is it?”

I have to work on my face. It tells everybody everything.

“Stay put, putzmiester,” Gramps says, stiffening his gun arm.

Arrogant looks up.

“I got the undead king here, pal. Don’t get cute.”

“Let’s go, Gramps.”

“On it.”

“Wait!” Arrogant shouts, checking out the Skopamish.

We turn. “Nah. My warriors will go to ground in…”

Twenty minutes, I command them mentally.

“Momentarily.”

“Pfft.” Arrogant says. “We are the good guys here.”

I nod. “That's what the Helix Complex claimed.”

Arrogant scowls. “We're not remotely comparable.”

“Whatever.”

I glance over my shoulder at the Skopamish.

The chief raises his tomahawk in goodbye.

The suit to his left flinches.

I turn with a smirk.

Gramps winks. “You love to put the screws to those guys.”

I jog to the car and he follows. “And you don't?”

“I got my own methods. Stick to them. Effective.”

I think of the socket wrench incident with Zondorae back in the day. Toes were crushed. Zondorae sang like a bird.

Yeah, Gramps is an effective guy.

Gramps takes a deep breath and slides into the hover car. He's not real keen on something he's not controlling. We float into air traffic. Gramps' head rocks back against the seat at the instantaneous acceleration. A slow breath of relief escapes him when he finds himself still alive.

I grin

It’s as if I’m an old-fashioned submarine. The kids beep on my radar, my radar for the dead.

And it isn’t just them. They have their own dead.

I shut my eyes. One, two—four total.

There’s an alien feel to this group of zombies.

I don’t like it.

The autopilot function in the car beeps.

<Destination obtained>

<Landing>

The car lowers alongside a green space that slopes down to a mandatory belt of non-buildable.

I glance at Gramps, and he clenches his eyes shut, hands biting into the synthetic leather upholstery.

“Gramps.”

“Yup!”

“You can open your eyes.”

“Has the rust bucket landed?”

I smile. “Yeah, it's okay.”

He cracks a lid as the passenger door sweeps open.

“Hate, Caleb. I got nothinʼ but a boatload of hate for these.”

“Hmm, couldn’t tell.”

“Can the sarcasm, pal.”

We step out, and the car lifts.

Zombies turn and stare at me.

A man, woman, and child. A family.

Pax’s work. He usually raises one hard, using a deliberate energy on it. The dad looks perfect. My gaze traces his wardrobe. Late twentieth century, mid-thirties.

The mom and little girl are rough around the edges, gray and peeling, with that smell of rot about three quarters to neat. Like a glass of whiskey that isn’t full.

Gramps asks, “Well—what do we have here?”

I hear a scream and whip my head in the direction it comes from.

I track the sound down a slope of grass on a small embankment beside which we parked. My son and a huge zombie are beating the shit out of each other.

Pax doesn’t have a chance.

On the heels of that thought is the next: Why isn’t he bringing him to heel?

Screw this.

I nail the zombie between the eyes. Freeze.

It staggers.

Pax delivers a punch, and the zombie slaps him. Seems like a slap from a zombie wouldn’t matter.

It occurs to me then he’s trying not to hurt Pax.

Doesn’t matter. Pax flies ten feet, landing on his back.

“What are ya doin’? Askin’?” Gramps cocks his brow at me.

“No. He should be a Walt Disney down there.”

“He’s kicking Pax’s ass… what? Do I have to take care of it?”

“Gramps—God. No. Stay put.”

I shoot a speculative glance at Fam Zombie on the sidelines and jog to the crest of the hill.

Deegan sees me and screams, “Daddy!” Terror like ice covers her voice.

Nothing moves a man into action faster than their baby girl calling their name like that.

Nothing.

I sprint down the hill, struggling to maintain my balance. My bad knee swears a blue streak as I move beyond the barriers of what it can stand.

I push through, grabbing Deegan, the same size as Jade, and yank her behind me.

“What the hell is going on?”

“I raised him by accident.”

Cripes. A Deegan zombie.

My temper and irritation rise like an oil slick on water. I calm myself.

“Okay, baby—just… put him to rest.”

“I can’t, Dad.”

Can’t.

“Tell him to stop, Deegan. He’s got zombie strength.”

Gramps walks up. “He’s gonna put a hurt on brother, Deedie.”

“I know, Gramps… but I don’t think I can.”

The zombie reaches for Pax.

I make a decision, but it’s not easy.

“Deegan,” I scream, shaking her. “I'm going to give you a spanking!”

It's not the dumbest thing I've ever said but it's up there. I hope it does what I'm going for.

The zombie drops Pax and comes for me.

Hissing.

I hit it again. I’m low on death juice, and it glances off him.

He’s a locomotive.

Deegan has more self-preservation instincts than Jade, but the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

She steps in front of the undead cyclone.

“Mitchell!” she screams, and I see red when he lays hands on Deegan.

“Okeydokey,” Gramps says with resignation.

He whips the butt of the shotgun into the side of Demon Zombie’s head, and it staggers him.

“No, Gramps!”

She clings to the zombie and he lifts her in his arms, tucking her behind him.

This is so bad.

We circle good old Mitchell, and I know the flavor of corpse he is.

Determined.

You think they’re all alike. Not true. A little of what they were remains present in death.

This guy's protective.

Of Deegan.

“Don’t make me hurt you guys,” he says.

I stop, holding my arm out to Gramps.

Randomly I notice a dent in his head where Gramps beaned him.

“Don't make me take you apart,” I say, as honest as I've ever been.

Mitchell smiles. “No chance, bud. I'm here for the girl. Because of the girl. No one touches her.”

“You're touching her,” Gramps points out.

Mitchell hisses.

Mouth looks good, I think, having a proud papa moment.

“Mitchell, it's okay. This is my dad, Gramps, and you've met Pax.”

“He's an asshole, Deegan.”

She gives a shaky laugh. “Kinda, but he's still my bro.”

“He hurt you,” Mitchell says, pointing at me.

Deegan shakes her head, pulling on him until he lets her go. She moves to stand in front of him.

I swallow at their size difference. He could kill her with a hit.

She raised him. She’s safe.

Still about twelve different alarm bells are going off simultaneously. Gramps, shotgun pointed to the ground, must feel the same way.

He inches forward.

Mitchell's eyes flick to Gramps.

He's awfully sharp for a corpse. Reminds me of Clyde. Those type never dull down.

Some people are just meant to be alive.

Through any means.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Caleb

“Goddamn!” Pax jumps to his feet and hightails it to Gramps and me.

I toss a hard look his way. “Pax, cool it.”

The zombie’s cold gaze follows him, and Pax flips him the bird. “Dick.”

Deegan rolls her eyes. “Pax please… can ya just not for once?”

“Chump,” The zombie replies.

Gramps snorts. “He’s an oldie but goody!”

Great. “Deegan, explain what’s happened.” I fold my arms, one eye on Mitchell.

Gramps’ eyes narrow. “Not a good time, son.”

I scan the vicinity. Cars are pausing in the sky, hovering over the street in my neighborhood.

Someone is filming Fam Dead at the top of the hill. An eyepiece sweeps over their face for live feed upload to PulseTube.

Wonderful.

I punch out some death juice. It’s the wrong season for bees, but they’re dead and won’t mind.

The swarm moves to the cars with the rubber-neckers and blocks their bird's eye line of sight.

“Nice.” Gramps rocks back on his heels, laughing. “That’ll shut those nosey-Parkers right down.”

“Deegan?”

“I know, Dad. I got it, but Pax had to escape the dudes back by Gramps’, and we didn’t have any time.”

I turn to Pax, who shrugs. “I did what I had to.”

“You blinked?” I ask, though I’m pretty sure of the response.

He nods.

“It’s okay. You protected your sister.”

Mitchell gives a grunt of assent.

Gramps hides his smile behind a fake cough.

Perfect.

“How about me?” Pax asks with a smirk.

I lift my chin. “I know you can take care of stuff, Pax.”

“And things,” Gramps mumbles.

A true day from hell.

I plow forward. “Let’s take,” I check out the posse of undead, “the zombies back to the house and figure it out in a more private setting.”

Pax blanches. “Fine, you deal with Mom. She’s not going to dig the Motley Crew of Death showing up.”

“Pax is right,” Deegan agrees.

I palm my chin. “Right—but you guys raised these in some parallel earth?”

They nod.

Kids.

“I don’t think they’ll go to rest here.”

“Why not?” Gramps asks. “You keep telling me the dead are dead are dead.” He lifts his shoulders.

“They are. But I think because the kids raised them in another earth, there is no resting place for them. On this earth.”

Silence.

Pax gives a horrified glance to the dead family at the top of the hill. “Great. It's not really—I didn't want dead I can't put to rest. They're not goldfish, Dad.”

“It's a dilemma,” I say.

Gramps laughs.

“Not funny, Gramps,” Pax says, sullen.

“It’s a barrel of monkeys. You two having to drag around a few corpses for a little while might put the kibosh on doing it for no reason.”

Pax has a history of raising without much thought.

Deegan raises by accident. All we do is teach her how to control it.

It is the least of her abilities, the frightening one we handled like potty training.

Sometimes she does it in her sleep, like talking.

It’s been a stressful few years.

“If we’re just going to hang around here chewing our cud, I’m going to light up.”

Mitchell raises his eyebrow, smiling despite the circumstances.

I sigh as the agitated bees buzz in the background. “I think we need some ground rules with… Mitchell.”

“Mitch,” he corrects, and my patience thins like an old sheet of paper.

“Caleb,” I say.

“Nice to meetcha.”

Gramps looks at Mitch. “Mac.”

“Hey.”

Pax flips him off again.

Mitch hisses.

“Paxton.”

Pax looks at me.

I say, “Stop the bullshit. It's been a day.”

“Right.” He flings a hand behind him as he walks up to the top of the hill.

Deegan follows, and Mitch brings up the rear.

Gramps trains his eyes on his back. “Big fella.”

I measure him as I do all men, carefully. “Yeah. If Pax hadn’t been a Body and an Organic, he’d be broken.”

“Yup,” Gramps agrees easily, the smoke from his cigarette lighting off a Christmas tree of memory triggers.

I reach the top and with a thought, I send the car home without us.

I pulse Jade, and images flow between us. Her anxiety is crippling.

Her anger is worse.

It gets better and better.

The bees make a privacy cocoon around us.

The dead family walks behind Pax, who's in the lead and we follow.

Deegan walks beside the monster of a guy she raised.

Gramps keeps his eye on the threat.

The people who might witness four corpses and walkers. We’re not out during the exercise cycle and can be called in for violation.

Gramps is smoking while carrying a firearm. Though he wears his card around his neck, not everyone thinks that's good enough.

There's always a flock of do-gooders. And like birds, they want to shit on everyone's heads.

Jade waits at the front porch. Seeing Deegan, she rushes down the broad concrete steps and I race forward.

There's no way I want The Hulk near Jade.

I shouldn't have worried.

“Mom!” Deegan squeals.

They collide, crying and hugging.

Mitch the zombie stands around awkwardly like the rest of us.

Jade pulls away. “Come inside. I have disturbing news.” Her gaze meets mine.

Sounds about right.

*

Our place isn't very big. Built in the beginning of the twentieth, it's all wood, plaster, beamed ceilings and cozy rooms.

Translation: small.

It's been a terrific home. It has the antiquated vibe I dig. The bungalow was always meant to be a starter. Then it became the home we didn't want to leave. Even when we converted the attic to a space for Pax while he went to Paranormal Tech School. I guess it's a finisher.

But with Gramps and four zombies, the size doesn't feel cozy.

It's oppressive.

“Pax... gall, can ya do them a little better, honey?” Jade covers her nose, eyeing the family.

Pax turns to me and we shrug.

He asks Gramps, “You smell anything, Gramps?”

“Just rotting meat.” Gramps winks.

Pax sighs. “Fine.”

He turns to the dead family (the dad looks great, I think critically), and the breath of his energy floats past me. It touches Mitch and he stiffens, recognizing it, though he can’t respond.

The girl goes first, her face morphing from gray to yellow. The gaps around her eyeballs close, the whites getting brighter, the irises taking on a fresh green color. Her hair, a bright orange in life, turns back to carrot-colored in seconds.

It reminds me of John, though his has faded as he has gotten older.

The mom goes through the same metamorphosis, but her hair is a blonde turning golden.

The dad gets some peripheral leakage and perks up, hair thickening, eyes brightening, his skin taking on a ruddy cast.

“Mouths,” I say.

Pax grumps, turning back to the small horde. “Open your mouths.”

The girl’s looks a little dark.

Pax gives her another round of juice, and it pinks up.

I can’t help my grin. “Nice.”

Pax gives a small smile at my praise.

Then he frowns. “Dee always gets the mouths.”

“Don't compare,” Jade says.

We look at Mitch.

He smiles but it looks like a shark.

Deegan giggles. “I don't think I can get excited about perfect zombies when it's accidental, and they're all criminals.”

That gets me thinking. I narrow my gaze on Mitch.

“What did you do?”

“He”—she glances at him for permission, and Mitch nods.

“No sis, that's not how it works. You own his ass. You tell him what you want. There's no deference for his undead opinions.”

Mitch frowns at Pax then turns his attention to me. “You’re the dad?”

I nod.

“Went easy on him, then?”

Gramps laughs.

“You try raising a kid with these kinds of fun abilities, and we’ll see how you do.”

Jade approaches, and I tense.

Mitch looks down at her. “Ma’am.”

Jade smiles and from his expression, he understands why I love her. “We did the best we could. He’s got a sharp tongue and a soft soul.”

She moves in for the kill.

“Jade, no,” I say.

Mitch snaps his head my direction.

Deegan takes Jade’s hand as her other touches Mitchell’s forearm.

He sucks in a sharp breath as she closes her small hand around his arm. Sweat beads pop on Mitch’s upper lip, as Jade’s body becomes a tense plank. She moans when she reaches something awful, and I step forward.

She sends me a look full of pain and temperance, and I freeze.

Mitch finds her eyes. His are wide and surprised.

Hers are filling with tears.

She steps away, and he asks, “How did you do that?”

“I still have a touch of it.”

She turns to me.

“A touch of what?” he asks.

Jade doesn’t answer.

I wait.

When she’s done telling us what she sees, we all look at Mitch.

Sometimes murderers kill for bad reasons.

I cover my face with my hands. I’ve heard horrible things. Survived shit.

Gramps is quiet.

Pax’s face is red with what appears to be remorse.

I shake it off, walk to Mitch, and clap him on the back. “I’m glad it was you.”

Mitch, cupping the back of Deegan’s head, looks down at her. He’s so big he palms her entire skull.

“Me too.”

Jade's expression mirrors my own concern.

Mitch is bad news. But not for the reason we thought.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Pax

“So we're not gonna get our asses kicked?”

Jade sighs. “Language, language, language, Paxton.”

“Mom,” I say.

Gramps says, “Don't get smart. I've given you as much leeway as I feel magnanimous about.”

“We would have been tarred and feathered for that mouth back when I was alive,” Mitch comments from the peanut gallery.

“It's not prize behavior now either,” Dad offers.

I roll my eyes. Everyone stresses over shit that's nothing. The F-word is a medieval acronym for shit's sake. Anyway. “Dad,” I look at him, “did you, I mean, did you run into the suit dudes over by Grampsʼ?”

He nods. “I did, had to put a lid on that mess.”

“Who are they?”

“Random A-holes.” Gramps cuts the cursing so close it could slice air.

Mitch eyebrows drop above his eyes.

He’ll have to catch on or drown.

I look at them, willing them to understand. The Hart family frowns on blinking. “I had to get out of there. It didn’t seem like those Randoms wanted to deal with my indifference anymore.”

Dad, getting charged up, folds his arms. “Why weren’t your mother and I aware there’d been some prior exchange?”

I shrug. “I thought they were like college recruiters. I get all kinds of weird crap in the pulsebox about that stuff.” I mime what I think they’d sound like if it didn’t go into the spam pulse folder locked in my head: “Paxton Hart, you’re the type of ‘thinking-out-of-the-box’ young adult needed to be a part of the Random Movement.”

I return my voice to the normal tones of boredom. “So, I file thirteened it. Don’t care.”

Mom approaches me, concern all over her face.

Great. “No touchy, Mom.”

She laughs. “I think I’ve got that, Pax.”

I have just enough Empath for things to get awkward. It makes me jump outta my skin sometimes.

I scope out the zombies. Mine are nicely blank. But that guy Mitch.

That guy.

He puts the animated in reanimated.

“Then they started putting flags and jumps on it. I knew I had to block their dumb butts.” I smile and Mom nods at my effort in less Foulness of the Mouth.

“Way too aggressive for just one kid that ignores spam,” Gramps says thoughtfully.

I check out Grampsʼ shotgun. I laugh.

“Well, our avoidance gear didn't engage. I busted my arm trying to stop the roof from caving.”

Mom gasps. “Are ya okay?”

“Yes. I just, it was a case of The Dumbs that wouldn’t quit. I was in this other Earth. Dee was gone, my arm was ten kinds of messed up, and there were these effing creeper bots…”

“What?”

“Artificial Life Bots,” Dee supplies.

I whip my hand toward her. “Yeah, what she said, they were enthusiastic…”

“Buggers,” Gramps fills in, and I laugh.

“Yeah they were.”

“What were the bots doing?” Dad asks.

I give a rough exhale. “They were trying to kill us.”

Dad’s brows pull together. “Why?”

“I guess there’s only certain types of paranormals allowed in that Earth. We weren’t part of ‘the chosen’.” I chuckle. So lame.

“Who is?” Gramps sets the shotgun in a corner of the living room.

I think about it. “AFTDs are a no. Organics are okay. They knew who was reanimated, and that sucked big time.”

“How strong are they?” Dad asks.

“My strength,” I say.

We look at Mitch. “Less strong than me, but not by much,” he adds.

Gramps whistles. “Zombie strong. Not good news.”

“I don’t know what it matters,” Dee says. “We don’t have to go back there.”

Mom frowns. Uh-oh, I know that look.

“Of course you do. These”—she swallows—“people need to be put back.”

“I’m not going back,” Mitch announces.

The silence is a tomb. I open my mouth, decide better, and close it. Then I open it again. “No, bud, my sister doesn’t need a pet zombie. Hell, she raised you by accident. She was probably so scared she was practically peeing her pants, right, Dee?”

“Wow, thanks Pax. For the… words.”

Dee’s face is bright red. I didn’t mean to embarrass her in front of, what? The zombies. Whatever.

Mitch steps forward, and Dad and Gramps are en pointe.

“Where were you when your sister was vulnerable?”

Don’t have a good answer for that.

“I think I was blacked out. Y’know, from the broken arm and shit.”

Mom glowers. I ignore her.

Mitch steps into my space, our chests almost touching.

“Listen, I’m effing sorry about your sister, Mitch. I am. But this is not the same. I’d never let anything happen to Dee.”

I realized my fuck-up too late.

“I didn’t think I would, either. Shit happens, if you’ve noticed.”

A small hand appears on Mitch’s forearm.

“Mitchell,” Dee says in low voice.

I feel her AFTD. It’s like perfume; everyone wears a different fragrance, and hers smells like Dee—summer, kindness, floral, just Dee.

Mitch backs off.

He stares at me, and I stare back.

Fine, we don’t dig each other even a little. Got it loud and clear.

Dee breaks in, “Pax was out cold. I was woozy. Then Brad Thompson shows up and takes me.”

Shit. “Brad Thompson. That pudwhacker whose dad is Sanction king?”

Dee nods.

“That's so bad. That whore, what was he thinking?”

“Pax,” Dad warns.

“Sorry, Dad—it's just, he is such a douche nozzle.”

Dad sighs and Mitch smirks.

“He took me.” Dee holds out her hands. Her wrists have deep abrasions.

“Come ’ere!” I say loudly and Mitch flinches, lurching forward.

“Oh honey, go to brother,” Mom tells her.

Dee approaches. “He had me zip-tied, Pax. He said he killed me there once already.”

Prick. Makes me want to go back there and kick his ass about a hundred times. My gaze shifts to Mitch. And when I get tired, Mitchie-boy can take over.

Sounds like a plan.

I grip her hands, pulling her against me.

I let my power go. It’s a bathtub filled with warm water, lapping at the sides of our energy, and runs over the rolled porcelain rim, sliding over Dee.

She gasps. I open my eyes.

Small wounds and scratches close as I watch. Her marred wrists puff to pink and meld into her dusky skin.

At the last minute, she touches Mitch and I can’t rein it back fast enough.

He brightens. Every abrasion and wound against his person vanishes.

His eyes roll back and he falls into the wall.

“What. Is. That?” he asks, eyes a little buggy.

“I'm an Organic.”

He frowns in confusion.

“What year did you die?” I ask.

“2010.”

“Ah—that’s why. Grandpa Kyle found the markers five years later, and everybody got dosed.”

“Is there a book or something?”

A zombie wanting to read up on history. “I think we just get you back to your Earth. Then you don’t have to worry about all the junk that’s happened since.”

Mitch straightens. “You’d like that.”

I don’t lie. Can’t. “Yeah, I would.”

I glare at him, daring him to break the eye contact.

He doesn’t.

The doorbell does.

Gramps walks to the window, pulling the curtain aside then flicking it closed.

“I think we got bigger fish to fry. Sanction Police are calling.”

Dad looks at Gramps.

I look at the zombies. I tell them where to go, thinking, attic.

They move fast.

I wave my hand in front of my nose. Still smells vaguely like eau de rot.

“What is it?” Mitch asks.

“Can ya act like a living guy for the next half hour?”

Some of my desperation must leak out, because he says, “Will they hurt Deegan?”

There's a heartbeat of understanding where I think he might be on board.

“Not on our watch.”

He nods.

It's settled between us for now.

Gramps gives each one of us a look. It says everything so eloquently.

Mainly, let me handle it.

Gramps opens the entry way door and the Sanction Police stand at the front stoop.

We have so much more to worry about than my sister's zombie crush.

Club Rot in the attic.

Or the fact that we're keeping Dee's little black hole secret to ourselves.

For some reason, Clyde stands between them.

In cuffs.

Dad's gonna lose it.

Then he does.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Deegan

Daddy shoulders past everyone and takes hold of Uncle Clyde.

My power leaves me, Pax’s sliding to mine like a river whose forks meet.

Our power hits Dad’s, and it swims into Uncle Clyde.

The SP Null tries to nullify Dad. And that might have worked, except with a family of AFTDs, it’s hard to get a handle on power that is as automatic as ours is.

Familial.

It sweeps Uncle Clyde, and he shoves the SPs aside.

One is telekinetic and leverages himself back onto his feet and the broad concrete porch as soon as he falls. He retreats, swinging a palm at Uncle Clyde, who sails into one of the brick pillars.

It holds, but Uncle Clyde lands in a pile at the base.

I scream.

My energy is sentient, thinking of where best to serve the need at the moment. Zeroing is painful to contain.

Using it is the deepest inhibition I possess.

Mitchell is suddenly there as Telekinetic jerks a baton out of his sheathing.

“Caleb!” Mom calls.

I turn and feel my power.

Dad moves to me.

Mitchell folds himself around my body.

“Ah!” I yell against Mitchell and a little bit leaks out. Like a fire I can't put out I aim it at something that doesn't matter.

The baton.

Pax is close to the SP. Sweat runs in rivulets into his eyes, and he shakes his head. Telekinetic holds him against the porch post. Uncle Clyde’s rear is on the ground.

The Null meets my eyes.

“No, Deegan,” Mom says.

I zap the baton. I don’t have anywhere for the power to go. I have to let it out.

We’re all scared of what might happen if I try to reabsorb it.

There’s a sucking noise like a reverse pop, and the baton disappears.

Well… not all.

A stub sits in the SP's hand. I let out a shaky breath. If I'd gone lower I could have black holed his thumb or something.

Telekinetic freaks, dropping the decapitated weapon.

Gramps holds his card up, sticking it in their faces.

“Grandfathered, chumps! Don't be using force if ya don't want the business end.”

He spins the shotgun like a twirler in a jamboree.

The Telekinetic pales.

Dad holds his hands up. “Settle down everyone.”

Oh, that’s great, coming from him.

The Null moves his gaze to what’s left of his partner’s baton, and he frowns.

“It would have been fine if you hadn’t attacked us, Sir.”

Probably.

Dad asks, “Why do you have a grandfathered zombie in cuffs?” He glances at Uncle Clyde then glares.

Null folds his arms. The insignia on his breast is as awful as what the sanctions stand for.

A crude, B pulsemovie human form shuffles inside a circle with a scarlet line through it. Zombie hate, the last form of racism.

“Reports of numerous violations have come in. Ten unique witness signatures pulsed footage to our central station.”

The Null's turns to Mitchell, and I stand in front of him.

“ID.” The Null holds out his hand.

The Telekinetic checks out Gramps’ card. “It’s legitimate.”

The Null flicks his eyes to the laminated holographic card Gramps probably wears in his sleep. “Haven’t seen one of these in a while.”

Gramps grunts.

“Why is Clyde in cuffs?” Dad repeats.

The Null sighs. “Again—he is out against regulations, unaccompanied.”

Uncle Clyde strides over, lips parted. I know he’s syphoning from the three of us. It’s a bath of goodness for a zombie. “I felt death energy. It was off, and I came to check.” Uncle Clyde gives the two jerk SPs a speculative look.

“Next time, go with your wife.” The Null laughs. He’s being deliberately mean.

Gramps clubs him in the jaw with the butt end of the shotgun.

He crumples to the ground.

Telekinetic clenches his fists. “Just because you have A Card doesn’t mean you can do anything.”

His face takes on the blankness of pulse to mind. He’s alerting others.

“Try me.” Gramps says, “You are the one who came here with a grandfathered zombie cuffed, ready to interrogate a family based on what? Pulse-witness.” Gramps makes a disgusted noise.

“So easily doctored.” Pax rolls his eyes.

“We can’t be the ears and eyes of the world. When illegal zombie activity is reported, it is our duty as Sanctions to investigate.” He gives Gramps a sour look, trying not to escalate the violence. I can tell he wishes he had his baton.

“So you just arrested a wandering zombie as you came here?” I ask from Mitchell’s hold.

He turns his gaze to me. “Yes. It is what we do.” He shifts  to Mitchell, who stiffens against me.

If we were in the other Earth, they’d know who we were right away. They would know Mitchell is a zombie.

Telekinetic can’t tell.

“I asked for your ID.”

“Forgot it. I don’t live here.” Mitchell thinks he’s helping.

I close my eyes. Of course ID is behind the ear. It wasn't anything but a card like Grampsʼ free pass back in 2010. It's an immediate tell he's not current in his time line, but from one years ago.

There's only one answer.

A cuff sails out from Telekinetic's waistband and latches onto Mitchell's wrist. “I know where you'll be going.” Telekinetic leers.

I shake my head, panicking. “Daddy! Don't let him take Mitchell.”

Dad tried to tell me about the AFTD-zombie bond. I just didn't get it. Have to experience it, I guess.

Mitchell holds up his wrist as though he's never seen it before. “Why do I have a handcuff on me?”

Telekinetic's brows cinch in concentration.

Mitchell grunts in resistance, sweat shining on his face.

The other cuff goes on.

I latch onto Telekinetic, my hand a vise on his arm.

“Don’t,” he manages to squeeze out, his eyes round.

My eyes burn with my emotion. “Sorry,” I whisper.

“Dee, no!” Pax screams.

The center of the cuff disappears, and Telekinetic falls back. He moves his gaze to me then to the cuffs.

“Where the hell does my shit keep going?” he bellows.

“I don’t know,” I say. Because I don’t.

Telekinetic’s eyes close.

“He’s pulsing someone!” Gramps says. “Get in the house!”

Clyde ushers us in and I cringe, knowing I’ve done a bad thing. I’ve made a weapon, and cuffs of the Sanction Police’s  disappear via a black hole of my making.

It is one guy's word against mine.

But that's all they need.

Dad and Mom look at each other, then at me.

I shake, crying. “I'm sorry! They were going to take Mitchell.”

Mitchell’s chain and cuffs rattle. “Why is this a big deal? Deegan, what did you do?” He takes my face in his hands and looks deeply into my eyes. Cold metal slides against my skin.

“I… do you know what a black hole is?”

He smirks. “I passed science.”

Pax laughs, and we turn as a group to give him a dirty look.

“Chill guys, a little levity.”

Mitchell doesn’t look away as Pax’s zombie family mills down the stairs again.

“I can make them,” I blurt.

Mitchell smiles, running a thumb down my jaw.

My parents are watching, and I kinda want to die a little.

“Nobody can do that, Deegan.”

“Deedie can,” Gramps says.

Mitchell’s eyes flick to his then away. “I’m trying here, everyone. I’ve been told I’m dead, that there are people in this Earth of the future who can raise dead people. Control them.” He looks at me. “I acknowledge that. I feel it.” His gaze takes in the room. “Then we had the guys on the porch.”

“Sanction Police,” Pax says as though bored.

“Yes. And he made my hand move to the cuff without touching me.”

“Telekinetic,” Dad supplies.

“So there are a huge number of different abilities, and they just keep showing themselves. Now I’m supposed to believe that this girl…”

I don’t want to be young to him.

“…is somehow able to manufacture black holes out of thin air?”

“I know it's a lot to take in,” Mom says and he gives a disbelieving chuckle, folding his arms and stepping away from me.

I feel our separation like a small death.

Get it together, Deegan.

“May I?” she asks.

Dad sighs. “Go ahead, it’ll save time. But I’d love to know why they don’t seem to need answers to the Spanish Inquisition.” Indicating the zombie family.

I look at the family Pax raised. I don’t know, either.

Mom moves toward Mitchell, and he stands his ground. I take her hand.

“She can give you some answers. It’s quicker than talking about it.”

Mitchell looks from me to Mom and finally nods.

Mom touches Mitchell.

They stay like that for ten minutes.

When she lifts her hand, he looks at us all silently for a time.

“This world is worse than the one I just came from.”

Gramps nods. “Some of it, probably. But we don’t have slayer robots here.”

Dad looks thoughtfully outside as the SPs wait patiently at the porch for whoever will come to meet them.

His gaze finds us.

“Yet.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Paxton

“Okay.” I look at the fam. Deegan's ten shades lighter than normal—kinda received a shock today so okay. Dad and Mom look a little worse for wear, Uncle Clyde and Gramps look fine and my zombies look good.

Well, pretty good if you think pulse-boards, like the signage that used to clog the highways of the past. Great from fifty feet away but up close? Not so much.

“I think we should get out of here before someone comes to investigate Dee's little accident.”

Mitch's eyes go hard like flint. That guy.

“She's in danger. Your mother made sure I'm aware.”

“Jade, Mitch.”

He nods in her direction. “If they find out she can control anything like that, they'll take her.”

I know this. That’s why I want to get the hell out of Dodge. Gramps will stay because he wants to wrestle the clowns. Dad will want to hide Mom and Dee for protection.

I want to see what Dad’s old buddies can do.

I tell him.

He shakes his head. “It’s been a couple of decades of everyone’s lives being back on track.” He swipes a palm in the air. “I don’t want to dredge stuff up.”

I give him a look between disbelief and anger. “Dad, come on. Uncle John and Aunt Tiff will totally want to kick ass on this thing. What about Archer, Jonesy, Sophie… Mia and Bry?”

Mom hangs her head. “They don’t have much talent anymore, Pax. It was a big blow to our friends when they had great paranormal skills for a few years, then after the mass sterilization… nothing. Or not much.” I catch her nervous eye flick at Dad.

Sirens begin to wail in the distance.

Mitch opens his mouth, closes it.

“Spit it out,” Gramps says.

Mitch’s gaze dances on the people in the room. “We don’t have infertility issues in my world.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “What do you mean?”

He holds his hands out. “We eradicated that the year I died. It was groundbreaking science.”

Huh, parallel breakthroughs at the same time.

“Like the cure for cancer?” I ask bitterly, though Mitch can't know the reason.

His brows rise in partial question but he nods.

Something to file away for later.

“If we’re going, let’s go.” I turn to Dad. “They’ll take Clyde.”

None of us says anything about Dee.

Mitch pulls her against him, and I roll my eyes. But we’re on the same side, so I’ll allow it.

For now.

“Okay.” Dad slaps his hands against his thighs as he stands.

“Where to?” I ask.

Gramps shrugs. “How about Jonesy? He’s good with chaos.”

I glance at Dad. He looks resigned to the inevitable.

“Get in the Outback.”

I laugh. It’s gotta be bad if we’re using that. My smile fades as the sirens grow louder.

Dad moves swiftly through the house. With a little clever help from Gramps, he's built a car that's like a tank.

He keeps it below the house in an underground garage. When I was in high school, he could cart the entire basketball team in the thing. It’s not traceable. Gramps’ tech friend jury-rigged that whole program. He has a card, too.

We shoehorn everyone in there and hover out of the basement-style garage. Mom and Dad, Gramps, Dee, five zombies, and a partridge in a pear tree. It’d be funnier if Dee wasn’t on the line.

Dad’s alarm goes off.

They’re in our house.

Gramps turns, his palm presses against the safety glass of the vehicle.

“Bastards,” he breathes out harshly.

We move through the air, top speed and undetectable.

*

“Jonesy!”

“Hey, my man! How's it hanginʼ?”

Dad says, “We need to come over. As a matter of fact, we're on our way.”

“Oh, hey—Caleb, bro, I dig your enthusiasm, but I’ve got myself some lady company. Not a good time.”

“Jones, listen, I’m in a bind here. I’m bringing Jade and the kids… and some others.”

A loud, feminine moan emanates from the pulse-speaker, and Mom’s face goes beet red.

So funny. Jonesy.

“You’re on speaker, Jones.”

Gramps snorts.

A clearer-sounding Jonesy comes back. “Thanks for having my back there, Hart.”

“Anytime,” Dad replies in a dry voice.

“Okay man, you’ve effed my mojo, so what’s doin’?”

“I’ve had a little zombie trouble…”

“Nice. I thought you were out of the racket.”

Dad smiles.

“I am. The kids…”

“Say no more! The kids are working the undead angle. I dig, I dig. Bring everyone here. I’ve got the love shack down below.”

Mitch’s eyebrow shoots up, and I give him the signal with my hand. I’ll explain it later.

“When you cominʼ?”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

“ʼKay, catch ya in ten.”

The line dies with a short beep.

“What does that do?” Deegan asks. “Because Jonesy is weird, Dad.”

“He’s not weird sweetheart, he’s….”

“Free,” I finish.

“That's being generous,” Gramps mutters.

Dad clenches the steering wheel though it’s on autopilot. “He’ll go with whatever crazy thing happens.”

“Sounds like a wild card type of guy,” Mitch says.

Dad turns around briefly. “You have no idea.”

*

We arrive at Jonesy’s. It’s the same house in which he was raised. His mom and dad are gone now, and he’s inherited it.

It’s quite a pad.

Jonesy made an assload of bank with the electric company he took over.

We suspect it might have gotten a little help. It’s a well-traveled rumor that some paranormals retain residual abilities. That the cataclysmic disaster of sterilization and paranormal reversal was not absolute.

Paranormals now considered Randoms don’t want anyone knowing they have anything left if they can hide it.

It can be dangerous.

Dee and I are catalogued and since there are so few, the government doesn’t seem too alarmed. If what I see is true, plenty of Minors are running around.

People who still have minor paranormal talent but don’t ping the radar.

Jonesy walks out the front door barefoot. Low-slung jeans wrap a lean, fit body as he crams his hands in his front pockets.

A giggling chick with creamy skin, long blonde hair, and a body from which I can’t tear my gaze totters out in heels.

Wow, he can get the hottest chicks. In between wives.

He just divorced his third.

Mom sighs.

We climb out of the Outback, and it lifts without all that body weight. Dead weight.

I guffaw, and Dee gives me a narrow-eye glare.

Jonesy laughs. The girl stops giggling. “What's with them, Mark?”

Jonesy doesn't answer but strides to Dad. “Hart!” he yells. Then he does a little dance step, hip thrust.

Dad laughs.

“Yeeeahhhhh—Hart!”

He shakes Dad’s hand and knuckle taps him.

Dad hugs him.

“Hey, Hart—settle down, don’t switch sides.”

Dad breathes deeply. He lets Jonesy go, and his smile remains.

The humor from Jonesy’s dark face bleeds away. “What is it, my man?”

Dad flicks his gaze to Blondie.

“Hey, Sammi… ya need to go.”

She puts her hands on her hips. It makes me have a physical reaction of hard dick syndrome. Swell. I shift my weight and look at Mitchell, who seems similarly stunned.

Okay. Not just me.

She stomps a high-heeled foot. “It's Skylie.”

Jonesy scrubs his face. “Yeah—it all blends, baby.”

“Gah!” she yells, tossing a bright pink purse over a shoulder.

“I'll take ya home.”

She brightens.

Jonesy's hover car comes around and her lips thin. “Nice, you swine.”

Jonesy puts his arms out. “Don’t have a lot of time for drama. Get in while the gettin’s good.”

She gets in.

I watch, taking notes for later.

“Are you going to be okay, Pax?”

I look at Dee. “I don't know.” I shake my head as the car slides off above our heads.

“Is she a prostitute?” Mitch asks, getting all judgy.

Jonesy gives him a look of insult. “The Jonester doesn’t have to pay, dude. As a matter of fact…”

“Jonesy, quiet,” Mom sounds off.

Dad laughs. “It’s good to see ya, Jones.”

“You too, you sentimental simp.”

Dad’s smile widens.

“Now what the trumped up hell is the deal?” Jonesy checks out the undead gang. “And are they the new rot?”

Dad nods.

Jonesy's hands land on his hips. “I don't want them stinking up my fine hood, you feel me?”

“Jones, get the basement door open so I can shuffle my old ass in there and fix a stiff drink.”

Jonesy's brows pop at Gramps suggestion. “Love the consistency, Mac.”

“I aim to please.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Caleb

We shuffle into Jonesy's basement, a place where a ton of good times happened. I have a pang of sadness his folks are gone.

Car wreck.

Kinda like his life.

Jonesy just ditched wife number three. We all thought he'd get together with Sophie.

Never happened.

“Okay, dish the bullshit, Hart.”

Jonesy moves gracefully to a fully stocked wet bar. With a blink of his eyes, low lights flicker on.

Jonesy is one of the Randoms that never lost his power. Even better, he can hide it on the mandatory testing required every five years post-sterilization.

Something to do with the way they administer it. Pulse delivery.

Jones commands pulse.

A giant ice cube clinks into a glass. Jonesy pours two fingers of Jack Daniels for Gramps.

He tosses it back, a trail of sure fire camps in his gut, and not a flicker shows on his face.

Jones pours a second in the thick glass tumbler.

Gramps wraps a hand around the glass but doesn’t move to drink.

“Talk, Caleb.”

I do. When I’m done, he whistles low in his throat. “Wow, I can’t make up that shit.”

Gramps cracks a grin, spinning the amber liquid in his drink. The clinking of the ice in the glass is the only noise.

“We haven’t had this kinda stuff since way back.”

I nod.

“Well”—he flicks his gaze to Pax. “You’ve done some crap.”

Has he ever.

“But we contain it and it blows away.” Jonesy's dark eyes roam the zombies. “Yʼknow, Hart, that big dude reminds me of Sims.” He chugs half his beer and points the bottle at Mitch. “Seems a little alert, if ya know what I mean.”

I do.

“He—Mitch, got Deegan away from the issues they have on his Earth.”

Jonesy barks out a laugh. “Issues? Yeah, effing robots. Nice.”

“Artificial Life Bots,” Pax says.

Jonesy scrubs his short hair. Bending his tall frame over the front of the bar, he jerks open the small fridge behind the counter and grabs another beer. He turns around, using his now-defunct wedding band to spin the cap off.

He takes a long pull.

“Don’t get a drunk on, Jones. We need you to be a meat shield or something of that sort.”

Jonesy laughs. “Nice, Mac. Love that about ya.”

Gramps gives a chin dip.

“Looks like what needs doing is getting the alien rot back to the robot Earth, then we need to find out why these government Random dudes are on Pax like flies on shit.” Jonesy shrugs.

Jones has already solved it. My lips twitch. He’s a great wingman.

Jade says, “Jonesy.”

He tips an imaginary hat. “Yes, ma’am.”

She sighs. “I think we need to call a powwow.”

“Mom!” Deegan says.

Jade blushes. “I can say that, I’m native.”

Jonesy finishes his beer, slapping it down on the surface of his contraband wooden bar. “You look like you could be on the rez, Deedie.”

My daughter looks very Native American, though she’s more or half. Genes. Buggers.

“Who cares?” she asks.

Jonesy grins, loving to stir everyone up. Some things never change. “Let’s get the old gang back for this mess. We’ll need all the help we can get.”

“What about Tiff?” Jade asks with hesitation.

The quiet has weight.

It's sad, heavy. “Let's talk to John. He can figure it out.”

“We'll pick them up, caravan style.”

I shake my head. “No, they'll have to meet us.” I think for a second. “I guess we can snag the Terrans.”

Jade moves to Jonesy. He waggles his brows. “You still have the juice, sweetheart.”

Jade's not an Amplifier, but she can use the little bit of Empath she has left when she's with someone like Jonesy.

Jonesy dips his chin, concentrating. He hacks the pulse system interface and instantly contacts everyone.

They pulse back, undetected and in agreement.

We don't need another Helix Complex threat. From our own kind.

*

John meets us at the door, closing it softly behind him.

“Where is she?” I ask, meeting his eyes.

“Drunk.”

An explosive sigh ushers itself out of me. “What? God—we need her, John.”

He pushes a hand through his shortly cut red hair. “I know that, better than most.”

His pale blue eyes meet mine.

“Can ya do anything?”

John's frustration takes up all the lines of his face and he shakes his head.

“What's the hold up, natives are getting restless,” Gramps says from behind me.

I put my hands on my hips. The damned zombies are degrading. And my kids are in charge. This is getting stupid.

John’s shame is like make up. He wears it on his face.

“Okay.” Gramps claps John on the shoulder. “I know you love her—she’s your wife. But she can’t live in a bottle because of the sterilization.”

John grits his teeth. “She can't get over it.”

“Right, well, this might be bigger than her not being able to have babies.”

John puts his face in his hands. “I love her,” he mumbles from between his fingers. I can hear the sadness through his exhaustion.

Jonesy squeezes his shoulder. “Yeah, I dig it, Terran, but we need her drunk ass on this.”

Terran's hands fall to his side.

He looks like he'll kick Jonesy's ass.

I step between them.

“Let me try, John.”

He stares at me. Rage, anger, and anguish war in that gaze. Finally, he moves aside.

I go into a house darkened by drawn shades.

Ice clinks.

I follow the sound and spot her huddled on the corner of the couch.

“Fuck off, Caleb.”

I hesitate to come nearer.

Tiff has something undocumented. Instead of the reversal happening, like the rest of my friends, she’s now a five-point AFTD.

Tiffany Terran is also a childless drunk.

“Tiff,” I answer neutrally.

“Don't make me insult ya twice, Hart.”

I ignore her warning. “I need you.”

She lifts her glass, a small bit of light illuminating the amber liquid.

“Nobody needs me,” she answers in a low slurred voice.

“John does,” I say immediately.

Her eyes rise to mine in the gloom.

“Not anymore.”

I feel Grampsʼ presence before I see him.

Her hyper-aware gaze drags to his, impaired but not absent. “That goes for you too, old man.”

Gramps moves in, batting the glass she lifted in a mocking salute out of her hand.

It crashes behind us, glass splintering. The powerful smell of whiskey permeates.

Tiff stands quickly, swaying.

“You!” she screams.

Gramps grabs her, jerking her to his chest.

“Let me go, you fucking old coot.”

“No, you selfish little bitch. Listen to me!” Gramps shakes her and I step over.

“Don't,” he growls at me.

I stay where I am, trusting Gramps won't hurt her.

He turns back to Tiff. “I am sorry you're all sorts of sideways over not having kids.”

Shake.

My teeth go on edge.

“I'm sorry you have ten times the AFTD you ever wanted. But we need you for something bigger than the bullshit you don't wanna face.”

A door smacks against a wall. I don't take my eyes off Gramps and Tiff.

“Take your fucking hands off my wife,” John says in a voice low with rage.

Things just got ugly.

“No,” Gramps says quietly. “If you can't handle what needs doing, John Terran, I'll be doing it.”

John launches at Gramps.

I move between them.

John hits me, taking some of the wind from my lungs and I duck for the second swing, grabbing his arms. “No—John, don't do it!”

I hug him.

Not in anger—in love. This intervention has been a long time coming.

“I can't stand it!” Tiff screams, beating on Gramps with her small fists, too drunk to inflict damage. “If I'm numb I don't have to!”

“Drinking isn’t going to bring you babies. Being AFTD isn’t the end of the world, Tiffany.” Gramps grabs her wrists.

She collapses against him. “It’s the end of mine,” she slurs.

Gramps hugs her tighter, speaking against the top of her head. “No, dear girl, it is not.”

John stops struggling, looking at Gramps holding Tiff.

“I love him. But I hate me.” Tiff sobs against his shirt.

Gramps strokes her hair. “I know.”

“I hate me,” she repeats in a whisper.

John and Gramps look at each other over her head.

John covers his face with his hands for the second time.

Sometimes there are bigger problems than zombies from an alien Earth.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Deegan

Gramps walks out, Auntie Tiff tucked under his arm. I cover my mouth at the smell coming off her in waves.

Booze.

She's looped.

Mitchell is standing next to me. “She is going to do something with our mess?”

I can’t blame his disbelief. Her dark blonde hair is hanging in strings, and she’s as tiny as ever, hazel eyes murky with hate and sadness.

But she takes the time to look at Mitchell and the zombie family Pax brought.

“What the fuck is going on?” she slurs.

Gramps tries to tuck the hair hanging in her face behind her ear.

I move forward, and Mitchell touches my arm. “I don’t like it.”

“It's okay, she's my aunt.”

“No she's not.”

I look up at him. “How could you know that?”

He taps his nose. “We smell great. I can smell who you're related to.”

Uncle Clyde and Gramps give each other a wary look then regard Mitchell together.

“You two,” Mitchell says. “I know you're related.”

Gramps grunts, saying nothing. He's always mentioning priorities.

I keep moving, Mitchell coming alongside me.

I slip my hairband off my wrist and hand it to Tiff. Recognition flickers. Shame follows.

“It's okay, Auntie Tiff.”

She plucks the band from my fingers and shakes her head. “No, it's not.”

She twists her hair through a couple of revolutions, and it sits in a fat, messy bun at her nape. Her bloodshot eyes study Mitchell then Fam Zombie.

“They don’t feel right,” she says in an unsteady voice. In a semi-panic, she yells, “John!”

Uncle John moves to her side and all but wrenches her away from Gramps.

Grampsʼ expression contains sad knowledge. “It’s not over, champ.”

John looks away.

I’m not an expert in adult drama, but I know something bad went down inside the Terrans’.

I know it has been almost a year since we’ve been over to dinner.

Auntie Tiff gets plastered when she comes to the house. Pax and I have a code word for it: weird.

Auntie Tiff gets weird when she’s over.

We both know she hits the booze, and Uncle John carts her away.

I love her. Everyone does.

The problem is I don’t think she loves Tiff. It’s as if she punishes herself.

For what? When I ask Mom, she tells me it’s not her story to tell.

What can be so bad that Auntie Tiff drinks instead of living?

Jonesy steps forward, and Uncle John bares his teeth like a wolf.

Jonesy ignores him, turning to Tiff instead. “Here’s the condensed version, Tiff. The Hart kids dragged some corpses from an alternate world, trying to escape some clowns from this one.”

Tiff regards him reluctantly.

“Now the clowns are looking for a few more freaks for their circus act and the SPs are after them for violation of undead—well, everything.” Jonesy points at her. “We need you.”

Tiff stares at Jonesy with every ounce of sullenness behind the glare.

“Sober,” he adds.

“Jonesy,” John warns.

Jonesy lifts a palm, the underside very white against the rest of him. “Can it, Terran or I'll get Gramps to do a repeat. We don't have time for whatever the hell is going on with her.”

Jonesy stands tensely in front of Auntie Tiff. His arms are stiff as he leans forward and says, “Where did ya go? We need that tough chick who knocked people on their asses and took names. We need her.” He sighs, adjusting his balls.

I about die.

The zombies stare vacantly at the group.

Tiff hiccups, covering her mouth. Eyes wide, she appears a little frantic.

Gramps races forward, jerking her away from John.

“Hey!” he bellows.

Gramps scoops Tiff and bends her over the outside separator.

She throws up everything she’s ever eaten.

John backs away, looking like someone just kicked his puppy.

Gramps holds her hair back. “Get rid of it, that’s it… good girl.”

He glances Mom's way. “Jade, get some coffee, hun.”

Mom runs inside the Terran house.

Soon light pours out of the windows.

She returns a few minutes later with a washcloth and a steaming cup of coffee.

Gramps takes the washcloth.

“We need you in the now, Tiff. We don't have the luxury of you figuring out your life on our dime.”

Tiff wipes her mouth using the cool cloth, giving him a sour expression. “I got ya, you tough old bird.”

Gramps cracks a smile.

*

Auntie Tiff sobers.

My parents’ other friends meet at the old dump.

It’s weird to see them all here at the hideaway they made all those years ago.

For one, it’s crowded.

For two, they’re all old—yet not.

Mia and Bry Weller have been married for a while, and neither is paranormal. They’re kinda like my parents in the way they interact. Bry sits by Tiff. His gaze lands on Gramps with accusation. He’s probably pissed Gramps took his sister in hand.

I know I shouldn't understand, but I do. Gramps does what nobody else has the guts to do.

They want to baby Tiff.

But what she needs now is someone to be tough on her. To make her see that even though her life isn't what she wants, it is the life she has.

And sometimes that has to be good enough.

I cause black holes.

I hate it. Sometimes I wonder why I was ever born. But being mad about it all doesn't make it go away.

So I kinda understand. I know there's more. None of us can help unless we know. My parents know but they're not telling me why Tiff looks haunted.

Sophie stands off to one side on her own. She's my favorite; says what she thinks, an individual. Somehow, I always thought she and Jonesy should be together but he keeps marrying other women.

Lewis Archer sits carefully on an upturned milk crate. He's a professional burglar. He used to be able to manipulate locks when he was paranormal. He's still doing it, just differently.

He's a kick-ass dresser and talks kinda like Grandpa Kyle.

The zombies stand by their AFTDs. They keep Tiff and Dad in sight. They know who has the Affinity for the Dead.

Uncle Clyde taps his foot, standing by the hole of the hideaway.

“She coming?” Dad asks.

He nods. “Momentarily.”

“She bringing the kids?”

Clyde shakes his head. “No, Roberta handed them off to her parents.”

“Is that safe?”

He nods. “The Sanction Police are searching for me. Not for my offspring.”

Dad cups his chin, getting that look he has when he’s thinking hard.

“What is it?” Mitchell whispers beside me.

I rise on my tiptoes, whispering in his ear, “We’re waiting for my Uncle Clyde’s wife.”

He jerks his chin back. “He’s a zombie.”

“It—it is against the law now, but before they made it one….”

“How is that possible?” Mitchell draws his brows together.

I sigh. “He—she's an AFTD like me. She can keep him like that if he's around her.”

Mitchell looks at Uncle Clyde for a full minute. “She's not here right now.”

“He can go a few hours without rotting.”

I know what he wants to ask. It’s in the careful neutrality of his face.

Heat rises in my own. “I don’t have… very good control.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means she’s keeping you alive by accident,” Pax butts in.

He pisses me off. The know-it-all. “Pax, shut up.”

“Pax, don’t belittle Deegan,” Mom says.

Pax rolls his eyes. “Miss Genius IQ. I think she can survive anything.”

I cross my arms. “That’s not true. I had to raise a zombie to survive the stupid, in whatever Earth you blinked us to. Then you had to figure out a way to try and save me.”

Pax’s lips quirk. “True. I guess I’m not so dumb after all.”

“Nobody’s saying you’re dumb Pax,” Dad says. “And we don’t have the time for sibling rivalry right now, guys.”

Bobbi Gale pops through the tunnel. She's just now starting to look a little older than Uncle Clyde.

“Hi.” She looks around at our solemn faces, her lips turning down. “What'd I miss?”

“Pity party,” Tiff says, sober enough now to be her old caustic self.

“Thanks for the warning.” Bobbi winks. She stands on her toes, her palms on Clyde’s chest. “Hey, baby.” She kisses him, and the tips of his ears turn pink.

“Wow,” Mitchell says.

“Yeah.” My own face is hot with my secret thoughts of crushing on my zombie.

Why can’t I like a normal guy? Yʼknow, a live one.

“So what’s a girl gotta do to get some answers around here?” she asks.

Gramps tells her what’s going on, and Bobbi folds her arms. “Huh. Well that’s a class-A clusterfuck.”

Gramps grins and Mom sighs, hoping all the profanity won’t affect my innocent ears. Good luck with that.

Bobbi looks at Tiff, eyes narrowing. “So what’s the plan?”

Tiff’s face is clearer but angry. “Why are you looking at me?”

“Because I think you’re pissed off enough to pull this thing off.”

“What thing?”

“The thing where we get rid of the zombies in their own world, then hightail it back here and figure out why there's a pack of Randoms up Paxton's ass.”

“Roberta,” Clyde says.

“Sorry, honey, I always forget your aversion to profanity.” She kisses his cheek and he moves his lips to her palm, brushing them against it.

I cover my mouth with a hand so they can’t see me smile. Uncle Clyde is so romantic.

Mitchell says Wow again.

Something occurs to me as I watch my Aunt Tiff who really isn’t.

I turn to Mitchell again, and he bends down so I can reach him.

I whisper a very important question to him.

He looks at me for a long moment then slowly nods.

I'm so happy with his answer I feel dizzy.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Pax

Dad gets that blank look everyone does when they receive a pulse-com.

“Dad?” I ask, and he lifts his finger.

I wait.

He blows out a breath and swipes the non-existent hair on the top of his head with a hand.

“It’s Gram,” he says, avoiding everyone’s eyes.

I read the grief in his face. “Fuck me.”

Gramps is suddenly there. “You curse like that again, and I’ll knock your block off, son. Grandkid or not. Grow up. Right now.”

I look down into Gramps’ face. I’ve been a class-A jerk off. Gramps is hurting. Dad, Mom—hell, everyone loves Ali Hart.

Gramps goes on, “No strangling doctors. Button that filthy trap and stand by your parents while my daughter dies, got it?”

Yeah, I get it. But I don't have to like it. I'm a reactor, always have been.

Dad ignores Grampsʼ interchange with me. “How do we get inside the hospital with a rash of SPs gunning for us?”

Archer comes forward, tall and slim, GQ dresser, IQ a million. “Leave that to me.”

“Will it be illegal?” Mom chews her fingernails.

“Always.”

Mom looks down at her feet. Silent tears come.

Jonesy watches her.

Sophie puts an arm around Mom and squeezes her. “We all love Ali, toots. It doesn’t get harder than this.”

Sophie’s seawater eyes look into mine then move to Dee. “I’m sorry, guys, I know this sucks.”

Sucks doesn’t cover it, but I nod. I feel like an industrial vacuum has sucked out the V in my vim and vigor.

“Let's go,” Tiff says, hopping to her feet.

Mitch gives Dee a significant look, as if they share a secret. I like his big ass less and less.

“Wait.” Uncle Clyde looks around at us. “If it were I, the hospital would be the first place I would lie in wait. How are we sure that it is not a ploy enlisted by the SP to lure us there?”

I hesitate for a second then plow forward. “With all we can bring, I think we can get in there and out.”

“What is happening?” Mitch asks.

Dee turns to him. “There’s not a lot of time to explain, but my grandma is dying of cancer, and she’s taken a turn for the worse…”

Dee glances at Dad as though for permission, and he simply nods.

Knew it.

Mitch interrupts, “What kind?”

My brows screw up into a knot. “Why?”

He exhales in a rush, clearly annoyed. Big for his goddamned britches, as Gramps would say.

“Breast,” Mom answers instead of me.

“Why?” I repeat, moving a step closer to Mitch.

Mitch squares off with me. “We're cancer-free in my earth.”

“All?” Dad asks.

Mitch nods.

“Why the bots, then?” Dee asks.

Mitch looks at Dee, and his face softens.

Irritating.

“They must have used artificial body parts first, perfected that, then made the bots after fixing the populace.” Mitch shrugs. “I’m speculating. I died at twenty in 2010. That was…”

“Almost forty years ago,” John Terran says.

“I have bionic everything,” Gramps says. “There’s still a ton of cancer that remains uncured here.”

“Bionic?” Mitch asks.

Gramps smiles. “It’s an expression that means something to me. ‘Artificial replacement’ is the term nowadays.”

John turns to Dad. “I don’t want to interject something here, but I’m going to say the thing that no one else will.”

Dad gives John a sharp look.

“Let's get my mom to this—Mitch's world. If Pax can blink it, she can be cured.”

“Seems simple,” Jonesy says.

Dad shakes his head, rueful. “That stuff always does, but then things happen like ALB and…”

“My family are zombies in that world.”

The whole hideaway goes silent. I can hear only the hiss of an outmoded and illegally fueled propane lantern.

“I guess we missed that detail,” Jonesy says in the tomb-like space. He cocks his head. “That’s great, Pax. How’d you happen to figure that out?”

“I called the dead, and that’s who came.”

“Me too?” Gramps asks, his lips twitching.

“You were the most… practical,” I admit.

He grins. “Glad I still have follow-through, even dead.”

Right. He doesn’t know just how much.

“I don’t know if it’ll be safe to move her… what we’ll do. What Dad will do.” Dee rolls her lip into her mouth and gnaws on it.

Gramps seals the deal, as usual. “We don’t have anything to lose. But peanut.” His gaze move around the group, settling on Dad. “We take her to bot Earth”—Gramps chuckles at his wording—“and find an Organic that will…” He swirls his hand around.

“Cure her,” Mitch says dryly.

I give him a sidelong look.

“Of course, there are a few obstacles,” he adds.

“Knew it.” Jonesy plops his chin in his hand and sighs loudly.

“If what Pax says is true…”

I whip my head in his direction. “No, I’m effing lying.”

Mitch comes into my space, our chests almost touching. We're just about on physical par. About the same age, different era, same level of testosterone.

“Boys, play nice,” Gramps says, “or I'll use these new guns I have to clunk some skulls, feel me?”

“Go Mac,” Jonesy says in a deadpan voice.

I keep staring at Mitch-boy. “If what you say is true, your grandma is already accounted for in our world. As a corpse. She won't have clearance for med care because technically, she's no longer living.”

I glower. Then brighten. “My Organic is exactly the same in your earth.”

Mitch stares at me for a heartbeat. “She could do it. But a few questions: did you put your family to rest again before you went? What happened to the Organic after she fixed your arm?” He raises his dark brows, and I notice for the first time his eyes aren’t brown, they’re deep blue.

They’re also arrogant, and he pisses me off.

I don’t have the answers to those questions.

“Did ya leave a bunch of corpses running around in some parallel earth?” Tiff asks, her voice sharp without the booze to soften it.

My face heats. “Yeah.”

“Well shit, that was dumb, Pax.”

I glare at Tiff. “I was doing what I could. They have these devil bots from hell, and Dee was running around somewhere.”

Tiff glances at Dee. “What happened to you?”

Dee laces her hands together tightly. “Brad Thompson is in that world.”

Tiff keeps steady eyes on my sister. “Is he… what’s his MO?”

“He’s a bully. His dad is the head of the SPs.”

Tiff whistles, shifting her gaze to Uncle John.

Uncle John cocks a brow, and Tiff glares at him. “You can say his name out loud, ya know.”

Uncle John’s face flames red, pained. “I don’t want to recount those painful memories.”

Tiff grunts and returns her gaze to Dee. “Tell me about this guy.”

Dee does, briefly skating over the asshole’s highlights.

“I guess there's always a Carson Hamilton. No matter what year, no matter who is around.”

Dee replies, “I don't know who Carson Hamilton is. But if he's as much of a bully as this guy, he was bad.”

“He was bad,” Tiff says, her face tight.

She doesn't shrug off the hand John puts on her shoulder. Instead, she covers it with her own.

Dee meets her eyes. “He killed me in this other Earth.”

“What happened when you went there by accident?”

“I broke his neck.”

I think back to what she said about it. “He’ll heal that.” Because according to Dee, in that world, they have auto-healing.

I can see her swallow from here. “He was.”

“What’s with this bozo?” Tiff snaps a firecracker’s worth of bubbles from her gum.

“What’s with him? He’s powerful in that world, too. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had our entire family killed somehow.”

I take in everyone. “We were all dead in this other world. Yet Brad Thompson’s alive? ʼCause he’s such a great dude? No.” My chin juts back in obvious disbelief. “Dee got the drop on him because she kicked his ass and he wasn’t expecting it.”

I blow out a sigh, turning to my sister. “How come you didn’t telekinesis his ass?”

“I can’t there.”

“Oh, wow.” Jonesy blows out a low keen of a whistle. He throws his laced hands on his head. “So some of our abilities will work there but not all?”

Dee nods.

Dad scrubs his face. “It certainly makes for things to get exciting.”

“Not in a good way,” Sophie says.

“My AFTD is fine there.” I sweep my palm out toward Dee. “And Dee raised Mitch.” I choke his name out.

“What about us mundanes?” Bry Weller asks as Mia stands beside him.

I shrug. “I don’t know.”

Gramps says, “The more the merrier. But your track record is a little iffy.”

Bry grins and nods. “I’ll do my best not to get my ass kicked.”

Jonesy chuckles.  “Famous last words, Weller.”

Bry flips him the bird.

Jonesy stands and whips his arms out, doing a little pelvic swivel. “Sit and spin, Bry—sit and spin.”

Mia rolls her eyes, and Bry’s face is all smiles.

Seems like a private joke.

Mitch laughs. I toss him a glare, throwing a little hate his way.

Tiff bounces off a crate and sidles up beside John. Uncle John looks worn out, but wraps his arm around her.

“It’s settled. I say the chance is worth taking to get Ali back. And these guys need to go to ground anyway?” She jabs a thumb at my silent zombie family then gives Mitch a speculative look.

I nod. The faster Mitch goes back to his Earth, the better.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Caleb

It feels great to have the gang back together. We’re missing Sims and Randi, but we’ll survive. Their round-the-world shenanigans have kept them absent for the past six months. Besides, the Random thing we have going on isn’t a part of their lives anymore.

Archer being on board is sheer luck.

As Clyde thought might happen, more security is in place.

What I wouldn’t do for an Aura Reader about now.

Jade moves up beside me as we leave the Outback behind. It nests inside branches from a nearby tree, folding its shape into something more compact.

“Baby, can you figure out what’s happening here?”

I think camouflage, and the exterior bleeds to mimic the leaves and shadow of the nearby foliage.

Jade exhales slowly, shaking her head. “I’m not sure. Yesterday, we were living our lives. Your mom’s illness was a sad reality, our kids were giving us hell, but we were basically happy. Then these Random freaks go after Pax, the kids react badly, go to an alternate Earth, and here we are.”

A tear slips out of her eye.

“C’mere, hun. There’s nothing we can do but deal. That’s all.”

“I just thought all this was behind us and we could have a normal life. Like we have had.”

I don’t mention how abnormal having two kids like Pax and Deegan is. Not a good time.

Or the zombie contingent.

I hook my gaze on Gramps, and he winks at me.

I feel the weight of unspoken responsibility.

Behind me, Bry claps me a solid one on the back. “Hey, Hart. Ready and waiting to have my ass kicked.”

I laugh. “Nice.”

He’s older but built like a brick shithouse. His landscaping business has taken off, and he’s kept with the eco-driven times, adjusting as he needs to. However, you still have to plant a tree the same way: with your two bare hands. His were muscled and calloused. He’s a huge guy, such a contrast to his younger sister.

“Tiffie,” Bry says loudly, and she starts.

“Hey, meathead—hello. Circumspect, pal.”

“Right.” Bry scratches his head and smiles at me. I smile back. Tiff had been so cool before booze.

But I remember when she went downhill.

John almost left her.

I can see why he didn’t.

Love. It’s etched in the lines of his face. Not every one is worry and regret. Some are from smiling and laughter. His orange hair is a faded red, and his eyes remain a clear blue, sharper than when we were young.

Wise.

Lewis Archer is dressed in all black and it strikes me as funny. I somehow manage the crooked mouth but the effort is ugly.

He’s wearing a pair of glasses with hinged lenses. He loosley holds a card with thin sheets of paper in his left hand.

“There are three points of entry. Pulse driven, with security pulse identification.”

“How are we going to possibly see my mom?”

“Follow me.”

I catch his arm. Archer turns, every gold hair in place. A thin spear of moonlight through branches fully illuminates his pale eyes and sharp cheekbones. “My entire family and our friends are on the line. If ya don’t think you can pull this off, don’t.”

Archer smirks. “I can. And for the record, I’d do anything for you guys.”

We stare at each other. I’d called dead things to battle when Archer was in need. He never forgot.

I’d do it again. I take a deep breath. “Okay.”

“Let’s go.” He looks at the group standing behind us.

I look for my kids.

Paxton is behind me and to the right, Deegan beside him. Their zombies are directly behind them.

My death energy passes through them and the family sighs.

Mitchell does not, and it puzzles me.

I don’t have time to dwell on the why. It will have to suffice that he’s not from any dirt here.

We’ll see what happens when we get to this other Earth.

If we can.

I don’t think of Mom. I have my own family to consider.

I’m back to surviving the moment.

It’s funny how fast I return to the mindset.

*

There are a lot of us. That makes for noise and loss of control. At my count, it’s over fifteen souls.

The zombies are soundless.

Then there’s Jones.

“And then we had them right where we wanted them—”

“Jones, shut your yap,” Tiff says.

Jones gives her a hard look. “You’re so boring now.”

Tiff rolls her eyes, popping a new wad of gum in her mouth. “Yeah, whatever.”

Archer turns, finger to lips.

We move through the last bit of greenbelt, the woods standing sentinel at our backs.

Archer slides a thin sheet of paper out of the cardholder. It’s not the archaic paper of my teen years but a clear, crinkly sheet.

He uses the thumbs and index fingers of both hands and rolls one side against his own thumb.

“Old tech,” he says in an absent-minded way.

He smooths it against the pulse pad, a holdover from the days before mind-com overtook Pulse technology.

The pad scans the thumbprint and greets a doctor that doesn’t exist in our group.

“Nice, Archer.”

Archer wastes a grin on Jonesy and slides through the door.

I follow, towing Jade behind me.

I spot pulse security monitoring and Archer flings a disc toward the port that holds facial recognition inside.

If it logs us, the SPs who are not already here will come en masse.

Like the creatures from the old classic Alien, the disc smacks the pulse-monitor and flows over the sensor, strangling it.

“Will that work, Lewis?”

“It will work, and the how is the best part, Deegan.”

My daughter gives it a look of such pure suspicion I stifle a laugh.

“Daddy.” She sees my expression and smacks my arm.

Archer watches the others file in. “Big group.” His gaze moves to Deegan. “This will give a false read.”

Terran grins. “I bet you’ve got some faces in there.”

Archer smirks. “Yes, some key people have been tapped to appear.”

“So all the assholes are showing up as coming in the hospital?” Paxton asks, and I frown.

Archer nods. “It’s not the celebrity some might have hoped for, but it will be a matter of infamous rather than famous.”

“What room?” Jonesy asks, quietly for once.

“305.” Gramps lights up.

“Gramps, come on.” I say.

“Think better with some nicotine.”

“You’re gonna make sensors go off, Gramps,” Deegan says.

“Well, Mr. Archer better figure something out. Wanna keep my IQ in the triple digit range.”

“God,” Bry says, “this is the best.”

“The best—yeah.” Tiff rolls her eyes again. I take note of her and John's linked hands.

Archer pulls a handful of white dust out and throws it up at the pulse-activated sprinkler system.

The smoke from Gramps’ cigarette rises, dissipating beneath the upside-down umbrella-shaped metal devices.

“This is a little more than understanding locks, Lewis.” Sophie looks over his black cargo pants’ many side pockets.

“He’s a burglar, smart one.” Tiff moves toward the stairs. Sophie gives Tiff a hard look.

“Let’s book.”

I leave Gramps looking after Tiff. I mouth no, and he moves after us. Don’t poke at the snake that is Tiff. Not right now.

It’s late, and the steps are deserted in favor of the elevators.

We’re quiet, but our footfalls still echo.

We rush forward. A few nurses look up, startled by our large group barreling down the hall.

“Hey!” one nurse says, rising from behind her half-moon desk.

I turn to Tiff. “Figure this out, will ya?”

She smirks, looking rough around the edges, but she’s still in there somewhere. “You betcha, Hart.”

“Tiffany.” John grabs her hands. “Be careful.”

“You know it, stud.”

A ghost of a smile flashes across John's mouth. Then he cups the back of Tiff's head, touching his lips to her forehead.

His eyes meet mine. “Let's make it snappy, Caleb.”

We leave Tiff in the hall and push through the door marked 305.

The door slaps behind us.

Mom isn't there.

Only a neatly made bed remains.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Deegan

I crowd behind everyone but can't see anything. Being short sucks.

Why is no one talking?

Mitchell moves with me, but I’m so intent on reaching Gram, I don’t notice.

I see what everyone else does last.

She’s not here.

Dad is blank, in the middle of pulse-com with someone.

“What in the blue hell is happening?” Gramps shouts.

“Shh,” Mia says softly, and Gramps sucks on his cig like a joint.

Dad turns to him. “Intensive care. Organ failure.”

“Where?” Gramps voice is like a gun going off, and I flinch.

“Upper floor.”

“Can I swear now?” Pax asks.

“Not funny, youngster. Now get moving,” Clyde says. He and Bobbi race into the hall.

“It's all I could find,” Tiff says apologetically as we come out.

I shout in alarm, and every bit of me is sorry that I break our careful silence.

Spiders swarm the floors, turning the floors and walls black with their scurrying bodies.

“What?” Mitchell shouts, grabbing my shoulders.

Tiff smacks some gum. “The SPs are coming.”

Her eyes are big, and I know she’s made the bugs come.

“I can stave them off for a little while, but this is a newer building. There aren’t very many dead things.”

I let the fist of my death energy go. The one Dad talks about and it seeks… seeks.

I open my eyes. “There are dead.”

Pax’s gaze is on me. “No, sis—we’re not that desperate.”

I look back at him. “Not yet, Pax.”

We direct our stares to the black expanse of glass and beyond that, the federal penitentiary.

*

We burst inside the Intuitive Care Unit.

Grandpa Kyle stands, not a bit of stoop to him from age, his hand covering Gram's.

Intuitive care machines work to keep Gram alive, though her organs are quitting.

“Caleb, Jade,” Grandpa says. “What on Earth?”

Gramps stalks over to Grandpa. “Listen up, Kyle. You know I have a boatload of respect for you.” Gramps crushes the cigarette underneath his shoe and Grandpa Kyle scowls. “But we need to get Peanut away about now.”

Grandpa's eyes become slits. “Is this some scheme?”

“Yup,” Tiff guesses from behind me.

“Tiffany Weller.”

Tears brim in Grandpa’s eyes then chase each other down his face. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

A lump forms in my throat. Gram is dying, and Grandpa Kyle is trying to be polite.

Tiff smacks a bubble, causing many in the room to jump. “We're going to take Ali to an Organic and save her.” No one delivers raw commentary in quite the way Auntie Tiff does.

Grandpa gives a small smile. “I'm sorry, that's been attempted and defeated soundly. There is no cure for what ails her.”

“It’s okay, Grandpa,” Pax says. “Mitch the dead guy says his Earth has Organics that can lick it.”

Grandpa's eyes land on Pax. “Have you been blinking?” He assesses the situation that fast. His entire brain is a leap of logic.

Pax nods. “Not on purpose, but there was a… problem, and I needed to get out of here fast.”

Grandpa is super smart. Supposedly, my fat brain came from him. Like a pipeline of intellect, he jokes.

“I don’t think it’s safe to move Ali.”

Pax grips Grandpa’s shoulders, and their resemblance strikes me. When Mitchell takes my hand, I instantly feel better. More.

Mitchell cocks his head. The other zombies tense. The little girl zombie says, “They’re coming.”

Pax glances at me then the door. “Hang on.”

I turn to everyone. “Hold on to someone, everyone—hold on.”

Before Pax blinks, I see Gram’s eyes.

So blue.

Still so alive.

Darkness falls.

*

I feel fear. It’s so intense I can’t shake it.

I land somewhere and a large body, tight against mine, rolls with me.

I take several deep breaths and open my eyes.

Pax is already standing, Gram in his arms.

She’s gray, I think before I can stop myself.

Mom snatches her hand away from my arm.

Sorry, I mouth.

She picked up on all my concerns in a bitter pill of instant empathic understanding.

It’s okay, Mom mouths back.

Someone lifts me off the ground.

Mitchell looks down into my face.

“I’m okay. You can put me down.”

He sets me on my feet, and I try to stabilize my breathing, my body’s functions.

“How far are we?” I ask, counting heads. I think we have everyone.

Pax looks around then snaps his gaze to Gram.

She bleeps on my undead radar.

“Hurry!” I scream.

Gram’s flickering in and out. We’re losing her.

Pax runs and we follow.

“The bots!” I shout.

I look at Mitch, and he hesitates. I nod, and he runs to the back of the group with George and his wife and daughter.

The bots are coming.

I run after my brother.

*

Kent Medical Clinic, East Hill

Telekinesis would be really great right now. I could hurl myself through the air and bounce my way there.

Pax has easily outdistanced me, though he carries our dying grandmother.

He's a Body here as he is back home.

But on our Earth, he’s like a three-point or something. Here he seems more.

Much more.

I’m not. I’m out of gas, gasping with my lungs burning. Though I’m in shape because of my training at the dojo, it’s not enough to sustain me for a mile of all-out running.

“I feel her!” I bellow.

I know, Pax says in my mind. It almost causes me to stumble. We’re almost there.

Okay, I reply.

I chance a glance over my shoulder.

Everyone else is far behind me. The guys are gaining; the girls straggling.

Except Tiff. She keeps up just fine.

My zombie is tossing bots as they move through our group. Pax’s zombie family is making it work beautifully.

Gramps and Grandpa Kyle hold the rear.

Don’t let my grandpas die, Mitchell, I command. Every bit of what makes me AFTD slides out on that mental utterance.

It makes me less aware.

I see the med building up ahead and jump the small ravine in front of me.

A hand grabs my ankle as I’m motoring through the air.

I land hard on my back, my mouth opening for air I can’t get. My wind’s gone, slapped out of me from the fall.

Brad's face fills my vision.

I scream, but it’s soundless.

He covers my mouth anyway and drags me off behind him. My wind returns and with it, my voice.

He punches me in the face, my head swimming from the strike.

I rock back then try to stagger to my knees.

“No you don’t, Deegan,” he whispers, hitting me again. My vision triples. I collapse on my side.

The others jump the ravine that is slightly deeper than a drainage ditch.

Mom is in the middle and frowns after she clears the narrow trench. Her face looks a little like someone jolted by an electrical current.

Mom!

Mom… my mind tries.

Failing.

Hands clamp around my wrists, and my body slides over the uneven ground as I’m dragged off.

I send one brief stabbing thought to Mitchell. It’s not enough. He’s too far away, helping the others.

Then nothing.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Pax

I tear through the front door, whipping my head first left then right.

The bot receptionist is back. It takes one look at me holding Gram and opens its mouth for a psycho banshee wail.

I scramble, picking up a model of the human body used as cool décor for the med clinic.

I fling it at the bot’s head, and the top of its skull shears off. It hangs like a scalping by one of Dad’s Skopamish.

The screaming begins.

Damn, should have gone for the mouth.

I sprint past, the piercing artificial shriek all I can hear.

Gram moves in my arms, and I feel her death in my mind. My energy seeks hers, reaching for her life.

It's what my power does.

I reel it in as I blast through the hall.

Please, Jezebel, be working.

I see her name on the door before I hit it open, Organic, Level 5, Trident, Jezebel.

It swings closed and Jezebel looks up, startled eyes pegging my face.

“What?” She flicks her gaze to Gram, and her mouth goes slack. “Oh no, what is this?”

Her energy meets mine.

“Save her,” I say.

I pivot, gently placing Gram on the table, and her eyes roll toward me, dry in their sockets but vibrantly blue.

“Gram,” I say softly, and she shakes her head.

“Don't make me one...” Her words are so low I hardly catch them.

But I do.

I swallow hard. “No.”

“Paxton, step aside.”

I do. Jezebel goes to Gram, palms flat on her torso. “She's advanced.”

She does a scan.

Before my eyes Gram's skin lightens from gray to a listless white.

It blooms with color, her eyes getting brighter.

Her breath hitches.

“I don't know... I am stabilizing.”

Jezebel holds her lip between her teeth, her face tight with anxiety.

Something beeps behind her.

Without turning, Jezebel instructs, “Get rid of that, Paxton.”

I turn and look at her pulse-screen. It floats, disembodied and old-fashioned. I can’t find the thing that turns off the noise.

I bash it into the wall instead.

Jezebel scowls, never taking her eyes from Gram. “That is not what I meant.”

“Right, but I couldn’t figure it out.”

“Why did you wait so long? Her organs are failing.”

I lean forward. “Still?”

“No. I have her stabilized, but she’s not out of the woods.”

I turn the phrase over in my mind. She's still in danger.

“What do ya need?”

“Another level five.”

Five-point, I instantly translate.

“I'm a three.” I don't say anything about level. I'm not going to make the distinction right now. Gram is struggling. She still might not live.

She sighs, her hands rest on Gram like permanent markers. “’Kay, get your butt over here.”

I move closer, and Gram’s eyes follow me. “What’s happening, Pax?”

I take Gram’s hand and instantly taste Jezebel’s healing energy. I find Jezebel’s gaze. Deep brown regards me from a darker face. “Boy, give me what ya got.”

I do, training my energy through Gram right to her.

Her eyes widen, then she flashes brilliant white teeth at me. “You’re no level three.”

As long as Gram lives, I can be a level twenty and I wouldn’t give a shit.

I think, live.

Her body is a catacomb of disease. I picture it in my mind, running through the trails of cells that have turned her body against itself.

I don't have the map. Sweat beads on my upper lip. “I don't know how to repair this.”

Jezebel breathes evenly. “I do. Follow my lead. We’ve been treating metastasized cancer for a decade.”

I can’t think about how significant that is right now.

Jezebel pops into my mind. It’s not the older woman with a short cap of dark, fuzzy hair graying at the temples. It’s a young Jezebel with a saucy lift to her full lips and hair so big it touches the outside of her shoulders.

She motions for me to follow her inside my mind.

She has a mop and bucket.

A second appears. “Take these, sugar.”

I startle as a mop’s wooden handle moves into my head.

She looks at the vault of Ali Hart’s insides and says, “Clean.”

I look around and see the mess as her palm sweeps it. Oh… shit, that’s what that looks like.

Sludge, somewhere between black and green, moves like brackish water through healthy blue blood.

“It’s not invisible anymore. Once an Organic found the map.”

It flickers.

“Concentrate,” she says. Her young Jezebel face frowns.

“Yes, ma’am,” I answer.

“Don’t get smart.” She dips her mop in the bucket and swipes a path of whatever’s in the bucket against the slow-moving cancer.

It shimmers over the top, a pop-crackle sounds off, and the blackish-green wasteland of soup rises, disappearing inside the body.

She reveals blue waters. Not like the sky but like the deepest hour of midnight kissed by the ocean. It moves, sparkling like an unveiled river.

I lift my face to hers, my mop dripping and a grin I can’t keep off my face.

“Dunk that each time, Pax.”

She smiles back. “Feels good, don’t it?”

I can only nod.

Gram might make it. And for once, I feel so much more than I usually do. Raising the dead is nothing compared to healing the living.

*

Jezebel put her hands on her hips. “There's no need to lie about your skills, Paxton Hart.”

I look at Gram, her face turned, sleeping peacefully. All the color is back. She looks like my Gram.

I swipe my hand against my eyes.

“I didn't lie. I didn't know. I'm a standard three in my world.”

She harrumphs at me and I face her, cocking my head to the side.

“Really,” I say.

“Well, you’re more than that. One, you’re alive. Two, you bring a second-degree relation who has classic breast cancer—the easiest to fix—so late we almost can’t. Then you tell that ugly fib about being a three…”

“I am. I don’t know why my talents are all messed up here.”

“Talents?”

“Yeah, my paranormal mojo.”

Jezebel’s confusion mars her brow. “Only Organics are allowed here. There are no other talents.”

I stand there with a supreme case of the dumbs. “What?”

Jezebel shakes her head, shrugging. “My world—and I haven't even asked you how you manage to be a Dimensional—eradicated all paranormals other than Organics.”

I whistle. “You got lucky, then.” My mind touches on how disturbing that is. “You mean”—I look at her—“how do they make sure there are only Organics.”

“Oh, Paxton.” She pats my hand. “They’re killed at birth.”

I back away. Noise from the front of the building crowding the silence of our space. “Are you shitting me?”

Her eyebrows really corkscrew.

Not kidding.

They kill babies on this earth. It’s like that weird shit a hundred years ago, when China killed all the female babies. Fucked shit up big time. Natural order and all that.

Morons.

“No... what is it—what is it like where you live?”

I shake my head.

The wall vibrates as something crashes into it. I’ve completely forgotten about the rest of the group.

“Not like this. God—the bots, the weird ass murdering everyone. No. Bad place. I mean”—I meet her eyes—“that’s cool that you’ve got the cure for cancer, but damn.” I shiver. “Anyone who’s paranormal gets the ax”—I swipe my finger across my throat—“but they’ll save someone who’s got cancer. Yeah, makes perfect sense.”

“Not to me, either. But you have to remember, this is how it’s been for many years. And you coming from a better Earth doesn’t give you the right to judge mine.”

Weird.

“Thank you for helping my grandma,” I say.

She pulls her irritation under control, and our hands reach out for each other’s as the door bangs open.

It doesn’t just hit the wall; the doorknob impales itself and pins the door against it.

Mitch looks at me. “Where is Deegan?”

He doesn’t give two shits and an eff about Gram. Or anyone.

It’s the typical, single-minded focus of the dead.

I shrug. “I don’t have the Dee watch, corpse-boy. She’ll turn up. There’s, like, a posse of defenders. Chill.”

Mitch is depressingly serious.

He's at my throat in one second, lifting me up by my shirt.

Jezebel screams as the rest of the troupe barrels through the door, crowding inside.

“She is”—he shakes me and I feel my teeth rattle—“missing, you selfish jerk.”

He shakes me again and drops me on my ass. My teeth slam together, and I bite my tongue.

Prick.

I jump up, socking him in the jaw as I do. Skin comes off against my knuckles.

His eyes meet mine.

I do the math, and he watches me as I do.

For him to degrade, Dee’s been MIA for an hour.

I drop my hands.

“Do you see?” he seethes.

I nod. I fucking do see. I search for my dad.

“Do you feel your sister, Pax?”

I cast my mind’s reel out for Dee. It comes back blank.

My stomach seizes, fear running over my flesh in a wave of pebbles.

Mitch grips my shoulders. “Where is she?”

I say the dreaded words.

“I don't know.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Deegan

My scalp is on fire as Brad drags me out of the water, shaking me by my hair.

I don't cry out. Maybe he'll figure I'm too out of it.

No luck.

He plunges me back in and I suck breath before I break the surface.

I know it's a torture technique. Waterboarding.

“Tell me where you’re from!” he shouts as if I’m deaf.

He jerks me out of the water, my wrists zip tied again. I keep the panic at bay through sheer willpower.

Paxton! my mind wails.

Plunge.

I try to hold my breath. In the end, I can’t and water rushes in where air should be.

That's right, I think with the last of my consciousness, he's a Null.

Pax can't get me. No one can.

I sink.

Drowning.

*

Pax

“Gramps!” I shout.

He straightens. I use Jezebel's phrasing. “Gram's out of the woods, and we got another problem.”

I know he receives the good news about his daughter’s life only by his eyes softening. “Yup.”

The zombies crowd against his back. Dad is standing with Mom beside him.

“I got something from Dee, but it’s weak.”

“Me too,” Mitch says. “But it’s like an echo.”

Dad puts his head in his hands.

“We’ve got a pile of those cyborg assholes up our butts,” Tiff says, and John grins.

“Where?” I ask.

Sophie says, “I didn’t wear the right shoes for this shebang.”

We look at her feet. Animal print flats.

“Those are hot, but maybe not that practical, baby girl,” Jonesy says.

“You never were great with wardrobe choices,” Tiff comments.

“Okay!” I put up my palms. “Let's get out of here.”

“I can't leave Ali here,” Grandpa Kyle says in a flat voice.

“Wouldn't expect anything different from ya,” Gramps says. “We'll swing back and pick you two up after the ground search for Deedie.”

Grandpa Kyle bows his head, crying where he stands. Witnessing his sadness makes it harder to breathe with the threat of my own tears.

Jezebel approaches. “You the husband?”

He nods, and she grasps his hand. “It’s okay, sir—it’s not every day you get your wife back.”

He brushes the wetness off his cheeks. “No,” he says simply.

“Buck up, Kyle. We got our Ali.” Gramps claps Grandpa on the back.

“Yes.”

“We have garnered the wrong kind of attention here,” Clyde says.

We can hear the bots coming down the hall like a swarm of artificial locusts.

I look at Jezebel, a standing question in my eyes.

When you’ve been close with someone, it doesn’t take much to communicate your thoughts. Together, we brought Gram back from the brink of death. It does something to a relationship.

“Yes, I’ll be okay—and so will they. Go!” she says in a hushed shout.

We do.

The bots are waiting.

Mitch and I look at each other. We both understand we need to divert and escape.

And rescue.

We start plowing through the ALB like two tornadoes on the Midwestern plains.

*

Caleb

I don’t normally have trouble admitting I can’t do something.

But I'm not accustomed to the handicap of not having my AFTD in this weird world.

I haven’t said anything to Pax.

The instant he throws me the death energy pass, I’ll fumble it. It’s like being numb. Blind.

Deaf and dumb.

I have only the skills any other mundane would have.

I thought it’d be a relief. But with Deegan out there somewhere unprotected, I’d kill to have an army of the dead with me.

Hell, there’s always plenty of dead. I can’t imagine any parallel Earth where there wouldn’t be any.

Jade touches me, her eyes wide as we make our way out of the horrible clinic, where I have to leave the parents behind with only an Organic’s word that they’ll be okay.

As I am now, they have nothing. It’s rotten to be a mundane.

“Hey, Hart—wake up, bud.”

It's Jonesy, snapping his fingers in front of my face. “Having some trouble with the old juice.”

My eyebrows pop, but before I have time to admit my own mundane transformation, the zombies are getting overwhelmed by the ABTs.

Dammit.

I put Jade behind me.

Pax and Deegan's undead said these cyborg things have near-zombie strength.

And they're mowing through our front line.

“Stay behind me, Jade.”

Her hands are on me. “You think we're in trouble.”

I glance behind me. Our eyes meet. “How do you know?”

“I know everything here.”

Oh, shit.

I’m Mr. Undead dipshit, and my wife is Empath Central.

Nice. Gripping her narrow shoulders, I kiss her forehead. Instead of asking time-suck questions, I yell over the din of the mechanical crunch coming toward us, “Find Deegan!”

Jade races outside, moving to the greenbelt’s temporary safety.

There's something great about having been a paranormal as long as I have. I just know how to find it within me.

I guess I'm not as much of a fool as I thought. I picture a deck of cards in my mind.

I ignore the smell of alien flesh and violence.

I sift through each unique one, chucking the AFTD card into the “can’t use” pile.

I keep rifling through others.

One shines out from the pack, and I pluck it from the “deck.”

Pyrokinetic.

The irony of that ability doesn't escape me. Carson Hamilton is probably spinning in his grave.

Hopefully.

The thought makes me grin.

I throw a fireball at the nearest bot and miss.

Mitch turns to me, hissing.

I just set his feet on fire.

I guess I don't have very good skills.

“What the fuck is going on!” Jonesy screams.

Mitch's feet aren’t all that I just torched.

I set the building on fire.

With my parents inside of it.

“Caleb!” Jade screams from the greenbelt. “I've found her!”

The bots turn to her. Their mouths open as one.

I slap my hands over my ears when the sound begins. They drop a moment later when I hear the word exterminate.

I know that one.

*

Mac

Though I never thought I'd be around this long, I do enjoy the fray.

Until my grandson starts setting everything on fire.

Just as I get a head of steam on this pack of robots, the kid has to come in and screw it six ways to Sunday. He had that trouble with the injuns too.

Kids.

“Jones!” I holler.

His dark face springs up in the center of the commotion, of course.

“Give these robots some circuit screwing, champ!”

“Can't, Mac—I don't have that here.”

Swell.

One bot moves to me and I assess its eyeballs looks almost like a human set. I grunt, taking a deep inhale from the cig, and peg the thing right in the eye with the burning ember.

It staggers around, arms out in front of it like a zombie-bot. Its eye goop singes, making the three meter radius reek.

Frying like an egg. Perfect.

Two of its buddies troupe over.

“Bring it, bot-nuts!” I scream as I pick up a piece of rebar hanging around from a hundred years ago.

Handy piece of steel.

I meet Clyde’s gaze, and he winks. We sure see things eye-to-eye. I chuckle at my inside joke, cranking the thin, twisted steel over my head as if I just scored a hole-in-one. I strike the first bozo in the neck.

It torques the whole head to the left, one eyeball popping like a boil.

“Four!” I shout with a grunt.

“Come on, bottie-boys, bring it!”

“Mac!” a female voice screams, “Look out.”

I was a Marine back in the day. When a man went hard, it was balls to the wall. None of this sissy bullshit where you don’t feel it and get a pussy punch card. Now it’s hand-to-bionic. Pound for pound, my strength is five times that of a human male.

Thank you very much, tech freaks. This clown is playing in the circus.

I ram the rebar behind me in a strike, as they taught us for ground warfare.

With bayonets.

I turn with the strike, twisting as I do and punching the one-meter rod deeper.

I chortle as I skewer the thing in its mechanical guts, breaking into a little hum.

“Robot-kabob!” I shout.

This age regeneration is choice.

I lift the rebar, robot and all, and toss it into a pile where the other five I gutted lay in a twisting, chirping, discombobulated mess.

I have a moment of basic pride.

Like I do when I clean out the garage. Feels good.

Then Jade shrieks, and Caleb sets everything on fire.

Kids.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Deegan

I awake to fingers gripping my chin, the sides of my cheeks mashed into my teeth.

“If it wasn’t for you and your stupid family, I’d be a free citizen.”

Brad Thompson can’t possibly expect a response when his grip has frozen my face, my lips like a blowfish.

I guess he does, because he lets go long enough to backhand me. My face swings to the side, blood spraying as my teeth sink into my cheek again.

I groan, spitting out the blood.

“You’re not free? Listen,” I choke, “Brad… I don’t know what I ever did to you…” I really choke then. Rolling over onto my side, I vomit water helplessly.

“Disgusting bitch.” Brad kicks me in the ribs, and I can’t protect myself because I’m bound. I scream in agony as I feel one give.

I’m so mad I can’t think. I level my eyes at him, and I know he sees my hate.

He grins. “That’s right, because of you and your entire family, my dad disowned me. I can’t have fun with the zombies anymore. I can’t do the things I like.”

Fun?

I gasp, taking in his words, my ribs on fire. My mind works furiously, a dark idea forming. I can’t look at it.

It's too awful. It can't be true. In a dim corner of my mind, I'm ashamed I can even think it.

“If your nosey-ass parents, do-gooder grandparents and cock-bite of a brother hadn't stuck their noses in the zombie rights bullshit, I'd still be enjoying the spoils.” He shakes his head. “Nope. Not anymore.”

“You killed my family—here.”

He rolls his eyes. They’re dark like my dad’s but lack the warmth.

Black chips of coal regard me without compassion.

“Yes, you dumb crack. Dad was fine with it. He just didn’t want me to get caught and have it lead back to him. Now he’s gotta put on a front so he looks good.”

I swallow hard, and even that small movement lights up my throat, reverberating to my ribs. If I could just sit up, I’d feel so much better.

Instead I lay on my side in agony, watching psycho Brad rant. “You… your dad is Sanction Police chief here, too?” I say as distraction.

He stares at me. “This is going to be so fun. Let me put it to you this way: I am the prince of the station quality control. He is the king of the SP. He makes up the work for the zombies, and I see it through.”

His hands go to his hips. Brad taps his foot, and I can’t help the nervous eye flick to that ceaselessly moving appendage.

He notices. “Don’t worry, Dee-gan, I want to keep you in one piece. You see, I can slowly break you down. I’ll get myself a piece of the action after there’s no fight left.” He pumps his hips in a gross parody of humping.

My heart lurches.

Adrenaline shoots through me, paralyzing my lungs, my everything.

“Then!” He lifts a finger in the air, obviously pleased with his plans. “I will make you my sex slave after you’re dead.”

Oh my God.

I roll onto my back, using abs strong from the dojo. My ribs howl as I shoot up onto my butt.

Brad's brows come together. “Where are you going? There is nowhere to go. And lots of revenge to dish out,” he says thoughtfully.

I inch worm backward using my knees and the fisted knuckles of my locked hands.

I breathe hard. Anguish like lava flows around where he kicked. My back touches something hard and Brad smiles, crouching down in front of me. “You were fun to kill the first time. Poisoning your entire family while they slept was too easy.”

Hot tears for my family in this world blur my vision.

“Now your brother has released them from their station. He’s left quite a mess in his wake.” Brad scowls and shrugs. “But—that’s for daddy dearest to figure out.” Brad reaches out, taking a piece of my hair between his fingers. He yanks it suddenly, and I yelp. “Now tell me where the fuck you’re from, and where all the loose ends of the fam are, and I might spare you.”

He won’t spare anything.

I glare. “You won’t spare anyone. You’re in a corrupt Earth, you haven’t been punished for being the murderer you are, and you do stuff”—I choke on that word—“to people.”

“Zombies, Deegan.” He sounds bored. “They’re not people anymore. And being a pimp of dead chicks really works out. I keep a powerful four-level AFTD on board at all times, and he keeps the rot at bay. I have a really reliable dude who’s in control of the biggest brothel in all of Kent. He commands it, and we take the money.”

A slow smile spreads across his face as he adds, “Take turns, too.”

Seconds squeeze by while I fight my gorge.

It wins.

When I throw up this time, it’s because of what he said, not the near drowning or the kick to the ribs.

His deeds are so beyond what my mind can cope with, my body reacts for me.

Brad jumps up. “God, you’re not any fun. You keep puking.”

No fun.

Brad is a zombie rapist. A pimp of the undead. And I’m bound, injured, and at his mercy.

“Now”—he taps his square jaw, his brows cinching as though he’s concentrating—“where were we?”

We’re at the part where he tells me he’s going to hurt me.

But he surprises me. “Ah yes, we will do just enough to lure the rest of your ridiculous family to my efficient lair.”

My hate is boundless.

He sees it and a look of satisfaction skates across his features. “I’m going to pull back my awesome Null-ness just long enough for you to scream for help, and then the cavalry will come. I bet you’ve got the entire group with you.” Brad's gaze lasers on my silent assent. He slowly nods his head. “Yeah, Pax would have brought everyone. In fact, I think I saw a bunch of the Hart spawn traipsing around before I latched onto your delectable ass.” His eyes move to the ceiling, as though thoughtful. “I can get back in Dad’s good graces if I hand over that many to re-slave along with the other Earth’s bunch. And”—he gives a smug smile—“Dad is not a fan of the Hart clan. Not. At. All.”

“I won’t do it. You can do whatever, but I’m not going to help because you want to kill my family—again.” I don’t even say the other stuff. The crap where a deranged Brad rapes me after beating me into submission.

I taste my own vomit as I bite my lip to keep it from trembling. Brad’s like a shark in my earth. The scent of blood frenzies him. They’re so much alike. A world apart hasn’t changed the parallel.

If I think about the potential, it'll make me scream. And then I won't stop. I can't even think about the zombie whorehouse. Full of women who are aware of their violation but unable to do anything about it. Without rights because technically, they're dead.

How can an earth this corrupt exist? Is every scenario imaginable possible?

Yes. Horror fills me.

My gaze follows Brad’s hand as he lifts a pair of pliers.

*

After he tears off my third fingernail, I’d kill my own mother. Tears dry like glue on my face. You don’t think you can scream until there’s nothing else left but pain and voice. I’m an animal now, my humanity slipping away.

When I pass out, he revives me with a bucket of cold water.

I scream a name when Brad touches my breast.

Mitchell.

*

Pax

I halt, watching Dee’s zombie do some kind of convulsive dance in the middle of the woods. A puppet on strings, he springs around, jerking his limbs.

This is not the time for bullshit. I turn away in disgust. We have to find Dee, and he’s become some fucking spaz.

Parts of the bots jiggle after us in the grass that separates the border of woods from the strip mall.

Headless, some without bodies, severed limbs scuttle after us.

They’re strong as hell.

Gramps has been chucking them as far as his altered limbs can. From the joint, not the hand.

Mitch pitches face first into the moss at the forest floor.

Shit!

More bots’ creepy screaming echoes eerily behind us.

I run to him, flipping him over. His eyes, dry in their sockets, snap to mine.

He's degrading.

That means Dee's in goddamned trouble.

He grips my shirt and yanks me down almost nose to nose. “He's hurting her.”

“Thompson?” It’s the only thing that makes sense as to why Dee’d be missing.

He nods.

My hands break out into a sweat, my heart speeding. This Earth is more advanced than ours is. More barbaric.

“Where?”

Mom races up next to us. “Pax, follow me!”

I plant my legs on either side of Mitch, offering my hand. “Come on, tough guy. Let’s go break this dude’s legs.” I move backward, hauling him up as I stand.

Mitch's eyes don't leave mine, and my heart sinks. “He's—he's hurting her.”

It's bad when a zombie looks sick.

And the look in her zombie’s eyes tells me things I didn’t ever want to hear or think about.

“God,” I say. My voice is shaky, even to me.

I scrub my face and Mitch says, “She called me.”

Mom looks between us. Mitch retreats, and she moves into him like a dance step, latching onto his forearm before anyone can say a word.

The bots close in as flames lick the clinic’s foundation.

A minute of frozen time ticks by.

Mom drops her hand.

Her fright arrests me. She doesn’t look at anyone.

She sprints in another direction.

Mitch and I follow.

Soon, we overtake her. Mitch scoops Mom up and tosses her on his back.

Mom piggybacks on him as we race toward the psychotic asshole that has Dee.

I guess he’s gotten over that headache she gave him when she broke his neck.

Usually, I’m all about being uninformed. I’m not a news whore, stock watcher, or give-a-shitter about world events.

But I’d give my left nut to know why the Brad Thompson of this world has my sister. Why he cares. We’re all dead here, so what is the deal?

I remember my family as zombies on this earth.

As I crash through the woods, Mitch bulldozes ahead of me, Mom’s hair steaming behind her like black water. I pour on the speed, Mitch and I matching blurs.

I reach out mentally, tapping the signatures of my dead family on this earth.

The energy finds them under AFTD lock and key.

Another five-point is holding my dead family hostage. As we race for destination unknown, deep down, I know they’re the answer to this mess. Some of it.

We slow, and I count heads.

We've lost half the group.

Clyde, Gramps, Dad, and Tiff are all behind us somewhere, probably dealing with the stupid fire.

Jonesy’s dark face gives me the thumbs-up. Sophie is beside him, jogging in her stupid shoes.

It’s Archer, the world-class burglar, who reaches us first. “I’m not certain what I can do to help. But good news.”

I catch my breath, waiting.

“If there’s a lock, it will fall to my will.”

I raise my eyebrows.

Jonesy grunts. “Looks like Lewis has his breaking-and-entering mojo back.”

I nod. “Come on.” My gaze follows Mom’s finger.

She points to a huge old building. Maybe mid-twentieth.

There are enough locks to give that old Fort Knox a run for its money.

Archer grins. “I have this.”

He leads the way, and we follow.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Caleb

I wind Mom's arm around my neck, Dad's on the other side. “Oh, Caleb, honey—see to your own family.”

“No, Mom. There are plenty of guys with Pax. They’ll find Deegan.”

I don’t mention they’re zombies. I’ll leave that little side note out of the verbal for now. I don’t cave to my fear, a living and breathing thing inside me.

Dad gives me a knowing look.

I beg with my eyes for him not to say anything.

“She’s really not safe to move now,” the Organic of this world tells me. I look at her, feeling old. Though she’s not the same Jezebel, her slow movement toward her mortality reminds me of my own.

I shake off my morbid thoughts, looking at the fire that has melted the veneer off the doors. “I think you and Pax didn’t save her to see us all die inside a burning building.”

Jezebel snorts. “I remember you when you were a boy…” She shakes her head, but somehow, her face is sad around the edges. She casts her gaze away, hiding truths for which I’m not ready. The history of this world, some of which I can guess at.

“Caleb, help me…” Dad begins, and a bot appears.

It opens its mouth and states in a loud mechanical shout, “Paranormal, Pyrokinetic. Level Four. Full Extermination protocol.”

Dad’s eyes go wide as he whips his head in my direction. His surprise would be comical if it weren’t for the killer cyborg issue. Dad drapes Mom carefully over Jezebel. We turn, and five bots climb inside the burning door. Coming for us.

They ignore Dad. He jerks a fire extinguisher off the wall and goes for the home run into the nearest bots’ head.

It shears the head clean off, and it explodes.

We hit the deck, grabbing Mom and Jezebel down with us.

Bot bits fly like metallic chunks of spinning flesh. They rain down on us as the sprinkler system switches on.

I peek out from behind my hands. Seeing a bunch of twitching bot parts, I determine the coast is clear, grab Mom’s arm, and haul her up as gently as I can.

Dad stands.

A piece of cyborg shrapnel is sticking out of his thigh. Water and blood slide down, soaking his pants like diluted tomato splat.

Terrific.

We turn around, searching for Jezebel.

She lies on her back, a robot arm buried inside her chest, sightless eyes watching us all. A robotic hand glows softly, appearing to wave limply at us.

I groan, swallowing hard. Bad way for Jezebel to go.

Mom turns away from the fresh death of the Organic that helped save her. “Caleb…” Mom’s not into violence or chaos. She was just healed from cancer. Her body is fragile. She’s well but not whole. Dad’s bleeding like a stuck pig.

My wife and kids are who knows where.

Cripes.

I drag the parents outside.

Leaving Jezebel’s body is one of the single worst things I’ve ever accomplished.

“Gramps!” I yell, slowly spinning around. He could figure this out. No matter how sideways things get, Gramps is the man with a plan.

Smoke and noise thicken the air like noxious soup. I can't see where he is. If he's here.

I seek for anything that tells me where they are. I get something, a vibe… a feeling. Whatever vague shit it is I have on my Earth is stronger on this one.

Still no AFTD.

“Honey, I can’t—leave me,” Mom says.

I check her out. Large blue eyes weep, and hair once chestnut is nicely silvered at her temples. It’s sparse now, just trying to grow back after the horror-course of chemo.

Didn’t help. There is no antidote to the stage IV cancer she had, but it’s what we have in my world. “Mom—no. Brother.” I rake a hand through my hair, on the lookout for the BS bots.

They swarm inside the toxic fog of smoke, everything all screwed up by noise and odd pulse tech gone haywire.

Two ram together, fall on their mechanical asses and stumble to get up. They knock heads and fall again.

The parents watch them crash into each other.

“Not very bright,” Dad remarks.

God, Dad.

“Right, listen… you guys, we need to get to Pax. He’s taken off to find Deegan. He’s the blinker in the group, and we don’t want to be stuck with them.” I sweep my hand out, and they take in the idiot bots.

“They appear to ignore mundanes and focus on the paranormal.” Dad is sliding into the default Scientific Observation Mode.

Great.

“Yeah, they’re juiced about everyone but Organics.”

“Caleb.” Mom’s voice is a shadow of the strident Nazi-word queen of my youth. “I think we need to go wherever we’re going—right now.”

A bot advances, its circuitry buzzing, some of the lightweight flesh of whatever alloy they’ve used in the manufacture torn away like a flap of scalped skin.

Instantly, I think of the Skopamish.

I repress a hysterical chuckle, the crooked mouth rising like a Phoenix. Don’t think the parents will dig the humor.

“I think that one is a little brighter than the rest, son.”

It shambles forward like a metal zombie. I have soundly torched it, but whatever covers its body has shielded it from the blanket of my bungled fire episode.

Damn.

“Dad, you take mom and head in”—I zero in on that vague sense of my children—“east.”

“What will you do, sweet pea?”

My chest constricts at the old nickname.

I had reconciled myself to Mom’s death. Now she’s alive—it’s mental vertigo.

In this crazy-ass world with killer cyborgs who murder paranormals.

“I’m going for distraction, Mom.”

She looks at me for a moment. Her hand falls from my face when the ALB wakes up and begins to scream.

Dad nods, dragging Mom off. “Meet us.”

Her eyes hold mine. I close mine against the look I see there.

I turn and face the bots.

Then something extraordinary happens.

Jezebel is suddenly at my side.

I didn't even feel it—my AFTD has come online.

Perfect.

Until she hits me, and I fly into the circle of bots like a bowling ball. I land hard, the wind knocked out of me as they tumble to either side like pins.

A long figure casts a shadow above me as sunlight attempts to pierce the smoke’s hazy murk. Far off sirens wail.

I don’t have death energy to recognize his. I don’t need it. His comment is answer enough.

“Kill him,” he says.

“Yes, Master,” the woman who saved Mom replies.

Jezebel moves forward, scans the environment, and picks up a piece of rebar. It’s twisted, bent, and full of bot bits.

She casually flicks them off.

I gather myself and like a backdraft, I suck in the new ability and blow it out over the top of them.

It’s like a scatter spray of buckshot. I don’t have control, so I don’t bother to try. I just blanket everything.

But not before the rebar blows my shin away.

My aim goes even wilder as my scream is lost in the blazing inferno of dead and living flesh.

There is some satisfaction as Jezebel the zombie and the asshole AFTD begin to burn like torches.

He screams, flailing, and finally rolls, trying to put my fire out.

I can see why Carson enjoyed using the ability. It’s like pouring water over ashes. It’s not hot to me; it’s soothing.

A flaming stick figure makes a mad dash for me.

Jezebel.

Zombies are single-minded on any world. I belch out a little extra fire... and her face begins to melt off.

I try not to feel guilt over the living, breathing person she was fifteen minutes ago.

Can't manage it.

I turn away, limping, my crushed shinbone the least of my concerns.

I can tolerate the pain.

It’s the separation from my family that’s a bitch. I feel the beat of them far off.

No one is here, and I move steadily in their direction.

Then, vaguely, I see Gramps off in the distance. Thank God, the parents escaped.

“Gramps!” I shout, swinging my bad leg around from my body in a crescent.

He looks up after I call his name the third time. Really needs another ear transplant.

“Just about done!” he yells.

The cyborgs are piled high in the shape of a small head-height hill and twice as wide. I resist laughing. The crucifying pain in my leg helps a lot with squelching humor.

I drag myself up to him. “Come on, gotta get the kids,” I whisper-shout.

Gramps brows come together. “They took off while I was bot-cleaning,” he laughs.

Not funny.

“Right—Gramps. We need to get the kids and get the hell outta here.”

“Uh-huh.” He wipes his hands and brushes off his pants. He plucks a stray hair, putting it back in place.

“What’s the end game, champ?” Gramps gives my leg a critical look. He hikes his eyebrows. “That’s going to need some attention when we get out of here.” He roots in his pocket for a cigarette.

My patience is pretty much non-existent.

I roll my eyes, gritting my teeth. “We need to locate the kids, save Deegan from whatever bullshittery she’s gotten tangled up in, then have Pax blink back to our earth.”

Gramps takes a deep drag, cupping one hand around the flame while the smoke of the fire swirls around us.

Unreal.

He sweeps his arm out in front of us. “Lead on.”

A bot struggles to remove itself from the center of the heap. It tumbles down, landing at the foot of the bot mountain Gramps made. He punts it. The bot loses its head as it rolls a few meters away.

“Field goal!” he hoots.

Gramps turns to me with a slight frown. His eyebrows jack to his hairline.

My leg is throbbing like a rotting tooth.

“What's the hold up? We got people to save.” He turns away, walking in the direction I never told him.

I stare after him as a trail of cigarette smoke spirals behind.

He hums a tune. I jerk myself after him with a grunt and scowl.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Deegan

“What?” Brad pulls a face as my nail beds bleed, and I’ve screamed so much I have no voice left.

My mouth opens anyway, like a fish gasping on an uncaring shore. Struggling to release pain with no place to go.

“That’s it, baby—everyone begs.”

Oh God. What have I ever done to deserve his hate?

His hands crawl over my body as I slump in a folding chair with my arms taut behind me.

I’m so grateful for my jeans when he moves between my legs that my stomach tingles.

I distance myself from his hands. His voice.

My thoughts are on my life. My parents.

Paxton.

Finally, they come to rest on Mitchell, and a despairing laugh gurgles out of me.

I feel the tug on my jeans and find I still have enough tears to shed.

My despair is so thick I don't even hear the door open.

*

Pax

I blast through the doors Archer opens. After maybe half a second, I see Brad Thompson’s hands on the waistband of my sister’s jeans.

Her bra is undone and floating over her boobs. Blood drips from her hand, splattering the cement floor like a leaky faucet.

I hear each drop.

Some kind of primal slippage happens. It’s like my skin slides off me and I become… something else.

With a roar, I’m sprinting across the expanse of concrete. The old building takes my slapping footfalls and spins them around the room, casting the noise back at me. A handful of seconds pass from the time I see Dee to when I’m close enough to Thompson that he looks up in surprise.

Probably figures he has an impenetrable fortress.

Right.

Death energy hits me like a ton of bricks, and I stagger just meters away from laying hands on the prick.

He straightens with a smarmy salesman’s smile. “What? You dick—did ya think I’d just be in here doing the pickle tickle with sissy and no reinforcements? No.” He wags his finger in mock-reprimand. “I see she’s definitely the one with the brains in the old Hart clan.”

I fall to my knees in a numbing tide of energy brain drain. A five-point AFTD rounds the corner, and my eyes bug.

Fucking Parker.

Not the Jeffrey Parker from my Earth, the family man who does reconnaissance for relocating the dead like my dad does.

No, this is a different dude. A guy who didn't make choice A at the fork in the road.

His choice leads straight to hell.

“You feel like Caleb,” he says casually as he throws more death juice at me and I shudder under the oppressive weight.

“Young.” He licks his lips. “Untried and unsophisticated.”

I see red. What an assjack.

I check on Dee, and her wide eyes nail me.

Hoping.

Then Mitch is there. “What are you doing?”

I look up at Mitch from my hands and knees. “Screwing off, douche. Get Dee!”

Jeffrey lifts his lips. Must pass as a smile for him. “No. I owe this sick little boy here. He gets his playthings, and I get unlimited power. It’s a tradeoff I wish to continue.”

“You mean money, you dick nozzle,” Jonesy says from somewhere behind me.

Glittering hazel eyes bore holes through Jonesy. “If you like, Mark Jones.”

“If I like, if I don’t. You were always a chameleon type. You go where the wind blows you. Whatever’s good for Jeff is good for everyone.”

Jeffrey throws his head back, laughing. “A perfect description, though broad.”

I give Mitch a nod and he moves toward Brad Thompson. I’m not gonna get distracted when my sister’s all trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey.

Thompson sees the moving mountain of muscle coming for him. “Jeff, nail this meathead.”

Parker looks at Mitch like a bird eyeing a worm. He paces toward him, and Mitch bares his teeth, hissing at him. His mouth and eyes are perfect again.

Dee’s leaking on him. Even though… God, I can’t look—even wounded, her death energy runs around, finding everything dead.

“Is little Miss Hart a level five?” Jeff asks, moving to Dee.

“Don’t touch her!” I shout from the floor. I shake my head like a bull before charging.

Parker gives a little shudder, his lean frame trembling slightly. “I don’t do teen girls.”

My stomach sinks with relief but tightens with his distinction. What does he do?

“But you’ll let it happen, won’t you, Jeff?” Brad asks with a smile.

Parker gives a curt nod, as if he’s not happy about it.

I squeeze my eyes shut and call the zombie family forward.

I can hear the frown in Parker's vocie. “Don't, or I'll make them mine, Paxton.”

I pierce Jeffrey Parker with my stare in the gloom of the warehouse.

He looks resigned.

I'm determined.

Dee moans softly, shaking her head at me.

“Submit.” Parker moves to Mitch’s position. He has both palms out, one at me, the other at Mitch.

“How?” I ask.

Parker doesn’t turn to me while he’s talking. “I take energy through Brad.”

“Where is he getting it?”

“Her.” Jeffrey points to Dee.

God, Brad is an energy death vamp here, too. Giving Dee’s energy to bolster Parker.

Essentially, my sister is draining me.

Mitch stalks the four meters to Parker and punches him square in the jaw.

The Parker of this world is equally adept at hand-to-hand fighting, flinging his head to the side in avoidance as he plows into Dee's zombie with killing intent.

Like there's another kind.

“He’s already dead, asshole—don’t bother.” I stand. Parker’s distracted with Mitch, so I make my way to Brad.

He smiles, and I meet Dee’s eyes. She shifts her stare behind me.

I chance a glance and take in the small horde in the shadows.

George and fam, Sophie, Mia and Bry (somehow full of bruises), Jonesy, and Archer come closer to my position, skirting around the mass of waiting zombies.

Where the hell is Uncle John and Tiff?

Somehow, Parker locked me down but now he’s getting his ass handed to him by Mitchell.

Awesome timing.

I creep toward Brad. I want to get to Dee so bad I can taste it, but Thompson might surprise me with some jacked-up skills he can tear out of his ass.

I circle him.

“I'll have Jeff call the horde,” he says pleasantly, rocking back on his heels.

I take in Mitch and Parker tearing each other apart. “Go ahead.”

He stares at me.

I flex the death muscle, the sounds of flesh hitting flesh the only noise in the warehouse.

And Dee panting. Why won't her hand stop bleeding?

My gaze skates over her hand, catching sight of her nails lying like chipped teeth on the floor beneath her seat, blood-soaked pliers beside them.

The vision of her crimson nails etches itself onto my brain.

I crash into Brad. I’m an emotional mess. I should’ve been thinking with my Karate brain instead of how pissed I am over Dee.

He throws me onto my back as he hydroplanes on top of me. My heels meet his gut and I use his momentum, flinging him over me and onto the ground beyond.

I jump, whirling. The horde boxes us in.

Shit.

Jonesy eyes me. “Hey, man. I love ya, Pax, but you better do something about the undead pack here.”

I flog them with death energy.

Not something Dad has taught me how to fine tune. Random hordes don’t show up on my Earth. Our hordes’ job is to work in stations. We have zombie garbage collectors now.

Here, they have whorehouses.

It’s all wrong.

My energy stuns them, then they keep shambling along. I look over at Mitch. He has Parker in an armbar. Parker smiles, and that’s when I know we’re in trouble.

Mitch goes flying, and Parker dusts his hands off. Mitch lands at my feet.

Blinks. Stands. He curls his fists and moves to return to Jeffrey.

I shake my head.

“Go make this clown a soprano.” I jerk my head toward Thompson.

Mitch smirks at Brad.

Thompson's eyes travel the six-foot-five Mitch and swallows. Everything’s great when you have a helplessly bound girl as your torture toy, until you’re faced with her pissed off zombie.

There's a strange kind of justice in that.

“Parker!” Thompson shrieks.

But Mitch has the cowardly bitch by the throat and chucks him about ten meters. He sails impressively to the other end of the warehouse, tumbling into some old cardboard boxes. Mitch is at Dee’s side instantly and I turn away, dismissing them for the moment. He’ll protect her.

Meanwhile, Parker’s horde is within touching distance of the group.

John and Tiff burst through the warehouse doors.

Parker smirks. “Well, this must be old reunion time.”

He sees our confused expressions. “What? Oh… I know you’ve got some Dimensional in the mix here. You’ve found yourself on another Earth. However, in this one, you’re all dead. The elder Thompson has kept his progeny happy with his torture of the dead ones.”

Parker’s eyes glitter at John and Tiff. “I imagine this might get interesting.”

Tiff takes a look around as I walk to Mitch and my sister. Mitch stands with Dee in his arms and adjusts her blouse to cover her bra.

Bastard. Thompson needs to go die.

Tiff blows a huge bubble, and a zombie reaches out to touch it. She thwacks its hand and it falls off the wrist, smacking the ground with a wet sound.

She looks at Parker. “Shit job on the dead, dickless.”

Parker narrows his eyes at her.

“I never forget a number. You’re a level two. Before you died.” He kicks up his chin. “Don’t fuck with daddy, little girl.”

“Oh, yeah.” Tiff takes John’s hand and sucks her huge bubble back into her mouth. “I’m not any level two here, pal. Or didn’t ya consider that when you let your alligator mouth overload your canary ass?”

Parker runs at her, the zombies turning to hiss at Tiff.

I hear her whisper it, but Parker doesn't.

Mine, she says.

They turn their hissing faces to Parker and Tiff grins, sober as I’ve ever seen her.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Caleb

“What in the blue hell was that back there, Caleb?” Gramps asks as we struggle forward.

My stomach is a slick, roiling wave of lumbering heat. I’ll toss cookies any time, but I can puke and move on.

Pax needs me, and maybe Deegan, too.

I can’t bring death, but fire is a handy substitute.

Gramps drags me, my arm around his shoulder, my folks bringing up the rear as we snag them on the way. I glance back at Dad, and he nods. Mom looks worn around the edges, her reserves depleted.

“Y’know Pax blinked Deegan et al to save Mom.”

“Yup.”

“This world”—I grimace, my lower leg a shrieking nightmare. Gramps is all but holding me up now—“has some of the same stuff ours does…”

“Except those handy robots.”

Handy.

“Uh… anyway, they only allow Organics here, so we were identified from the beginning.”

“That wonderful Organic was used,” Mom says behind me, gasping to get the words out.

I don't reply. I killed Jezebel, not much to say.

“It's not your fault, Caleb,” Dad says.

But it is.

“Dog-eat-dog. Not a lot of choice. Building burning down, pesky AFTD using whatever corpse was lying around to do his dirty work,” Gramps sums up.

A knoll rises like Custer’s last stand. At the top sits a huge cannery warehouse-type building. The words “King County Salmon Hatchery” are painted in a fading apricot scroll.

Gramps leans forward. “What's that?”

Zombies. They fill the top of the hill.

Great.

“Mow through the pack of rot, pal.”

I shake my head at Gramps.

Gramps eyebrows cock. “What do ya mean?”

“I can't bring the death here.”

“Pfft…. burn them, son. Zombie torches.” He shrugs, and Mom moans.

Gramps turns to Mom, patting her shoulder awkwardly. “Peanut, it’ll be okay.” He gives her a tender glance. “You hanging in there, sweetheart?” He chucks her beneath the chin.

It’s odd how she and Gramps look the same age, what with his regeneration motoring along.

Mom nods, but her lip trembles. A little bit of a shock. Bound to happen. The cancer cured on a foreign planet, killer bots, and zombies I can’t control.

A young woman screams, and I know it’s Deegan before it stops.

“Deedie,” Gramps says, whipping his head toward the building.

He looks at me.

“Go!” I shout.

Gramps tears off, and I limp up the hill on my own. The zombies turn to me, and I don’t know them.

I light the fire inside me and push it out, giving birth to flame. Heat rolls off me and swims toward the horde.

They scream as if they’re alive.

It hurts worse than my shattered leg as I pass them. Corpses who should be my allies convulse in pain from my fire and lay writhing on the summer grass. It catches on fire around them because I suck at my new ability. I’m a sniper with AFTD, and as a pyro, I have the finesse of a hurricane. Terrific.

The parents trudge behind me. Mom pukes from the smell. Rotten meat on fire will do that to a person.

Dad’s a sympathy puker, and he goes next.

I grab Dad and jerk him behind me. He hauls Mom, and we tumble inside the building.

I shut the door to keep the smell and corpse wildfire I began from entering as easily.

The sight greeting me is worse.

Zombies are everywhere, my kids are a mess, and for some reason, Parker is here. Well thank God.

Then he sees me standing there, and the pressure of death comes over me.

He’s not my Parker. He’s some alternate dickhead. Fucking swell.

I look for Jade in the chaos.

A brown arm shoots up from inside a zombie mob.

“Hart! A little help!”

Jones.

Jade's wide eyes meet mine through a crack in the dead shambling bodies. Thank God.

Where the hell is Tiff? I frantically scan the interior of the building, skipping over enthusiastic corpses.

Oh.

She shoots after Parker.

“Tiff!” John screams.

The horde moves away from my friends, my wife, and toward the false Parker.

Parker and Tiff face each other and I move to Jade, flicking my gaze to Deegan and Pax.

Deegan is in Mitch’s arms. I stall out at her injuries.

“Jade!” I yell, and she runs into my arms. My gaze commands Mitch, but he doesn’t need anything to know what he has to do.

He brings me my daughter.

My eyes burn as if they’re on fire when I see the state she’s in.

“Daddy,” she cries, and I take her from Mitch. My leg nearly gives out.

Paxton jogs to me as I lay Deegan on the ground. He and I kneel beside her.

Paxton covers her hand, and I snap my teeth together when I see she doesn’t have nails on three of her fingers.

“I don’t have telekinesis here, Dad.”

Great revelation. I nod because I can’t speak.

Mitch's stare locks with mine. “I left him alive for one of you.”

From one murderer to another, I think.

Pax says, “Go ahead, Dad.”

Brad Thompson’s blood has soaked his jeans from belly button to mid-thigh.

His crotch is flat where his cock and balls should be. I'm fiercely glad in a way I haven't been in years.

I miss it.

His eyes roll in their sockets toward my direction. Though the pain must be excruciating, he says, “I almost got to dip the wick, Mr. Hart… unfortunately, you interrupted a fine titty grope…” He smiles through blood that defines his teeth like scarlet thread and spits it out.

I step forward.

“Don’t matter,” he says, the blood loss acute. “I’ll heal even this.”

I shake my head. “No, you won’t.”

“Yup,” Gramps says, coming forward with a cinder block that weighs thirty-plus pounds. “You’re as worthless as tits on a nun.”

He drops the block on Thompson’s head. Brains pop out of his skull like a broken egg. Spinal fluid, chunks of gray matter, and thick, bloody bits seep out from under the concrete block.

Gramps harrumphs. “Heal that, punk.”

Mitch watches it all, unblinking, while Pax heals his sister and Jade stands vigil.

The horde moves toward Parker, then they turn to Tiff.

I can see the confusion from here.

Stalemate.

It really gets weird when I show up.

As a corpse.

*

Pax

After Gramps does the cement splat to that loser, Thompson, I notice my blanket call to the dead fam works.

They move through the huge doors, a raging fire behind them. Moans from the dead penetrate the noise inside the warehouse.

Fire simmers at the building’s edges, and I wipe sweat off my brow.

Smoke and flame shoot up high enough I can see it through the windows, which stand four meters high.

Parker scowls. His zombies move to flank Tiff. They each grab an arm.

“Pull her arms off,” he says casually, stepping beside her and not looking back.

“Aunt Tiff!” I shout.

Her wild eyes meet mine. Then she’s screaming as the zombies pull her in opposite directions.

I scoop deep and give a verbal command that is sure to satisfy: Brains this way.

They drop Tiff as if she has the plague and move toward Thompson.

Disaster averted.

Tiff jogs over, and they ignore her.

“Nice job, Pax.” She claps me on the back then grimaces.

Imagine it kinda hurt to use her arms right about then.

Uncle John strides over, burnt orange hair in all directions. “Tiff, dammit.”

She puts her fingertip on his lips. It’s all she can reach anyway. “Cool it, stud. I still have arms.”

He grabs her, hugging her so tight she squeaks. “Don’t do that again, Tiff. I can’t lose you.”

She looks up at him. I’m seeing intimacy in the middle of this crazy world with a lunatic Parker and my family as zombies.

It's the only normal thing around.

“Me either,” she says with a goofy smile. “Let's beat feet.”

I scan the windows. I can’t see outside because the fire surrounds the building.

We’ll never get out alive.

Then I see corpse Paxton and get an idea.

It's a good one.

It'll save us from Parker and the fire.

Story of life. You can't have anything good unless it comes with sacrifice.

I call my dead family to me to die.

True death.

They come.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Deegan

I don’t realize how much I’m hurting until I notice what’s going on around me.

Paxton heals me, and I watch the stubs of my nails regrow. They spread, climbing over the raw puffy nail bed.

I moan, turning my head as the thin, brand new layer of nail covers raw, torn flesh.

“Just a minute, Dee… just a little more.”

“Oh God—Pax, what is this?”

I cringe into Mitchell, and he tightens his arms. When I see my own face and what I look like dead, it is the most surreal experience of my life.

Corpse Deegan and I look at each other.

Pax is less blown away, apparently.

“Kill Parker,” Pax instructs casually, without looking at them.

“No—Pax,” I struggle to sit up, and my breasts threaten to plop out of my shirt. My face heats, and I try to stuff them back inside the unhooked bra.

I yelp when I use my right hand. The nails are new, the flesh abused and sore beneath.

“What?” Mitch asks.

Then he sees me fiddling with my top and looks away. “Oh.”

“There is only ‘yes’ here, Dee. This nut job was going to do—I don’t know what to you…”

I do know but don’t say.

“And Parker is sideways here. We gotta do him in. Lot of pervs with rats in the attic, Dee.”

We’re casually talking about the premeditated murder of a bunch of lunatics.

I look at the ruin of Brad’s head and three zombies feeding on him.

I cough, bile rising in my throat.

“Whoa… no Dee! It’s—they’re just”—he seems at a loss for words—“ah, taking care of the Thompson leftovers.” He shrugs, giving me a calming smile.

I barf on him Exorcist style.

I’ve never seen my brother move that fast.

Mitch swings my hair out of the way.

“Sorry,” Pax whispers with a little wave as he backs away. He flicks his gaze to Mitch and jogs into the horde.

There’s something funny about my vomit grossing Pax out after he sends zombies to eat Brad Thompson’s brains.

I wipe a shaky hand over my mouth and survey everyone, counting heads. Mia stands with Bry, a janitor’s broom in one hand as he knocks zombies with whatever end is handy.

Gramps is holding his own, with corpse Gramps at his side. They work well together.

Gram! I breathe out of my mouth, inflating my nostrils and instantly stuffing my nose, as tears swarm my eyes.

She’s the best sight, her and Grandpa Kyle. He has her up against a wall, protecting her with his body. Tiff stands in front of them with the entire group of Dad’s friends.

They’re all dead, but they’re on our side. In this world, Tiff commands them.

I need to get to Pax so when he blinks, I’m out of here. I’m terrified of staying. Even with Brad dead, I have to get away.

I turn in Mitchell’s arms, and he locks me inside the circle of his protection.

He wipes a tear from my face, and I hug his thick neck.

“I can’t feel like this, Deegan,” he says. “I know you’re going. It’s inside your mind.”

The door buckles then explodes behind us.

Mitchell ducks, taking me with him while debris scatters around us.

A piece of flying rebar carves a chunk out of his shoulder, and a sob tears out of me.

We crouch together, tears running down my face, our hands on each other’s shoulders. I whisk a finger over the deep wound, and it knits.

His eyes soften.

“Feel like what?” I ask.

The fire charges inside and sauna-like heat envelopes us.

Gramps is shouting. My parents and Parker are arguing, but all I see are Mitch’s eyes, drowning blue and deep, only for me.

He cups my face with a hand, palming it entirely.

“This,” he answers softly and scoops me against him. My bra falls out of my shirt but catches on my shoulder.

He moves his hand over my button-up blouse to cover my chest. His concern for my dignity makes everything so much more. Mitchell’s lips advance against my mouth, kissing me softly. Reverently.

I’m instantly lost and I groan, my fingers plunging into his short, inky hair.

He gathers me closer, stealing my breath, my thoughts… my heart.

We pull away, and mine hands slide from his neck to grip his shoulders. “Mitchell…”

His gaze is the tell as he shifts it above my head and a hand jerks me away from him.

I turn and it’s Dad.

“No!” I scream in a panic so absolute it blanks my thoughts. I reach for Mitchell and him for me.

Centimeters separate our fingertips from touching.

I feel the flicker before Pax finishes blinking.

Then our separation becomes worlds.

*

Caleb

I see myself, as a dead guy, come through the door and carefully hold it open for the rest of my dead family from this world.

It’s so unreal it seems like the whole event is happening to someone else.

I take in the scene. Three-Musketeer zombies are eating the brains of the guy who kidnapped Deegan.

Can't think of a better finale for that squirrel.

Parker and his horde are retreating. I stride to him, and he gives me the once-over.

I turn to my right, and there I am as a corpse.

Corpse Caleb grunts at me, and I instantly critique Pax’s abilities. No higher reasoning, pal? Really.

As if reading my mind, Pax walks up. “Don’t judge, Dad. It’s a rush job.”

“Right, thanks. Let’s get out of here, huh?”

Paxton and I search the building's interior, the fire pressing in at all sides. “No exit.”

I wipe sweat off my forehead. “No.”

“Grab everyone, Dad.”

My gaze lights on Parker. “Stay where you are, Parker,” I warn.

I see Jonesy, Soph, Tiff, Bry, Mia, and John.

No Clyde and Roberta. I begin to panic.

The parents are with Pax now. I swivel my head, and my gaze stutters over the feasting zombies. Then stops dead at Deegan.

She’s making out with Mitch.

Bad. Very bad.

I race toward them as Clyde bursts through the door. “Master!” he bellows and I turn, a meter away from laying hands on my daughter.

Jade and Roberta run to me, Clyde on their heels.

My world is right again. Clyde has appeared like a corpse-in-the-box, and Pax is gathering everyone.

There are no bots for the moment, and half the horde is contained.

Pax sprints to my position, and I jerk Deegan out of Mitch’s arms, giving him the look he deserves.

Calm eyes, more alive than dead, stare defiantly back.

“No!” she wails, her voice stricken.

I roll my eyes.

Kids.

Mitch gives me a look of such utter contempt and anger I take a huge step backward with Deegan as she swings her arm out to reconnect with Romeo corpse.

Not happening.

“Pax!” I bellow behind me, and he flinches.

He’s right next to me. He slaps my back, grabbing a handful of shirt, and I sink my other hand into Jade’s jean jacket. She hugs Deegan to her, and my other hand is on her shoulder.

The fire is so close I can touch the flames, though the cement isn’t conducive to burning. It’s the only thing giving us time.

Pax’s eyes meet mine.

His gaze sweeps the corpses he’s raised.

We flicker in this realm, like a hiccup of time. Fear thrills through me. My trust in my twenty-year-old son weighs in at around a ton.

Rest, I hear like a bell being struck. I recognize Pax’s confident command to the dead. I should—I taught him how.

I close my eyes. When I open them, the world runs in streams like water sheeting over glass. I see through it to something else.

Something familiar.

“Daddy! I can’t put Mitchell back!” Deegan screams.

I ignore it all, my fingers tightening on my family. I have the women, Pax hangs onto me, and like a train of hands, steel-like grips claim a row of over a dozen people.

All of them are mine.

They belong to me. And for once, they’re not the dead but the living.

My final image is of Parker running for the caboose at the end of the line.

Bry snatches Mia up against him at the last second.

I don’t see Parker get a hold, and a sigh of relief slides out of me.

Adrenaline sinks its teeth as we shift from this world into our own. Deegan’s tears are wet fire on my knuckles.

Pax blinks, and we are no longer in the world of murdering ALBs.

We spit out of a portal of fire and ice, and I look around.

We’re lying on Jonesy’s front yard like human lawn ornaments.

It’s that young AFTD I left under the charge of the Skopamish. The barrel of his weapon is steady on my face.

“Gotcha,” he says.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Deegan

I'm so numb I float.

I left my zombie to die in a crappy world of bots, enemy zombies and fire.

I want to die. Of guilt or heartsickness, it all feels the same.

I’m so empty without Mitchell, which isn’t possible, yet is. It’s the dumbest thing. Over a corpse. As Gramps always says, “It is what it is.”

I ignore the jerks with guns. It’s easy when my missing guy devastates me so much.

I shouldn’t own him. He’s dead, obviously.

It’s just—I’ve never been kissed before. I’m a Random. Guys steer clear. Even though there aren’t many girls my age because of the sterilization, I still have limited charms as an AFTD.

“Get up,” a guy close to my age says, his gun barrel never wavering.

I set my jaw. “No.” I dig my fingers into the cool sod beneath my hands.

He smiles.

I lift like a plank of wood. His telekinesis has mine by a point. I could never be that precise with my talent.

Blades of grass fall from my listless fingertips.

Suddenly, his eyes are eighty centimeters higher and a half-meter away.

My heart races.

“You’re cute,” he says.

My body goes numb. I lock up what happened in bot world with Brad Thompson.

I swim back to myself, wanting to gag. Too bad I can’t manufacture another barf-o-matic. He’d be a good recipient.

I fold my arms, trying for calm as I look around at the others. The Outback has an anti-motion shield on it. Confiscated.

Sirens wail.

Regular police now?

Not so regular.

SPs show up, hover cars floating to the ground. Invisible pulse tracks engage to lock them into position.

Wish we had free parking over everyone else’s property, too. Must be nice.

A blip of feeling creeps through the numbness when the SPs go to my parents.

My eyes meet Pax’s, his arms straight up in the air in classic hostage posture.

An SP slams the butt of his gun into my brother's gut. He hits the ground.

Pax! I scream.

I use my ability to snap the same butt he used on my brother and upend it into the SP’s jaw, a lucky strike. He flies backward. As usual, I’m overenthusiastic and nail him harder than I mean to.

Dee—stay where ya are! They’ve got two five-point Nulls. We’re cooked, sis.

Our gazes lock, then mine shift to the SP’s pulling my parents apart.

I think of Mitchell and of my brother on the ground.

My parents are being taken somewhere. Whatever's inside of me overflows like water. I can't stop.

Don't want to.

A cool wind starts. Behind me, in front, sideways. All around.

From me.

My long hair lifts, no longer sweaty along my head.

One of the Randoms bellows, “She’s charging up! Do something!”

The SP, backing away, doesn’t think I’m cute anymore.

Good.

I smile.

Gramps grips Mom from behind while Dad moves between her and the SPs whose hands are on her.

Mom’s eyes are wide with their intent. They flick to mine. I recognize broken images, untranslatable to someone else, from when I was little. It’s just Mom’s way; fractured telepathy. But I understand mind transference like a family language.

As do Gramps’ and Dad. Permission stands in their gazes as they regard me. I’m scared.

It’s like peeing my pants in public.

Never, never, never, Deedie. I hear the ghosts of their voices from when I was small. That’s the problem with potty training. Sometimes you just have to go.

Gramps nods, watching my expression. “It’s okay, Deedie. Sometimes ya gotta do what needs doing.”

Tears I didn’t realize I’d shed until they’re cool pools of captured water in my collarbone soak my sweaty shirt.

The SPs advance on me.

“Shoot her Random ass,” one of them says.

Who appears to be the head SP shakes his head, sighted on me. “No, she's the main target.”

“Not if we're all dead, she's not.”

They look at each other.

“Cripple her, moron.”

I speak for the first time, in a distracted way. “I don’t think you’ll die.”

The ends of my hair float horizontally away from my body. A static-like charge in a three-meter radius encompasses me like a perfect donut.

And I’m in the hole.

“Don’t get trigger happy, asshole,” the one Random says to the AFTD.

Too late.

The bullet hits that invisible layer of charging energy around me.

It leaves the space of this world and moves to wherever stuff goes that I make disappear.

There’s a vacuum-like silence.

Then gunfire explodes.

I close my eyes, the mass of the bullets swarming like bees that don’t buzz.

I capture them in the moat of my energy and fling them to parts unknown.

Screaming erupts all around me.

“Don't come close,” I whisper.

Then they do.

I take the guns when I feel their weight at the atomic level. Those atoms spin and float constantly, but I make substance shift and leave us, like the bullets seconds before.

“Fuck!” someone screams, and I open my eyes. One of the Random government creeps is grabbing his own wrist.

His hand is missing.

I ignore that, my eyes restlessly moving. I scan my environment, totally in the black hole zone. It’s almost scarier than using the power.

It feels good to be in the zone.

As Jonesy would say, “I’m feeling it.”

SPs, with their horrible little uniforms and hate logo insignias, race around, weapons drawn, trying to normalize my very un-normal manifestation of a yet-unknown power.

An ear-piercing whistle breaks through the chaos. The ripple of it passes through my bubble and abruptly cuts off.

I move my gaze to the person who made it.

Mitchell looks back at me. He gives me a lopsided grin, walking toward me, hands outstretched.

Weapons rise to shoot him.

I feel their unique composition, their weight.

The tentacles of my black hole-ness snap out and take them all.

Some fingers go, too.

Oops.

Like a rusty tool, a butter knife, I’m not precise enough.

I get the job done anyway.

More screams separate the air particles, which softly tap the edges of my floating circle and grow quiet as they enter.

Mitchell ignores it all. He reaches the edge of my power. After a moment’s pause, he closes his eyes and passes through.

He doesn’t disappear but moves through it with a sucking pop, the powerful ring edging back around him.

Mitchell puts his arms around me, and I slide my arms around his waist.

My power dissolves, and I cave against him.

He holds me tight.

“I got you. It’s okay, Deegan.”

It is now.

I stand on tiptoe, throwing my arms around his neck. I smell death and life on him like cologne and breathe deeply of it.

*

Pax

That's creepy as fuck.

I shiver as Dee’s talent powers down. It lingers like ozone. I’m not the only one; there are wide eyes on the government Random dudes. Some of our group and the parents look like they were goosed with a cattle prod.

I recognize the larger issue of Deegan’s zombie from the bot world somehow getting back to ours. Bet he caught a nifty little tailwind on my blink. They’re locked in each other’s arms like glue.

Great.

I survey the damage.

There’s a lot. Like, five guys don’t have hands. My gaze tracks one as he comes screaming by with the right hand’s fingertips gone, the pinky finger absent on the left.

Yeah, don't think the parents can contain Dee's black hole ability anymore.

Or the fact we harbor illegal corpses from other worlds I blink to.

I sigh. At least George and the corpse family stayed put and I got the gang back to rest on Sanction the Paranormals Central.

I approach Dee and Mitch, holding my disgust back by a thread.

He’s going to be one of those dudes the parents say no to (ʼcuz he’s dead, for fuck’s sake), and that’ll make Dee want him more, of course.

Chicks.

The Random boys back up as I approach.

Good thinkinʼ, guys.

Since sis brought it and the Nulls couldn’t do dick. A thought for another day.

“Dee,” I say.

She stares at me. So does Mitch, and I’m not a fan of the way he does.

Like he owns her.

Uh-uh.

“We got trouble, sis. They’re gonna, like, drop a bomb on Jonesy’s house or something.”

“Come on, man. Don’t say that shit.” Jonesy swings up his arms then slaps them on jean-clad thighs. “It’s like a self-fulfilling prophesy!”

Jones turns to Gramps, fast approaching from the left. “Can’t you pull a ʽgrandfatheredʼ something, Mac?”

He shrugs. “Don’t know. I’ve got Peanut back, thanks to the whole blinking madness, and that’s the main thing.” He pulls in Gram at his side and I have to admit, it’s been a stupid mess, but having Gram back makes it worth it. She seems a little tired, though.

I take in the general chaos. Probably isn’t helpful for getting over the cancer.

This current mess outed my sister in the biggest way. Even though she showed a little bit of it before we blinked to bot land, it might have caused more confusion than confirmation. Now, with everyone’s hands missing and shit, the confirmation is there.

And with it, experimentation. The parents made us aware of the Graysheets back in the day. The Helix Complex might still have supporters or morphed into some other weird religion of control.

After all, the Randoms can't fall back on “recruitment” at this point. Yeah, that ain't gonna fly.

The SPs who were gung ho to figure out my parents have moved back.

Way back.

I smirk.

Back to Dee. Her lip trembles. “I'm keeping him,” she says.

I scrub my face. Fucking perfect. “I'm turfing this to you, Dad.”

Gramps barks out a laugh, shaking his head.

Failing to see the humor on this one.

“Deegan,” Dad begins, “Mitch is not a pet.”

“I'm aware, I can speak for myself.” Mitch glowers at Dad.

I feel the death flex on Dad before he enunciates the last syllable.

It sloughs off Mitch like water off a duck's back.

Interesting. And not in a good way.

Bugs, worms and dead birds revive themselves inside the lawn, rising to the surface with Dad just thinking about calling the dead.

The green grass crawls as if alive.

“God! Grodie!” Sophie screams, leaping onto Jonesy. He grunts as he accepts her weight.

“Damn, baby. You pack on some weight?”

Seawater eyes like laser beams cut a swath through Jonesy.

Jonesy backpedals smoothly. “All in the right places, baby—all in the right places.”

The SPs and Randoms cram up into the staircase, avoiding the undulating grass.

The AFTD Random doesn't. He strolls over, keeping a wide berth of Dee.

Smart.

The bugs part like the Red Sea.

He's the only fast learner in the bunch. He points at Dee. “I don't know what you are—but whatever it is, can't be allowed to live.”

Gramps moves in front of Dee and the AFTD just smirks. “Don't think it, old man.”

That’s where he’s got some shit wrong. Gramps isn’t a thinker; he’s a doer.

Gramps clocks him in the jaw. The AFTD checks the swing, twisting Gramps’ arm, then wrenches it out of the socket.

Holy fuck, he’s a Body, too.

Gramps drops soundlessly to his knees.

Rage envelops me head to toe. Chokes me.

Dad and I move together.

He wags the finger on the hand that drops from Grampsʼ fist. Gramps pants at my feet, managing the pain.

The AFTD smiles. “We're expertly trained in combat.”

“Combat this, ruffian,” Clyde says with quiet dignity.

He swings a pink flamingo into the back of the AFTD's head and he falls like a felled tree. Bright pink paint flakes off on his dark hair, mixing with the blood from his split scalp.

The hit breaks the bird's neck, and Clyde tosses it on the ground.

“Damn, man! You're wrecking the hood,” Jonesy grumbles behind them.

We ignore him.

Gramps smirks, though it appears as a grimace. He gazes up at Clyde. “Thanks.”

Clyde inclines his head. “Do not mention it.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Deegan

I grab both of Mitchell's hands but he shakes his head, putting me behind him.

It's an overly protective gesture. He-man type.

There’s been a gap in men feeling inclined to protect women. Then women stopped being born.

Children stopped being.

Without women, there won’t be babies. In my era, with the exception of horrible Brad Thomson, we’re prized.

That’s why it’s so cool Mitchell behaves as he does.

He’s not from my era but before. A time when women weren’t rare. They were just here, like statues to be admired.

Women are real, living beings, not walking stone.

Mitchell doesn’t take my presence for granted, and it squeezes my heart.

He glances down at me then faces the men in my family. “I think we need to save how you guys feel about me for a time when there aren’t twenty cops here.” He raises his eyebrows.

It’s pretty amazing Mitchell doesn’t freak around brand-new technology. He just thinks.

Dad, Pax and poor Gramps give him the combined weight of their stare then look at the fallen AFTD.

They let his comment stand.

“He will rouse eventually,” Uncle Clyde says with a casual shoulder lift. Bobbi stands beside him, her arm looped through his.

“Nice swing, lover.”

Clyde's ears turn a touch pink at the top. “Thank you, dear.”

“Bet you could've knocked his block off,” Gramps says to Clyde, struggling to stand.

“Why yes, I was showing restraint.” A glint of humor perks his hazel eyes and I smile.

Pax grabs Grampsʼ good arm and hauls him up.

Gram says in a low voice, “Pops, you're too old to be putting the moves on those thugs.”

I look over at the jerks. Their blank faces tell me reinforcements are a sure thing. I get a panicky flutter in my belly.

Gramps gives Gram a critical glance. “You let me worry about who I’ll put moves on, Peanut.”

Gram purses her lips into a flat line, giving his hanging arm a significant look of look where that got you. Gramps looks too, grunting in irritation.

He glances sideways at my brother. “Listen, Pax. Things are going to get exciting here in a sec. Can you fix me up?”

“Allow me,” Clyde says, stepping forward.

Their eyes meet, and I hold my breath.

“Ah, gall dammit. This is gonna hurt, isn’t it?”

Clyde nods solemnly. “It shall.”

Gramps sighs. “All right, make it quick.”

Pax comes around to the same side. “Just look at me, Gramps.”

Gramps waves his good hand. “I’m not some candy ass.” He glances at Clyde then away. “Let ʼer rip, Clyde.”

With a twist and jam, Clyde moves the shoulder into place.

Gramps whistles in a sharp breath. “Goddamn that stings like a bitch!” he shouts.

His gaze moves to mine, and he blinks. “Sorry, ladies.”

I smile behind my hand. “It's okay, Gramps.”

Pax moves in. “I keep fixing all these war wounds, Gramps.” He places his hands on the re-socketed arm.

“Yeah.” Gramps digs around for cigarettes, a light sheen of sweat on his forehead. “Keeps ya out of trouble.”

“I wouldn’t say it’s working too well, Pops,” Gram murmurs.

“Feeling better, Peanut?” he asks around the butt of his cig.

She smiles. It’s radiant, her skin no longer taut and gray.

“I am.” Her blue eyes water. Many things she’s feeling swim in her gaze. Ali Hart says what she can. “I love you, Pop.”

Gramps turns away.

His voice carries just fine, though.

“Me too, Peanut.”

*

Caleb

“Give me that—shit!” Tiff glares at Jones, missing the neck of the whiskey bottle by a centimeter. “I need something to take the edge off.”

Jonesy shakes his head with a snort. “You, my fine chick, are not having a drop of my booze. That’s final.”

Tiff smokes the Jonester with her stare.

The venom dodges Jonesy’s radar. Hell, most things do. A lot of the gang has outgrown childish things. However, out of all of us, Jonesy retains the essence of childhood, the thing that motors us as individuals.

He’s never lost it. The Jonester is fearless as himself.

“I did a great job in that effed up world full of robot clowns.” Tiff folds her arms in a huff.

“Pfft!” Jonesy jerks his jaw back. “Well good for you, darlinʼ.” He narrows his eyes. “What do ya want, a medal, or a chest to pin it on?”

“Touché, Jones,” Gramps trumpets in the background.

Tiff snaps her gaze to Gramps.

“Don't get saucy, Aunt Tiff,” Paxton says. “We all know you brought the shit to bot land.”

Mom sniffs in the background, and I smile at my kid’s profanity. Mom is feeling better.

“Bot land?” Sophie says.

Paxton shrugs. “You have a better name?”

Sophie shudders. “It’ll do—gawd, that place gave me a case of the creeps that’ll bring in the New Year.”

“It wasn’t too bad,” Mom says quietly, gaze cast at the floor. Dad looks at us all, his arm around her shoulders.

Quiet reigns. If it hadn’t been for the bot world, Pax blinking, and all the weird help coming and going, Mom would be dead.

We’d be at her funeral instead of Grampsʼ house, arguing about booze.

“I’m sorry, Ali,” Sophie starts in a contrite voice. “I didn’t mean…”

Mom raises a palm. “I know. I just can’t help but notice I have a new lease on life. It’s in the forefront of all my thought processes.” Her clear blue gaze looks out over everyone.

I sigh. Truth time. “We don’t have much time to formulate some kind of plan.” I scan the faces in the room: my kids and Deegan’s zombie, Mitch. Jade.

Most of the old gang, minus the Sims.

Clyde and Roberta.

Everyone's here.

Jade takes my hand. Though her eyes tighten with all that I’m feeling, she keeps ahold of her own emotions.

I announce, “They know about Deegan now.”

My daughter’s face seeks mine, and I don’t look away.

“I’m sorry, Daddy.” Fat tears roll down her cheeks. “I know I’m not supposed to.”

Her shame is terrible to bear. We’ve done this to our daughter, made her hate a small part of herself she didn’t ask to be.

I move to my girl, this beautiful child I made with Jade, too smart for words. The apple of my damned eye. A sweet girl who didn’t ask for the curse of AFTD, or the larger one of controlling the very space we call our own. I hug her to me, pressing her head underneath my chin.

“We’ll get through this, Deegan.” I stroke her hair.

Deegan’s hands fist my shirt, and her size strikes me. She fits against me just like her mom, and I despair I’m not enough to protect my family.

Just enough.

Manhood means stepping up to the plate when your side might lose no matter how good you play.

The team moves into a huddle as tight as any I’ve ever been in.

I’m at the core, and they hold me up.

We’re in the ninth inning, and I’m at bat.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Mac

I hold my palms up, my shoulder giving a little twinge. Dammit. I'll have to get the bum thing looked at. Not that there's a shitload of time, given the current SNAFU.

“Listen, gang.” I tap an inch-long ash inside my fireplace, crossing my legs as I sit on the eight-foot brick hearth. “We’re just a bunch of chess pieces again. We had our little respite. We all understood it was a matter of time before a new group wanted to control folks again.” I shrug. “It’s the way that particular ball bounces.”

I take a long drag and peer through the veil of my smoke. I catch my daughter’s disapproving eye and grin.

God, it’s good to have her back, the sassafras.

“We managed to high tail it out of Jonesy’s place while the Randoms and Handlesses were adjusting their nuts—or not, as the case may be.” I shrug, giving a small laugh at the image. Nimrods.

Deedie starts crying.

Damn.

“No, hun, don’t go carrying on. Those fools couldn’t find their asses with both hands.” I chuckle. It’s too rich for words. I can’t stop the jokes about the hands. Somehow, Deedie’s sloppiness is a hoot.

Bring on the comedy, I say. Sometimes it’s all we have in this life.

Caleb rolls his eyes, gripping Deedie closer. The big lug next to her looks like he means me harm. Hmm.

I tap another ash, the flue carrying most the smoke outside to pollute happily. Thank God for my card.

“Anyway, they’ll be here soon.”

I spread my hands, looking at Caleb and Jade. “You kids”—I point my non-smoking hand at them—“need to come up with something. Fast.”

“That’s it, Gramps.” Caleb shrugs. “I’m out of ideas. We’ve averted the main disaster. We got the kids out of the cyborg world…”

“Artificial Life Bot,” Deedie says with a sniffle and hand swipe. Her murderous zombie looks on.

I study him. He bears watching. Don’t want to be on the business end of his wrath.

Caleb nods. His nervousness blows up in a hair rake. My eyes linger on his shorn scalp. He plants his hands on his hips again. “Listen—Mom’s alive.”

“Thank Christ,” I mutter.

Caleb’s gaze flicks to mine then away. “And the whole thing is worth that.”

Many yeses sound around the room. Nobody disputes my Ali living another day.

“But Deegan did what she had to do when her family was threatened. And we’ve broken so many laws…”

Voices erupt in defense, and Caleb puts up a hand for silence. “It was through no fault of our own. This entire thing comes back to the new Graysheets.”

Caleb says what we’re all thinking. What we’ve been circling around.

Silence fills the space in my living room.

“It’s not been an easy path. My kids suffered because the HC made sure there were no paranormals of consequence.” He lifts his gaze to the group. “Children were erased and are just now being born again. A whole generation wiped. The Randoms who remain want to recruit those few kids who show enough paranormal talent to catch notice.”

“Same song, second verse,” Kyle says, and Ali nods.

“Yeah, guys,” Caleb says in a tired voice.

“I don’t want to go with anyone.” Deedie’s lip trembles.

Clyde walks into the center of the room, bringing his quiet strength. “No one will take Deegan while I breathe.”

Bobbi giggles. “Technically…”

Clyde turns to her, grabbing her around the neck with an arm and reeling her in. “Quiet, Minx.”

“But you’re…”

He places a fingertip to her lips, kissing her temple.

“Dead,” he finishes, smiling. “I am quite aware.”

I smile. Clyde is a relative I’m happy to claim. Though we haven’t examined our ties too closely, I’m glad they exist.

“So what?” Jonesy spins in the center of the room. “Is this like Custer’s Last Stand?”

I bark out a laugh, my can of crushed cigarettes an anchor in the middle of the fireplace. I pluck another cigarette out of my shirt pocket and light it with a flick of my butane lighter.

The click is loud in the space of his words.

“I'm not sure what else to do,” Caleb says.

“They'll bring every force on earth, every Null, everything,” Kyle comments quietly.

“They don't have enough Nulls to deal with us all,” Pax says with the pure arrogance of youth. Must be nice.

I snort.

He looks at me with a glare. Time for a little discipline.

“Thanks, Pax. For blinking us to and fro,” I wave my palm around and smoke follows my hand in an air trail. “That was terrific. And for saving your Gram.”

My gaze narrows at him.

“However, you ill-mannered fart, I do expect I know a tad more than you, so listen up.”

He folds his arms, pissed but silent.

“If you AFTDs,” I look around to encompass Tiff Weller, sober for the moment, though Jones was a typical rock with lips and had booze in the escape car. I shake my head in wonder. He’s as consistent as the sun rising.

My gaze finds my grandkid and great-grandkid. “Let’s preempt their obvious plans of—whatever. Kidnap…”

“Recruitment,” Pax says in a sour voice, clearly still stinging from my reprimand. Caleb’s soft. Pax would have gotten my hand on his ass plenty more.

“Anyway,” I say, giving him another hard glance, “you guys get out there and raise the Skopamish, birds out of the trees—hell, raise those horrible neighbors that wouldn’t stop complaining about my security measures.”

I think about their dumb bickering asses.

“On second thought, never mind. I hated those chumps when they were alive, and I don’t think I can stand looking at them even after they’re dead.” I get a visual of Phyllis and Ken and chuckle.

Nobody else does.

Humorless bunch today.

“Gramps is right,” Caleb says.

I roll my eyes. Of course I am. Let’s get the soldiers of the dead in place, and then the Nulls have to concede defeat.

The hot ember of my cig flares red when I take a final drag. I turn it in my hand like a joint and put it out in the sand can in the fireplace. “We raise everything we can now. Give them the command to protect, before the Randoms and SPs show, then we can figure out a game plan.”

“We're just running,” Bry says, throwing up his hands and letting them slap on his thighs.

His wife, Mia, nods. “It’s like it was back when we were kids. Like a fire, we’d put one out and then another one would flare.”

“Speaking of that… Dad.” Pax spreads his arms. “How about burning the med clinic down and torching a bunch of zombies?”

“Yeah, that was painful,” Mitch admits.

Two color dots appear on Caleb’s cheeks. I’m amused. Usually Caleb is Mister Death. In this case, he’d been Mister Misaligned Fire. I cough into my hand, and Caleb narrows his eyes at me. He’s definitely on to my amusement.

He clears his throat. “I—well, I haven’t had a second to say anything, but I had pyro on cyborg world and no AFTD.”

Jade smiles. “I’m a five-point Empath there.”

I cock my eyebrow. “Really?” I fiddle with the lid of my lighter, clicking it back and forth. Nervous energy. I can tell myself a lot of bullshit reasoning, but the truth is I’m spoiling for a fight. I’m just wired that way.

She nods.

“Did ya like it?” I ask.

Caleb says yes and Jade says no.

“Maybe a little work on fire finessing, son,” Kyle comments thoughtfully. “Our gooses were just about cooked.”

“He was trying, honey,” Ali says.

I chuckle then sigh. “We’re getting off topic from securing the fortress.”

“Don’t you have measures in play already, Mac?” Archer asks.

Our eyes meet. Dapper dresser, gayer than a fruitcake burglar gives me the stare I hope never to see on someone—uncertainty. Archer’s a good sort.

“Actually, I have more offensive security. I like to know when someone is gaining entry. Rather than bombing everything.”

“That’s such a lie, Mac,” Tiff says.

Maybe I like her better drunk.

I look down at my newest burning cig.

Ah—damn. “I only have a few land mines left,” I admit reluctantly.

“Holy shit? Really?” Jonesy shrieks.

“Yeah,” I say, palming my flat top.

“That's a little more than offensive, Mac,” Archer comments in a dry voice. I shoot him a disgusted look. ʼCuz he's right.

He grins back.

Punk.

His smile widens.

I touch on an idea so inappropriate and brilliant I mention it out of hand, stabbing my cig out and standing as I do. “What if Deedie raises all the nut bunnies from the psych ward?”

“Nut bunnies, Pop?” Ali caws.

My old ass tenses with the exciting potential of it all. I love living. Not just existing but taking the bull by the horns.

Caleb says, “Hasn’t she been through enough, Gramps?”

I shake my head, waving the sentiment away as I spare a loving glance for my great-granddaughter. Or a glance that passes for one.

Deedie’s made of sterner stuff.

She lays a watery smile full of trust on me.

I’ve earned it. I’d go to the ground for my blood.

Caleb vigorously denies with a swivel of the head, and I see the ghost of the teen he was. “Nah. This is the deal: they’ll take our girl because she can manipulate space, maybe time. Hell, who knows what a talent like that can do?”

“It's not talent,” Deedie whispers.

“Oh baby, don’t feel bad.” Sophie wraps her arms around her. She tosses me a glare, and I give her steady eyes back.

“Yeah,” Jonesy pipes in, “it’s hot to be the only one to do something.”

Mitch hisses at Jones, and I laugh.

“Damn, what’s with this guy?”

Pax smirks. “He’ll be going back to bot land soon, won’t ya?”

Mitch gently disengages Deedie from Sophie, sweeping her hair behind her ear. “Will I?” He cups her chin, tilting her face to his.

No way will this guy bow out on Deedie. His presence is trouble, and I’m not borrowing the worry for right now. He’s a meat shield for Deedie. That works.

I tell him so.

“No, Gramps,” Deedie says, aghast at my straight speak. She sets her jaw stubbornly, reminding me so much of Ali when she was young it’s painful.

I sigh, scrubbing my scalp. “He’s a zombie, Deedie. He’s yours. He protects you—period.”

“Ask him, Dee. Ask Mitch. He knows what he is to you. They all know.” Pax turns to Clyde. “Clyde excepted.”

Clyde adds, “I still fill that role. I would wrench the limbs asunder of any who touched my master or his kin. I cannot take what I am out of what I’ve become.”

I stretch hard, reaching for the ceiling.

Deedie turns to the zombie she raised, grasping his meat hook arms, one hand covering his tats. Her eyes frantically search his face. “Is it true? Are you just protecting me because I called you?”

Mitch stares, those dark blue peepers full of knowledge. He looks as alive as anyone in the room does. His eyes find mine then Pax’s.

Deedie is too naïve to determine when someone is lying.

Mitch gathers himself as he lies to protect her. “Yes,” he says, and her hands drop. She backs away.

Clyde nods at me. A necessary evil.

Lover boy Mitch needs to go away, make a clean break once this little debacle plays out.

Deedie turns away from him, covering her face with her hands, and she sobs as if her heart is breaking. Jade folds her arms around her.

Our gazes collide over Deedie's head. He was a helluva young man when he was alive, I’d bet. He’s not too bad dead, either.

He lies to save her from knowing.

That zombies love.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Pax

I’ve practiced before, but never with this many. Or this powerful.

Tiff is at my left and Dad my right.

My hands are on Dee’s shoulders as she stands in front of me, and I gaze toward Gramps’ gate. Tiff and Dad each have a hold of my belt loops.

“I don’t like this, Caleb. Nobody can control Deegan’s zombies but her,” Mom says.

Solid.

“Jade,” Gramps says, “we agreed to let Deedie release the psychos from the institution. That’ll keep all the Randoms busy playing grab-ass.”

I smirk, thinking about everyone without hands, their appendages floating God knows where Dee shot them to.

It sounds so reasonable, using the dead from the insane asylum. Until you factor in the part about the wackos being criminally insane.

Mom rolls her lip into her teeth, obviously having a fret attack. “She’s just seventeen.”

“Tomorrow,” I correct.

Birthdays are the shit in our house, national holiday time. I could no sooner forget Dee is turning seventeen tomorrow than the fact I’m a guy.

Mitch turns to Dee, and she blushes. What’s that about?

It's the first look she's given him since his revelation about obligation versus emotion.

Dude came through on making Dee believe he’s just following orders.

I know guys and he’s gone on her, but Dee doesn’t see. Thank everything that’s holy. I guess I have to give Mitch the nod there. He must really care about Dee to lie. And leave her. Unheard of for a zombie. They’re an effing devoted group.

Mitch is a murderer, too. Even if the killings were justifiable, having someone as violent and musclebound hanging with my sister makes me nervous as hell.

I look back to the gate, my every nerve ending open and raw. The air’s heavy around me. The hands linking to me are full of death.

It’s time.

The energy swirls through the four of us, and I use it to call whatever is dead. My sister’s unique signature moves in the direction we gave her.

The psych institution’s been closed down forever. Cruelty to patients or some shit. Worked out for the corrupt staff that there’s a cemetery on the property.

I can only imagine all the stuff they hid.

It’ll work for us now.

I feel Dee seeking, coaxing them out of their graves.

I sigh when they rise, moving in our direction.

“Hurry,” Gramps says.

“Security breach,” Archer adds, hooking his mind-to-pulse frequency to the code Gramps gave him.

I center myself like Dad taught me, giving him a sideways look.

He nods, and his power seamlessly clicks with mine.

We focus together as we did when I was young and he spent hours training me. Teaching me control, finesse, stealth.

Like a living thing, death seeks.

Finds.

Hundreds of answering pings tap the net of our death energy as it descends like a huge spider web on the radius we control, several kilometers out, with the combination of Dad and Tiff it's even further.

“There goes the driveway!” Jonesy chortles, and Bry skips off fissures as they appear, running in all directions like shattered glass.

Gramps groans at the destruction of his perfect cement, and I chuckle.

Tiff moans in relief as we use our talent. Letting it out always feels good, like a release.

The Skopamish rise like the totem poles of legend. Erect, regal.

Ready.

A huge battering ram sends the solid wood gate flying into splinters, scattering the length of the cracking driveway.

“That’ll be such a GD hassle to get repaired,” Gramps laments.

His voice comes to me distantly, as if through water. When I burst the bubble of my power further, it hits a wall.

Nulls.

Dad flexes harder, a rubber band strung taut with a target, and I suck from Tiff’s energy in an epic scoop-out.

“Hurts, Pax,” she says.

I even out the siphon.

“Paxton,” Uncle John warns.

“Sick ’em, John,” I say.

John steps away from his wife, moving into the charge of Randoms who come through the gate.

My power ripples. I punch through the hole John makes in the other Nullsʼ negation of our combined power.

I can feel Dee’s heat. I know when the insane draw nearer.

I feel their minds and cringe.

Dee doesn’t. What they raise never bothers the raiser.

The first landmine explodes. Chunks of cement like little missiles come straight at us then disappear.

A leg lands with a bloody thunk at a Skopamish’s feet. He kicks it out of the way as his tomahawk clears its holder.

“Dee,” I whisper.

“It’s okay, Pax,” she says. “It’s just concrete.”

“Don’t kill them. You might not survive.”

Emotionally, sis.

“They don't die.”

I waste a look at her. Deep liquid blue eyes meet mine over her shoulder.

Don't.

“Can't stop,” she replies aloud.

My eyes widen.

“They have someone…”

I look into the growing crowd.

SPs show pulse-activated flamethrowers at the ready. Contraband flamethrowers, of course.

Fuck.

Mitch growls beside us.

That guy.

“They’re coming.” Dee’s tone gets my full attention.

Scared.

Mitch glances at her. Worry etches his face.

The insane roll through the gate, flanking the Randoms and SPs.

“Did you tell them?” I ask.

Dad gives me a sharp look. Just following through, I look back at him.

Mitch moves in front of Dee, blocking my view. The dick.

It’s okay, Dee—I got this.

I’m scared.

I turn her around. “You’re scared of who?” I ask, my fingertips biting into her shoulders.

“Them,” she says.

The insane zombies.

I shake my head, puzzling her words out. “They’re yours.”

She shakes her head in return. “No—I don’t think so.”

What?

Whose are they then?

Our gazes lock, minds tethering hard.

Their own.

“Tell me that isn’t true!” I shake her a little. We can’t contain these guys? My eyes search hers.

“What’s going on?” Dad asks, sweat staining his shirt’s armpits, waistband and rolling down his temples.

Tiff flicks a glance my way. “We coming apart, bud?”

I can't answer.  I do anyway. “Maybe.”

“Gawd, terrific.” Tiff pops a bubble.

The Skopamish move in. The power of the Nulls wash over us, three—no four Nulls.

It's too much, even with John countering.

Uncle John turns, shaking his head.

Great.

He backs up, his large body standing guard in front of his wife.

“I can't see, goofball,” she squeaks behind him.

“Sorry, I'm staying put, tiger.”

The criminally insane are armed. They come at the Randoms with a variety of illegal weapons.

Shanks and broom handles sharpened to spear points. Chains and barbed wire stand naked in every hand.

The eyes are all the same. Crazy as loons, evil as the devil.

“God—Dee,” I say.

“I know,” she agrees, voice shaky.

Every eye is on her.

“Protect,” she whispers.

They move in, and the slaughter of the Randoms and SPs begin.

*

It's not the fire that's dangerous, but the smoke; the horrible smell of dead flesh melting away.

Scalps litter the torn wounds of the driveway, some stuck between the gaps like raw meat caught in teeth of cement.

It's gruesome even by AFTD standards.

A flame flickers from an empty thrower. The SP tosses the useless weapon and two nutjobs land on him. One twirls a strand of barb wire around the guy's neck, jerking him straight up while his buddy shanks him in the gut.

They drop him to let him bleed out, smoothly moving on.

Their stares find my sister as the dead criminals mow through the Randoms.

Some splatter against the concrete as clever telekinetics get after them. A few explode heads like pumpkins.

They all advance toward us.

“Mitch,” I say.

He’s already in front of Dee.

Good boy. Stay, roll over, play dead.

Ten meters.

Too many Randoms and SPs.

Adrenaline surges in a breath-stealing tide.

Five.

I tense. Plenty of the crazy dead.

Two.

Mitch and I sandwich Dee, and I check out the parents. Clyde covers them.

I turn back to the front line and swing my mouth open in relief and shock.

Jeff Parker breezes through the wreckage with a wave. He appears like a mirage through the smoke and wreckage, stepping over the bodies and gore as if skipping through tulips.

Thank God, the cavalry’s arrived.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Caleb

I don’t try to hide my relief when I see Parker. He’s the thing we need to tip the balance and get out of this tight jam.

The dead turn to him with an expression of awe.

Deegan’s dead ignore him.

The Skopamish back away as the remaining Randoms move in for the kill.

Two telekinetics uproot twenty-year-old cherry trees in the height of their growing season and chase him with the root balls. Parker hiccups in my mind, and the banshee wail of six tribesmen lands on the Randoms. The Indians unceremoniously ride rare paranormals to the ground, forearms bracing against throats in a maneuver to pin.

Eyes bulge as scalps tear off their heads. I cringe a little with the Skopamish’s enthusiasm but don’t have time for introspective bullshit.

I wonder where Nevaeh is. Parker's wife is usually where he is.

“What the hell is going on?” Jeffrey ducks his head as a body part flies overhead. “You sent out a wave of energy felt round the world!”

Probably. “Dee’s been outed for her ability, and now the world is coming.”

Jeff looks at me oddly, and I briefly wonder why, as he’s known for some time about the black hole nightmare. Hell, how many times had I phoned him during the witching hour to run shit by him?

He’d had a barrel of monkeys with his own twin girls. He definitely felt my pain.

“Right, right.” He snaps his fingers as though suddenly remembering.

We stare out over the bodies and the fighting.

I shift my gaze to Deegan. “Can you—would you get her somewhere safe? This is only the beginning. They’ll get to her through us. But you have places, safe houses…”

Jeff, still looking fit for almost fifty, holds his hands up. Of course, he might be rejuvenating already if he is receptive.

Another mine explodes, and we instantly sink to a crouch.

It puts Parker and me uncomfortably close. He grabs my shoulder. “Whatever you need, you know I’d do anything for the kids.”

I nod. I know it.

“Deegan,” I say quietly.

My stomach lurches as more SPs flow through Grampsʼ gate.

“Damn, damn, double-damn,” Gramps mutters behind me.

“Not now, Daddy,” she says all in the zone.

Brother.

“Honey, you need to go with Jeff—he'll take you somewhere safe.”

Jeff smiles at her.

“I don't want to go.”

Mitch gives Parker a hard look. Parker stares back.

“Wow, not good. Zero control,” Parker says, eyeing Mitch head to toe.

“Yeah, weird, isn’t it?”

Jeff gives a slow nod.

Zombie rebels, bad news.

A shotgun blast booms over our heads, and an SP that’s tearing at Sophie goes bye-bye.

“Still an American, chaps!” Gramps bellows from the background. “You're on my property and have been warned! Due diligence, suckers!”

I look at the convulsing SP on the ground.

The warning’s pretty fair.

I turn back to Parker, and his lips twitch.

“Okay, I’ll get Deegan out of here, and you clean up the rest of the mess.”

“No! Dad!”

“Deegan, go with Jeff. He or Nevaeh will get a hold of us when you land somewhere safe.”

Parker cocks a brow. I dismiss his hesitation when Deegan melts down.

“No—what about Mitch? He'll die without me.”

I look at Mitch and he stares back.

“He is dead, sweetheart.”

Another bomb goes off. I grab her shoulders and give a solid shake. “Let me protect you Deegan!”

Deegan glances at Pax and Jade, her lip quivering.

“Now go.”

Deegan sighs, the insane following her movements like birds of prey.

“What about them?” Parker asks, his hand on her elbow.

Yeah, the undead ward.

“I don't know.”

“Good call, Hart,” Parker quips.

I scowl at him, rolling my eyes. “It's what I could do.”

Mitch steps forward, eyes only for Deegan. Then they shift to Parker. “You trust him?”

“Dad trusts him. He’s been around forever.”

Mitch nods reluctantly.

A tomahawk clatters to the concrete, and blood splatters a half meter from our feet. Regular police show up and begin to clean up the Skopamish.

We can’t be killing cops. They’re here to serve and protect and all that jazz.

Plus, I have a soft spot for one in particular.

Mitch bends his body almost in half over my daughter, shadowing her in the late afternoon light.

I breathe in the metallic air filled with people’s blood, dead and alive.

He kisses Deegan’s forehead, a finger trailing down her cheek. Mitch straightens, and his deep blue eyes regard Parker’s hazel flint bits.

“Take care of her.”

“I will,” Parker says, then he is moving through the melee. My daughter is in the shadow of his body, and a deep relief fills me.

Randoms, SPs, and cops come from all sides.

Pax and I tighten the lasso of our power. Tiff’s does a chaser like a shot glass behind us.

Birds, bees and all forms of insects descend, blinding our adversaries. They clear a path of escape for my daughter.

The eyes of the criminally insane watch her go. Several lick their lips, clenching their hands around weapons I’ve never seen in the flesh.

Just as Parker takes Deegan outside the gate, he turns and waves like a salute.

Sudden disquiet envelopes me.

I hate to have her out of my sight. I hate even more for her to be here if she might be physically taken from us.

So why do I feel so uneasy when Deegan winks away as the lengthening shadows of night overcomes the day?

*

Garcia’s pen is poised above the tablet. “You know, Caleb, I was this close to retirement.” He holds his index finger and thumb a hairsbreadth from meeting. “Then the shit had to hit the fan again.”

“The fan?”

He waves away my confusion. “Listen, the SPs have a legit complaint here. You have several illegal zombies…” He laughs, running a hand through inky hair threaded with silver like Christmas tinsel. “A posse of undead.”

“Tell me again what happened, and for the record”—he points an obsolete writing device, whose name escapes me, at my chest—“the only reason you’re still here instead of at the station is your Grandpa’s place is grandfathered.”

Gramps had put in every piece of paperwork against every contingency he could think of.

None of our constitution’s amendments past the late 1990s of the twentieth could be used against him.

Seizure of property? Nope—had that covered.

So, unfortunately for the SPs and Randoms, his right to defend his property by any means holds.

But the cops were involved, and there’d been lots o’ murders.

Lots.

What’s really cool is watching Tiff walk to each of the undead, repair them, and put them to rest as I stand there.

Nice follow-through.

“Fuck this! Those are goddamned witnesses! They can be stationed,” an SP shouts as the cops contain the line of both Random and SP.

Tiff sticks a stiff arm up in the middle of our corpses, flipping him the bird.

Gramps snorts a laugh.

“You’re a class act, girl,” he says with a touch of pride.

“You know it, Mac.”

He rocks back on his heels, grinning. Gramps always had a soft spot for Tiff. Hard love for us all, but real.

Garcia sighs. Given our history, he’s done a lot of sighing. He looks to Bobbi and Clyde.

“What happened?”

Bobbi saunters up. A couple of other cops give her a dirty look, and Clyde balls his hands into fists.

They flick nervous gazes at him.

Many modern men can’t fight. If they can’t draw their weapons, they’re useless with nothing but their body as defense.

Gramps watches the interchange in smug silence.

Clyde’s glittering eyes deliver the message of my thoughts. They know he could beat their asses. Clyde doesn’t abide disrespect, especially where Bobbi is concerned.

“They want Deegan.”

“Why?” Garcia hikes his eyebrows.

Bobbi glances down. When she looks up, her eyes meet mine and I nod.

Hell, who doesn’t know at this point. Bobbi maintains a level of discretion regardless. She grips his shoulder, stands on tiptoe, and whispers in his ear.

Garcia’s eyes widen, his face a cascade of emotions.

She slowly drops to her heels.

Garcia whistles low in his throat. “That’ll do it.”

“Right?” I hold my palms out inoffensively.

His face blanks. Bobbi and I glance at each other.

“Shit—I’m sorry, Caleb.” Garcia wakes up from his mind-to-pulse com and pulls his weapon. “Where’s Deegan?”

Holy crow.

Bobbi backs up. “Raul? What. The. Fuck?”

Clyde moves behind her. “What’s the meaning of this, Garcia?”

“The meaning is, they’ve got my family, and there’s a gun to my wife’s head.”

His eyes hold mine prisoner.

The breath leaks out of my body like a popped balloon as Jade’s hand falls on my back.

I don’t have the answer he so badly needs.

The one filling my brain is that maybe there are worse things than the HC.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Deegan

Pax! I bellow as Jeffrey Parker drags me behind him.

Not the Jeffrey Parker of my world.

No.

The one who followed us to mine.

I twist out of his grip and run. He shoves me from behind, and I fly, catching myself with my telekinesis at the last moment. I hover and he kicks me midair. I spin away like a torpedo.

I grit my teeth, putting myself upright, and face him.

He grins.

“You know, I don’t think that little bit of acting would have worked if you hadn’t distracted everyone so beautifully with that lot you raised from the asylum. Nice work, by the way.” His eyes tighten infinitesimally. “Though I’m not a fan of the lack of control.”

“Screw you!” I scream, the backs of my eyelids burning with frustrated tears.

He swings a long tapered finger back and forth. “Two can play at that game, Deegan Alicia Hart.”

Dirt erupts on either side of me, hands grasping mine.

Skopamish who aren't my dad's take my arms.

I flex my death muscle and they shake it off. I feel the slide like a cat trying to claw its way up a sheet of oiled metal.

“Won’t work. The blessing of age, my dear. Your shitty brother might give me a run, and certainly daddy dearest, but you… with your little…” He smacks his lips obscenely. “Level-four affliction?” He spits the word out, shrugging. “Not going to work on my skills.”

“Fine.” I struggle against Native Americans who were in the prime of their life when death struck. They didn’t do gym time but life. They’re hardened, and I’m just an almost seventeen-year old girl.

I fight tears. Hating Parker, hating the irony.

Hating.

“What do you want, you—you asshole!”

He strolls over, catching a strand of my hair. I cringe and think the worst. I don’t care if he looks good for fifty or whatever age he is.

Ew.

He drops the tendril of hair and studies my expression. “It’s not what you’re thinking. Though I’m happy to watch others partake.” He paces away, hands behind his back.

I try to toss the Skopamish with my powers, but they don’t budge.

I bite my lip.

Brightening, my mind turns over the facts. “Brad Thompson is dead. I don’t matter. You’re a powerful AFTD in the bot world.”

He snorts at my moniker for his Earth.

I ignore him, surging forward with words I hope will sway him. “You don’t need someone who can only raise criminals.”

My stomach drops.

I realize my mistake after the words barf themselves out of my mouth.

Parker, hands still knotted at his back, whirls and grins at me.

“Yes, Brad Thompson is dead—in my world.”

Blood roars in my ears. I can hear my heartbeat like it lives inside my eardrums. My gaze sights on a vehicle slowing above us.

A black car descends from the sky.

Brad Thompson opens a car door and steps out.

It bounces higher as his father climbs out after him.

My breath catches, ribs singing where Parker took the cheap shot at me.

They look at me as though I'm for sale.

I call the dead as if my life depends on it.

It does.

I don’t feel an answering tug.

Both back doors open simultaneously in the unmarked hover car. I feel the cool wash of the Nulls as they evacuate themselves from the vehicle and approach.

“This is her?” Brad Thompson’s father asks in disbelief.

Parker nods.

“And you say there’s another world where my son runs…” He laughs, clearing his throat. “A den of iniquity?”

“Prostitution? Yes, he did. Lucrative. Legal.”

“Legal?” The elder Thompson shakes his head then grins. “Magnificent.”

“She killed your son in that world.”

He turns his frown to me.

“That must have taken some doing?” Brad moves toward me, surprise on every line of his face and something else as well. The beginnings of revenge.

“No,” I say before using language so foul my ears burn with it, “you're just as much a pussy there as you are here.”

He slaps my face, rocking me back into one of the Skopamish warriors who hold me.

“No beating the female of the tribe.”

“Pfft,” Brad says derisively. “What are these guys sayin’?”

My face is on fire where he hit me. “They don’t like you hitting me, idiot.”

He strikes me again, one of my teeth sinking into my cheek, and I cry out, spitting blood.

Brad lowers his hand, and the closest Indian captures his wrist.

“Interesting,” Parker says noncommittally.

“Do something,” Thompson senior says.

“Release him,” Parker commands, and I feel his energy even through the wall the Nulls have thrown up.

The Skopamish grits his teeth, squeezing harder, then releases Brad’s wrist reluctantly.

“He was slow to respond,” Thompson comments.

“Yes, he was,” Parker agrees in a thoughtful voice.

I can tell he doesn’t like it.

Jerk. I run a tongue over the inside of my cheek and wince from the sting.

“Different dead next time, Parker.”

Parker nods.

Thompson’s eyes are on me. “How does this help us?”

Parker grins. “She has a wonderful ability.”

Oh no.

Thompson raises his brow. “What?”

“She controls matter.”

Thompson taps his foot, waiting.

“She can manufacture black holes out of thin air.”

Thompson narrows his eyes at me. “Really?” He licks his thick lips, and my stomach rolls in a queasy slide of heat.

“We'll need Nulls on her every second.”

Parker rolls his eyes. “Of course.”

“You came to me”—Thompson thumbs his chest then points at Parker—“not the other way around.”

Parker hikes his eyebrows. “And? Aren’t you glad I did?”

Thompson stares at me, really looking. “Yes.”

“Good, now let’s talk numbers.”

Thompson flicks his gaze to Parker. “How do I get to this other—place?”

My heart rate speeds up.

Pax! I scream.

One of the Nulls gives me a sharp look.

His negation steals my cry for help, and I bite my lip to keep from sobbing on the spot.

Parker’s eyes widen just a touch. His stare pins me. “Who is the mastermind that dimension flips?”

I don't recognize the term but understand what it means.

He means blinking.

Of course, that’s not what the experts would call it if they knew what Pax could do. It’s more than Dimensional travel, different. That’s been identified as thirteen “worlds.” What Pax can do? It numbers infinity. I think of his antique hardcover book analogy.

I don't answer, thinking furiously instead. Trying to put the how and why into order inside my mind.

Parker must have hitched a ride with Mia or Bry on Pax's tailwind, and scuttled off like the bug he was, undetected after we crashed back here. It's possible with how disoriented people are after multiverse travel.

Parker doesn't know Paxton is the one who can blink.

I search Brad Thompson's eyes. Can he be up to the torture I went through with the other Brad?

His eyes say yes.

My palms instantly slick with sweat, my throat going tight.

Parker gives verbal incentive. “You remember Brad's tender mercies vested upon you, Deegan, eh?”

I just look at Parker, trying to reconcile this vile repro with the good friend he is to Dad on this world.

I can’t do it. The two superimpose, and my eyes blur with tears. It’s like a nightmare from which I can’t wake up.

I don’t bother nodding. He knows I remember it.

How could I forget?

“Tell us, or I will let Thompson's progeny have his way with you.”

Brad's expression becomes anticipatory, his tongue wetting his lips.

I scream for my brother.

For Mitchell.

In the end, I just scream.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Caleb

I give a hard gulp. The gun is steady on me, my wife.

Gramps says, “Garcia. Listen, if they’ve got your wife, and we’re dealing with an entity as cutthroat as the Graysheets?”

I hear the shrug in Gramps voice and internally praise the man’s deep poise. I don’t have it—never will.

Gramps moves up beside me.

“I’ll pulse it, Mac. I have to live with certain things. And I can live with your death on my hands before my wife’s.”

He noses the tip of the gun a touch higher.

“Understood. I'm just sayinʼ—they're not gonna just let her go, pal.”

Garcia's face edges with grief before my eyes. “I know,” he admits softly.

“They’re going to kill her as sure as I’m standing here. I’m sorry. Threatening us to get to Deedie isn’t going to end well.”

For you, I think.

Just then, Parker shows up again, wearing a different outfit and sans Deegan.

What the insane hell is happening here?

Mitch’s gaze moves to mine, ignoring the threat of the gun, Garcia, all of it. He vocalizes my worst fear.

“Where is Deegan?”

My answer is just as bad.

“I don't know.”

Garcia drops the gun, swiping at his eyes.

“God, Raul...”

His gaze lands on Bobbi. “What would you do? Huh?”

Bobbi’s face flushes. “A lot.”

“ʼKay,” Pax says, “no judging.” He looks toward the gate as Parker strides to us with purpose.

“What are you doing back here?” I ask, my guts tight with anxiety.

He lifts his eyebrows in a surprise so real fear bursts over me. I don’t know why that’s my instinctive reaction, but I’ve learned to trust that little bit of precog I have. It passes pretty well for intuition from time to time. Like now.

“You’re broadcasting like a siren’s wail.” He looks at me, moves to Pax with a small nod, then rests his gaze on Tiff. The corner of his mouth turns up. “They called you in?”

“Yeah.” Tiff folds her arms.

Jeff puts his hands on his hips. I take in the scene again as he does.

Looks pretty messy.

Where’s my daughter?

“Where’s Deegan?” Mitch asks as I open my mouth for the same question.

Parker draws his brows together.

I feel a beat of energy run through Mitch. He doesn’t move, flinch, or react.

Parker jerks his chin back, and his sharp face lights with questions. “Deegan?” he asks.

“Yes. Where is she, Jeff?” I ask.

He slowly turns to me. “How would I know? I felt your use of power from Black Diamond. I got here as fast as I could.”

My stomach drops.

Jade shudders from my internal reaction.

“Jeff, where is my baby?” she asks.

He retreats a step. My parents come out of the house and make their way down the steps to stand beside Gramps.

“You guys keep looking at me like you’ve seen a ghost. I don’t know where Deegan is.”

Mitch stands in front of him. He looks like a giant. “I know what you are. You were here. You took Deegan for safekeeping. You said you would take care of her.”

Confusion washes Parker’s features. “I swear, I’ve just arrived.”

Mia claps her hand over her mouth, eyes like golf balls.

“What?” I nearly scream at her.

“Caleb!” Bry says, and I dial it down. The effort is horrible to manage.

Mia slowly lowers her hand. “I don’t have my sweater.”

Bry turns to her, looking into her upturned face. Her lips tremble. “What does a missing sweater have to do with anything, baby?” His voice is soft.

I let her husband get the answers I want to shake out of her.

“Because I remember when we traveled with Randi, she’d have us grab each other sometimes.”

Bry's eyes meet mine, realization parked there like an old semi-truck. “That ass clown followed us here.”

He jerks his thumb at Parker. “He's the real Parker. That other nimrod is the Parker from the bot world.”

Parker throws up his hands. “Whoa—guys. What in the hell is going on?”

I give him the Reader's Digest condensed version.

Parker’s face is unreadable. He palms his chin as he listens. His hand falls from his face when I finish.

“This is bad.”

“Yeah,” I say, like no shit.

Garcia looks between the two of us. “So this other Parker…” He laughs but not as if it’s funny. But as if he wants to throw up in his mouth a little bit. After all, he held Deegan after she was born. “…has impersonated you”—he points at our Parker—“and taken Deegan?”

“Looks like it,” Gramps says. “I don’t like it.”

“Well no shit, Gramps!” I blow up.

He moves into my grill, and I seethe at him. “I don’t like it because it’s smart. But listen to me, and listen good. We have him.” He jerks a thumb at Parker. “They think like each other, clearly. They have the same”—he waves his hand around—“death sigs. Make it work for us. Right now.”

“Can you find her?” I ask Parker.

“Yes.”

Pax steps in front of Garcia. “Dad. Have you thought about why they’d take her to begin with?”

I want to scream, rail against my son. Who gives a ripe hairy shit why they want Deegan? They have my baby girl, the fucks.

“Dad, settle. Listen, don’t get your temper cooking, ʼkay?”

I breathe deeply, trying to settle The Rage.

Worst. Thing. Ever.

Why? Why would they take Deegan? The black hole bullshit, certainly. My mind whirls.

Paxton fills my vision.

He nods.

Maybe Deegan isn't the only smart kid in the family.

He shrugs. “I think it’s a toss-up. They want me too. They’d have to.”

“Why take her instead of you?”

“Twofer,” Gramps says. “They get her first because it’s easier, then they use her as bait for you.”

“We can’t let Pax walk into a trap.”

“It’s conjecture,” Dad says from behind me.

I turn and feel a pang that Mom’s alive and looks okay. Weak but well.

I sigh.

“It’s what I’d do,” Parker says into the silence.

We all look at him.

“I’m no saint, y’know.”

I knew.

“I chose my path. But there’s always a yoke. It sounds like the Parker of this other dimension chose an alternative route.”

As I think, I watch the activity of the other cops cleaning up the scene. Multiple hover hearses stack bodies deep in their cargo holds.

Garcia's threat had been hidden as we stood quietly talking along the side of Gramps house, the lake at our backs.

He looks at me now. “I have to go with. If there's the slimmest chance that my wife will live, that my family will not be slaughtered when I don't deliver Deegan—I have to try.”

“I'm sorry for this,” Mitch says quietly. “Because God knows, if I was still lucky enough to have a family, I'd be fierce.”

Garcia's eyebrows shoot up as Mitch clocks him.

It’s a good strike, hitting that glass-like spot on every guy’s jaw that’ll knock his lights right out.

He drops and Gramps catches him as he falls. “Poor bastard.”

Tiff walks over to Garcia’s limp form. “We got bigger fish to fry. He’ll have to get over it. Because we’re not handing Deegan over to some government hobags.” She looks at Mitch, clapping him on the shoulder. “Right, big guy?”

Mitch nods, his gaze faraway. If I were a betting man, I’d say he’s a planner, our Mitch.

As Mitch degrades, she remains unfound.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Deegan

“Stop it!” Parker says from a distance, irritation thick in those two words. “I had to put the Skopamish to rest. They were being... unruly as hell.”

Brad rises from his perch next to my beaten form. “Why the hell is that?” He toes my side and I cringe in pain.

He smiles in delight.

I turn to look at Parker. At least he doesn’t touch me.

“Because”—he shakes his head in disgust and impatience—“she is Native American and for reasons unknown, it goes against the grain to watch a tribeswoman get beaten while bound. Brad.”

Brad misses the sarcasm, but I catch it like a perfectly thrown pitch.

“Son,” the elder Thompson says quietly, “however fun this is for you, torturing this girl, let’s get on with it. Lure the brother, then we can hop to this other world…” He looks to Parker for confirmation, and I swallow past the pain in my throat.

“Flip,” Parker corrects absently.

Blink, I offer inside my head, with a sad hiccup.

“I want to do her, Dad.”

I snap my eyes open. His are steady on me, every bit of purpose there for me to see.

I gulp painfully. Panic like oil slithers underneath my skin.

The elder Thompson chuckles. “I appreciate that, Brad, I do. But if what Parker says is true…”

“It is, of course. I’ve given you the proof.”

“You have.”

Silent understanding exchanges in the looks they pass each other. I grit my teeth, taking it in as maybe useful for later, as I keep one eye on perv Brad.

“Then you can wait, son, until we get to a world where the stations I have our unlimited in their capacity… to serve.” He smiles.

I despair.

Yet deep inside me, a pulse of hope beats. I send it out like music. To Pax. To Mitch.

Hopefully, one of them hears my distress signal.

Before it's too late.

*

Caleb

We set Garcia's unconscious body inside Grampsʼ house.

“Things are so chaotic right now, they won't find him until later.”

Gramps closes the sliding glass door on the deck. “Good thinkinʼ, Mitch.”

Mitch nods impatiently. “Let's find Deegan.”

I look at Dad. “You going to be okay here with Mom?”

He nods, and walks to the end of the deck.

Mia, Sophie, and Archer are staying with my folks. Jonesy, Bry, Tiff, and John look at me.

“We’re in.”

Dad limps to me.

“Are you okay?” I flick my gaze to the tear in his pants from the bot blast, but already my sights are on Deegan. I can hardly think about anything else.

He blows it off with a dismissive wave. “You need to find Deegan. My leg’s bothering me from the piece of ALB shrapnel it took.”

Dad is making a bad joke. I grab him and give him a fierce hug. He’s a big-ass dork, but I love him.

“Don’t let your anger rule you, son.”

Our eyes meet. His have been wise my entire life.

Easier said than done.

A beat of silence thumps between us.

“I’ll try.”

Mom leans her head on my shoulder. I fight tears as a wave of gratefulness washes over me. She’s alive.

Wings of urgency beat inside my skull. Deegan.

I move away, and Gramps falls into line beside me.

I can’t leave Jade behind, so I take her with me, though the alternative is barely better. Either way, she is more vulnerable than I’d like.

We move through to Grampsʼ escape route. The gang who remains behind will see to my parents. Archer will claim ignorance in his clever way.

I’m not fooling myself. Archer gains us precious time.

When they discover Garcia, they will be after us. Bobbi can stay and play former cop cum intermediary.

Clyde will run shotgun, as he has many times before.

There will be no get out of jail free card to save us from some of the transgressions we've perpetuated.

*

Pax

“Argh!” I grunt like a pirate on the plank, falling to my knees.

Mom rushes up behind me.

“Don't,” I say more sharply than I mean to.

My eyes warn her.

Dad’s widen then slit to anger. He clenches his fists. “What have they done to Deegan?”

I can’t tell them. It’ll make Dad an instant lunatic.

I give Gramps a full look. He nods, knowing it’s bad.

It’s so bad I feel the underlying emotion in her voice as she drumbeats telepathic Morse code.

Mitch groans, putting his hands against his own skull as if he’ll crush it.

Dad jerks me up to my feet, and I outweigh him by twenty. Adrenaline and all that happy shit.

“Where is she? What’s going on?” he shouts.

“Caleb, whoa. Ya crazy ass, let the kid breathe.”

Dad turns on Jonesy like a shark. “You don’t have kids, so shut the fuck up, Jonester.”

Jonesy punches him. Dad should see it telegraphed for a mile, but he’s so in his head he doesn’t know what year it is.

Dad staggers, falling hard on his ass.

Jonesy whips his fingers out, swinging his hand back and forth as though it hurt like hell.

Clyde smirks. “Thank you, Mark.”

“Don't mention it.”

Oh shit.

Dad gets up like a bull before it charges. Mom moves in tight, wrapping her arms around his waist. “Don’t, Caleb. Let them help you. Stop this anger. It won’t help Deegan.”

Dad looks at Jonesy with pure hate. Jonesy stares unflinchingly back then settles on giving Dad the bird. “Get your shit together, Hart.”

Bry stands next to Jonesy. “Yeah.”

John flanks them. His eyes agree.

Dad strokes Mom's hair, his breaths growing more even.

“We cool?” Jonesy asks.

Dad nods, moving his jaw back and forth. “I'm just—I'm just so damn scared I can't think.”

Clyde nods. “We understand, Master.”

He shakes his head. “I don't know if anyone does.”

Tiff grabs his shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “Just wish I had a kid to feel this way about.”

Mitch lifts his eyebrows and Tiff's gaze slims on him like a laser beam. “What?”

He sighs, looking vaguely conflicted. “Let's move.”

“You got something to say you big dead lug, say it.”

His lips thin. Uncle John seems to be considering he might have to bring it because of Tiff's mouth when Mitch blows us away.

“What you said made me think about a question Deegan asked me.”

Tiff stares at him.

Dad begins to walk in the direction we'd been moving toward, ignoring us all.

“What question?” Tiff asks more softly, her head thrown back as she looks up at Mitch.

Dad's too far away to hear.

“If you could be fixed in my world.”

“Fixed,” Tiff says, as if someone just sucker punched her.

He elaborates, “Have babies.”

Tiff shakes her head as though clearing cobwebs. She grips his forearm, his tat bleeding out from underneath her fingers.

“What was your answer?” Her eyes search his.

He leans down, gritting his teeth. “Yes.”

I jog, leaving the two of them and their revelations behind.

I hear Mitch’s heavy treads as he races behind me.

*

Deegan

From the ground, I lean against the shins of a zombie Fake Parker raises.

“They're coming,” one of the suits says quietly.

He’s a new Random, with only one ability. They call him The Ear.

He can hear things of all frequencies and distances.

He hears my family coming to save me.

Inviting their enslavement.

What I don’t expect is how much I want to die. I feel like if I didn't exist, then my family wouldn’t be in danger.

Mitch appears through the forest first.

The graves stand all around us like a creepy Stonehenge.

Mitch doesn’t rush headlong to me, though I feel him like balm inside my skull.

I sigh. The first non-pain I can manage.

Pax, the parents, Jonesy, Clyde, I think his name is Bry, and Gramps pile up behind him.

Dad goes straight for Parker, and gravestones tumble like rotting teeth, settling on the grass in his wake.

Bodies pour forth and I close my eyes, too beaten and weak to do anything but watch.

Then the Parker of this world slips from behind the group of guys… and Tiff Weller.

Her presence makes me smile. Drunk or sober, I love her vitality.

Fake Parker throws his head back, laughing. “This is simply perfect. Hello, self, nice to make your acquaintance.”

Gramps says, “You know, you have real potential to be an asshole.”

“I see that,” Parker says.

My brother’s gaze flicks to me.

I’m coming, Dee.

No, it’s a trap, Pax.

We know, doesn’t matter. Dad’s off the rails, and we’ve brought all the big guns to help.

Old Thompson nods at the Nulls and my lungs deflate, the Parkers squaring off.

Pax and Mitch stare at each other. Mitch breaks for me, and I find the strength to lurch to my knees. But when I pitch forward, my hands can’t brace my fall.

Half my fingers are broken.

The zombie footrest behind me stoops to pick me up and I roll slightly out of reach.

Mitch's eyes meet mine upside down as I lie on my back.

Tears pour from my eyes at his rage over my injuries. He grabs the zombie as it reaches for me.

Legs stream past my vision as he tosses the zombie across the open field of upended tombstones. It plows through three grave markers like dominoes, shattering the granite with the impact. The last one glances it solidly, embedding the broken shards through its chest.

It struggles to disengage from the marker, to get back to me.

Mitch scoops me off the ground.

Randoms in suits move toward our position.

Then something remarkable happens as the dead leak from the ground to choose their master.

I take the dead’s undecided energy and heal myself by accident, but most of it pours into Mitchell.

His eyes glow as he faces the enemy.

I've never seen anyone look as human as he does in that moment.

I wiggle my new fingers, so happy not to be broken anymore.

Pax strides to Dad, thinking to help.

The Randoms give their signal.

I scream too late.

Hands snap together like locks.

Mitchell can’t get out of reach fast enough without dropping me.

He never would.

They knew that.

Just as they knew my family would come for me.

Fake Parker smiles at Real Parker.

He turns, the horror of realization striking his face like sunlight.

Twilight descends in the second everyone stands connected by the dead, the ground—each other.

Pax's unique second eyelid descends and he blinks.

Images waver in front of me like a mirage.

No.

Only Mitch's arms keeping me safe are real.

THE END

Never miss another new release, giveaway, exclusive excerpt, or preorder. Subscribe to the spam-free Tamara Rose Blodgett Newsletter.

Love Death? Take a sneak peek at the new dark dystopian TRB release, THE REFLECTIVE....

THE REFLECTIVE-excerpt

Book One: The Reflection Series

Copyright © 2013-14 Tamara Rose Blodgett

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher.

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

All rights are reserved.

Dedication:

Sarah Drum

The only limitation is the one you put on yourself;
never give up~

THE CAUSE

First: Right the Wrong

Second: Bear No Injustice

Third: Change Not What Must Be

Prologue
twenty years before

The midwife made her way along ancient cobblestoned streets, her shoes catching in the crevices though Principle knew, her shoes were as sensible as they come.

As was her occupation.

She would arrive in the birthing ward at exactly eight a.m. for her twelve-hour shift. Of course, it would not be twelve hours—it would be for however long the woman labored.

And if a Reflective were born ....

Just the thought of the potential for that caused a nervous thrill to flutter deep within Florence, as it did each time she worked.

The Reflective newborns must be swaddled in special non-reflective blankets. A baby would not be lost on her shift because it was a prodigy who jumped at a mirror or other reflective surface left uncovered.

Dear Principle. She shuddered, thinking about what the punishment would be for that. As it was, midwives couldn't use any surgical instruments that were not brushed stainless steel, and since the last unfortunate incident, the midwives had since moved to an all-ceramic surgical unit.

Florence swept up the massive steps. The rise of the treads was so low the stairs felt more like a gentle slope than true steps.

The sparkling flakes of charcoal that clung to the thick white granite reminded her that the sun still shone brightly, though their version of autumn would soon be here.

A shadow fell over Florence, and she twisted to look at the sky, her foot on the top step, her hand on the solid brass door handle that opened to the birthing center.

A swarm of butterflies, so thick it blocked the cerulean of the sky, dropped false night all around her as they flew through the rectangular vents that fed the ventilation system in warmer months.

The ports were a deliberate architectural feature that allowed entry to the only creature in their world that could identify a Reflective

So many.

Florence stood in stunned wonder. She had witnessed butterflies come to mark the birth of a Reflective, but never in such a great number.

Their importance was such that her world was named in their honor: Papilio, Sector Ten.

Their path created a rainbow of iridescent color, which poured like water through the narrow vents that had been carved in the solid stone of the birthing center.

All who lived in their world were born in similar structures.

However, Florence was one of few birthing center workers who had seen the highest incidence of Reflective births. She had requested placement to this one. After a five-year waiting period, she’d been assigned to the most prestigious.

She snapped out of her reverie as the last of the mingling kaleidoscope of insects funneled through the slits underneath the eaves of a copper roof, now aged a deep verdigris.

Florence tore open the heavy door.

She didn't hear it clank behind her as she ran the length of the corridor to the floor that housed laboring mothers.

*

Florence burst through the swinging doors as a man and a woman stood over a cradle.

Confused, Florence skidded to a stop.

What is this?

This... appeared to be the parents in front of a babe so new that some of the vernix still coated the wee one, her arms swinging as she howled.

Two nurses, one at the end of her shift and one in training, hung back.

Oh, for the love of all that is good. She stalked over to the newborn.

Florence halted as the sight overtook them all.

Their breath.

Their thoughts.

Everything but the scene itself melted away for those who witnessed the post-birth spectacle.

The butterflies descended, floating in a lazy spiral as the opalescent sunlight washed over their multicolored wings.

The chubby arms of the baby girl swirled and pumped, slowing as the butterflies drew nearer, and her echoing screams gradually grew quiet.

The insects lighted on the rails of the basinet in a portentous group, their wings moving in a steady sweep to maintain balance.

Their appearance froze the parents’ breath in their throats.

The moment swelled and grew in the stillness of the nursery, where rows upon rows of cradles pressed against the other. The parents watched the butterflies flutter precariously on the polished sides of the newborn's bed, landing only on hers and no other.

Their appearance was beautiful… final.

Florence strained to hear the mother's voice.

“She is Reflective,” she said in a sorrowful tone.

Her mate squeezed her hand so tightly her knuckles turned white.

“Yes,” he replied, just as gravely.

Their gaze met in perfect understanding of what the future held for their daughter: a life as mercenary, hunter and hunted.

This was an honor and privilege among their people.

Florence closed her eyes in sympathy. A female Reflective—every parents dream… and nightmare.

*
five years later

Beth shot the plain glass marble across the stretch of earth, watching the glass orb tumble and spin as it met the others she’d shot in a smack of hardened glass. It swerved at the last moment, ricocheting off a shooter, and came to stand where she'd intended.

All the other children her age could play with any marble they chose, but she possessed no mercury-coated marbles.

Beth Jasper was a solitary girl.

But not one who lacked intelligence. Beth had felt the sadness from Papa and Mama and knew she would soon leave for the building that had a big shining silver papilio above the entrance.

Mama and Papa had taken her there the previous week to meet with a man who had a nose like the water birds that gathered near her family's pond.

His nose made it very difficult for her not to giggle. Beth sometimes had a problem with laughing when she shouldn’t.

Beth had observed and stood watch over her new surroundings, remembering what her adoptive parents had told her.

Beth, you must let us do the talking. Under no circumstances should you volunteer to train for a combative role. There are alternative roles for female Reflectives.

Beth crinkled her face at the memory. She understood all of what they wanted of her, and she would not shuffle papers and sit behind a desk, looking like the dolls she had given up playing with.

All Reflectives were far more mature than their human counterparts from the other twelve sectors.

Beth spoke like a teen, though she was five cycles. She puzzled through things that confounded adults.

She was faster, stronger, and brighter.

Beth was female.

When Commander Rachett of the Reflective Militia who operated under The Cause leaned forward and delved deep, he tried to pierce young Beth's very soul, she met him halfway.

Her small body leaned boldly toward his, unafraid.

In their people's ancient language of Latin, he posed the question: What role will you fill within The Cause, young Beth?

Beth narrowed her eyes, and Rachett's brows raised slowly.

He had studied her, no doubt because she was a half-breed, and female besides. She had met his stare with an unwavering gaze.

“A combative role, of course,” Beth said in her childlike voice, though the meaning was very adult, because she understood and communicated like one.

“No! Beth…” her mama said.

Beth swung her legs back and forth underneath the chair. Her eyes drifted to the candy dish poised at the edge of the desk before returning to the commander's.

Beth's stare matched Rachett's.

Rachett had to know what she was: a warrior. The attribute was either present, or it wasn’t.

Her papa stood.

“We can't have her fight. She is female… and not big for her gender.” Her father's face pleaded with Rachett to see reason.

Commander Rachett wasn't known as a reasonable man.

Rachett steepled his fingers underneath his chin, looking at Beth’s adoptive parents. Good people, common folk who were loyal to The Cause, believers in the Principle.

Rachett's gaze shifted to Beth. He scrutinized her face: eyes like crushed brown velvet; hair like a raven's wing; and skin like polished marble, pale but not pasty.

She is too beautiful to fight, he must have thought with regret.

Beth saw that future remorse on his face.

Then he looked at her hands, long-fingered and limber.

His eyes shifted back to hers.

“Beth?” he asked softly.

“Yes, Commander Rachett?” Her small fingers held something.

He frowned, obviously distracted from his planned comment.

“What do you have in your hand?”

She opened her palm, revealing a large reflective marble—a shooter coated with hard-laced mercury.

Rachett sucked in his breath.

“That's a locator.”

Her parents looked at each other.

“Where did you get that, Beth?” her papa asked carefully.

Beth's eyes touched on the worry that each face held, and she felt her face scrunch.

“They hand them out at the front entrance…” Rachett said thoughtfully before Beth could answer.

Beth nodded carefully. The nice lady had given it to her to entertain herself with.

“Do you know what those are for?” Rachett asked her.

She nodded again.

Beth knew. She liked the feeling of the smooth glossy surface. Her fingers worked over the cylindrical perfection delicately, with reverence.

“It is for those Reflectives who need to find their sector,” Rachett explained neutrally.

He smiled down at her.

Beth was certain he understood she wasn't a regular five cycle.

Then his smile faded as he no doubt recalled her gender. Beth was weary of being thought of as lesser because she was a girl.

She'd heard the whispers of the bullying that was so commonplace within the ranks of the Reflectives.

Though, of course, everyone had heard the story of the swarm that had descended on her day of birth.

Papiliones did not lie.

Rachett shook his head, obviously having made his decision. It was safer—for everyone.

Beth narrowed her eyes on the vision of his soft thoughts of her future role.

Rachett stood. As did Beth and the parents who were not of her blood.

“I'm sorry. Beth will be placed in… inter-dimensional communication training. An excellent program and critical calling for the female Reflective,” Rachett stated, lacing his hands together, effectively closing the meeting.

“Thank Principle,” Beth's mother murmured. She shot Beth a look that let her know she had been naughty for sharing her crazy intentions after being instructed to remain silent.

Heat began to build in Beth's chest. She recognized it immediately: anger.

It began at the core of her body and swam out like molten lava, lashing through her circulatory system in defiance of being contained.

Beth did not want to be a weak female.

She was not.

Then Beth did what all children do—she threw a tantrum.

Beth threw the marble at Commander Rachett.

“No!” she shouted in a clear, bell-like voice that stung the ears and raised the hair on the back of his neck.

Beth's body reacted to her emotions and the spinning ball of glass coated by the forbidden mercury.

It spun, and Beth tracked it automatically, as if it were as natural as taking her next breath. It was part and parcel of being Reflective.

The heat inside her body coalesced, bursting painfully and beautifully, and she gasped as the ball moved toward her, then slammed into her in midair.

Her small body morphed into the narrow strip of shimmering ribbon that all Reflectives become when they jump.

Beth allowed all of it to happen in an instinctual slide of circumstance and raw emotion. Her new form lashed like a shining whip, absorbing into the shell of the spinning glass as it sailed in the air for its two seconds of flight.

Coolness washed away the heat, and she spun with the ball… and went somewhere else, in a falling stream of fire bathed by ice.

Rachett stilled, dazed, as the ball that Beth Jasper had used for transport shattered at his feet.

He and Beth’s parents stood stock-still, their bearings gone.

Commander Rachett picked up a shard, and one of his eyes caught in the mirror-like image. He didn't like what he saw there—fear.

His own, and that of Beth Jasper's future within The Cause.

CHAPTER ONE

Jeb Merrick
present day

Jeb strolled dead center into the group of Reflectives who’d come to attend the finals of the new class of Reflective trainees.

The entire coliseum was packed nut to butt, and the ground beside the ring was standing room only.

It was the female, Jeb determined easily—she was the draw for the day. If he were honest with himself, he would have admitted the same. After all, the last female combative had been killed in action over a decade ago. Jeb had heard of it, but it had been before his time.

This one was different.

For one, she bore the scars of their calling. Her elegant limbs were littered with pockmarking and wounds in various stages of healing. Even with the advanced recuperative powers of a Reflective, Jasper was a mess.

It was such a shame; she was a beautiful female, if not the Papilio ideal. She’d refused to become the he-she that many assumed she would and had retained her femininity, despite the brutal calling of the Reflective. He supposed her gender could be to some advantage in a mission to one of the other sectors.

Jeb found a corner and put his back to it, watching the small group of inductees warm their bodies inside the practice area before the final sparring.

Jeb liked to possess a vantage point that allowed him to see everyone coming through the portals, windows, and otherwise. His height put Jeb at further advantage. With his six-feet-four frame, he skimmed most of the heads in his line of sight.

The ones he couldn't see over were of his kind, Reflective warriors of The Cause.

His eyes instinctively scanned the vast interior of the coliseum. He took in the stands filled with the government of his world. English was not their first language, but it was used in more than three quarters of the worlds they policed. Latin was primary and native language of Papilio.

All Reflectives were fluent in the primary languages of the thirteen sectors they held as their responsibility. Latin was spoken exclusively by Papiliones.

Jeb stood up straighter, gaining another couple of inches of precious visual real estate and caught sight of his own team. At age twenty-three, they were three years past their own graduations.

His team began taking up the remaining corners of the main floor surrounding the ring, while the civilian population moved upward in soaring floor-to-ceiling tiers with marble benches.

The thousands of people who’d sat there before this crowd had worn broad divots in the soft cream-and-peach-veined marble. Centuries worth of observers had witnessed the annual ceremony.

All welcomed the newest recruits. The civilians did not want to know how they were protected. They wanted to know only that they were.

Jeb felt a smirk form.

Sometimes he wondered why he jumped.

He grew solemn as he waited, and then he saw her—Beth Jasper.

He'd seen her about in the Barringer Quadrant, shopping for sundries and such things—but he’d never been so close. A different woman seemed to have inhabited her body today.

Gone was her softness he’d seen in his earlier observances. Instead, he saw a woman with nothing but hard angles and planes. An indifferent and cool stare met those of her team and those that she would fight.

Not a one had softness for her.

Beth stood alone.

Jeb looked at the five others—all male—and a slight furrow tied his brows together.

She was sorely outmatched physically, though the recruits were all equal in years. Recruits graduated each year in small groups, all at twenty cycles of age, as was tradition.

Jeb studied Jasper, assessing her as all Reflectives could. She stood at five feet two, and curves she couldn't mask, even beneath the bland Reflective uniform, stood in stark relief. Her tight black braid stopped at her waist. An unusual length for a woman of his people, it was an unheard of length for a Reflective..

Perhaps it was a bid for femininity in a role that was exclusively male?

Jeb reluctantly moved his gaze to the other five in turn, searching for his new partner. Jeb found babysitting loathsome but necessary. Otherwise, they would have a troupe of Reflectives bouncing from one world to the next, where they shouldn't land.

Jeb felt his lips twitch. He had been the same when he was twenty cycles: an ignorant hot head. His former mentor had seen fit to beat him into understanding. The Cause did not tolerate ignorance

It was Jeb's turn to mentor a new recruit since his three-year first partnering was at an end.

The interior lights of the coliseum switched on, spreading the solar-powered illumination to every corner. It washed the faces of the Reflective inductees in an eerie mockery of false illness, casting a sickly yellow over their flesh.

Reflective Kennet stood in the far corner, exactly opposite of Jeb's position, and lifted his chin in greeting then received one in return. Kennet was wearing his dress uniform. He was on duty. That meant his ass could be snatched to one of the other twelve sectors at any time.

Yet, he was here.

Jeb allowed his eyes to run over his compatriots dress uniform, noting the deep navy, which looked black from a distance. The Reflective crest was the only striking addition.

The butterfly rode high against his left breast, standing vigil over his heart. The iridescent rendering had been executed with real gold and silver, and microscopic jewels were used in the multicolored threading. Only a small shift of movement was necessary for the crest to alert passersby that the uniformed people were Reflective.

They were the slaves of protection for Papilio.

Jeb's musing was cut short as the chime donged six times for the six candidates.

All would fight and be judged in various degrees of worthiness. The illegal betting had been deep and vicious.

Beth Jasper was the underdog.

Humanity had come to see the female fall.

There were only two rules: no blades and no death.

He studied the graceful Jasper as she warmed up. Had he been a betting man, he would have bet on her.

Jeb Merrick understood much could be accomplished without death as an end result. He was profoundly happy that he was not standing in that ring, preparing to beat a female into the mat. Jeb wasn't sure he could have done it.

He understood it for the weakness it was.

Jeb's eyes fell on the favored male in the class, Lance Ryan.

Lance could do it.

Jeb took in the young man’s predatory eyes, which were trained on Jasper, tensed without being aware. The idea had seemed fine when he'd entertained attending the ritualistic Reflective ceremony. It was a bloodthirsty hold-over from centuries past. Yet, like many traditions that were no longer necessary, it had flourished.

Jeb unconsciously leaned forward as the first recruit stepped forward and bumped fists with the well-known Ryan. Well-known for being a jack ass, Jeb thought.

No one truly liked Ryan, yet he had garnered the respect of many through brute force and jumping prowess.

Respect earned through fear instead of deeds is not truly respect.

Ryan was ferocious in sparring and the martial arts. A keen jumper, he was rumored to be able to jump through reflections as small as a fist—but not while they were in motion.

That was a rare skill.

He had heard of only one Reflective who could jump as a drop of rain fell from the sky. Jeb shook his head in disbelief. Legend… yet, he wished he could have been there to witness such a thing.

The men raised their fists from the greeting then placed them over the plain insignia of their sparring tunics.

They stepped away from one another.

A huge gong sounded, making Jeb's teeth thrum, and the two recruits burst into each other with a smack of flesh and bone.

Jeb couldn't help but be riveted.

Ryan's beauty as a fighter was an awesome thing to behold. He landed punch after punch—all organ strikes—into his opponent.

The other man—Jude Calvin was Kennet's new partner, Jeb vaguely remembered—came in close and took away Ryan's considerable strike advantage.

Calvin wrapped his substantial arms around Ryan's torso, swinging a man that weighed two hundred fifty pounds as if he weighed an ounce, and pile drove him into the mat.

Spectators felt the impact as a reverberating punch.

Ryan's shot out his arm and smashed his flat palm into Calvin's nose. Ryan ignored the low boo from the crowd.

Blood burst from the offense, shooting like a bright-red geyser as Ryan leapt off the mat, smearing the mess he'd made of his equal.

Jeb's head swiveled toward a female voice rising above the crowd's noise.

“Shoot, Calvin… shoot!”

A small fist swung above her head for emphasis, and the crowd hissed their displeasure at Jasper's coaching from the sidelines.

Calvin shot, taking Ryan's long legs out from underneath him as he sprang forward, his nose bleeding like a sieve.

Commander Rachett stood in the corner of the ring in typical stoic silence, his body tense like a snake before it strikes, as Ryan’s body smacked the mat then took a hard bounce, making an echoing slap that silenced the crowd.

Jeb heard the oohs and aahs of low-grade fear all around him.

This time, Ryan rolled Calvin over and twisted his arm into an unnatural pretzel position. Shit, Jeb thought, he's got him in an arm bar. He’d picked up the classic move from a jump to Sector Three, Earth.

A place he should not have visited yet, Jeb thought with unease. The class-seven world was for partnered jumps only.

Calvin tapped out, hitting Ryan lightly on the leg behind his own.

Beth Jasper told Jeb what would happen next. Like a cat losing its balance, she moved forward as Ryan snapped the arm he had locked behind Calvin. He roared in agony, holding his injured limb as Ryan's boot came high over his head to smash his face.

Jeb stilled.

Surely Rachett will disallow this?

Beth moved behind Ryan, like a shimmer of water on a sheet of glass.. She executed a spinning kick that knocked the standing man on his ass. Beth bounced away in avoidance, her fists riding beside her jaw, fear swimming in her eyes.

Calm in its economical movements, her body belied the windows to her soul.

Rachett stepped away as medics pulled the moaning and shocked Calvin away.

He would heal.

But that’s not the fucking point, is it?

Ryan lacked integrity—a critical component of the militia that comprised the Reflective.

Ryan stood, his eyes nailing Beth. Her timely intervention had screwed the order.

They circled each other cautiously.

Jeb knew Jasper had no friends within the trainees circle. However, she'd moved almost compulsively to help Calvin.

While every other recruit had observed another being cut down unfairly, Jasper had acted.

And she would pay.

Principle, this will not end well.

Jeb’s guts churned. He wasn't easily affected by fights and blood, but as they said on Sector Three: this was wrong on a hundred different levels.

Jasper backed up, neatly outside of Ryan's long reach, which was easily twice her own. She appeared to be following her training, relying on a drumbeat that was part of every Reflective's internal clock.

It wasn't enough, though. Ryan caught Jasper before she had a chance to block his assault. He nailed her gut in a sucker punch then landed a subsequent fist into her jaw.

Beth was already moving evasively, thank Principle, or she would have been out and at his mercy.

Ryan showed no mercy.

Jasper fell in a spinning backward arc, landing with her palms splayed behind her to arrest her fall. Blood from her cut lip splattered the mat.

Ryan stalked toward her, hatred leaking from his every pore. Their final match played out in a sick parody. Unforgiving eyes watched Jasper from every corner of the mat.

Rachett's tense voice rumbled from a distance, “Get the fuck up, Jasper.”

Jeb's felt his face tighten into a scowl, though Rachett had been just as tough when Jeb was a recruit.

Jasper swung her head back and forth as though clearing it.

Blood from the blow she'd taken fell like scarlet rain.

Ryan smiled, his hands curling into abusive fists of presumed victory. He spoke quietly so only Jasper heard, though Jeb leaned forward to try to catch his words, as did everyone else.

The roar of the crowd made it impossible.

“This ends here, Jasper.”

A cruel smile overtook his face. “The Reflective doesn't have room for mongrel females.”

Jeb's eyes sharpened on her utter stillness.

Her form began to waver, shimmering on top of the bloody mat.

Jeb squinted at her, thinking maybe his eyes were playing tricks on him.

The noise of the crowd was disorientating.

Ryan flicked the switchblade as smoothly as he’d been trained to do. Training blades were all ceramic.

Jasper wore the scars to attest to that, but reflective blades could still be had on the black market for the right price.

Looks like Ryan paid.

Jeb watched the shining metal, his innate ability instantly online around a reflection, and his talent hummed with want. His eyes met Kennet's, and all eyes went to Rachett, wondering what he would do to Ryan for producing an illegal weapon.

The blade’s mirrored surface shimmered in the low lights that bathed the interior of the coliseum.

Holy fuck.

Jeb began to push through the people. The situation was going to get ugly.

No, check that—gruesome.

Ryan planned to murder Beth Jasper; maybe he always had.

Jeb could let an inductee take licks, abuse, and unfairness. But one Reflective would not kill another on his watch.

Why, for the love of the Principle, has Rachett not interfered?

“Hey!” a man protested as Jeb pushed him aside.

Then he saw Jeb's uniform and silently moved aside, as did everyone else in his path.

The crowd parted like the Earth's fabled Red Sea parting; Reflectives had that effect.

Jeb grabbed the ropes around the perimeter, hesitating as Rachett bellowed too late, “No blades!”

His voice carried a note of high-keening fear.

Jeb swung to face his Commander.

He had never seen or heard fear from Rachett. When all inequalities of the fight had been dismissed—Ryan's size against Beth and her gender—he’d finally taken notice when an illegal weapon was produced.

It was beyond bizarre. None of it made sense.

Jeb saw the whites of Jasper's eyes. The inky tail of her braid was wet with her blood. Ryan’s blade swung so close to her face that its breeze lifted wisps of her hair. She crab walked backward in an awkward scuttle of escape.

Ryan braced himself as his commander screamed for Ryan to stop, but he ignored the directive.

Rachett stepped forward too late to stop his best inductee from gutting another recruit as a justified elimination tactic and grabbed Ryan's arm.

But the knife was gone.

It was already singing through the air in an expert trajectory aimed at Beth.

The blade spun in the combustible silence of the coliseum as the crowd held a collective breath.

Jeb strode toward Jasper, but she seemed unaware as her dark eyes tracked the knife.

Jeb’s eye's hadn't lied. One moment, she was solid. The next, she became opaque.

Then she was gone.

Jeb had seen many jumps, but never a female's—and never into something so small. The crowd watched as a glittering rope of iridescent white, like a pearl with a rainbow wash, slammed into the blade.

Jasper's body disappeared then reappeared in the thin reflective ribbon of the jump as it collided with the metal, as she’d meant to.

When the knife landed in the mat, its tip sank deep into the soft surface with a twang.

The silence was deafening.

Beth Jasper had vanished. Only her blood remained as grim testimony to her presence moments before.

Rachett fisted Ryan's tunic, jerking him close.

“You dumb fuck,” he began with the quiet menace he was known for. “All you had to accomplish was keeping weapons out of it. You could have pummeled her into the mat in a fair spar.”

His eyes pegged Ryan's in blatant disgust.

“Now”—his flat eyes locked with Ryan's—“she's jumped. She won because you couldn't contain your shit.”

Jeb's eyes connected with Kennet, who was across the ring from where he stood, and the other man was just as stunned. Jeb glanced at the blade embedded in the mat and shook his head in disbelief.

“There's no way!” one of the Reflective recruits said quietly. “That's a six-inch surface. She's a half-breed… nobody can jump that.” He scoffed.

But somebody had. Beth Jasper, female, half-breed… had just shown her hand.

It looked like aces high.

The crowd began to disperse, their eyes roving for the missing Reflective female who had just made history.

There would be no jeering in her future, only jealousy.

Rachett reiterated what they'd always known, though a few had chosen to ignore.

“The Principle chooses who it will. There is no logic. That's why when we have an opponent. We do not underestimate their skills. Let this be a lesson to all who fight,” Rachett expounded, spinning in a slow, deliberate circle, his eyes falling on the inductee recruits, the Reflectives, and the lesser audience who remained.

“Be ready,” he finished, landing a final, leaden glance on Ryan before he stalked out of the coliseum. Guards moved up beside Ryan. His infraction would land him on Sector One, for certain. No Reflective wished to jump there.

This was an epic clusterfuck if there has ever been one.

Jeb groaned.

As the recruits filtered out, Ryan's defiant gaze challenged all who dared look his way as he was cuffed with non-reflective cuffs. One of the guards jerked the blade out of the mat, giving Ryan narrow eyes.

Jeb's gaze squared off with Ryan until he dropped his gaze and the guards escorted him out.

Jeb stared after Ryan’s back. He ran a frustrated hand through his cropped hair.

He knew what this disturbing mess meant for him. Jeb would be tasked with locating Jasper. His primary task was retrieval. He was meant to be reassigned momentarily.

However, it seemed that it would take longer than a moment.

The crowd thinned, and Jeb stared at the drying blood on the mat, the comments of those around him the same.

Awe mixed with fear was a bad combination. It could be a recipe for many things. When Beth returned, what reception would she find waiting?

He knew the people would forget Ryan’s transgressions against her. All they would remember was her jump.

He would never forget it.

Jeb lifted his head at a small noise. Daphne, a beautiful Reflective, came toward him, her hips swaying so he would notice. And he did.

But even as her lush body moved toward him like water finding a crack in a stone, his mind was on another female, the newest member of The Cause: Beth Jasper, a jumper without compare—and his new partner.

#

Love THE REFLECTIVE~

Download HERE

Acknowledgments

It has been since March of 2011 since my first book, Death Whispers, was published. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of my readers. Without you, I would not have an audience for my work. Your support, recommendations, encouragement, and critical feedback have allowed my improvement as a writer and as a human being. Ironically, words are inadequate for expressing the depth of my gratitude. Please know how much your support has meant and will continue to mean in the future.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Dear Ones:

Danny

Cameren: Without you, there would be no books.

Thank you:

Jenn, my editor

Linda Palomera-Terpe, my proofreader

Special thanks to the following: Ange, Beth Dean Hoover, Dii, and Shana B. for all your help and support.

More Books by Tamara Rose Blodgett

Death Series:

Death Whispers

Death Speaks

Death Inception

Death Screams

Death Weeps

Unrequited Death

For the Love of Death

Savage Series:

The Pearl Savage

The Savage Blood

The Savage Principle

The Savage Vengeance

The Savage Protector

The Savage Dream (pre-order)

The Blood Series:

Blood Singers

Blood Song

Blood Chosen

Blood Reign

The Reflection Series:

The Reflective

Books written under the pen name, Marata Eros

Dark Paranormal Erotica

The Demon Series:

Brolach

The Druid Series:

Reapers

Bled

Harvest

Sow

Seed

Plow

Thresher

The Druid Breeders

Baird

The Siren Series:

Ember

Constantine

Brandon (pre-order)

*

Dark Romance

Novels:

A Terrible Love

A Brutal Tenderness

The Darkest Joy

In Broken Love- 2015

The Token Serial:

The Token

The Token 2

The Token 3

The Token 4

The Token 5

The Token 6

The Token 7- Thorn

The Token 8- Kiki (pre-order)

The Token 9- Chet Sinclair (pre-order)

*

Erotic Shorts

The Dara Nichols Series:

The following titles in one bundle of 8 short stories:

A Hard Lesson

To Protect and Service

The Thirteenth Floor

The Boardroom

The Four Whoresman

The Masquerader's Balls

The Ball Player

The Cock Tale

The Zoe Scott Series:

Smoldering Wet

The Zoe Scott Series, 1-8 (pre-order)

About the Author:

Tamara Rose Blodgett is the author of over forty titles, including her NEW YORK TIMES and USA TODAY bestselling novel, A Terrible Love, written under the pen name Marata Eros. Tamara writes a variety of dark fiction in the genres of fantasy, science fiction, romance and erotica. She lives in South Dakota with her family and enjoys interacting with her readers.

Never miss a SPAM FREE new release, update or exclusive excerpt:

SUBSCRIBE

BLOG

Twitter

FaceBook

Table of Contents

- Praise for the DEATH Series:
- Copyright
- DEDICATION:
- [Main] Character Index
- CHAPTER ONE
- CHAPTER TWO
- CHAPTER THREE
- CHAPTER FOUR
- CHAPTER FIVE
- CHAPTER SIX
- CHAPTER SEVEN
- CHAPTER EIGHT
- CHAPTER NINE
- CHAPTER TEN
- CHAPTER ELEVEN
- CHAPTER TWELVE
- CHAPTER THIRTEEN
- CHAPTER FOURTEEN
- CHAPTER FIFTEEN
- CHAPTER SIXTEEN
- CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
- CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
- CHAPTER NINETEEN
- CHAPTER TWENTY
- CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
- CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
- CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
- CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
- CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
- CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
- CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
- CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
- CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
- CHAPTER THIRTY
- CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
- CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
- CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
- CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
- CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
- CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
- CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
- CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
- Excerpt
- Acknowledgments
- More Books by Tamara Rose Blodgett

- Books written under the pen name, Marata Eros

- About the Author: