Free Zombie High Chronicles (Book 1) by Amy Miles Page B

men working on the basement door. If there was any doubt before about whether or not I was right about this becoming a fallback bunker, it’s gone now.
    “Yeah? Get in line.” I cast a scowl in the direction of three younger girls who are whispering together and blatantly staring at me. “Thanks to Vaughn’s big mouth I’ve become a walking freak show overnight.”
    “You were already that,” she laughs and surprises me when she touches my arm. “Vaughn just added a little pizazz to the mix. So now they see you as broody, dark and intriguing.”
    I shake her off with disgust and try not to notice that the white shirt she’s wearing today does nothing to hide the fact that she’s wearing a lacy black bra. Did she plan that?  I bet she did, the little witch.
    I was right to be wary of her. She is just pretty enough to get away with anything if she bats those eyelashes, but she is far from the damsel in distress.  If she weren’t looking at me with those same doe eyes, I’d almost appreciate her cunning.
    “Look,” I grab onto her arm and pull her off to the side once we reach the second floor. “I don’t have time for your game. Just tell me what you want.”
    “I want the truth.”
    “About what?” I rub my temples, feeling one hell of a headache brewing again. It’s becoming a daily occurrence now. All of this attention is driving me up the wall. Do these people not grasp the concept of what “loner” means?
    “About why you are still here. We both know you hate this place and you can obviously take care of yourself,” she lowers a pointed glare to where my hand is squeezing her arm. I release her and shove my hands into my jeans pocket instead. I don’t like how easily she gets to me. “I get that you want to help your mom, I really do, but there’s more to it, isn’t there?”
    “So what if there is? It’s not exactly any of your business, is it?” I maneuver around her, wishing that there was a fire alarm that I could pull so she would be carried away by a human flood instead of following after me to continue her badgering.
    “It’s ok to admit that you’re scared.”
    I round on her so fast she smashes her face into my chest. She pushes back on my stomach but not before I detect a slight hitch in her breath when she feels the rigid muscles that lie beneath my shirt that comes from years spent training. I smirk and find myself enjoying how flustered she becomes.
    “I don’t scare easily.” I stretch out a hand to brush my finger down the length of her arm. Damn, if she isn’t nice to look at, with her flushed cheeks and rapid breathing that draws my eyes to the outline of her black bra once more. “Maybe there is another reason why I stuck around. Maybe I wanted this to happen.”
    Pushing her back against the wall, I tower over her, staring into her eyes and enjoying her reaction as I press into her. She swallows hard and starts to speak but can’t quite seem to find the words.
    “Or maybe not.” I pull back mere inches from brushing against her lips. “See you around, Ember.”
    When I feel her eyes glued to my back as I walk away I smile. Two can play this game and it’s one I don’t intend on losing.
    Perhaps a part of me should feel bad but that girl needs to learn something real quick: I’m not the type of guy a girl takes home to daddy. I’m rough around the edges for a reason and I sure as hell am not one of those bad boys who turn out to have a heart of gold buried beneath layers of sarcasm. I don’t care about her. I’m in this for me and my mom. That’s it.
    Over the next three hours I suffer through a Physics test that is all greek to me, a history test that seems insanely pointless since our country pretty much no longer exists, and another episode of “Let’s prove that every guy in the world is not as romantic as Shakespeare.” By the end of lunch, I am on edge and find myself surrounded by no less than twelve people, with others encroaching space around