Only The Dead Don't Die | Book 4 | Finding Home Popovich, A.D. (any book recommendations txt) 📖

Rocking the baby in her arms, Ella scowled at Justin as if scolding him for not doing anything about the situation. He felt for Justin and Dean. They had no clue what they had returned to. Not that he did.

Justin opened the container. “It’s almost empty.”

“O-M-G!” Ella bellowed.

“Pardon me,” Dean butted in firmly, “mind tellin’ me what this fuss is ’bout?” As usual, the peacemaker attempted to make order out of the chaos. But they ignored him.

“Young lady”—Scarlett’s tone went dead-serious—“did you give the tea to—”

Twila blurted, “Don’t you understand? Their pain kills me. I’m an empath, remember? I feel their misery. I had to heal Katy. I had to. I’m supposed to be the Healer of the New Hu! It’s all up to me—”

“And you think that gives you the right to steal mijo’s tea?” Ella blared. “The only thing saving him from turning into one of them . . .”

“Like, what’s wrong with you?” Justin snarked. “You’d rather save a Z than Mateo?”

“Everyone needs to ratchet it down a notch,” Dean attempted.

The pounding at the windows abruptly stopped the argument. Dean and Luther rushed to the front room to find hordes of Zs pummeling their safehouse.

“Folks, grab what you need from downstairs.” Dean’s voice went hoarse. “Let’s get upstairs. Might be time to evacuate.”

They had barricaded the downstairs windows and doors with furniture. Still, with enough time, those stinking nimrods could break through anything, was what Luther was thinking.

Twila screamed for no apparent reason and just stared at the ceiling.

“Let’s keep it down,” Dean urged. “Perhaps our unwanted guests will go away.”

“Zs never go away,” Ella quaked.

“Now, now, we’ve got options,” Dean started.

“No!” Twila shrieked. “Don’t think it! These ones are learning to see our thoughts—just like the bad ones. Katy with a Y told her mommy how much my healing and the tea helped her. Now they all want my help.”

“Huh,” Justin grunted with a comical WTF expression. “The tea actually works?”

“You know it does.” Ella seemed blown away by his statement. “Really, you’ve just been placating me this entire time?”

Not another argument. “You all need to settle down. I’ve seen enough voodoo shit for one day,” Luther muttered.

The shattering of windows sent everyone into a wide-eyed blink-less state. It looked like they’d be taking advantage of those emergency ladders.

Chapter 11

Zachary Padilla paced the holding cell and awaited his fate, praying damn hard they didn’t pin the botched mission on him. The impromptu trial had been fast and furious. The norm for Last State. Somewhere along the way, he had definitely pissed off the wrong Elite.

Last State had accused him of treason and desertion of all things, and he wasn’t even a member of their gestapo-style military. He freelanced—simple and painless. No politics. As he quickly realized, the Elitist parliament made up the rules as they went along. No Bill of Rights. No U.S. Constitution. He was screwed up the yin-yang.

The reason behind the treason accusations perplexed him. Most accused citizens simply disappeared without a trial: to the realm of the undead. Furthermore, Elites in general revered his unique tradecraft—extracting coveted goods from the zomb-infested Lost States. He was worth far more acquiring contraband than life-sentenced to a work-farm. Hell, everybody knew that.

Zac brooded away in the cell, plagued by unrelenting survivor’s guilt. In all actuality, he should have been on that helo when the Ravers downed it with a projectile. He had relived the mission in question over and over, unable to wipe the exploding helo from his mind. It still boggled him why his devoted team had violated the regs and abandoned him without proof of life, or reanimated life as it were. Horde or no horde—his team had always adhered to the Soldier’s Creed, “Leave no man behind.”

Sure, he had gone solo that day, for no more than a few minutes. If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have found Mindy. Although, he had carefully omitted the Mindy incident from his cross-examinations, which would have only trumped up the charges. Women and children were priceless.

Paradoxically, Mindy had ended up saving his life. Despite his efforts, she and her newborn hadn’t survived the horde attack on his Ghost Creek Hunting Lodge. Damn! He slammed his palm into the wall. What a waste of humanity.

The night before the mock military trial, the answer had found his dreams, more like nightmares. The words Ren Cremmonty had flashed like a strobe light before morphing into the word: Demon. The mind-bending image had been replaced with a silvery goddess who warned humanity was in the death throes of extinction. Scarlett, Twila, Ella, and several other faceless beings remained humanity’s last hope. Provided they survived the malevolent force dead set on destroying the last of the Starseeds and Lightworkers.

A shockwave of terror had nearly made him lose his Steve McQueen façade of coolness upon finding out the bizarre-looking prosecuting attorney with a burnt-orange goatee and wayward eyebrows went by the name: Ren Cremmonty. It had become dubiously clear. Zac was dealing with something . . . supernatural.

Stuck in the shabby cell room, he mentally re-examined every aspect of the trial. The courtroom had turned south quickly like an implausible apocalyptic cyberpunk screenplay: The Third Reich meets The Hunger Games as Rem Cremmonty flamboyantly presented a pack of bold-faced lies.

Zac hadn’t known what the hell was going on until the questioning had turned into an inquisition demanding the whereabouts of a white powdery substance that restructured damaged DNA. Then, it had clicked. The elaborate escapade was actually a witch-hunt for Ella’s mysterious healing substance. Which to be honest, wasn’t feasible. But hey, neither were zombs. One thing was evident; they would stop at nothing to obtain it.

During his intense interrogation, Zac had profusely denied knowledge of such a miracle cure. He had thrown the preposterous snake oil claim back in