Oblivion

“I think I saw Blake here, just a few minutes ago.”

“How sure are you? Did you see him—his face?” My hands curled at my sides as a wave of anger rose swiftly.

“Yeah, I saw—” She stopped, her nose scrunching. “I didn’t see his face.”

Didn’t see his face? How could she be sure she saw him then? I let out a low breath as a different kind of concern took root. “Okay. What did you see?”

“A hat—a trucker hat,” she said, her fingers fidgeting. “That had a surfboard on it. And I saw his hand…”

“So, let me get this right. You saw a hat and a hand?”

“Yeah,” she sighed, shoulders slumping.

I stared at her as the concern for her—for her well-being—unfurled, replacing the hotter, easier emotion to deal with. Kat had been through so much, so there was no surprise that she’d have a hair trigger right now, that she’d see Will or Blake when they really weren’t there. I smoothed out my expression as I wrapped my arm around her shoulders, drawing her into my side. “Are you really sure it was him, because if not, that’s okay. You’ve been under a lot of stress.”

She wrinkled her nose. “I remember you saying something like that to me before.”

“Now, Kitten, you know this is different.” I squeezed her shoulders. “Are you sure, Kat? I don’t want to get everyone freaking out if you’re not sure.”

Her gaze met mine for a second and then dropped. I squeezed her shoulders again, wishing like crazy she weren’t in this position. That she didn’t know this kind of fear.

“I’m not sure,” she said after a moment.

Closing my eyes, I brushed my lips across the top of her bowed head. She wrapped an arm around my waist and pressed her cheek against my chest. “It’s okay,” I said, ru

“Sorry,” she murmured, curling her fingers into the back of my thermal. “I didn’t mean to freak you out. I just thought—”

“You don’t need to apologize for that.” Reaching down, I brushed her hair back from her face. “It’s totally understandable.” When Kat didn’t reply, I held her a little tighter. “Tonight I’m on babysitting duty. Join me?”

There was a pause, and then Kat lifted her chin. “Sure.”

She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes; it didn’t erase the haunted look there. The smile changed nothing.

Hours later I sat with Kat beside me, and Dawson on the other side of her, two movies into a zombie-thon. At first, we talked about different ways to find Beth, which kept going back to either the office building where Dawson had been held or at the warehouse with the cages.

Kat and Dawson were down with that plan, but I was the lone dissenting voice that repeatedly kept pointing out that the likelihood of her being there was slim, but we were still going to scope out the places this weekend.

Land of the Dead or Party of the Dead was on the TV. I had no idea which one, but some dead dude was eating some other soon-to-be-dead dude. I reached over, grabbing a handful of popcorn out of the bowl in Kat’s lap. “I had no idea you were a zombie fan. What is it—the blood and guts or the in-your-face social undertones?”

Kat laughed. “Mostly the blood and guts.”

“That’s so un-girlie of you.” I frowned as a zombie picked up a cleaver and started banging it against the wall. What the? “I don’t know about this. How many hours do we have left?”

Dawson raised his hand and two DVDs shot into his palm. “Uh, we have Diary of the Dead and Survival of the Dead.”

“Great,” I muttered. Truth was, I was having fun. I had my girl and my brother next to me, and even if what was on the TV was weird as shit, which coming from me was saying something, there was no other place I’d rather be.

Well, having Kat upstairs and in my bed was another place… I shifted my foot on the coffee table.

“Wussy,” Kat replied.

“Whatever.” I elbowed her, knocking a kernel of popcorn between her chest and notebook. She sighed, and I kind of wanted to fish it out with my mouth. “Want me to get that for you?” I asked.

Kat shot me a dark look as she plucked it out and threw it in my face. “You’re going to be grateful when the zombie apocalypse occurs and I know what to do because of my zombie fetish.”

I raised my brows. “There are better fetishes out there, Kitten. I could show you a few.”

“Uh, no thank you.”

“Aren’t you supposed to go to the nearest Costco or something?” Dawson asked, letting the DVDs float back to the coffee table.

I turned to him, incredulous. “And how would you know that?”

He shrugged. “It’s in The Zombie Survival Guide.”

“It is.” Kat nodded eagerly. “Costco has everything—thick walls, food, and supplies. They even sell guns and ammunition. You could hole up there for years while the zombies are getting their nom nom on.”

My mouth dropped open.

“What?” She gri

“Very true about the Costco thing.” Dawson picked up a single kernel and popped it in his mouth. “But we could just blast the zombies. We’d be fine.”

“Ah, good point.” She rooted around in the bowl, picking up a half-popped kernel.

“I’m surrounded by freaks,” I said, resisting a smile. Hearing Dawson talk like…like it used to be was priceless. On the screen, some idiot got a chunk of skin and tissue ripped out of his arm. “What the hell? The guy just stood there. Hello. There’re zombies everywhere. Try looking behind you, douche canoe.”

Kat giggled.

“This is why zombie movies are unbelievable to me,” I went on. “Okay. Say the world ends in a shit-storm of zombies. The last thing anyone with two working brain cells would do is just stand along a building waiting for a zombie to creep up on them.”

Dawson cracked a smile.

“Shut up and watch the movie,” Kat ordered.

“So you really think you’d do well in a zombie apocalypse?” I demanded.

“Yeppers,” she said. “I’d totally save your butt.”

“Oh, really?” I glanced at the screen and got a horrible idea. Concentrating, I mirrored the image of zombie, taking on the gray and loose hanging skin, along with the patchy brown spots and decaying skin along the cheekbones and nose.

Kat shrieked and jerked into Dawson. “Oh my God…”

I smiled at her, knowing my rotting teeth were made of awesome. “Save my butt? Yeah, I don’t think so.”

She gaped at me.

And Dawson…he let out this hoarse, happy sound I hadn’t heard from him in…in years. I lost hold of the mirror image and focused back on Kat. I cleared my throat. “I think you’d suck at zombie apocalypse.”

“You…you are disturbed,” she murmured, carefully settling down next to me.

Gri

“Anyone want more popcorn?” I asked. “We have food coloring. I can make it red for you.”

“More popcorn but minus the food coloring please,” she replied as I grabbed the bowl. “Want me to pause the movie?”

I raised a brow, and she giggled again. Heading toward the kitchen, I stopped at the door when one of the zombies’ heads broke the surface of the water. What in the hell were we watching?

Didn’t matter, though, because again, it was like having the Dawson I’d grown up with back, and if he wanted to watch zombie movies from here on out, that was fine by me.

Instead of grabbing one of the boxes of microwave popcorn, I went the old-school route, heated up some oil and popped some kernels. Took longer but tasted a hell of a lot better.

Once done, I headed back to the living room, stopping just short of entering when I heard Kat say, “I’d love to watch some of them this Saturday before we check out the buildings.”