Bloodsport: Z Sisters: Book 1 Read online

  I shoved my grief over Emmet into the very back of my mind and concentrated on the tasks at hand.

  We went through the house, gathering up anything we might be able to use for a weapon. Dad’s gun was in a locked gun safe and we couldn’t find the key but if worse came to worst, we could at least bash it over someone’s head.

  My thoughts kept skittering away from the reality of what we were preparing to do. Kill someone or a couple of someones to save our lives.

  I was pretty sure I could kill someone in self-defense but Kaz? She might be able to do it but at what cost?

  I looked at the weapons we had piled on the coffee table. It was a motley assortment. Two guns, a sharp pair of scissors, a baseball bat, and knives.

  We had a lot of knives, but I didn’t like our chances in a knife fight.

  Then Kaz went into the guest room and came out with the sword.

  Where did you get the sword?” I asked.

  “It’s a katana.”

  “I know what it is,” I said. “I watch movies too.

  “It’s a prop for the film I’m doing with Lyle. I told you.”

  She probably had. I don’t always listen when she’s talking.

  A shadow flitted over her face as she said Lyle’s name and her lower lip started trembling.

  “I don’t think a fake sword is going to be much help.”

  “It’s not fake,” she said, “Lyle got it from some pawn shop in Van Nuys.”

  I didn’t even want to know how a real sword ended up in a pawn shop.

  “You’re using a real sword in a movie?”

  “Lyle says the audience can tell the difference in the way you hold it.”

  “Well, if Lyle says—”

  But the argument I was trying to instigate to distract Kaz never actually got started because someone started pounding on the door.

  Kaz looked at me. We both looked at the monitor. A guy was standing at the door having obviously scaled the wall.

  So much for the wall.

  As we watched, he lifted his face up so that the cameras could get a good look at him.

  It was the man who called himself Mac.

  I must have made a sound because Kaz looked at me.

  “You know this guy?” she said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  I went to the coffee table where we’d laid out our stash of weapons and pulled my gun.

  “Get behind me,” I said.

  She moved to my left and raised the katana in what I guess she thought was a bad ass pose. I just hoped she wouldn’t accidentally hit me with it.

  I opened the door and pointed the gun in Mac’s face.

  “I’m not here to kill you,” he said.

  “That’s right, you’re not.”

  “But you need to let me inside.”

  “There is nothing you can say to convince me to let you inside this house.”

  “I know where your father is.”

  Except that.

  I kept the gun trained on him but stepped back, feeling Kaz move behind me.

  “On your knees,” I said, “hands laced behind your head.”

  He dropped, keeping his eyes steady on me, even as Kaz moved closer to him.

  “Do you want me to frisk him?” she asked.

  “Get back,” I said, afraid he’d wrest the sword away from her and take her hostage.

  “I’m not armed,” he said. “But fair warning, I am trained in hand-to-hand combat.”

  He didn’t seem to be mocking me, just stating a fact.

  “Where’s my father?”

  “At St. Joe’s,” he said.

  “No he isn’t,” Kaz said.

  “Yes he is,” Mac said. “He was having lunch with a friend at Poquito Mas and had a heart attack. It was the closest hospital. He was dead on arrival.”

  He looked from me to Kaz and back again. “I’m very sorry for your loss.”

  “Don’t say that,” Kaz said. “I hate that phrase.” Mac didn’t answer, just looked down.

  “He was at the hospital when all hell broke loose,” I said, sounding a lot calmer than I was. Daddy, I thought. You can’t be dead.

  “Yes. We’ve just finished identifying the—”

  “Victims?” I said. “The casualties?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “And who is ‘we?’” I asked. “Do you have a scar on your armpit?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I’m a Z Soldier.”

  “Like the ones running around today like—”

  “Zombies,” he finished for me. “No. They were what we call the ‘Mindless Ones,’ the ones who present with symptoms.”

  “How very ‘us’ versus ‘them.’” I said, as I felt tears begin to spill down my cheeks. I ignored them. I was damned if I was going to let this man see my weakness.

  “And where does the woman in the pantsuit fit in?” I asked, sounding anything but calm.

  “She created the Z protocol,” he said. “And now she’s trying to protect her children.”

  “By getting rid of anyone who saw them today?”

  He nodded.

  “Can she do that?” Kaz asked softly. I looked at her. She was glassy-eyed with shock. She’d been our father’s favorite. His death was going to hit her especially hard.

  “She can’t possibly think she can control this narrative,” I said.

  “She’s not worried about the collateral,” he said, “she wants to get the original Zees out of harms’ way.”

  Priorities, I thought. She’d probably spent a lot of money on her “children.”

  “Did she have Emmet and Sarah killed?”

  “Probably,” he said. “There are factions that want the program shut down.”

  “Yay for them,” Kaz said.

  “And then there are those who want to protect it at all costs.”

  “Which brings us to why you’re here,” I said.

  “They know you met with Travis Vo tonight and they know what he told you.”

  “They?” I said. “Not we?”

  “I’m not your enemy Rose,” he said.

  “Was it true?” Kaz asked. “What Travis told us?

  “Most of it. What Travis didn’t tell you is that the most recent…batch…if you will, are more resilient against the organic failure. We can control ourselves. We can fight the urges.”

  “How nice for you,” I said.

  “Here’s the thing Rose, that riot today? Some of the victims are already presenting. And they’ve already infected others. That means—”

  “I understand the concept of geometric progression,” I said. “That means the zombie apocalypse is upon us.”

  “More or less,” he said. “The genie is out of the bottle. Dr. Scolarzi is already on her way to Washington to brief the president on what needs to be done.”

  “Does it involve nukes?” Kaz asked, before I could.

  “Not if we can help it.”

  “Tell me about his plan,” I said. “Outline it for me.”

  “The core of it used to be the National Guard but they were called out today and a lot of them were infected. So, we’re going to need to train civilian militias.”

  I didn’t like the word “militias.” It conjured up images of white supremacists running rampant with guns.

  “I’m not here to kill you, I’m here to recruit you.”

  Not what I expected.

  “You too,” he said to Kaz as if just noticing her.

  “Recruit us to do what?” she asked.

  “Kill zombies,” I said. “He wants us to kill zombies.”

  “I’d be down for that,” she said, probably thinking of Lyle.

  Oh Kaz.

  Chapter Nine

  “You can get up,” I said to Mac. My whole body felt heavy with grief and fatigue and I was afraid if I held the gun up much longer my hand was going to start trembling.

  “Thank you,” he said and stood gracefully. We just stared at each other for a long minute, then he brok
e eye contact and looked at Kaz.

  “Do you have anything to eat?” he asked. “I’m starving.”

  “You eat?” Kaz said.

  “Yes,” he said, “I’m not an android.”

  I kept my gun in my hand as we took Mac into the kitchen and let him rummage in the refrigerator and carry his spoils over to the little café table in the breakfast nook.

  As he started forking up the cold lasagna. I winced. Unlike pizza, lasagna is not at its best served cold.

  “There’s a microwave above the stove if you want to warm that up,” I said.

  “It’s fine,” he said.

  “How’d you find us?” Kaz asked.

  “I was surveilling Travis. I knew Dr. Scolarzi would try to use him to open a line of communications to you.”

  “How did they know we knew him?” Kaz asked.

  “Russians aren’t the only one who know how to data mine social media.”

  She looked blank for a moment. “The party in Cabo,” she finally said.

  This is why I’m not on Facebook,” I thought.

  Mac just kept eating. His movements were very precise.

  I realized I was staring when he looked up at me and said, “You must have questions.”

  “Is Mac your real name?” I asked.

  “I think so. Our records are sealed.”

  “When did you die?” Kaz asked.

  “I don’t really know,” he said. “Pretty sure the timeframe is between 2010 and 2013.”

  He broke off to take another bite of the pasta. “Those were bad years for Operation Enduring Freedom. Lot of U.S. and coalition casualties.”

  “Not to mention the civilians,” Kaz said.

  He returned her gaze levelly. “Yes. Plus, targeted killings of women were on the rise. We didn’t know why.”

  He thought for a second. “I think died the year that little Pakistani girl was shot for wanting to go to school.”

  “Malala?” I said. “She just turned 21.”

  “Did she?” he said. “Good for her.”

  “And won the Nobel Prize,” Kaz added.

  To my surprise, Mac suddenly had tears in his eyes.

  “That’s good,” he said huskily. “The Taliban…have a lot to answer for.”

  For some reason that statement was what convinced me to trust him. I put my gun down—out of his reach, but still, a sign of trust.

  “So, just to clarify. There’s an army of zombie soldiers out there, waiting to be deployed to hot zones at a moment’s notice.”

  Mac nodded and kept eating. “But problem is, these soldiers have an expiration date that varies.”

  Mac looked like he might object, then shrugged. “One way to put it.”

  “And inside this army is a shadow group that wants to find a way to turn you all back into real boys?”

  That was harsh, even for me, but I was feeling mean this morning.

  “Basically.”

  “and you’re willing to kill the Mindless zombies to protect everyone else.”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s messed up,” Kaz said.

  “It is what it is, Kaz,” Mac said. “Dr. Scolarzi and her crew don’t have any use for the Z soldiers like me. We aren’t kill-crazy and we have a problem with authority.”

  I can relate.

  “They’re fine with the Mindless Ones because they can let them loose on the battlefield like locusts on a cotton field.”

  “Can your cure help them?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “There is no coming back for the Mindless. They need to be put down like rabid dogs.”

  He let that sit for a minute.

  “Who’s running this zombie-killing army?” I asked, even though I was pretty sure I knew the answer.

  “There are three of us.”

  Us.

  “Why you?” I asked.

  “Because I volunteered,” he said. “We’re close to finding an antidote to the poisons that keep us animated.”

  “But won’t you die?” Kaz asked.

  “We don’t know. We’re hoping it’ll be something like chemotherapy—a counter poison that will leave us healed.” He pushed away his plate. “But even if it doesn’t, we won’t be living under the threat that we’ll become mindless monsters or that we’ll be quarantined in some place like Gitmo.”

  He sounded so sad.

  I thought about how terrible it must be to die and then be brought back, but then I thought of Emmet and my dad and it was suddenly just too much. I needed to be alone to deal with everything.

  “The couch pulls out. You can sleep there. It’s probably got sheets and blankets on it. Dad is…wasn’t…much of a housekeeper.”

  “Thank you Rose,” he said.

  I nodded but didn’t trust myself to speak.

  I left the kitchen and went down the hall to the room Kaz and I had shared until I went away to college. I was too tired to make up the bed, so I just wrapped the comforter around me. Kaz’s cat jumped up on the bed with me and snuggled close. I felt asleep stroking her soft fur.

  If Kaz ever came to bed, I didn’t hear her.

  The next morning, I found Kaz and Mac in the kitchen, drinking coffee and watching the news on the little television that sat between the blender and the toaster. My mother had liked to watch the early morning shows while she was eating her breakfast. The scene looked so ordinary that it made my heart hurt.

  Kaz looked up when I came into the room. “It’s already started,” she said. “Everybody in a homeless camp downtown was slaughtered. Police are baffled.” She put air quotes around the “baffled.”

  Kaz looked wrecked. She’d probably been crying all night.

  “Are the Burbank police totally compromised?” I asked Mac.

  “Completely,” he said. “I hope you have some money set aside because you are out of a job.”

  “We’ll be operating extralegally?” I said, and even just saying it out loud gave me chills. Mac didn’t bother to sugar-coat it for me.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m a cop,” I said.

  Not anymore.

  “Things have changed Rose.”

  “Fox News is using the Z word,” Kaz said. “They have video from Burbank yesterday. As well as reports from Baltimore, San Antonio, and Cleveland. There were attacks all over.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” I said, looking at Mac. “Do these things have some sort of hive mind? Were they coordinating attacks like a bunch of domestic Al Qaeda cells?”

  “Rose,” Kaz said, and I realized I could have phrased the question more politely. I stumbled on. “Because what happened yesterday looked like it was organized and coordinated.”

  “Our neural networks are connected,” he said. “it makes communication easier and more efficient.”

  “And probably more secure,” I said. Then another thought struck me. “If your minds are all connected, how come you didn’t see this coming?”

  He didn’t comment on that, only said, “We’ll start training after you eat your breakfast.”

  What doesn’t he want me to know?

  “I don’t eat breakfast,” I said.

  “Eat it today,” he said. “I don’t want you having blood sugar issues.”

  We stared at each other for about a minute like two dogs trying to establish dominance. It felt weird.

  Pick your battles, Rose.

  “The most important meal of the day,” I said, and opened the fridge to grab a yogurt.

  Mac was right. I needed all my calories for the training he put us through. I’m pretty fit but my tail was dragging before we’d even finished the calisthenics, he made us do. Afterwards, as we rehydrated and snarfed fruit snacks, he offered his opinion of our level of readiness. Again, he didn’t mince words. “You’re really flexible,” he said to Kaz.

  “Yoga,” she said.

  “But you don’t have any upper arm strength. You need to work on that.”

  She frowned. Mac turned his atte
ntion to me. “You need to get some better shoes. You’ve been compensating for bad fit and it’s affecting your stance.”

  “My shoes fit fine,” I said. I wasn’t trying to be argumentative, but I spend my life in sensible shoes, so it’s not like I’m torturing my arches into unnatural shapes wearing four-inch stilettos.

  “Take off your shoes,” he said.

  “right now?” I said, because I was using both hands to eat a piece of watermelon.

  He gave me a look.

  Shrugging, I kicked off the ancient trainers I was wearing.

  He took my left foot in his hands and pulled off the sock before pulling the foot into his lap.

  Oh.

  My.

  It had been a while since a man had put his hands on me and I’d already experienced a little jump start of electricity in our previous interactions. When Mac started digging into my soles with his thumbs, it felt so good I thought I might melt into a puddle right there.

  “I can feel the callouses,” he said.

  Okay, buzzkill.

  I pulled my foot back. “Okay,” I said because I really didn’t want to hear what ugly feet I had.

  He recaptured my foot.

  Lucky, lucky foot, I thought as I tried to maintain a neutral face. Kaz was watching us with extreme interest.

  Mac seemed oblivious to my discomfort as he returned to his rough reflexology.

  Hurts so good.

  “See here?” Mac said, twisting my food to the side. “You’re rolling your foot to the outside. That puts you off-balance. You need to put your weight down here,” he said, demonstrating by running a hard finger down the middle of my sole.

  “Um…kay,” I said as he relinquished my foot.

  “Practice,” he said. “And as soon as it’s safe, we’ll go out and get you some new shoes.”

  “Rose hates shopping for shoes,” Kaz commented, “but she’ll spend money on pretty underwear.”

  Kaz! I gave my little sister a glare that would have reduced her to ashes if she’d been looking at me. But she missed the death stare completely because she was spooning up the last of the mush she’d made of her banana and pineapple chunks.