Be Careful What You Wish For: A Zombie Apocalypse
Chapter 34: Danger All Around

Chapter 34: Danger All Around

Ronan looked down at the precious bundle in his arms and felt true contentment for the first time in his life.

He, like his brothers, had been abandoned by his birth parents when he was just a child. He had bounced around from foster home to foster home, never staying more than a few months before the foster parents got rid of him.

He was only 10 when he finally ended up in the same house as René, Luca, and the others, and he was the last one to join their band of brothers.

But even with the guys there, watching his back and showing him how life could be, he knew he was still missing something. He tried to fill it with sex and women, but that got old very fast... and the one time he actually fell asleep next to a one-night stand, he woke up holding a knife to her throat.

Apparently, the voice in his head didn’t appreciate him ’contaminating’ his body with other women. It had promised him that the moment he slipped unconscious, it would kill whoever was in bed with him. He hadn’t believed it at first, but after that night, he refused to take the chance again.

He even went so far as to refuse to even sleep in the same room as the rest of the guys, just in case the voice wasn’t going to limit it to only females.

At the lowest moment of his life, Ronan remembered the moment he slit his own wrists, trying to get rid of the feeling of being incomplete, but the monster inside of him healed him instantly. It told him that his body belonged to only one person, and without her permission, Ronan wasn’t allowed to do anything to it.

Ronan knew that the others all had voices in their heads, telling them things, but none of them seemed to be as psychotic as his own. Hell, René had a fiancé and everything.

’You can bitch and complain all you want,’ said the voice in his head as it slithered out of the shadows deep inside his mind. The demon chuckled when it encountered the wall Ronan had tried to raise between the two minds, but with a flick of its fingers, the wall shattered completely. ’Isn’t she perfect?’

Ronan stumbled over his feet for a second, causing Max, who was walking beside him, to look over in concern. "Yous okay?"

"Yup," nodded Ronan, a slight smile on his face as he lied to his friend. "I’s all good."

’Do you know how long we have looked for her? The angel in your arms? We’ve existed since the beginning of time, and it’s been that long that we have searched. We needed someone who was scared, lonely, and desperate enough to make a deal with us... and instead, we found her.’

Ronan had never heard the voice sounding like that before like it had found a treasure it had been longing for.

’She is the part of your heart you have been missing. As long as you have her, you will never be alone again. Everything you have been looking for, everything that you never dared to wish for, is inside her.’

Ronan swallowed hard as his eyes trailed over Hattie’s sleeping face. She looked way too young for him, and it would be just his luck that he needed to wait another ten years before she could be completely his...

But it would be worth it. As long as she let him stay beside her, every hell and every bit of pain that he had experienced before would be worth it.

’You won’t have to wait that long,’ assured the voice. Unlike every other time it had spoken to him, it was no longer fighting him for control of the body. It was like it was perfectly content to just exist inside of him, two souls sharing the same body. ’Just keep her safe.’

Making a silent vow to himself, Ronan turned his attention back to the road in front of him. This world was a lot more dangerous than the one yesterday; he would have to make sure that his precious cher was well looked after.

"We’ll stop here for the night," announced René, and Ronan turned his attention to his oldest friend. Was this what René felt for Alicia? If that was the case, then a lot of his assholeness could be forgiven.

"We are too out in the open," grunted Dimitri, looking around the road.

They had been following the highway outside O City, slowly moving toward the naval base. The original 25 citizens from the mall were still clinging to them, their numbers down from 30 thanks to random attacks.

Ronan, who hadn’t been paying attention as he carried Hattie, suddenly realized that their numbers had gotten a lot bigger. "Wheres did de rest of dem people come from?" he asked, confused, as he turned to look at Max.

"Were yous really that lost in yer ’ead yous dinna notice dem until now?" chuckled Max, clasping Ronan on his shoulder. "I’s really shoulda seen that comin’. Dem stragglers from de highway that Alicia picked up." He shrugged his shoulders like it wasn’t that big of a deal, but all Ronan felt was a threat to his cher.

There were too many strangers around her, and that was sending warning bells up and down his spine.

Tightening his grip on Hattie, trying to keep her close, Ronan didn’t realize the trap he was already caught in.

----

"Do you understand what you need to do?" asked Alicia, her mouth barely moving as she stared at the two disheveled men in front of her.

"We’s jus’ gotta leave ’er in de swamp?" asked one, looking at Alicia from the corner of his eyes. "Wha’ happen’ if ’er man wakes up an’ stops us?"

"They won’t," Alicia assured them, rolling her eyes. Since she planned this, everything had been accounted for, including the sleeping pills in their portion of the gumbo. "And when you come back, you’ll have all the supplies you could ever dream of."

The men nodded their heads and exchanged a look with each other before they crept over to the fire, where a single girl and six men slept, completely unaware of the danger around them.