Free Lipstick & Zombies (Deadly Divas Book 1) by Faith McKay Page A

with both hands holding the bridge of his nose.
    "Woooooo!" Dee yelled.
    "I think that means we win," Sadie said.
    "Do you think we'll have to see him again?" Carrie asked.
    "If they do send him back again, we now know the path to victory," Sadie said.
    "Victory!" Dee agreed. "Drinks?"
    Gerri ruffled Dee's hair, earning her a glare. "I think I've had a bad influence on you, hon."
     
    JO
     
    Meghan came in, clapped her hands, and said, "No more drinks," which Jo was grateful for. She couldn't tell if the other girls were serious about drinks again, in the middle of the day, right before fight and dance training, but certainly thought it was a miserable idea. Her head still hurt from the night before. And she wasn't exactly in the celebratory mood, even if they had bested the man with the spaghetti song. She'd had spaghetti a few times as a child, it was delicious, but the idea of food was revolting today. She'd thought she had a strong enough history of drinking liquor with her family that she wouldn't become ill. She suspected it was the different types of liquor, since she'd only ever had the one. Who knew what all the different foods and drinks would do to her. Her whole world was new. She was a city dweller now. Even her stomach was having a hard time adjusting to that.
    Her mood wasn't only due to the morning's ailments, or the confusing world. There was also the fact that she knew the girls didn't understand her, and the singing itself. It seemed the other girls had backgrounds of voice training and knew all types of music words she'd never heard before. She sang to herself while she walked the edge of the wall alone, or to help her youngest siblings fall asleep. It was something she did for fun. The man with the spaghetti song was not interested in singing for fun. He barked orders at her she didn't understand. She was quickly becoming tired of taking orders from people in this world. She'd thought it would be okay; she'd been raised a soldier. She'd assumed the life of a popstar would be more freeing than that.
    She dragged behind on her way to class. No one had asked during auditions if she knew how to dance. How difficult could it be? She was trying not to think about that fancy stuff the other girls had done in the living room the night before.
    Their dance instructors greeted them. The woman did a twirly thing in the air and landed before them with a smile. She introduced herself as Tammi. The man, Marvin she called him, just clapped, possibly as a greeting, or maybe as a way to detract attention from Tammi. Was clapping some kind of custom in the city?
    "Ten minutes late," Marvin said.
    "He's talking about Noah," Tammi explained, "the fight coordinator." The name made Jo twitch. No one said her old friend's name anymore. It was nice, if surprising, to hear his name assigned to someone else. It was bound to happen someday; Noah wasn't an unusual name. She'd get used to it, like everything else. “He's typically late, and I'll deny it if you tell him this, but you're lucky to have him. He's a real up and comer, a fresh voice. He's been doing amazing things this past year. Anyway...” Tammi went on to ramble off details about schedules and people being late and the value of time, but Jo couldn't follow her rapid speech patterns. People didn't talk like that at home. They drawled on some times, or barked out quick orders, or were quiet and spoke only when sure you were listening. It annoyed her, most of the time. She'd wanted to be around more animated people. And there she was. Overwhelmed. Confused. Out of place.
    And then Noah walked in and looked right at her. He stopped. Time stopped. The world stopped. Everything stopped. He was looking right at her! Her friend, her boyfriend, her corpse, her delusion? He was looking right at her!
    He's dead. He's dead. He's dead. Each time she thought it, it was like the world shifted under her feet, like she was readjusting to this reality while staring at a very different