“Ali,” Cole croaked.

I looked up. The anguish in his eyes...the regret...the hate, a mirror of mine. “We have to try.”

And we did. Each of us. All at the same time. But again, there was no change.

I punched his chest, once, twice, my every emotion worsening, wild. Cole pinned my arms to my sides.

“Enough, love.”

But...but...this wasn’t fair, wasn’t right. “We can’t—”

The rattling of chains cranked up the volume; the moans of hunger became more frenzied.

“We have to deal with the zombies,” he said.

I laughed bitterly. Had Anima made a list of all the ways to torture us before ending us? Kill their friends one by one. Pit them against zombies while they’re mourning.

What would they do next?

No. Here was a better question: What would I do next? I was still in this game, still a force to be reckoned with—still capable of doing damage to their forces. I straightened, palmed my axes.

Cole pounded down the remaining steps, a .44 in one hand, a dagger in the other. The rest of us weren’t far behind, our determination a palpable force. Today, it wasn’t kill or be killed. It was simply KILL.

We hit the bottom and turned the corner. And there they were, an extension of the greater enemy. I took stock. At least a hundred sets of bloodred eyes watched us. Each zombie had sagging, paper-thin skin that was grayer than I was used to seeing. Not a single creature had a full set of hair, and very few had more than a handful of strands. They were older, then. Stronger.

Time to catch a few butterflies.

I braced my feet on the floor and prepared to separate the two halves of myself—to go total mad hatter. The zombies darted toward us...only to stop several feet away, as if they’d hit an invisible wall.

My mind whirled with questions as I searched the room. Why would... Ah. That was why. While slayers used chemicals that caused inanimate objects to become solid in the spirit realm—Blood Lines—to prevent the zombies from being able to enter homes or cross into specific areas, Anima used electric pulses. A poor imitation, but an imitation nonetheless. There was a stand on each side of the room, both with small red dots glowing in the center.

We had a moment to breathe and decide the best course of action.

“I don’t care about the pulses,” Bronx snarled. “I’m going to kill each and every zombie.”

“We don’t have time for you to go on a rampage,” Jaclyn said. “Justin is out there. He needs our help.”

“We can’t leave the zombies here.” Cole rolled his shoulders. He was pure aggression, ready to be unleashed. “You know that.”

We all did. Anima would only use them against us later. “The pulses could weaken, and the zombies could escape, kill innocents, create even more creatures for us to fight.” While the Z’s preferred slayers—we were tastier, I guess—they wouldn’t refuse an average citizen, especially if they were starving. And these zombies were definitely starving. “We could pour a Blood Line in front of the door, but someone could come along and wipe it away.”

“This is happening.” Frosty stared at the zombies and licked his lips, as if he could already taste their second deaths.

“Don’t be foolish. There isn’t enough room to do what we need to do to win,” Veronica said.

“We can even the odds.” Cole released the safety on his gun.

Zombies clawed and kicked at the invisible wall. It must have shocked them, because the first line fell back...only to have the second line march over them and do the same. The pattern repeated again and again, but one thing stayed the same. Black saliva oozed out of their mouths. They’d scented a meal and wouldn’t rest until they’d gotten one.

Boom, boom, boom. Cole fired into the crowd of Z’s, and one by one they dropped. “Enough talking. More doing.”

We shot and injured as many as possible, until we ran out of bullets. But there were still too many red eyes trained on us.

Jaclyn shook her head, dark memories dancing behind her eyes. “I can’t... The pain...”

I wasn’t sure what Anima had done to her all those months she’d been locked up, but after what they’d done to me, I knew it had been horrifying. Since our escape, she had barricaded herself inside her house, afraid of the world.

“You don’t have to fight,” I told her. “You can go up and wait.”

She was too far gone for my words to penetrate.

I looked to Frosty. “She can’t stay here. Will you carry her out? Maybe pour a Blood Line in front of the door?” That way, zombies wouldn’t be able to leave the room and get to her. But then, we wouldn’t be able to leave in spirit form, either.

“Done and done.” He jumped into action.

The moment he returned, I said, “I’ll light up. You guys concentrate on throwing the zombies at me.” We could shoot, stab and even decapitate the creatures, slowing them down, but none of that would lead to death. As our hail of gunfire had just proved. We had to ash them.

Cole met my gaze. “I won’t be far from you.”

“I know.”

“If your fire dies out...”

Which had happened. Multiple times. “Don’t worry. I still know how to fight.”

“Of course you do. I taught you.”

Arrogant sexy beast.

“Let’s do this.” Frosty stepped out of his body.

The others did the same. A miracle made flesh—or spirit. One version of my friends shimmered; the other remained frozen, no longer capable of movement.