Reece and I keep our looting very quiet because we don't want Guido to know, or we'd have to do his bidding. We pick up everything from ammunition, to clothing. We stock up on all kinds of chemicals for amateur explosives, and search through several old bookstores, only finding a few reference books. Nothing coming close to what my dad had. I've gotten better with my guns, and even have my own shoulder holster. I'm not a pro, but getting good. Reece says it has something do to with me shooting a crossbow. I doubt this, but never argue.

While obtaining this really cool belt I can stick just about anything in, mostly my magazines and some knives, I find a new pair of boots and I'm breaking them in. They are soft tan leather with a rounded toe, thick soles, and they go up mid-calf with soft scrunches. These boots are zombie-bashing, kick-ass, chic boots. Best part is they don't feel like boots, being made for comfort.

Besides the boots, clothing is a priority too. I've had the same stuff for over four years, so I'm loading up on jeans, T-shirts, and hoodies. Although, I have been doing my laundry hand wash style, it's nice to have new things after such a long time.

Reece teaches me to ride a motorcycle just in case I ever need to drive one. He also talks me into a tattoo, saying he loves a virgin canvas. I end up with an arrow with bird feather fletching on my hipbone.

Mac's been getting suspicious of me being gone for hours at a time, so here I am, telling him what we're up to. I'm surprised it took him this long to figure it out. He keeps secrets, too. I've just been too busy to contemplate it.

"What?" he asks slowly, in disbelief. It's comical how dumbfounded he looks, his eyes all wide. "You can make bombs?"

I fidget under his appraisal. "No. I'm not an expert, and I've been relying mostly on faint memory. It's the agreement Reece and I made."

"So, you've been out on the town shopping for clothes and weird chemicals?" he asks, getting his facts straight.

"Pretty much, yeah. I needed clothes, and I didn't want to buy any."

"You have more than enough money to buy some. Why endanger yourself?"

"I need the money to stock up on moonshine and fresh food. Besides, I got you a few things." I toss him some fresh white T-shirts, they're his forte, and he makes them look really good. I don't bother to tell him about the famished we run into on our trips.

He grins and comes to delve through my stash. "I was wondering where you got the boots."

I laugh, "You know they're sexy."

He peers sideways at me. "You have no idea." Picking up a white bandana, he arches a brow at me.

I clear my throat and try not to jerk it out of his hand. "It's for Rudy. I figure he might want a new one." He gives me a strange look, and when I catch his eye, he looks everywhere but at me. "It's not like that, you know? We're good friends," I assure him with a smile and a squeeze of his hand, suddenly glad I put the guitar picks in my pack.

He sighs, "It's not that." Throwing the pack of white T-shirts on his bed, he says, "If you're friends, he won't mind you staying in here."

Mac isn't the loop of me sleeping in Rudy's truck. No one is but me.

"He already thinks I'm sleeping in here, Mac."

In contemplation, he stares at me. "Then where are you sleeping?"

"Sharing a room with Glinda," I say quickly. If he knows I'm sleeping in the vault, outside the fence, in the cold, he'll put up a fight.

Sitting on his bed, he smiles wide. "Rudy thinks you're sleeping in here, huh?" I nod. "Why would he think that?" His face darkens slightly. "Did he come on to you?"

"What? No. Rudy's never touched me in an out of line way." Only his gaze. I glare at the way he looks relieved. "Besides, even if he did, it wouldn't be your business."

"What?" he jumps to his defense. "It should be my business."

Crossing my arms and feeling smug I ask, "So, it should be my business about you. Right?"

Blue eyes glance around the room, before he shrugs, "Yeah."

"You wouldn't have any problem admitting to sleeping with any of the 'working girls' here?"

His face automatically screws up in disgust. "No. I can't believe you think that!" A thought dawns across his face in some kind of understanding. "Oh, that's why you're being so stand-offish. Mighty presumptuous of you."

"Maybe so, but you were too."

"Okay, that's fair. Now that we're all cleared up..." He stands, coming up to look down at me, although, looking down is a bit of a stretch, since I'm eye level with his mouth.

I laugh, "You're short."

Unfazed, a smile spreads across his face. "Doesn't affect performance."

"Hmmm...we'll see about that,"

His smile grows wider, brightening his eyes, but he turns serious. "Next time, just ask. Anything. I'll tell you, okay?"

Once I nod, he changes the subject, "We going to the tables?" he asks, his voice hopeful. He's been playing poker with me lately. At first, he thought it was a waste, my playing, until he found out about my poker face. Now, he plays for fun. I've run off a couple of other regulars after winning their money.

"I'm not on the rounds for famished watch. I need some fun," I reply, a little excited to put my mind off things.

Especially since tomorrow night, Guido's throwing a Monster Bash. Mac told me they have one ever so often. A couple of days ago a woman named Lucy was bitten by a chained famished. She got too close by accident. They asked her what she wanted to do, giving her a choice between becoming famished or not. She decided for it, so they locked her in a cage to complete her change. Now they're throwing a Monster Bash in her honor. It's atrocious. I tried to talk her out of it. She wanted to give back, she told me quite stubbornly. She would make her debut as one of Guido's arts, while everyone else gets smashed.

Usually, it takes very little time to change and it depends on how you're bitten. If you have a big chunk of your arm eaten, then it would only take a few hours, sometimes minutes. A bite can take a few days. It also depends on the person. I've seen someone change within an hour, while sitting, stupidly, in the hospital with Malachi. It could explain why there are different kinds of zombies. Makes sense, but I need to know for sure.

Lucy's the topic of talk, but I don't want to talk about Lucy, or go to the Monster Bash. It's just an excuse for everyone to party. Doesn't matter that they do it every night.

After the poker game, Reece tells me about his success with a pipe bomb, practicing on famished miles away from the community. He motions for a drink at the bar, and grins from ear to ear, wearing a black thermal shirt under his vest. Blue-gray eyes twinkling with mischief, he looks like a kid on Christmas morning. Sometimes he reminds me of myself. He thinks the same of me, telling me once he's surprised we're not related in some way.

"That's awesome," I say with actual envy. "I wish I was there to see it."

"Me too!"Mac pipes in, and Reece looks at me like he didn't mean for him to overhear.

Giving Reece a knowing look, I say, "He knows. He was asking too many questions, and I didn't want to lie." He seems relieved he wasn't the one who let it spill.

Reece continues in his excitement, "Yeah, you both should have seen it. It was like Disneyland fireworks!"

I laugh, "Well, I'm glad you didn't blow yourself "

"Suga!" Glinda interrupts, rushing over. "Yew got to let me help yew dress up tomorrow!" She has hopeful eyes, but I shake my head. She holds my arm with both hands, wearing her blonde hair straight tonight. Without the curls, it's exceptionally long and shiny resting on her breasts, which are covered up for a change. Her red glossy lips bring out the blue in her eyes.

"No way, I'm not even going. It's stupid Lucy wants to be that way."

"Oh! Yew know that ain't 'bout her." She waves my comment away. I peek at Mac and he takes a sip of moonshine, but not before I see his delight at this turn in conversation. I shrug at Glinda, and she squeals like a pig. "I'll see yew tomorrow, Suga. We got lots of work to do." She struts off.

I glance at Reece and Mac, "I'll take her parting comment as a compliment. It probably will be lots of work to make me look like a hooker." They both laugh in agreement. I'm probably going to regret it, a lot. Mac still tries to cover the gleam in his eyes.

Using the side door outside the fence, I have to shoot a few famished. The community treats them like pesky flies. It still amazes me how nonchalant they are about them. Zombies are very dangerous. All it would take is a large enough number on the right day. Bam! Community gone. I head into the working girls building where still Rudy stays. He had a fight last night, so he is laying low. I'm on a mission to get him out because Reece wants to meet with everyone for last minute announcements to leave for the base in a few days.

I knock before walking into the room where he lounges on the bed in sweatpants, a white long sleeved T-shirt, and his boots. I thought he'd be playing his guitar, but he's reading my notebook. His hair hangs loose around his face.

"Why do you read that stupid thing?" I ask, genuinely curious.

"I like how you think." His black eye has yellowed, but has since got a bruise on the left side of his face from being whacked repeatedly in the same spot. "You can have it back to write some more in it if you want." The corner of his lips tugs into a small smile.

"I brought you something." I pull out the bandana and give it to him.

He runs it through his hands, smiling wider, the smile finally reaching his eyes. "This won't stay white, you know?"

"Well, I'll know you use it when it starts to get dirty."

He thinks about that, then narrows his eyes, "What have you and Reece been up to?"

There isn't any reason to keep this from him since I was sent here to retrieve him for a meeting. "We've been looting. I've been helping him make bathtub bombs. It was our agreement."

He stares at me with a blank face, "That really doesn't surprise me. You have lots of things up your sleeve."

"Not really." I look around, "Do you need anything? I have some painkillers. Reece and I hit a big department store with a pharmacy. Everything had been cleaned out, except the bones of a body on the floor behind the glass. I happened to see a bottle of pills underneath it. Guess whoever it was didn't want to get eaten alive and swallowed most of them. You can have them."

"Huh. Trying to give me pills that have been under a rotting corpse for years?" He folds the bandana in half, tying it around his head.

My mouth drops, "They were in the bottle. They'll still work!" I think.

"Nah, I'm not in any pain. Keep them. You might need them someday."

"We better get going. We're having a meeting at the marketplace. I want to get it over with. I'm tired. I also think Glinda wants to dress me up like a prostitute tomorrow."

His eyebrows rise as the corner of his mouth twitches. I roll my eyes. "Let's go then," he said, not bothering to hide his amusement.

Still laughing at me, I have to grab his arm to pull him off the bed. "Oh, I almost forgot." I pull the little plastic box out of my pocket and hand the guitar picks to him.

He tries to smile at me, but looks a little sad. "Thank you."

"No problem. You're always looking for one. Now you have a whole box."

Nighttime means the marketplace is empty, except for our twenty people. Our voices seem small as they resonate through the warehouse. The chatting ceases as Reece pulls a blanket from the mound on his booth. The blanket hid a huge stack of homemade bombs in plastic pipes with fuses running out of them. Gasps and exclamations erupt as everyone figures out what's going on.

"This is how we'll enter the zombie base," Reece states, waving his arms in a dramatic fashion. I bite my lips to keep from laughing at his enthusiasm.

Rudy picks up a bomb and examines it, before glancing at me. "Well, I can't think of anything better."

I announce, "I think it's time for our mission."

"How do we know those will work?" This comes from Felix Fuller. I'm sure he didn't mean for it to come out grudgingly. The guy seriously needs to take it easy.

Reece just grins. "I don't know. You volunteering to test them? I'll give you one and light the fuse." If it was possible for Felix to getter any fatter, he did right then, taking in a breath and puffing up like a blowfish.

Rudy speaks up, "This is great. Try to be optimistic."

"We didn't know he was doing this! I don't trust it when I'm going to be handling thousands of the famished!" Felix squeaks in full-effect flair, waving his hand in the air, momentarily forgetting he tries to tone it down. Everyone knows, but no one tells him that they don't give a rat's ass how he spends his time in the bedroom. Hence, the chip. I've tried talking to him, but he's stubborn and acts like he doesn't know what I'm talking about. You can't help someone who doesn't want it.

Rudy stays calm, but the look in his eye is one he gets in the betting ring. "Then stay here, Felix Fuller." He stares into the man's beady eyes. Sam and Ty crack up about something. I crack a smile their way. "I trust Kan to know what she's doing. Obviously Reece does too. He's the one that's been blowing things up with them." I cringe. Shit.

"Kan built these?" Thomas complains in outrage. I didn't want anyone to know I planted the seed, and helped Reece. "We are all going to die. Suicide mission. For what? Your lady love, Rudy?" Thomas glares.

Rudy glances at me then looks away, neck blazing along with his face. Before anyone knows it, he has Thomas by the throat. He speaks through clenched teeth, "You already know this is going to be bad. Now, you're slamming Kan for giving us better odds? Watch your mouth. I'm sick of hearing it."

Thomas wheezes. I think it was meant to be a laugh. "Kan," he says it like I'm something nasty on the bottom of his shoe. "Almost got killed by a putrid that couldn't even move," he sneers. Rudy's grip tightens. Thomas gargles, turning a pleasing shade of red.

I stuff down my momentary pleasure. "Stop! Rudy, stop!" I hurry over and smack his arm, hoping he removes himself from Thomas. It's like hitting a hard wall, and finally, he lets go.

Thomas gags but stands up straight. "Does she know about " Thomas starts, but Mac's arm flashes, and punches Thomas in the face preventing him from saying what he was going to say. Thomas slumps to the ground unconscious. Damn, Mac can pack a punch. Rudy stares at Mac for a long second.

Mac glares at Rudy, "I didn't do it for you." I'm bewildered, tired, and decide to ignore them both for the time being. I'll ask Mac about it later.

Clearing my throat, I get back to the business at hand. "Reece and I have one more looting trip tomorrow morning. The party's tomorrow night, and that gives us all the next day to get our things in order. We leave the day after that," I say, glancing at Rudy.

He thinks about it before nodding. "Sounds good."

I smile wide at him, watching as he returns it. "You'll get to see Julie soon." His smile flinches, but he holds it in place, not seeming thrilled. What's wrong with him? Maybe he's afraid of what he will find there. I would be too. "It's better to know than not to."

He swallows, remembering one of our first conversations. "You're right."

Mac scoffs, "Right."

I go to Mac's room before heading to the vault. He said I could ask him anything, so I will. "Why'd you hit Thomas? I mean, well, he deserved it. I just want to know what he was about to say."

Mac sits down beside me on the bed and meets my gaze. "No Sunshine, you don't want to know. Rudy should be the one to tell you, not anyone else. Including me." He kisses my forehead, and his curls graze my cheek as I shake my head.

"Why does it matter?" I clip, through my teeth. He smiles at that, sitting up straight.

"I think it would matter to you. Trust me." He runs his tongue on the inside of his bottom lip, worrying. I don't know what to say. He's not going to give, so I let it go.

Chapter 26.

Mac talks me into going with us to loot. We meet Reece in the parking lot of the community before the sun rises, taking a minivan for the space. Mac coming is a good idea, because he can help carry stuff. The wind brings a chill, turning our noses red. I get to wear the tan leather jacket that matches my boots, feeling guilty about having them. I got a little carried away, but who wouldn't?