"What you doing here, pretty boy?" someone calls. His friends chortle. "You want to see what real men are like or something?"

I keep my head down and my hands in my pockets. Not because I'm afraid, or because I'm in a part of Birmingham, Alabama, most kids my age try to avoid, scared off by the graffiti on crumbling building walls, the parked cars missing hubcaps and wheels, and the plethora of crimes being perpetrated in every alley-drugs, prost.i.tution, maybe an armed mugging or two-but because in my current mood, I will fight, and I will fight to kill. As a zombie slayer, I have skills and abilities "real men" cannot hope to defeat. Not even gang bangers. Taking on a group of punk kids would be like shooting fish in a barrel-with a rocket grenade launcher.

Yeah. I have one of those. Two, actually, but I've always preferred my daggers. Up close and personal is my preferred method of elimination.

In my pocket, my cell phone vibrates. I withdraw the device and discover the screen is blown up with texts from Cole, Bronx and even Ali Bell, Cole's girlfriend. Kat's best friend. They want to know where I am and what I'm doing, if I'm coming home any time soon. When will they realize it's too difficult to be around them? Their lives are pretty much perfect. The three of them are living the happily-ever-after I've wanted since seventh grade, when Kat Parker walked into my cla.s.sroom for the first time. The happily-ever-after I will never have.

Cole and Ali have each other. Bronx has his girl Reeve. What do I have? Pain and misery, and they both suck.

A big brute of a guy suddenly steps into my path. I say brute because the shadow he's casting tells me he's my size, loaded with muscle and topping out well over six feet.

If he isn't careful, he won't be walking away from this encounter. He'll be crawling. But as I glance from his boots to his face, I lose the 'tude. Here is my friend and fearless leader Cole Holland in the flesh. I've known and loved him like a brother since elementary school. We've fought beside each other, bled with each other and saved each other. But I'm not in the mood for another pep talk.

"How'd you find me?" I ask.

"My superamazing detective skills. How else?"

"In other words, the GPS on my phone." Technology is a wh.o.r.e.

Cole's eyes are violet, freaky, and right now they are glued to the collar of my shirt. He arches a brow. "Lipstick?"

"I'm on the hunt for my perfect shade," I deadpan.

"Your skin tone screams for rose, not magenta." His deadpan is better than mine.

The old me would have been all over that kind of response. I used to love exchanging trash talk with my boy. Now? I'd rather be left alone. "Thanks for the tip. I'll keep it in mind."

"Come on." Cole pats me on the shoulder, and if I'd been a weaker guy, I would have been drilled into the concrete. "Let's go get something to eat. You look like you could use a solid meal for once rather than a liquid one."

As much as I don't want to go, I don't want to argue with him. Takes too much energy. His Jeep is idling at the curb, and I slide into the pa.s.senger seat without protest. A ten-minute drive follows, and neither of us speaks. What is there to say, really? The situation is what it is, and there's no changing it.

When we end up at Hash Town, however, I wish I'd opted to argue. Ali, Bronx and Reeve are at a table in the back, waiting for us. Reeve and I have never been close; she was Kat's friend, and like Kat, slaying has never been in her wheelhouse. She can't see or hear zombies, but she's seen us fight so many times that she accepts what other civilians cannot: the monsters are real, and they live among us.

Reeve lost her dad-her only living family and our wealthiest benefactor-the day I lost Kat. For the first time, I'm struck by a sense of kinship with her. Maybe this forced interaction won't be so bad.

She smiles in welcome. She has dark hair and even darker eyes and, in junior high, she and Kat used to pretend to be sisters from different misters. Now, it kind of hurts to look at her.

Who am I kidding? Everything hurts.

I take one of two empty seats and signal the waitress for coffee. I'm going to need it. "So...is this an intervention?"

"No, but it probably should be," Ali says. "You look like c.r.a.p." Her mouth has always lacked a filter, a problem exacerbated by the fact that she refuses to lie about anything. Two qualities guaranteed to turn any conversation into a battlefield. But I wouldn't change her. I'll take blunt over charming any day.

Cole sits next to her and kisses her cheek, and she leans in to him, the actions natural to them both, wholly instinctive. Kat and I used to do the same.

A lance of pain rips through my chest.

"The good news is my c.r.a.p is another man's best," I say. "You look good, at least."

"Obviously." Ali buffs her nails.

It's such a Kat thing to say-to hear-we both freeze.

I need a moment to steady my breathing. New conversations eventually kick off, friendly insults bouncing back and forth among the group. My attention remains on Ali, and she mouths, I'm sorry.

I hike my shoulders in a shrug. Ali is Kat's polar opposite in appearance. In storybook terms, she's the innocent snow princess to Kat's seductive evil queen. Ali is tall and slender with a fall of pale hair and eyes so clear and blue looking into them is like staring into an ocean, while Kat is-was, d.a.m.n it-short and curvy with dark hair and hazel eyes a perfect blend of green and gold. There'd been no one prettier, or smarter, or wittier, or more adorable, and if I continue on this path, I'm going to topple the table before tearing the building apart brick by brick.

The waitress finally arrives with the coffeepot and fills my cup. "Your order will be out in a few minutes, hon." She pats my shoulder and ambles away.

"We took the liberty of ordering for you," Reeve tells me. "Two fried eggs, four pieces of bacon, two sausage patties, a double helping of hash browns and a stack of blueberry pancakes." She nibbles on her bottom lip. "If you'd like something else..."

"I'm sure I can make do with so little." I'm not hungry, anyway. "How's Z hunting going?"

"Better than ever." Ali takes a sip of her orange juice. "We've stopped fighting and simply allow them to bite us. In minutes, our light cleanses them-and us-of all darkness, and they float away into the hereafter. It's a miracle to watch."

Slayers produce spiritual fire, the only weapon truly capable of killing a zombie. But after the leader of Anima experimented on Ali, shooting her full of untested drugs, she developed the ability to save the Z's with her fire. An ability she then shared with other slayers by using her fire on them.

Multiple times she's offered to share the ability with me, too, but I've always turned her down. I'm not interested in saving my enemy. Zombies bit Kat. If I hadn't lost her to a hail of bullets, I would have lost her to toxin. So, zombies have to die.

The downside? I suffer when I'm bitten. The pain affects my whole body and is unbearable. The urge to destroy everything in my path is overwhelming. I also don't heal without slayer fire or an injection of a chemical antidote-and I have to receive one within a ten-minute window of the bite or I'm toast. And since I don't want to acquire the ability to save zombies, it has to be the injection. Always.

"Do I sense a but?" I ask.

Ali takes a drink of her water and nods. "The more bites we allow, the longer it takes us to recover."

"Makes sense. The more bites, the more toxin your spirit has to cleanse."

"More coffee?" the waitress asks.

The girls jolt at the sound of her voice. I just nod. Like Cole and Bronx, my guard hasn't dropped since I walked through the diner doors. I've known the waitress's location every second and knew she was close enough to hear us.

The coffee is poured, and she walks away without giving us the you are so weird look. Normally we wouldn't discuss our business so openly, but we're kids (technically) and we've learned that everyone a.s.sumes we're talking about a video game.

"We need to come up with a new way to help the Z's and ourselves," Bronx says. "After a battle, I'm drained for a week."

The food arrives a few minutes later, the waitress placing steaming plates in front of each of us. My friends dig in as if they've been starved for months. While I was out drinking and s.e.xing it up last night, they clearly did some of that zombie hunting and fighting. The sleeve of Ali's shirt has risen, and I see the raised red bite marks on her arm, just above a tattoo of a white rabbit.

I look around and find bite marks on Cole and Bronx, too, and it hits me hard. They went into the field of battle without me. They could have been hurt, or worse, and I wouldn't have been there to help them. The Z-saving thing is new, as untested as the drugs Ali was given, and we don't know all the ins and outs. Something could have gone horribly wrong.

I swallow a curse. I need to get my act together. Like, yesterday. But I'm not sure I can.

Copyright 2015 by Gena Showalter.

Brook Lynn's Stuffed Pepper Bacon Goodness.

4 poblano peppers, halved and seeded.

lb bacon.

1 jalapeno pepper, seeded

1 small white onion.

4 garlic cloves

1 tbsp b.u.t.ter

1 lb hamburger meat.

salt and pepper, to taste

8 oz cream cheese

cheddar cheese for topping, shredded.

Roast poblano peppers in oven or on grill until soft.

Dice bacon, jalapeno, onion and garlic, and then saute with b.u.t.ter in a large pan. Add ground beef and brown it, seasoning to taste.

Mix beef and bacon mixture with cream cheese and fill each poblano half. Top with layer of cheddar cheese and place in baking dish.

Bake at 350F for 3045 minutes. Enjoy!.

ISBN: 978-1-474-03579-8.

end.