Dead Set - Book 2 of a Zombie Reverse Harem

Chapter Twenty Five

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

CONNOR PRICE

Helpless.

If I had to sum up my entire presence in this cabin, that would be the perfect word. I was so fucking helpless. My girl was in so much pain and literally falling to pieces in front of me and I couldn't even fucking comfort her. Once again, I only made things worse for someone I loved.

I watched helplessly as Blake pulled her into his lap, cradling her as she sobbed against his chest. And as Jay made his way over to them, dropping to his knees as he held her hands in her lap. Me? I held fucking eye contact with her, which meant that I got a front row seat to the utter devastation that filled them and there was fuck all I could do about it. I'd never wished myself dead in my entire life, until this moment. At least then I could be what she needed for comfort instead of a meal.

"Look at me," she sniffled in a small voice that was so unlike her "Jay's just woken and I'm here throwing a pity party for myself. How are you?" As unselfserving as ever she held Jay's face in her hands "How do you feel?"

"I'm fine, Red." He assured, pulling her hands from his face to his mouth as he softly kissed her knuckles "I swear, I fell asleep and woke with a headache. That's all."

Her shoulders visibly sagged with relief as she exhaled her worry for him. If only she knew him as well as I do, she would have noticed the tiny, almost imperceptible tick that belied his words. The little twitch in the outer corner of his eye and the miniscule dimple on his cheek that only appeared as he nipped his inner cheek with his teeth as punishment for lying. Jay was lying to our girl about his transition and there would be only one reason why he would do that... It must've been bad. We were definitely going to be talking about this later.

Red's stomach snarled like an angry baby dragon, distracting me from Jay's lies and reminding me that we had bigger issues right now. "Where's that rifle we left you when we went to town, Red?" All three sets of eyes turned to stare at me.

"Why?" She asked cautiously.

"You haven't eaten in nearly two weeks and I want a fucking snuggle so I'm off to shoot Bambi."

"What?!" Her voice came out shrill as she shrieked at me "You can't do that!"

"Watch me," I jibed as I rose from my seat and headed to the bedroom; that last place I remembered seeing the hunting rifle. Finding it propped up in the corner where I had originally left it, a sense of relief filled me when realization hit at how lucky we were that we hadn't had to use it yet. Two weeks we had been here and we had thankfully been left alone. But how long could that last? A nervous feeling of trepidation filled me with the uncertainty of it all. We were living day by day and fuck, it was stressful.

I could hear raised voices as I headed back into the hallway, the barking control of Blake mixed with the soothing tones of Jay, countered by the indignation of Agnes.

"It's either you let me shoot Bambi or you bite me like you did Jay," I spoke as I reentered the kitchen. I expected Agnes to react to my biting comment but when Jay did it only confirmed what I thought. The transition was not as easy as he had led Red to believe "I'm not watching you in constant pain and not being able to comfort you. This past few weeks was agonizing to watch you so torn which was made ten times worse when you started to push me away."

She rears back from the slap of my words. I felt bad for the guilt I was causing her but this was of her own making. If she had just spoken to us from the beginning we could have helped her through this, rather than torturing us all these past few weeks.