Free Zombies Unleashed (The Vampire from Hell Part 6) by Ally Thomas

Somehow, Michael, being my only male vampire child, gave them the courage to approach me with it now.
     
     

Chapter 11
    My Hero (Stephanie)
     
    ***
    “ We're our own dragons as well as our own heroes, and we have to rescue ourselves from ourselves. ” ~ Tom Robbins
    ***
     
    When I heard the door smash open, I never expected it to be Rayea and her friends.  I didn’t know how long I had been locked in the wooden box in one of the closets, but it has to be weeks at least.  They lifted me up and kept the lights off until I could regain my vision.
    “You came,” I managed to say.  “You actually came.”  I guzzled down the water bottle someone handed me.
    “Let’s get you cleaned up and put some clothes on you.”
    I didn’t resist.  I knew how wonderfully my sister would take care of me.  She was the good sister, the one who would never turn her back on anyone.  She’d never leave anyone behind.
    Why had I waited so long to call for her?  Why had I let that fiend have his way with me?  Why had I allowed that to happen?
    “We need to get her to the hospital, Rayea.  She’s in bad shape.”  A tall blond man steady me as I stood on shaky legs.  My bones were weak and brittle.  My body thin and gaunt.  I didn’t care.  I was happy to be alive.
    “I’ll call the ambulance,” one of the girls with red hair announced.
    Rayea nodded to her and she dialed the phone.  My heart wanted to sing out.  My soul expanded into a glowing ball of gratitude.  After all I had done to my sister, here she was.  I reached out for her, scratching at first to touch her.  The women pulled her back.  I began to cry.  I couldn’t help it.  Broken and destroyed.  I was no more the fearsome creature I had been.  I knew that now.
    “None of them…” I swallowed hard again.  “None of them returned.  Thank goodness.”
    “We can talk about that later,” Rayea said.  “You’re safe now.  I’m going to take care of you.”
    I fell into her arms, screaming and blubbering over her, as I had no one before.  My hero.  My savior.  Where would I be without her now?
     
     

Chapter 12
    Choose Your Mate (Rayea)
     
    ***
    “ My strength and my weakness are twins in the same womb. ”
    Marge Piercy
    ***
     
    As the weeks wore on, I visited Stephanie in the hospital.  Daily if I could deal with it, but mostly I saw her a couple times a week.  She was a mess and as scared as a little frightened rabbit.  When the doctors suggested I care for her at my home, I couldn’t say no.
    Michael decided to get back to work, looking for my father and tracing his movements.  He would text me here and there with an update.  He still hadn’t located J and Blick, and I tried not to inquire too much.  Blick had not contacted me since that call, but when Demetri without him, I became worried.
    Needing a break from the chaos, Lynn accepted Ashton’s invitation to go to New Zealand with him, where he was filming his next movie.  She planned to stay with him the entire three months.  “If anything comes up, text me.  I may be on the other side of the planet, but I’ll still be online,” she had told me when I called her.  They were already at the airport, waiting to board a direct flight from San Francisco International to Auckland.
    As I listened to Lynn and Ashton giggle and carry on, interrupting each other as they told me all about the beautiful scenery in New Zealand they planned on seeing, I tried not to feel jealous.  When Blick had called off the wedding, my chance at happiness had been destroyed, dead in its tracks.  That had nothing to do with Lynn or Ashton, or Grace and Demetri for that matter and I needed to get over it and move on.  As I hung up the phone with Lynn, I wondered what Grace was doing.  Maybe I should swing by and see her.  She had been avoiding me ever since I had insisted we save Stephanie from Nathan and his friends.  I knew she had killed Nathan, T, and the others, a fact I had