Free Mostly Dead (Barely Alive #3) by Bonnie R. Paulson Page A

choice, but it was either we eat them or they die in the flames.
    The meat had started wearing off minutes after we’d eaten.
    My hands and feet felt like ice. James’s hands m atched mine with the gray-gloved look over fingers and up wrists.
    S moke blanketed the area, undisturbed by wind or rain. We wouldn’t need long to get to Sandpoint. I was surprised we’d gotten the women as far as we had.
    Not much of an army in chicks and kids. But sometimes even the smallest numbers counted for something.
    Or had to.
    Right?
    One car had turned back. We didn’t ask questions or try to stop her. The situation was difficult to understand let alone believe. That we were at war with creatures made up of our loved ones and people we knew was worse than fighting for a specific cause.
    The only thing they fought for was meat. And the meat they wanted was yours. How did you not fight them?
    We opted to drive straight through town.
    But Heather had a different idea.
    She made the woman stop the car as we crossed a long overpass, according to a sign, called Veteran’s Memorial Bridge. Spanning across forest hundreds of feet below, the bridge looked out over the lake and the town intermingled with trees.
    Heather climbed from the car and walked to the edge. She placed her hands on the railing and looked over.
    Then she turned to me.
    I cut the engine. The rest of the cars waited. I’m not sure what for. Curiosity held me in limbo.
    Dark circles attested to the sleepless week Heather had been trapped in. She hadn’t fought me or accused me of forcing her into the situation she was in. She’d accepted each and every trial like she’d been born to do it… and knew it. And maybe she had been. She was immune to the virus. She hadn’t died or changed or even had any infections from the bites she’d received.
    Maybe she was the superhero , which meant, since I had the virus and I had done things I wasn’t supposed to, maybe I was her archenemy. Her nemesis.
    That loved her.
    Of course, why wouldn’t that work? Because I couldn’t hurt her. I loved her. And enemies hated each other.
    “I think we should warn the people in Coeur d’Alene.” Heather scrunched her nose, like she thought I wouldn’t like the idea.
    I couldn’t deny her much. The last thing I wanted to do with hours left was fight. “Okay.”
    “Okay?” Her eyebrows squeezed together but her lips smiled.
    “Yeah, okay. Let’s go warn them.” Over my shoulder, to the woman – I still hadn’t gotten her name – I called, “You guys go straight through the city and head north. Get over the long ass bridge that goes over Pend Oreille Lake and you’re in Sandpoint.”
    She waved her hand in my direction and led the two other cars toward town.
    James and I waited for Heather to join us. That high on a bridge, we didn’t have to worry zombies would spring out at us from the woods. Only smoky air surrounded us. We could almost pretend everything was normal. Almost.
    “You always want to act like things aren’t what they are.” James’s grumbled words surprised me.
    I angled my body to see him better. “You seriously want to stay like this? I don’t. Whether that means being cured or dying in a fire, I can’t stay in this body, craving everything that breathes.”
    He threw his hands in the air, letting them crash to the tops of his thighs. He leaned forward, the bike leaning with him. “Why? Why can’t we stay like this? We just need to make sure we eat regularly. I don’t see a problem. I read this book once about a vampire that lived off animals and actually had a pretty good life.” He grunted. “I’m sick and tired of you complaining.”
    “I’m not complaining about anything.” The flipping nerve.
    “No? Almost every other thought, you’re whining like a baby. It’s getting old. Stop.” He bit the words off like they were hard to chew.
    M y throat closed on the words… the memories. “You haven’t seen the same things I have. Be glad for