I hid a smile and Jade seemed to relax behind me.

"Okay," Gramps said, clapping his hands together and striding over to the Camaro with a comical lift of one brow. "Let's get the horde and zoo rounded up and get our baby pulsed back to life." He lifted his brows together in a comedic get moving expression that made all of us laugh and move toward him.

"So what? Ya old asshole... I'm supposed to call back my dead things," she crooned to the zombies that flanked her like faithful suitors, "because you say so? Ha!" She threw back her head laughing. "No, I think not."

"You obviously missed many a paddling," Gramps said thoughtfully. "Parker?"

I watched Parker's ghost of a smile come over his face. "Yes, sir?"

Gramps nodded at what he considered a proper response. "Clean up this mess so I can get Caleb's car out of here." He looked at Jonesy and Bry. "Help your sister, Mr. Weller."

"Nah, Mac... I don't like those zombie creepers."

"Geez, man-up, Weller," Jonesy said, giving him a look.

"Yeah, I will with living opponents," Bry said with a look of disgust, his sister's hand covered in zombie goop.

"Eff it," Tiff said, wiping off the zombie trail on the girl. It shone like slug slime.

"What are you... who do you think you are?" she half-cried, the zombie stew on her clothes. Tiff smirked, "I'm Tiff, you sissy girl."

She glared at Tiff. Tiff glared back, putting a finger in her chest and pushing her. "Call off the horde, ya stupid twit before I sick Parker and Hart on ya."

She knocked Tiff's finger away as a zombie got into Tiff's face and hissed.

"I knew who was here," she said. "It's not like he's subtle as shit or something." She looked straight at me.

Huh.

"He raised a damn chicken coop putting his zombie pet back together."

I shifted my eyes to hers. "That was you?" I asked, remembering the figure off in the distance.

"Yeah, Sherlock Holmes."

I scowled and Jade giggled. I thought she was mildly traitorous.

"Wonderful, let's hide the cars," Gramps prompted.

"I guess I won't kill you today," she said.

"You won't even come close... Nevaeh," Parker said.

She flashed those oceanic eyes to his, widening them in alarm when he lifted a pulse-activated gun, his aim steady, his hold one of practiced ease.

"Whoa, Parker. Settle down ya stroke!" Jonesy said.

"Don't kill the filly for lack of manners, Parker," Gramps growled.

"Yeah... don't kill her," Tiff said in an unconvincing drawl.

Nice.

"Parker?" I asked.

"I have my orders. She's a renegade C-M." His thumb moved over the pulse pad of the hammer.

"Don't," Bry said as her eyes widened.

He plugged her in the upper chest and Jade screamed, the mood going from contained chaos to shreds in a second.

Gramps went for Parker.

"Don't, Mac!" Parker yelled, blocking the first numbing punch.

"Gramps!" I said, figuring out what Parker had done.

He swung his face to mine. "He knocked her out is all."

"Why didn't you say so then, punk?"

Parker laughed, rubbing his forearm that had blocked a hard strike.

Bet it hurt like a bitch on steroids.

"Because, we need to subdue her dead, get the cars off the road... and lastly, I need to know why our organization wants her dead."

I could think of a few reasons but Tiff brought it up first in her special way.

"It's the attitude guys," she said, watching the dead stare without their master, the girl laying at their feet. "She's a bitch on wheels."

"Yeah," Jonesy agreed.

I didn't let my relief at Parker showing up stop me from getting my car pulsed on and moved into a dirt road that carved its way through the woods bordering a back road in Kent that only old timers knew about. And my friends, of course.

Courtesy of Gramps.

So this was the stranger I'd seen off in the distance. Parker was okay, still working for the Graysheets (somehow) and killing this C-M was his mission. For reasons unknown even to him. But he hadn't killed her, instead he'd disobeyed orders to satisfy his curiosity. Interesting.

I still wanted to know what the prick Zondorae brothers were up to.

No good, I was betting. They were consistent as hell.

Parker and I worked on the small horde while the bear looked on, mewling above the girl that lay on the ground, dosed with enough tranquilizer to lay out an elephant.

Perfect.

"Did you think I'd kill her?" Parker asked me quietly as the dead and their stink melted back into the forest while he easily put them to rest.

I didn't respond.

He looked at me. "I'm trying, Caleb. It's a real reversal for me."

"I know," I said.

"It may bite me in the ass. The Graysheets always have reasons for the missions they want me to accomplish for them."

"Then why didn't you go through with it?" I asked as my friends and girlfriend assembled next to the vehicles.

"Because I think there's something about this mission that is final. I can't put my finger on it but I think they'll be putting me out to pasture soon."

That sounded bad. It was an expression Gramps used but I think the context of this was different. A pasture that didn't see the living, only the dead.

He searched my face. Finally, reading things correctly he nodded and pointed to the unconscious girl. "She's a threat and we need to know why."

"Because?"

"Survival," Parker said simply. I shoved my will into the bear and it gave a plaintive wail. I watched it lumber to the side of the road where it melted beneath the road's shoulder.

I waited.

"Ours," he added, not that I'd needed the clarification.

Yeah, I got that. Us AFTDs were magnets to each other, whether we liked it or not.

Tiff toed the girl as she lay there. "Gawd, she's a raging bitch."

Bry and I looked at each other and her eyes narrowed on us.

Parker smiled. "Bitch or not, she has some explaining to do."

Gramps broke in. "Well." He looked at the group. "Let's throw her in the trunk here." He rapped his knuckles on the dented spoiler of my Camaro. "And reconvene at my humble abode."

"That's creepy!" Jade cried, affronted. "She can't be put in the trunk. Gawd!" She looked from me to Parker.

"She'll be alright, sweetheart," Gramps said by way of soothing.

"I like it," Tiff said. "It'll be very disorienting for her to do the dose of dead from the trunk."

That was true... but....

"Ugh, Tiff, come on," Jade pleaded.

"Nope, I'm with sis on this one," Bry said.

Parker nodded and under Jade's disgruntled look, he folded the newest necromancer on the block into the back of the Camaro.

"There, that's done," Gramps said, zip tying the trunk to the latch as a pseudo-air hole. He didn't act as if we'd just loaded a girl into my trunk but instead had finished a commonplace chore.

"Let's high tail it back to my place and put our heads together."

"I thought all this was calming down," Jade said forlornly.

"Where's the fun in that?" Jonesy asked, waggling his brows.

Jade rolled her eyes and we piled into the Camaro. I gave a look at Parker.

"I've got my own ride," he said.

I didn't ask how.

Or what.

CHAPTER 11

Gramps' driveway looked like a parking lot. Everyone showed up in various stages of post-graduation garb.

All of us were wary and confused. I was pissed at myself because I'd become complacent. All it had taken was a few months of calm and suddenly I'd felt like I was home free.

Not.

I didn't think I'd let that happen again.

Gramps looked at the assembly and sighed. "Bring out the princess."

Parker went to the trunk and popped it. I knew what had happened before I saw his face in profile. "She's gone, Mr. O'Brien."

"Mac," Gramps responded absent-mindedly. "Well, isn't that interesting."

Parker narrowed his eyes, looking around. He scanned the yard then looked at me. "No way she escaped in the fifteen minutes we've been here." Then he gave me a significant glance. "I think she had help."

"Okay," Sophie said, swinging a platform stiletto pump back and forth on her crossed knee. "Let me get ahold of this latest disaster."

I frowned at her wording but the group went with it so I figured it was fairly accurate. Not that I accepted that.

"You picked up skank-ho necromancer..." She ticked it off on her finger and Tiff agreed, "Yeah." Sophie nodded, continuing, "and Parker," she looked at Parker who stood with his arms folded over a muscular but lean frame, "was supposed to pop her."

Parker sighed and I smiled.

Sophie shrugged at his dislike of her verbal rendition of events but he couldn't deny it. It'd be splitting hairs as Gramps would say.

"Now she's gone poof and you're crying over that? I say good riddance. Didn't she bust up the Camaro with a dead bear?" Her eyes went to my face.

Well yeah but... "She's some kind of answer for Parker."

"Oh, I understand: he needs her to fill in the blanks," Sophie said, half in question.

"Do you ever consider when you'll outlive your usefulness?" Lewis asked Parker suddenly.

Parker drilled Archer with a look. "Every day."

Gramps put up his palms. "Can't you guys... feel her or something?"

"Yeah," I said.

"No," Parker said. We looked at each other.

"Which is it?" Gramps asked, plugging his hands on the hips of his perfectly pressed slacks.

"I could feel her if she were close by," I said.

"I can't so she's not," Parker said simply.

"Right," Bry said with Mia on his knee. "Who'd take her then, guys?" he asked, scrubbing the shadow of hair that grew on his head.

"Hey!" Jonesy spurted randomly. "You didn't get your ass kicked this time Weller."

Bry grinned.

"There's time," Alex said like the naysayer he was.

Bry frowned at him and Alex laughed, spreading his palms in a defensive sweep. "Just sayin'...."

"Don't, babe," Randi said, pinching his leg with her fingers. "Ouch!" He smiled down at her. "Don't abuse me, ya dominatrix."

We all looked at him and he smiled while Randi blushed.

Jade giggled. We were definitely not the ones that everyone was noticing anymore.

"Interesting choice of words, Mr. Sims," Gramps said.

Randi was dying.

"I think Zondorae weaseled in here and nabbed her," Parker said suddenly.

I swung to face him. "Why? Weren't you supposed to ...?"

"Yeah."

"Then..."

"They're getting him out of the way. Classic deflection," John said and Tiff clasped her hand in his.

It's the only time I saw Tiff soft. When she looked at Terran. He could do no wrong. It was like his timing in that fateful moment in the hall had been providence.

"Do we have to figure out where she went? She was a pain in my ass," Tiff reiterated and John smiled. I thought he'd shown real restraint, letting her take on the zombie horde earlier. Of course he'd shown up to late to halt the momentum.

Gramps laughed. "Yes well, be that as it may, she had some answers that Parker thought might shed light on our circumstance."

"Huh," Tiff said, disgruntled.

"What's going on now?" Mia asked innocently.

Parker hung his head and I came instantly on point. I knew news was coming and usually that meant it sucked donkey dick.

He met my eyes and said to the group at large, letting the proverbial cat out of the bag, "The Graysheets," he said with airquotes, "have decided to go with plan B."

"Right... and....?" John prompted.

"They bit off more than they can chew so they will reverse the power base."

Gramps' eyes narrowed. "Whose?"

"Theirs," Parker said with a slight frown.

"They're going to strip us," Archer surmised instantly and I nodded.

Parker gave a nod of assent.

"How?" John asked.

Parker's eyes found mine and I got it right away, the conduit of my understanding sliding immediately to Jade.