All Chapters of The Zombies Apocalypse Brought Me Back To My Fiancee : Chapter 81 - Chapter 90

Nobody moved until Isabella’s footsteps had faded completely.Then Adrian said, very quietly, “Don’t trust it.”“I wasn’t planning to,” Vanessa said.“You were thinking about it.”“A little. Briefly. It’s not a crime to think.”“Tonight it might be.”Victor was already pressing a hand against the corridor wall, listening for movement beyond it, the drive tucked inside Miriam’s jacket where she’d zipped it up to her chin like a woman guarding a newborn. “We take the service route Isabella named,” he said. “If it’s a trap, we’ll know in the first sixty seconds.”“And if it’s not a trap?”“Then we’ll know that too, and I’ll be extremely uncomfortable about it.”They were three turns down the corridor when a voice behind them said, “You’re going the wrong way.”Adrian had his weapon up before Vanessa finished turning around. Isabella stood in the dim light with both hands raised, a security lanyard swinging from her wrist, looking like someone who’d run the whole way and was trying not to

Nobody breathed.Thirty feet away, Hale stood in the headlights adjusting a cufflink, completely unhurried, like a man arriving at a dinner party he’d been looking forward to for weeks. Behind him, men in dark tactical gear spilled out of the other two vehicles and fanned toward the annex’s front entrance.Vanessa eased back from the roll-up door and pressed herself flat against the concrete wall. Adrian was already there, one hand on her shoulder, a steady, wordless pressure that said stay down.Hale’s footsteps crunched across the gravel and faded around the corner of the building. A moment later, a distant door boomed open.“Eight men,” Adrian whispered. “Maybe nine.”“I counted ten,” Isabella said, barely audible.“You were counting?”“I used to do his scheduling. I count people automatically now. It’s a sickness.”Victor crouched and drew three lines in the dust on the floor with one finger. “Listen. The vault is two levels down. Hale will take the main elevator. It’s slow, it’s

The vent spat Adrian out onto the lower corridor like a cork, and he landed on his hands and knees with a grunt that echoed off the pipes.He stayed there a second, breathing hard, flexing both shoulders. Both of them had just spent twelve minutes being squeezed through a space designed for a smaller, more flexible man.“Lodged,” he muttered. “Not stuck. Lodged.”Nobody answered him, which was fine. It was the last time he’d be able to pretend that was a joke.The east junction lay ahead, a low, cold crossing where four corridors met under a single flickering emergency light. He’d studied Victor’s sketch of it on the drive down. The vault door sat at the far end of the north branch, and Vanessa was supposed to be somewhere above and behind him, coming down the west stairs.He pressed two fingers to his earpiece. “Vanessa. Status.”“Here,” she said, and the sound of her voice loosened something in his chest he hadn’t known was clenched. “Two hostiles just crossed east junction going so

Adrian’s weapon came up so fast that Vanessa heard his sleeve snap.“Don’t,” Hale said mildly, and sipped his tea. “I’d hate for the vault’s last pleasant moment to be ruined by gunfire.”“Put the mug down,” Adrian said.“It’s a very good mug.”“Put it down.”“Someone left it here for me. It seems rude to waste it.” He lowered the mug a few inches, unhurried, and gave Vanessa a long, appraising look. “You look dreadful, by the way. You have something on your collar.”Vanessa glanced down. It was something she didn’t want to identify.“It’s a fashion choice,” she said.“It’s a bold one.”“You’re standing alone in a vault with two armed people who hate you, and you’re critiquing my jacket.”“I’m not alone.”“You look alone.”“Looks can be deceiving. I’ve built an entire career on that.” He smiled at her. It was the same warm, patient smile he’d worn at the dinner table, and it made her want to throw the crowbar at his teeth. “Though I’m touched that you made it all the way down here. I’

Hale moved first.He didn’t draw a weapon or shout an order. He simply stopped being a man who stood still. One second he was a silhouette in front of the tank. The next his hand had closed on Vanessa’s throat and lifted her off her feet.The crowbar clattered out of her grip. She kicked and connected with his shin, and it was like kicking a wall.“You,” Hale said, very softly, “have no idea what you’ve cost me.”She couldn’t answer. Black spots swam at the edges of her vision, and the room tilted sideways in a rush of noise: boots, shouting, a sound like a dropped tray as Adrian’s weapon hit the floor.Then Adrian hit Hale like a freight train.They went down together in a tangle of limbs, and Vanessa dropped to the concrete, choking, her hands clawing at her own collar. Through the haze she saw Adrian drive an elbow into Hale’s ribs and take a fist to the jaw in return. It was brutal and efficient and not at all like the clean, controlled fighting she’d watched him do for weeks. It