He spoke to the door, not her, and his neutral tone obscured whether his comments were meant to be comforting or merely factual. Either way, they didn’t ease her hurt and resentment or change her awful situation.
If she prophesized in her usual manner, all would not be well. Not for her.
And worse than that: not for her family either.
—
Half an hourlater, Hugh, Eloise, and the other panelists filed out of the auditorium. The door clicked shut behind them.
Gwen sat alone under the spotlight and wept, her sobs echoing in the empty room.
And when she finally left to call her family and confess her failure, she was sure of only one thing in this godsforsaken universe: From now until the day she fuckingdied, she’d avoid anything and anyone that would remind her of the catastrophic decisions she’d made in this auditorium. Hugh might have offered himself as a future resource before leaving, but his stilted, pro forma offer had been pointless. She would never, ever voluntarily see or speak to him or any member of that panel again.
That much, at least, she knew.
No prophecynecessary.
1
Present day
Dawn hadn’t yet brightened the horizon when the taxi Gwen and her two troll companions, Lorraine and Kip, had hired approached Georgetown on New Year’s Day. Given the lack of sirens and police presence, she had to assume that word of the bloodshed over the past several days hadn’t yet spread to this area, even though Georgetown wasn’t far from the very neighborhood where that bloodshed had occurred.
I.e., the Containment Zone. Her home.
The Zone had been established over two decades ago in response to the first zombie outbreak at the secret governmental facility in northern Virginia where the creatures had been accidentally created. When a combination of human and Supernatural forces had countered the onslaught and driven the zombies back into their original underground compound, the government hadn’t chosen to bomb the compound into oblivion. Instead, inhopes that they might find a future—no doubt horrifying—use for the misbegotten creatures, authorities had simply walled off the area.
They’d constructed four concentric stone rings of protection around the facility. Gates and drawbridges provided access through those walls and over the moats for Zone residents like Gwen and her friends, who were either foolish enough to voluntarily stay or too poor to leave.
And several days ago, all communications systems had been disabled within the Zone, the gates through the inner walls had been opened, the drawbridges had been lowered, and the zombies had been freed from their compound and allowed to roam unhindered through the CZ. Countless residents had been slaughtered before Gwen and her companions had lured the creatures to a booby-trapped spot last night and eliminated the threat once and for all.
During that entire time, the outermost wall—Wall Four—had remained firmly shut. It was the only reason zombies hadn’t overrun the entire DC region, although no one outside the Zone knew as much—except, of course, the perpetrators who’d engineered the disaster.
Gwen and her companions had just broken through Wall Four in hopes of rectifying that matter. Despite their fear that public knowledge of the zombie breach and its cause would lead to a global war and unimaginable carnage.
Their destination: a luxury apartment complex. Specifically, the luxury apartment complex where Hugh Blacke evidently lived.
Her assigned task: Once their taxi driver brought them to the designated drop-off spot, she’d have to gain entrance to thebuilding, get Hugh to meet with her, and then explain the situation and persuade him to trust her, for the sake of all human and Supernatural existence…despite her history with him.
Fuck. Her. Life.
“Need anything else to eat before you go?” Kip poked his head between the front seats of the SUV and peered at Gwen, who’d occupied herself during the brief ride by snacking on nuts and taking cautious sips of water. “I think we have a few Wagyu sliders left, and I’m getting a bit hungry myself. We could share ’em.”
He’d already devoured an entire medium-rare prime rib inside the dilapidated SUV. Cocaine-addled hummingbirds probably envied that dude’s metabolism—and she envied his utter lack of nausea.
“Yeah.” Lorrie drummed her gleaming nails on the ripped faux-leather seats. “Um, about the burgers.”
Kip leaned over to search their insulated bags of food. He came up empty-handed.
“You finished off the sliders?” Aggrievement creasing his handsome face, he punched his cousin in the arm. “Bro, what the hell? We were supposed to split them!”
Gwen hoped they didn’t destroy the aging cab, which they’d flagged down not far outside the Containment Zone. Sure, trolls possessed famously cheery baseline dispositions. But at over eight feet tall, with sturdy, muscular frames and astoundingly long limbs, they could inflict serious damage when they got too animated. Or angry. Or hungry.
Or worst of all: hangry.
Some of their famed clumsiness was a front, but not all of it.
“I got peckish.” Lorrie sniffed haughtily. “And you took too long inside the condo.”
