Page 2 of My Undead Love Life

“I’m not leaving you.”

“You are if it means you live.” His voice stayed soft, but there was something unshakable beneath it that made my chest tighten. “I need you to promise me that if this goes like I think it will that you’ll run.”

My head shook violently before he even finished speaking. “I can’t. I won’t survive without you.”

“Yes, you will.” His blue eyes locked onto mine with heartbreaking certainty. “You’re strong. So incredibly strong.”

The undead shrieked outside the subway car, their nails and bones scraping against the metal in a cacophony that was almost deafening, yet his voice cut through it all.

“If I don’t make it…” His jaw tightened like the words physically hurt him. “I don’t want your life ending with mine. I can’t handle that.”

“Keith—”

“I mean it.” He cupped my face again, forcing me to hold his gaze. “Let me protect the woman I love, okay? Fall in love again some day. Laugh again. Be happy again. Even if it’s with someone else.”

A strangled sound caught in my throat. “Stop.”

“I’m serious. I’d rather haunt you for moving on with someone else than watch you die because you couldn’t let me go.” A weak, watery laugh escaped him, but his eyes shone with unshed tears. “Promise me you’ll keep living, wildflower.”

“No, Keith, I can’t⁠—”

“You have to. We’re running out of time, my beautiful woman.” He shifted his M-4 from where it rested against his back to his front, the strap creaking softly over his jacket.

“Keith, I love you, please⁠—”

“I love you, Spencer.” The sharp metallic click of him checking the chamber cut through the noise around us. “That’s why I’m going to take out as many as I can, and you are going to run.”

Icy cold dread wrapped around my spine. Outside the broken windows, shadowy figures slammed themselves against the train car again and again, each impact vibrating through the floor beneath us. The smell of decay thickened by the second. Somewhere down the tunnel came the distant shriek of another infected finding prey.

The first zombie had finally managed to force itself halfway through a shattered windowpane nearby, its rotting torso twisting through the jagged glass with a wet crunch. Blackened blood dripped from its snapping jaws onto the subway floor.

Instinct took over as I bent down and picked back up my katana. The worn cloth wrapped around the leather hilt settled against my palm. The familiar weight grounded me, and I swung.

The blade sliced clean through its neck. A spray of icy blood misted across my sleeve, carrying the foul stench of decay with it. The zombie’s head hit the floor with a sickening thud before rolling beneath one of the subway seats, its eyes cloudy and dead.

The body spasmed in the broken window frame while guttural snarls erupted outside from the horde pressing closer.

Breathing hard, I turned back to my boyfriend. “I’m not leaving you for them.”

“Yes, wildflower, you are.”

Before I could continue arguing, a single tear escaped him, tracing slowly down his dirt-streaked cheek as he held my gaze. The blue of his eyes looked stormy now, glassy with fear and heartbreak. Sweat dampened the strands of brown hair falling messily across his forehead from all the running we’d done, and his chest rose and fell in uneven breaths.

I shook my head as my tears continued to blur my vision.

Around us, the subway car groaned beneath more violent impacts. The undead outside screeched and clawed at the metal walls in a frenzy.

“I can’t leave you, Keith.” My voice splintered. “I won’t.”

Keith closed the small distance between us so fast I barely saw him lean in. The edge of the cold M-4 was against my chest as he kissed me hard enough to steal the breath from my lungs.

I tasted the sweat, blood, and salt from our tears on his lips. The kiss was desperate and aching, like he was trying to pour every ounce of his feelings inside me before time ran out.

Another crash shook the subway car around us. Glass shattered somewhere behind me, but neither of us pulled away.

When he finally broke the kiss, his forehead rested against mine. I could feel him shaking.

“You have to,” he whispered raggedly.