Read Dead Of Winter (The Beautiful Dead Book 2) for Free Online Page B

himself a little slap on the cheek. “I should take a nap. I think a nap would do me well.”
    “Mine aren’t a lifetime ago,” I point out, bringing his beautiful brown eyes back to mine. Yes, I’ll keep them there, keep them interested, awake, aware. “Demons,” I clarify. His eyes shimmer . I love when he’s looking at me in this way. I could almost believe right now that I’m not dead. I could believe in this moment that I’m just a girl in this room, and he’s just a guy, and nothing separates us—not life, not death, not even air. “I have a new life now. I have … new demons.” My eyes drift to his muscular chest, his torn and dirty shirt.
    “Of course you do,” he agrees, taking a breath.
    I smile, watching his chest rise.
    He smiles, letting his chest fall.
    This is the first positive interaction we’ve had in weeks. I can’t believe this is real. Is the John I’ve been needing back, or is this just a brief moment of weakness, and tomorrow he will turn dark and horrible again?
    “Rest well,” I tell him as he passes by, pushes into the bedroom, then gently closes the door behind him. I feel a little bit better and a little bit worse after John’s words.
    In the top corner of the den, a cockroach scuttles over the wall, slips into a crack. The sight of it makes me smile. Yes, smile, because my first roommate in this little house, even before John, was a roach. Not the same one; John squished the first. That first cockroach was actually the only living occupant of my house, if you think about it … I didn’t count.
    It’s a weird feeling. To not count.
    I’m surprised by how unsqueamish I’ve become of things like cockroaches. In such a lonely, dead world, I guess I almost welcome them.
     
     
     
     

C H A P T E R – T H R E E
    S H I V E R
     
    First thing I see when I step onto the porch is my wise neighbor across the barren cul-de-sac that is our ring of little homes. She’s relaxing on her porch, reading. If she were alive, I’d put her at sixty-five, maybe seventy years. She could be forty for all I know, I’m awful at guessing age. Her hair is stringy and brown and her olive skin, spotted and bumpy. She notices me right away and gives a little wiggle of her fingers.
    “Hey Jasmine,” I call out.
    “Ready for our little outing?” she asks, as if we’ll just be hopping over to the store for bread and toilet paper.
    “Excited as ever.”
    “Don’t forget about my party!” Jasmine gives a little giggle, pushing a finger at the glasses that rest on her crooked nose. “It’s my birthday. All the girls from the Refinery will be there, and even some Humans!”
    She’s made a lot of Human friends, likely because she’s the least Undead-like of any Trenton citizens I’ve met, and also because she happens to specialize in the care and nurturing of plants, which I guess the Living respect. Since the fall of the last Mayor, she’s been allowed to open a greenhouse and a garden that she tends in her backyard, though the weather’s been less than favorable.
    “Birthday,” I mutter. “Of course.”
    “B.Y.O.B.!” she calls out before returning to her book.
    I stroll into town, tortured by the dialogue I had with John, mixed in with imaginings of what a party at Jasmine’s might be like. This puts me into arguably the worst frame of mind to be visiting my failed Raise. Adding to my emotional pressures, I’m feeling more and more guilty for consuming all that blood. What am I now, a vampire-zombie? I feel sicker and sicker, furious that I’d given into such a reckless impulse.
    But if I’m known for anything, it’s reckless impulses.
    When I descend the steps leading to the dungeon cells beneath the Town Hall, they sound suspiciously like cold cement heartbeats. There is only one occupant of the forty prison cells. That is, thirty-nine empty cells, and one very occupied one.
    Stopping just before cell number thirteen, I inhale, steel myself, then take the step forward,