Lipstick & Zombies (Deadly Divas Book 1) (23 page)

"What do you imagine I'm doing in the bathroom?"

"I thought this was Jo. Is that you, Carrie?"

"It is Jo?"

"I was kidding. Oh, nevermind. Get out here!"

It wasn't even the most awkward part of her day, and it would hardly compete with the worst moments of recent days, so she didn't feel comfortable complaining about it. Gerri did for her, though, and loudly defended their right to "piss in privacy" in front of the entire crew.

It would have been funny if Noah wasn't smiling at Jo when Gerri did it.

Dee had somehow found it possible to talk even more than was typical to compensate for the group's silence. Jo tried to kick in a few sentences a couple of times to aid her quest. It was like offering herself up for the slaughter.

"And that's a day," Tammi announced. "You really are coming along. Marvin and I want to thank you for taking this so seriously." Tammi looked over at Marvin, startling him into a nod of agreement. His quiet, gruff manner sometimes made Jo wonder if he'd been a survivalist. She supposed that with people who'd been alive before the wall you'd have to label them all survivalists, no matter where they lived after. Plus—and perhaps this observation meant she was spending too much time with the others—no survivalist would have worn blue polyester pants.

That little itch pulled her eyes away. It was like muscle memory. Her body knew Noah was looking and reflexively went to seek him out. She needed that second of contact with another soul that understood. And for a moment, so brief it couldn't be measured, she'd find all that her memory was expecting. But then her mind would realign with the then and there, and that brief moment would tear her open bad enough that all the seconds and hours could do nothing to repair it.

She didn't know if Noah knew he was doing it: hurting her, or staring. It didn't matter. She needed it not to matter.

"You cool?" Sadie asked her.

Jo's head was tilted down and to the side, so her hair kept her shielded. She gave Sadie a thumbs up to keep her from staring.

"Let's get going, before Meghan's hands fall off from too much clapping."

Jo walked past Sadie, who grabbed her arm and gently pulled her back.

"You forgot your machete," Sadie said, and handed it to her. "You really okay?"

"Yeah, thanks." Sadie must have taken classes on telling people things with looks, because she narrowed her eyes and slowly nodded at Jo in a way that let her know that Sadie knew she was lying. Sadie let her arm go only once she was sure she'd gotten her message across. She felt that same itch, telling her that Noah was watching her leave, but she didn't turn around once.
And you can be proud, Jo, because it's getting you a lot. You barely even think of Noah now, right?

The girls were improving her sarcasm, even if she still only used it on herself.

When they arrived home, the group of them sat around in the living room, legs draped over the arms of chairs and food cradled in the crooks of their arms while they flipped through their phones—in much the same way they would have before the recent fighting. The only difference was Meghan perched on the kitchen counter watching them—or as she claimed, going over their to-do lists for the next day—and the lot of them never breaking to say a word to each other. Even Dee had decided she was relieved from her duties. Jo wasn't sure if everyone else felt as awkward as she did, or if it was just her, since she wasn't prone to spending hours exploring her phone. There was nothing to distract her from the silent war.

"I have a dinner appointment," Meghan announced. "Big day tomorrow. Bed in an hour. Right?"

"Yes, Meghan," Dee said.

"Everyone?"
"Yes, Meghan," Sadie, Carrie, and Gerri said.

Meghan never bothered Jo for a response.

Once she'd left, the other girls stayed in the room for another five minutes, possibly to make it seem like they weren't looking forward to parting ways. Jo waited for all of their doors to close and Gerri's music to start before slipping out of the apartment.

JO

Noah was still on the stage, waving to the crew as they left for the night. He let his hand fall to his side and took a long look at the field. Jo hadn't thought to ask how many fit in the audience, and once she thought of it she decided she didn't want to know. She didn't have stage fright, exactly, but she did have an aversion to knowing just how many people would be watching her sing and dance and end the second lives of corpses that may belong to their families or friends. It wasn't something any of the other girls mentioned, but it was always on Jo's mind. Even now, with everything, the corpses still made her think of Noah.

He backed away and went through the door on the right side of the stage. With long, silent strides she stalked after him and was down the hall just in time to see a door closing behind him. She stuck her hand in before it latched shut and held it there, hesitating, waiting for her thoughts to sort themselves out, to tell her that she was being silly and should go back home; she didn't need to talk to him. But her thoughts stayed where they were, and they didn't seem silly to her at all. They seemed pissed.

He stared at his desk, like he didn't know what it was for. His arms hung loose at his sides, his head lolled over the back of the chair, and the bottoms of his boots pressed against the edge of the desk. The surface was clean, like the rest of the room, all of his weapons tidily hung on the walls. Replace the desk with a bed and it would have been his bedroom back home. Tidiness was efficient, and efficiency was part of long-term survival.
A messy bedroom is an invitation for groaning disaster
, her parents always said. Their apartment at Last Chance Tower was anything but tidy, or efficient, but she didn't think the other members of the band would think it was a detriment to their survival. Not that they really thought about survival at all, at least not in the way she was used to thinking about it. She was still working on that.

"Hey," she said.

Noah kicked his chair back, jolted up straight, and stretched his right arm out to the wall, where the worn down old ax hung. It had a wooden handle and N+J carved at the end. She always called it a worn down old thing, but it was actually really tough. He kept it in good repair.

His eyes met Jo's, and his arm fell a few inches, but otherwise he stayed frozen in place.

"You still have that old thing?"

"Of course," he said.

She'd looked for it in his room, after he'd left, but she'd figured he must have had it on him, which made even less sense of how he'd been bitten. How was it so bad that he'd been taken down, weapon in hand? Where was his ax? There. It was there.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

She rolled her eyes. "You never used to ask stupid questions."
He sat back in his chair and tucked in his desk drawers, which had fallen loose when he'd jumped up. He was trying to appear relaxed, but he wasn't, and that gave Jo the sliver of satisfaction she hadn't known she'd needed.

"The band's still not right," Jo said.

"I've noticed," he said. "I'm still surprised Gerri has turned out to be so... spooked. I thought she was tougher than that."

"You're surprised she's spooked after seeing a man eaten right next to her?"

"They all knew what they were signing up for."

"Easy for you to say."

“I'm sure they'll improve,” he said. It was such a measured response. So careful. So formal. So...impersonal. It left her feeling out of place.

"Things with the band aren't easy,” she said, casually, pretending she didn't notice how strange it was. “It's not just the fighting. The entire situation is uniquely difficult." She scratched her head. She didn't know how to do this. "Do you know what the worst part is?"

"What?"

"That this is the kind of thing I used to tell my best friend,” she swallowed, “but he
died
. Did you know?"

"Josie, I—"

"I don't even want you to explain, because I think it's only going to make it worse.” She couldn't believe the strength of her own voice. She could do this. She had to do this. “Will I believe what you say? Will it be the truth? There is no excuse. You were only a few miles away. There was no wall between us—not like I believed. You were right here! There's no excuse that won't make it worse. And I've hurt enough, not that you'd know, but I've mourned my friend. He died. And this body in front of me... it's all a lie. How can I believe anything that comes from the lips of a dead man?"

"I missed you."

Her breath was caught in her throat, but she cleared it away. She needed to keep her voice strong—no wobbling voice, no broken up sentences. That was something to be saved for trusted people, not traitors. Shoulders straight, she told him, "See, even that's not as simple as it should be. Because you, whoever you happen to be now, miss the memory of someone I used to be. You don't know me. Not now."

"Oh, come on—"

"No. My best friend wouldn't have left me. I don't know why I came here. It's just hard, I guess, because no matter how long you've been dead, I still miss you. You don't look the same, you don't talk the same, you don't
smell
the same... but every once in a while you'll barely smile or you'll brush your hand past where your hair used to be, and it's like, oh, there he is." She leaned against the wall and let the blades do whatever they would to the back of her jacket. "It's cruel."

"If you'd just let me explain—"

"Because I owe you that?"

"Because
I
owe
you
that!"

"You're damn right you owe me that." She pushed off the wall and punched her fists into the top of his desk. His cup of pens knocked over and rolled to the floor. "But
I
get to decide whether I want it, you know?" She looked at him, waiting for understanding from this new face. "Remember how we used to go out by the wall and say that we could imagine nothing worse than losing someone, and having them still walking around, there, but not really them? Well, I'm here to tell you, it's worse than we thought. So much worse."

She'd first kissed him out by the wall, at their spot on top of a pile of boulders. After she'd made him promise they'd always be best friends, that they'd never let it become strange. People were always saying that some day Noah and her would become something
more
, and she'd wanted to know what that was, as long as he promised they wouldn't lose what they'd had.
Of course
, was what he'd told her.
Of course.

"You're not the same either," he said, finally seeing it. Once he said it, she knew that's what she'd come for. She needed him to see that she'd changed.
" Yeah? Well, my best friend died. It changes a person."

After weeks of skirting around each other their gazes met and held, and everything she'd said cemented between them. It used to be so easy for them to look at each other; it was something she'd taken for granted, assumed would always be easy. But it was true. They were different people. Not quite strangers, but unknown to each other all the same. What was the word for that?

He looked away first, and with nothing left to say to someone she didn't know, she went for the door.

"So that's it?"

"What else is there?"

"I can't believe we're not getting past this," he said. "I can't believe you won't even listen to me explain."

"I can't believe a lot of things," she said. "You trying to make this all my fault is just one of them."

"I always believed that whatever we had to survive, above everything else, there would always be
us
," he said.

"Don't you remember what they taught us about always, Noah?"

He took a deep breath, and she took the opportunity to leave the room before he said anything else. She'd meant it when she said she wasn't interested in hearing what he had to say, even if part of her wanted to let his words wash it all away. All she'd wanted was for him to understand, for something in this new Noah to recognize all that she was going through and to give her that nod he always did when he was saying he got it. But that was over. That Noah was gone, and now that she'd said it to him it hurt like hell, but at least it felt true. Her mind could settle into that pain.