Girls Save the World in This One - Ash Parsons Page 0,76

want to hear.

21

We crash through the door and turn.

I drop the mic arm and grab the hex key from the backpack.

“Hold the door!” I urge Simon, and I start twisting the hex key in the crash-bar holes.

“No time!” Simon urges.

“Just do it or they could follow us into the stairwell!” Janet orders.

I glance up the hall, and sure enough a single cheerleader zombie has stumbled into the top of the hallway.

She turns her face toward us.

Twist, twist, twist.

The cheerleader sprints—she’s one of the fast ones, a zoombie; she rockets down the hall.

I get one side locked down as she reaches the door, grasping for me, where I’m still kneeling on the floor.

Simon shoves her back with the legs of the stool, shoves and keeps shoving. Janet props the door for me, holding her vanity drawer front by the pull handle, holding it over me like a shield.

Another cheerleader zombie surges forward behind the fast one.

Suddenly Imani is there, pushing out at the second zombie with her microphone stand, yelling with the effort.

“Fall back! Fall back!” I yell, feeling the crash bar lock.

Simon and Imani jump through the door and together with Janet help me shove it almost closed as more zombies arrive and stack up, trying to push through the narrow gap to get at us.

Blair rushes to us, shoving at the door as we all grunt with the effort to force it closed.

With a perfect, efficient pivot that would make most people dizzy, Imani spins to the side and jabs her microphone stand into the gap, shoving.

It’s the shove, not the stab, that clears the door. Imani pops the mic stand back and the door closes with the double thunk of the long bars locking into place.

“Way to go,” I pant. “Imani.”

Imani sags against the door next to me.

“Thanks,” she pants back, holding up a hand.

I slap it lightly, weak with relief.

I land on my haunches, only meaning to go down after it’s already started. The post–adrenaline dump makes my hands shake.

“Dammit, Linus!” Simon curses, hitting the door. “Aghhh!!” he screams at the faces of the zombies pressing against the narrow window.

I glance down the first flight of stairs to the landing in between floors.

Annie looks like she’s trying not to cry, as she hugs her defibrillator case against her chest. Mia’s there, with Siggy next to her, unarmed with a shell-shocked expression.

“He saved us,” Annie says.

“He was bitten,” Mia murmurs, rubbing Annie’s back lightly. “He knew he was infected already.”

We’re going to have to find Siggy a weapon. Blair, too.

My voice is croaky when I speak. If I wasn’t so scared and tired, I might be thirsty.

“We have to get ready—there’s a zombie in the stairwell.”

Something about the phrase makes me want to laugh. It’s another title. A fancy BBC TV show. It makes me want to pretend to be British, announcing the zombie in the stairwell like I’m a butler.

Oh.

It’s Linus’s voice I’m imagining.

Tears prickle in my eyes.

“Already took care of it,” Cuellar announces, climbing back into sight from the stairwell below us.

“Okay,” I say. “Thanks.”

“Oh God, poor Linus.” Mia swipes at her eyes, and then smooths her bangs, an unconscious habit.

“He saved us,” Rosa says.

“Now what? It can’t be for nothing,” Janet says.

“I don’t know,” I say. “But I think—”

“I’m done waiting around like some sitting duck,” Cuellar interrupts, his tone accusing, as if he wasn’t just standing around when we found him.

“Right,” I say. “I agree.”

“So where do we go?” Annie asks.

“Here’s what I know,” I say. “That scientist who got on the stage said—”

“That guy!” Cuellar scoffs. “Yeah, sure, let’s base our plan off him.”

“Let her talk!” Blair snaps. Her dislike of Cuellar