Chapter 9 Nico
Chapter nine
Nico
We stared down in shock at Liz’s broken body on the pavement below.
It didn’t take long for the zombies to recognize a free meal, and I had to look away as they descended upon her body with a feralness you would only see in the wild.
Liz was the second person I’d lost in a matter of hours, and now I was fucking pissed.
I promised these people that I would get them to safety, and less than a day in, and we were already down two people.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Emery said to me, quiet enough that the others couldn’t overhear her.
She placed her hand on my arm and looked up at me with her big brown doe eyes full of sympathy and a flicker of guilt.
All I wanted to do was pull her into my arms, but I wasn’t used to receiving her kindness, so I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to spook her.
“It wasn’t your fault, either,” I finally replied. “We did the best that we could.”
“Jesus Christ!” Justin yelled. “This is insane. I’m not doing that again. Did you see how hard she hit the ground? No, thank you.”
I rolled my eyes. This fucker was dancing on my last nerve.
Had been since he arrived, screaming into our lives.
I didn’t like the way he looked at Emery as if she were something he needed to possess.
As if she were something he already possessed.
I’d watched with my own eyes as he dismissed her rejection.
The man was unstable, and if he kept up his bullshit, I might just toss him off the roof.
That idea stuck with me and I imagined myself walking up to him, grabbing him by the shirt, and tossing him over.
“We need to keep moving,” Miguel advised, breaking me from my daydreams. I nodded, grabbed the ladder, and carried it to the other side of the roof.
“I’m glad this is working, but how long can we keep this up?” Emery asked.
“As long as we have to,” Luis replied. We all crossed successfully to the next building, but as I carried the ladder to the other side, I noticed zombies on the next roof. That would be a problem.
“Maybe we can bait them over the edge?” Darla suggested.
“It’s worth a try,” Luis said.
We all started hooting and hollering, which got the zombies’ attention. There were about fifteen of them on the roof, and soon they were all congregated across from us, but that was as far as they went. They didn’t have the coordination to make it up and over the wall.
“This isn’t working,” I stated. “You all keep their attention. Miguel, with me.” We took the ladder to the opposite end of the building and set it across. “Ok, you hold the ladder, while I cross. I’ll take them out, and then we can help the rest of the group across.”
“Be careful, brother.”
I crossed quickly, and as my feet hit the rooftop, I pulled out my knife.
I had plenty of rooftop to work with and no reason I couldn’t put these fuckers down.
My idea was great in theory, solid on paper, unrealistic in practice.
I managed to sneak up behind the group and down a few before the others realized I was there.
As soon as they did, their interest in the group across the alley died at the prospect of fresh meat.
I underestimated how quickly they could overpower me and how fast they could be, especially when they were as hungry as these guys must have been after being stuck up on the roof.
I managed to take a couple more out before they had spread out so much on the roof that I had to climb onto the pigeon coop to escape them.
The coop began to shake as they surrounded me, and my stomach sank.
This wasn’t good. The coop wouldn’t withstand it for long.
I looked around for a way out of this predicament when I saw Emery run toward the ladder.
“No!” I shouted. “Stop her!”
Luis chased after her, but she was too quick.
When Miguel reached out to grab her, she sucker punched him in the stomach.
Without slowing down, she ran across the ladder, but the force of her steps and the lack of anyone holding on to it caused it to start to slip.
Time seemed to slow, and I watched in horror as the ladder began to slide out from under her.
Not her, I pleaded silently. I could handle losing any other member of the group but her. Not Emery.
Emery never showed any sign of worry about falling to her death, only determination to make it across. She tossed her bat ahead of her, dove for the roof, and just made it before the ladder fell out of view.
“Dammit, Emery! Stay back!”
“Shut the hell up, Nic.”
If we survived this, I was going to kill her.
She scooped up her bat and started swinging as zombies began to go after her.
It took me a minute to join in the fight because I found myself mesmerized watching her kick zombie ass.
She was fast and scrappy, easily dodging their hands and teeth.
Snapping out of it, I jumped off the coop to take out the zombies still focused on me.
Together, we cleared the roof, and once we were safe, I dropped my knife, ripped the bat from her grip, and shook her by her shoulders.
“That was fucking stupid, Princess. You could have fucking died!”
“You could have died, too!” Emery yelled back.
“I had it under control!”
“Right,” Emery scoffed. “If that was you having it under control, perhaps someone else should be in charge.”
I growled in frustration and released her before I actually ended up hurting her. I never wanted to hurt Emery, even if it was by accident. Instead, I stomped over to the edge of the roof to check on the ladder.
“It’s toast,” Miguel advised.
I looked at the mangled ladder below with a resigned sigh. There went that plan. It was of no use to us now. Thankfully, the alley was empty. “Ok, new plan. You guys take the fire escape down to the alley. Stay quiet, and we will meet you down there.”
Emery and I jogged over to the other side of our building to take the fire escape down as well, but it wasn’t there. Or rather, it only went up to the third floor.
“Well, that’s a problem,” Emery said. “Looks like we’ll have to go through the building.”
“Shit,” I muttered. She was right. It was our only way off this roof, unless we followed the ladder and took a header. As much as I didn’t want to go into the building, I wanted to live more. I used my knife to pry the door open, and we looked down the dark stairwell with apprehension.
“My cell phone still has power. We can use it as a flashlight,” Emery said as she pulled her phone out.
Mine still worked, so I grabbed it out too. We needed every bit of light we could get our hands on. “Let’s get this over with. We just need to make it to the third floor, then we can try to get to the fire escape.”
The building was silent, and we didn’t speak as we descended.
The top floors looked surprisingly untouched compared to the general state of the area.
Maybe the people on the roof were the residents from the top floors?
When we got to the fourth floor, we discovered why the top floors were deserted.
The residents had filled the stairwell with furniture as a barricade to keep anyone, or anything, from coming up.
“Now what?”
I studied the blockage and tried to contain my annoyance. It would take forever to clear the stairwell, and who knew what we would find on the other side? “We could go through an apartment and hop down to the fire escape,” I suggested.
Emery looked at the apartment doors. “Would it be this one?”
“Let’s find out.” I went to the door and tried to turn the knob. To my surprise, it was unlocked. I pushed the door open, but the security chain stopped it. “Hello? I called through the crack in the door. We need to access the fire escape. We aren’t here to hurt you.”
“Maybe they went out the fire escape, too?” Emery asked.
“Could have. Back up, I’m going to kick it in.” We both stepped back, and just as I prepared to kick the door in, Emery stopped me.
“Wait! Look!”
Dead fingers curled around the door seconds before we heard the telltale sounds of a zombie. Well, that answered that question. The zombie’s whole arm squeezed through the crack in the door as its face and gnashing teeth appeared.
“Do you think there could be more than one in there? Maybe we should try the stairs?” I asked.
The ruckus the zombie was making echoed through the silent building, but it didn’t stay quiet for long as zombies past the barricade answered its call.
“There’s no telling how many zombies might be down those stairs,” Emery replied. We both looked at the stairwell in alarm when we heard some of the furniture moving around.
“Right, apartment it is. You ready for this?”
Emery raised her bat over her shoulder and nodded.
With one swift kick, the door exploded open, knocking the zombie to the ground.
Emery darted inside and planted her bat into its head before it could get back up.
I quickly closed the door behind us, and then we both paused and held our breath as we waited for more zombies to attack.
“Looks like it was just this one,” I finally said.
“We should look for anything useful to take with us before we leave,” Emery replied, already heading toward the kitchen.
I searched the bedroom and the closets and found rope and a couple of bags to carry our treasures in.
While I packed up the non-perishable food Emery had collected, she packed the other bag with blankets and clothes we might need.
Once we were ready to go, I opened the window above the fire escape and looked down.
By my estimation, it was about a ten-foot drop.
It could be worse, like a small platform to land on. We lucked out with this fire escape.
“Ok, I’ll jump down first, then you can toss the bags to me and jump.”
“Do you want to use the rope you found?”
I shook my head. “Not necessary.” I climbed onto the windowsill and glanced back at Emery.
“Geronimo,” I said with a wink before pushing away from the window.
The metal grate of the platform came flying toward me far faster than I expected, and I landed hard, the momentum nearly taking me over the railing.
I gripped it tightly as I regained my balance and prayed the force didn’t pull the rest of the escape from the building.
When I didn’t plummet to my death, I turned back to Emery, looking at me from the window above with worry. “See, easy.”
She rolled her eyes at me, a move that made my palm itch to turn her ass red, and tossed the first bag to me.
I threw it down the stairs to get it out of the way and did the same with the second one.
Now it was Emery’s turn to jump from the window, and I could see the nervousness she was trying to hide in her eyes as she chewed on her lip.
“I’ve got you, Em,” I assured her.
“You better,” she replied.
I was going to suggest we count to three when she closed her eyes and pushed away from the window.
I braced myself and caught her easily, holding her tightly in my arms. I didn’t release her right away as our eyes met.
I felt her breath quicken and her heart racing against my chest. What the hell, it’s the end of the world, why should I hold back?
I dipped my head to press my lips against hers tentatively.
I wanted to give her the choice to pull away or participate.
When her hands fisted in my shirt, I took it as a sign to deepen the kiss, teasing the seam of her lips with my tongue to request access.
Her lips parted, and I tasted her for the first time as I dipped my tongue inside to tangle with hers.
I pulled Emery tighter against me, hiking one of her legs around my hip to press my hardening cock against her.
Emery stiffened, as if she suddenly remembered where we were and who I was, and broke the kiss.
She was panting slightly as she pushed me away and raised her hand to slap me.
I caught her wrist before she could and brought her hand to my lips to nip her palm. “Be mad all you want, Princess, but you aren’t going to strike me. You should ask yourself what you’re more mad about: the fact that I kissed you or that you liked it and kissed me back.”
Emery scowled at me as I heard a familiar whistle and looked down to see our entire group watching us from below. I chuckled when I saw how angry Justin was. Good. Now he knew that Emery wasn’t his, because whether she knew it or not, Emery belonged to us.
She always had.