Chapter 15
FIFTEEN
DAKOTA
Young Julien, with grass-stained knees and missing front teeth, grins at me across the yard of Rosa’s summer home, waving.
“Dakota.” His mouth moves, but his voice sounds older. “Wake up.”
The contradiction tears at the fabric of the memory, light bleeding through like sun through ripped curtains.
“Come on, princess.” Little Julien dissolves, replaced by darkness that pulses with each throb of pain in my skull. “Naptime’s over.”
Everything hurts. My head. My arms.
Why does everything hurt?
“Dakota.” Julien’s voice is clearer now. “Please.”
Where did he go?
“Julien?” My eyelids flutter, fighting against what feels like weights. “Wait.”
“You promised not to do anything stupid, remember? This definitely qualifies.”
I blink, trying to piece together the blurry, tilting mess of shapes and colors.
“There you are.” Julien’s face hovers above mine, blood streaking his temple, eyes wild. His hands cradle my face, warm against my skin. “Stay with me, okay?”
Stone ceiling arching overhead. Flickering candlelight.
“What—” The reverend. The knife. “Did he—”
“Dead.” Julien’s voice is flat. Final. His thumb brushes my cheekbone. “Can’t hurt you now.”
I turn my head, catching sight of a crumpled form on the floor nearby, the cross protruding from its middle, dark liquid pooling underneath.
Oh.
“You killed him,” I whisper.
“Yes.” No regret in that single syllable.
I should feel something about that, horror maybe, or relief, but all I can manage is a dull acknowledgment. One less monster in a world suddenly full of them.
Julien’s eyes scan my face, my arms. “How bad is the pain? Scale of one to ten.”
“Hundred.” My voice cracks. “Where’s everyone else?”
“Gone. Had to leave before we got overrun.” He slides an arm behind my shoulders. “Which is exactly what we need to do. Right now. I hear them at the front doors.”
A distant thudding echoes through the church. Glass shattering somewhere.
I try to sit up, pain shooting through my skull, making me gasp. “Amelia?”
“Alive and safe.” He tightens his grip around me. “Unlike you.”
“Always getting into trouble. I’m sorry.”
“Save the self-deprecation for later.” He slides his other arm under my knees. “First, we need to get the hell out of here.”
Before I can protest, he lifts me off the altar, cradling me to his chest. The sudden movement makes the room spin, and I nestle my face into his shoulder, fighting a wave of nausea.
“You’re bleeding,” I mumble against his shirt.
“We’ll compare wounds later.” He carries me swiftly down the altar steps, every step jostling my aching head before pausing at the doorway to peer down the corridor. “Can you walk? It’ll be faster if I have both hands free.”
“Yeah.” I nod, immediately regretting the movement. “Put me down.”
He hesitates, studying my face. “You sure?”
“Yes.” I press my palms against his chest. “I’m not helpless.”
After a beat, he slowly lowers my feet to the floor, keeping one arm firmly around my waist. My knees buckle, and I clutch his shirt to stay upright.
“Clearly not helpless at all,” he mutters.
“Just give me a second.” I take a deep breath, willing the room to stop spinning. “I’m fine.”
“You say that word too much.”
“What word?”
“Fine.” He practically spits it out. “Nothing about this is fine.”
A thunderous crash echoes from the front of the church, followed by the sound of splintering wood. My heart leaps into my throat.
“They’re through the first door.” He reaches around his back and hands me a knife. “We need to move. Now.”
The blade gleams dully in the candlelight, its edge smeared with—Is that my blood? My stomach turns.
“Better than nothing,” he says.
I wrap my fingers around the handle, trying to ignore the slickness. “Thanks.”
He reaches for his machete. “I’d give you this, but I have a feeling you’d kill yourself with it before you killed a zombie.”
“Probably.” My laugh comes out shaky. “I barely passed home ec. Sharp objects aren’t my forte.”
“Stay close.” His free hand finds mine, fingers intertwining. “Back entrance. Through the sacristy.”
I take a step and immediately sway, the floor tilting beneath my feet. Julien catches me.
“Sorry.” I fight another wave of nausea. I can’t be a burden. “Reverend hit me harder than I thought. I’ll be f—”
His face darkens. “If he wasn’t already dead…”
Another crash comes from the front of the church, and the distant sound of shuffling feet and hungry moans fills the corridor.
“Back entrance.” I force my feet to move. “Lead the way.”
We slip through the chapel doorway, turning away from the main entrance. Julien keeps me close, one arm around my waist, the other holding the machete ready. I grit my teeth and keep moving. The knife feels heavy and awkward in my hand, but I clutch it like a lifeline.
“Through here.” Julien guides me toward a small wooden door half-hidden behind a tapestry. “Sacristy first, then out the back.”
He opens the door, revealing a small chamber filled with robes and liturgical vessels. The space smells of incense and dust, undisturbed by the chaos outside. We cross it quickly, emerging into a narrow service corridor.
“How do you know this place so well?” My breaths come faster as we pick up the pace.
“Mapped it when we arrived.” His eyes never stop moving, scanning ahead and behind us. “Always know your exits.”
The moaning grows louder, echoing down the hallway behind us.
“How many?” I whisper.
“Too many.” His fingers tighten around mine. “Don’t look back.”
He leads me straight to the rear door, testing the handle. Locked. He curses under his breath, then steps back, driving his boot into the wood near the lock. Once. Twice. On the third kick, the frame splinters and the door swings open, revealing a small herb garden enclosed by a stone wall.
Fresh air hits my face, clean and sweet after the church’s death-smell. I gulp it down, the oxygen clearing some of the fog from my brain.
“See that?” Julien points to a small gate in the rear wall. “That leads to the woods. If we can make it there, we might be able to avoid the main horde.”
“And if we can’t?” I clutch the knife tighter.
His eyes meet mine, grim determination replacing the fear I saw earlier. “We will.”
The back courtyard seems clear, but as we step out, a woman in a waiter’s uniform lurches from behind a garden shed, her throat a ragged hole.
Julien shields me with his body, machete raised. “Stay back.”
She lets out a gurgling cry.
He meets her charge with his blade, arcing through the air to connect with her temple. The woman drops like a stone, limbs twitching once before going still.
“Keep moving.” He wipes the blade on his pants. “Where there’s one—”
“There’s more,” I finish.
We make it halfway to the gate when two more appear from around the corner of the church. A teenager in a bloodied polo shirt and an older man in coveralls. They spot us immediately, changing direction with single-minded purpose.
“I’ll take them.” Julien positions himself between the approaching dead and me. “Get to the gate.”
“Not without you.” I clutch his arm.
He shoots me a look I can’t interpret. “Together, then. But stay behind me. You’re in no condition to fight.”
The coverall man reaches us first. Julien sidesteps his grasping hands, driving the machete down through the top of his skull.
Meanwhile, the teenager wants to eat me, mouth open in a silent scream. I stumble back, knife raised in shaking hands.
“Fuck.” Julien braces his foot against the corpse to wrench his weapon free. “Aim for the eye!”
The zombie’s fingers catch my sleeve. I twist away, the movement sending fresh pain through my skull, vision blurring. It lunges, and with all the strength I have left, I drive the knife forward, feeling resistance, then a sickening give as the blade sinks deep into its eye socket.
The body drops, dragging me down with it, the knife still embedded in its skull. I land hard on my knees, a scream caught in my throat as the corpse twitches beneath me, one hand still clutching my sleeve.
“Let go,” I whisper, tugging at my arm with increasing desperation. “Please. Let go, let go, let go.”
The dead fingers remain locked around the fabric. I yank harder, panic rising as dark blood seeps from the eye socket, inching toward my skin.
“It’s okay.” Julien pries the dead fingers from my sleeve, tossing the arm aside. “You got him. Good job.”
He laughs as he helps me to my feet. His amusement feels out of place with dead bodies surrounding us and more shuffling our way.
“What?” I sway, steadying myself against his arm.
“Nothing.” His mouth twitches, eyes crinkling at the corners despite the blood and grime coating his face. “You’re gonna kill me if I tell you.”
“Try me.” I tug the knife free from the corpse’s eye socket with a wet squelch that turns my stomach. “After nearly being sacrificed by a psycho priest, I could use a laugh.”
He shakes his head, smile widening. “You were talking to it. ‘Let go, let go.’” His impression of my voice is absurdly high-pitched. “Like you were scolding a dog that stole your shoe. It was cu—funny.”
“I did not sound like that.”
“You absolutely did.” He glances over my shoulder, humor fading as he assesses the situation. “We need to move. Get on my back. It’ll be faster.”
“What? No.”
“Yes. Your head’s still bleeding, and you can barely walk straight.” He turns, crouching. “Climb on.”
The pain in my skull transforms into heat flooding my face. “I’m not riding you like a pony.”
“You’ve got options. My back now, or I throw you over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes when you inevitably pass out.” He glances back, eyebrows raised. “Your choice.”
“Asshole.” I step forward, wrapping my arms around his neck and letting him hoist me onto his back.
“I think I need a stamp card.” His hands slide under my thighs, securing me against him as he straightens. “How many times have you called me that? Three? Four?”
“You’ll start fresh.”
The gate is only a few yards away now. Beyond it, trees stand like silent sentinels, offering cover from both the dead and the morning sun beating down on us. He kicks the gate open and walks us into the cool shade of the forest, the ground carpeted with pine needles.
“We did it,” I mumble, head lolling against his shoulder.
“Not yet, but close.” His voice sounds distant. “Keep it together a little longer.”
He carries me deeper into the woods, footsteps swift and sure on the uneven ground. I try to focus on staying conscious, but the darkness keeps pulling at me, inviting me to slip away.
“Hey.” Julien jostles me. “Stay with me. Talk to me.”
“’Bout what?”
“Anything. Tell me something.”
“Did you hate my singing? My mom hates it.”
“No.” His voice rumbles through his chest. “It was… calming.”
His voice is calming. Like it’s telling me it’s okay, that I’m safe…
The forest feels endless, trees stretching in every direction. After what feels like hours but is probably only twenty minutes, Julien slows his steps.
“What’s your favorite color?” he asks.
I manage a weak laugh. “My favorite color?”
“Start small, work our way up to the meaning of life.”
“Hmm…” Does a favorite color even matter anymore? “Blue.” The word comes out like I’m testing how it sounds. “Dark blue.”
“Like what kind of blue? Ocean blue? Sky blue? Navy?”
“Midnight blue.” I trace an invisible line across his shoulder. “The exact color right before the sky goes completely black. When you can still see a bit of color hiding behind the darkness.”
“Poetic.”
“Shut up.” I rest my cheek on his shoulder. “Your turn. Favorite color.”
He’s quiet for several steps. “Blue.”
“No poetic description?” I poke his neck. “Disappointing.”
He shifts me higher on his back, readjusting his grip on my thighs. “Like stormy skies over water.” A pause. “That color when the sky can’t decide what it wants to be.”
“That’s better. Poetic.”
“The kind of blue that changes depending on what you wear.” His voice drops lower. “Sometimes light, sometimes darker. Never quite the same twice.”
His description feels… personal. I try to catch his eyes, but he keeps his gaze fixed ahead.
“You’ve thought about this color a lot,” I murmur, a strange warmth spreading through my chest.
He snorts. “Not really.”
“Liar.”
“Says the queen of ‘I’m fine.’”
My arms tighten around his neck—not enough to choke him, just enough to let him know I heard that. He chuckles, the sound vibrating through his back and into my chest.
“It’s just a color.” His thumb draws circles on my thigh. “But it’s… complicated. Mysterious. You think you understand it, then the light shifts and suddenly you’re seeing something completely different.”
Is he still talking about a color?
“Sounds like you have a relationship with this blue,” I joke, but my voice comes out breathier than intended.
He’s quiet for so long I think he’s done talking. Then: “Maybe I do.”
My heart does something complicated in my chest—a flip or skip or whatever hearts do when they’re trying to tell you something important.
“What’s your relationship status with midnight blue?” he asks, his tone lighter.
“Committed. Ride or die. That blue’s never disappointed me.”
“Unlike most things.”
It’s not a question, and somehow that makes it worse. I start humming softly, an old lullaby Rosa taught us, filling the comfortable silence.
“I know that one,” Julien says after a moment.
“Sorry. Just something Rosa used to sing.”
“Don’t apologize. I like it.” He gentles his tone. “Makes me remember good times.”
I continue humming, quieter now but deliberate, until the trees give way to a small clearing, and beyond that, I can make out rooftops.
A village comes into clearer view as we approach—small, modest homes arranged along what was probably once a street with kids playing or barbecue on Sundays.
Now they stand in silence. Some with doors hanging open, others with windows shattered, cars abandoned in the middle of the road, driver’s doors ajar.
Julien slows his pace. “Looks empty, but stay alert.”
He moves cautiously toward a small yellow-striped two-storey with intact windows and a door.
“This one.” He sets me on my feet beside the porch steps. “Stay here while I check inside.”
“No.” I grab his arm. “We stick together, remember?”
He hesitates, then nods. “Stay behind me.”