Girls Save the World in This One - Ash Parsons Page 0,72
reply.
Rosa lets out a rich laugh. “Zoombies. That’s good.”
“What do we call the slow ones?” Mia asks. “Slothbies? Slowbies?”
“Walkers,” Janet says.
“We need to secure the balcony doors,” Linus says, but his voice is flat. I glance at him, and he looks pale.
“Hey, sit down, Linus,” I urge, gesturing at one of the barstools.
“You hurt or something?” Cuellar asks.
Linus gives him a wince-smile, and touches the back of his head.
Cuellar reaches behind the bar again and grabs a handful of square cocktail napkins, hands them to Linus.
“Hey, girlie, wanna help your boyfriend here?” Cuellar asks Annie, who just rolls her eyes at him. She drifts back toward the wall of windows, trying with her phone again.
Cuellar laughs.
“What’s so funny?” Blair asks, and her sudden voice must startle him, because he looks around as if he’s surprised by the source. Maybe he wasn’t expecting how sharp it sounded. How assertive.
But that’s Blair. She can be utterly fearless. And I can tell from her tone that she doesn’t really care what Cuellar is laughing about, but is just challenging the aggressive taunt underneath it.
“Nothing, just it’s all fake,” Cuellar answers, giving Blair that up-and-down look that makes me want to throw a drink in his face.
“Can it, Cuellar,” Mia says. “PR’s my job, remember?”
“It hardly matters now,” Linus says, but there’s apology in his voice.
“You’re . . . not dating?” Siggy’s voice is small, her tone like a little kid asking if Santa is real.
I can’t help it. After everything.
This.
This is what breaks me.
A laugh burbles up from my chest into my throat. I cough to choke it out, because I don’t want to hurt my friend, don’t want to hurt my Siggy.
I’d probably be disappointed, too, if I hadn’t already seen with my own eyes how very NOT into each other Linus and Annie are.
“Sorry,” Siggy says. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter. None of my business.”
“We all made it your business,” Linus says. He gently repositions the stack of cocktail napkins on his head. “Mia thought it might help keep our characters on the show longer, you see.”
Siggy nods, and waves her hand like of course, of course.
“I wasn’t wrong,” Mia says. “Can you keep it confidential, kid? When we get out of here?” she asks Siggy.
Siggy nods.
Linus winces again, but it doesn’t look like it’s from the injury on his head.
We seriously have such bigger fish to fry, but it’s encouraging that Mia’s so confident we’re getting out.
“So, what do we do now?” Simon asks.
“Right,” Janet agrees. “We need to formulate a plan.”
They both look at me.
Linus turns on his seat to look at me as well.
Cuellar looks at me, too, in absolute disbelief, looking from them to me, back to them.
“What, you think y’all are in the army or something?” Cuellar asks, his voice scornful. “What you gonna do, just go out there and reconnoiter?”
He laughs, a dismissive huff, but still friendly. Like he expects us all to laugh along with him.
No one else laughs.
I don’t say it, but yes, we should absolutely “reconnoiter” or whatever. We already know there are zombies on the balcony, but where else might they be? Before we can do anything else, we should secure ourselves here—which mainly means taking a moment to make sure we won’t be surprised by zombies—which sounds like a soap opera, Surprised by Zombies—either coming out of the balcony, out of a bathroom, around the hallway corner, or anywhere else.
Like out of a maintenance closet or whatever.
We should check the utility stairwell door, too.
I think that’s all that’s up here.
But we should try to find a fire evacuation map for the third floor, like there was in the dressing room. Then we’ll know for sure if there are any other rooms up here.