Page 53 of Death Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

That alone felt wrong.

Inside one, a body lay half shifted, fingers twitching against the metal edge like it couldn’t decide whether to stay dead.

Nishi slammed the drawer shut with force.

“Not today,” she muttered.

Faith and I pinned the drawer with two binding nails into the frame, quick and brutal.

The other open drawer held nothing.

Empty.

That was worse.

Tegan’s relic shimmered in her hand, and her eyes widened. “This body has been animated.”

Eve swore softly. “Where?”

As if the building wanted to answer, a crash sounded from the hallway. A thud. A scrape.

We ran.

The undead from the empty drawer staggered into the corridor, one arm hanging at a wrong angle, feet sliding on the tile. It wasn’t sprinting. It wasn’t leaping. It was slow enough that for a heartbeat I felt relief.

Then it lifted its head and looked at us.

Its eyes weren’t cloudy.

They were clear.

Focused.

My stomach dropped. “That one’s different.”

Faith didn’t waste time wondering what that meant. She fired. The shot hit its chest. It didn’t stop.

Eve’s hellfire arced and caught it, flame wrapping around ribs and skin. The undead shrieked and dropped, thrashing for a few seconds before going still.

Silence returned, heavy and damp.

Nishi exhaled slowly. “It’s contained. For now.”

“For now,” I echoed, because everything tonight came with a threat attached.

We made a final sweep. No more movement. No more bodies walking. No hidden cluster waiting to burst out.

It wasn’t as bad as we’d expected.

That fact made me more uneasy, not less.

Outside, the night air felt almost clean compared to the chemical stench inside. I took a breath and tried to convince my lungs they weren’t still full of smoke from downtown.

Eve’s phone buzzed.

She glanced down, and the muscles in her face shifted.

“Lucinda,” she said.