To Be A Leader

Chapter 3: Somebody's Watching Me

The growls of the zombies are horrifying, deafening, overwhelming. The shed door creaks loudly when I shut it, but at least it lessons the moans from all around us.

I immediately sit Milo down and start checking him for bites, ignoring his squirming. I have to make sure he's okay. He's my number one priority right now.

"We should be safe in this shed for a minute or two," Jaime says, looking around, sitting down. "Everyone okay? No one bitten? Grazed?"

"Milo's clean," I answer, and Milo rolls his eyes at my overprotectiveness. Although, can it really be called that since we are literally surrounded by zombies? I'm not sure you can. There's got to be thousands of zoms roaming around out there.

I stand and walk over to Jaime, shrugging off my backpack and pulling out bandages. I can't remove the bullet from Jaime's arm; I'm no doctor, but I'm the best we've got since Paula can't touch him. She has to be extra careful around people. We can't risk her infecting him.
So I start bandaging him up as best I can.

"And I can't be infected by a bite because I'm already infected," Paula sighs, "but I could be torn to pieces. I haven't been torn to pieces yet, so yes, I'm okay. Peter, do you want to explain your situation?"

My head snaps to Peter, eyes widening in fear. "Situation? Peter, are you alright? Have you been bitten?"

I don't bother trying to hide the absolute terror in my voice. I have lost two best friends. I really, really don't want to lose another one. Peter sends Paula a sharp glare, and the redhead grimaces.

"I'm fine, darling," He replies tightly, pulling up his shirt sleeves and pants legs to reveal unbroken skin. "No bites. No grazes. And you look okay too."

I scoff, the sound slightly bitter. "I'm not the kind of person who dies, Peter."

"Well, neither am I."

His playfulness makes me feel a little better.

The accelerated healing has got even more accelerated over the past few months. I'm like Paula and Van Ark. I heal within seconds now. I'm not sure if zombie bites can infect me or not. I know they can't hurt Paula because she is already infected. The same goes with Van Ark.

Simon... I never was too sure, since his blood never actually got into anyone.

I know my blood's not infectious. I've had Veronica check. The lie I had to come up with was very complicated, but she didn't see through it, apparently. I'm glad she didn't.

"The good news is you've definitely lost the Pit Viper," Sam says. "I can see him heading back to report his failure. The bad news is that you're surrounded by zombies. Still."

"Yeah," Jody says with a wince, "and we haven't got a lot of cams in the neutral zone. The zombies can sense there are a lot of yummy people close by on the other side of the wall, so they're confused, and not honing in on you like they normally would."

"Yeah. So there are these waves of zombies moving trough Hoxton, mindlessly going with the crowd." Sam laughs. "Some might say that's what Hoxton was like before the apocalypse... because it was full of hipsters."

There's a beat of silence.

"How the hell did you manage to get my sister to fall in love with you?" Nicole asks.

"Hey!"

"Wait, sister?" Jaime asks, looking at me, and I cringe.

Right. He's been Sigrid's captive for over a year. And he was working as king even before then, so he didn't know about Nicole, or the fact that she was my sister. I keep forgetting he doesn't know all of this.