Chapter 8

Daisy's POV

"If we hand this over to HQ, all we'll get is some credits."

Jamie's voice drifted over.

"Supplies are only going to get scarcer. When prices go through the roof, those credits won't be worth shit."

"What if we contact Amber Collins from Bravo? Honestly, I really don't want to see that woman, but her mutation's spatial too, supposedly huge. She'd take fifty percent for storage, but at least we'd still have fifty percent. Turn it in to HQ and we only get credits."

Jamie went on.

"It's not that we're disloyal. It's just HQ's a mess right now, everyone's hoarding supplies. If we don't keep some for ourselves, we're screwed later. Nobody wants to work on an empty stomach."

Jamie was really stressed.

After he finished, his eyes landed on me and lit up.

“Hey, Daisy. Can’t believe you turned too. Still, you’re the most beautiful zombie I’ve ever seen.”

He winked at me and gave a thumbs up.

Carter burst out laughing. "She's judging you so hard right now."

Jamie scratched his head. "Aw, come on, now I'm embarrassed."

I watched Ezra come back from the other side.

"Three in the canning warehouse. Two meat, one fruit."

He reached up to adjust his glasses and met air.

Paused for a beat, then laughed.

“Ezra used to wear glasses,” Carter explained. “He doesn’t need them now — his mutation is ocular enhancement. Paired with being a sniper, it works out shockingly well.”

"Let's go take a look at how much there is, then figure out what to do with it."

Carter held me like I weighed nothing, switching between carrying, tucking under his arm, and slinging me over his shoulder.

Like I was just another piece of gear.

Jamie bounded after him. “Carter, can’t Daisy walk on her own? You keep hauling her around. Why don’t you put her down, let her take a few steps? I want to see if she walks different from other Zs.”

Other zombies shambled around dragging their bodies, and if they caught sight of someone they'd lunge with bloodlust in a sudden burst of speed.

But me? I was tucked neatly against his neck, clean all over, still wearing my pink bunny pajamas.

Carter glanced down at me.

I was looking around.

"Who knows? We'll put her down later and see."

Ezra said, "Yeah, sure. I'd say someone's holding on like he can't bear to let go. She doesn't need to walk—you just keep carrying her."

I noticed Carter’s ears turned red.

"Shut up."

Jamie ducked his head, snickering. "Cap, why’re you blushing?"

The three of them bantered all the way to the warehouse.

I watched the three of them drop their smiles at once, their expressions turning sharp and serious.

Jamie went on alert, Ezra opened the door, Carter walked straight in with me, and the other two followed.

I glanced around the warehouse and saw it had to be at least several hundred square meters, stacked high with cans, all in full cases.

"That's... a lot."

Jamie whistled softly. “Only a spatial awakener could move this much stock.”

Carter nodded. “Precog awakeners say there’ll be fewer than a thousand spatial types worldwide once we hit the late stage. That’s how rare this power is.”

Ezra spoke up. “The top spatial awakener’s codenamed Behemoth. He’s the strongest we know. His space can even be split into separate sections.”

Carter tapped the band on his wrist. “We each have a storage card embedded in our wristbands. Mine holds a hundred eighty cubic feet. Ezra and Jamie, yours are a hundred each.”

Jamie grunted. “But we gotta pack weapons and rations first. Not much leftover to hoard supplies.”

“These spaces are carved out of Behemoth’s ability,” Carter went on. “They aren’t private. He can see everything we put inside.”

Ezra’s tone turned flat. “HQ’s way to stop us from going rogue. Nothing we store stays hidden.”

Carter glanced toward the stacked crates. “These cards don’t come easy. If Alpha Squad wasn’t top-tier, and if I hadn’t awakened wolf mimicry, we never would’ve gotten all four.”

Jamie groaned. "All these cans, man. God, if only they were all ours—why don't we have a space-type on the team?!"

"Supplies only decrease from here. Thinking about how the survival guide says we'll all be drinking nutrient slurry later makes me sick."

He stared at the mountain of cans, on the verge of despair.

Ezra thought for a long moment. "This facility has low contamination. The farther out we go, the scarcer supplies get. I say we keep as much as we can."

Carter was thinking too.

My thinking's slower now. It takes my brain a beat longer to process information.

But I still understood the situation from their conversation.

And I knew I had to be worth something if I wanted to keep existing.

Right now, the fact that I'm different from regular zombies is the reason I'm still alive.

If I'd been like other Zs and tried to bite people, Carter would've put a bullet in me back at the apartment. I wouldn't be getting carried around in his arms.

So I tapped Carter's shoulder and pointed toward the stacks of cans.

"Uh... urr..."

The second I opened my mouth and heard the guttural sound I made, I shut it again.

Jamie noticed first. “Holy shit, Cap, Daisy just made a sound! God, her groan is so cute! Ow—”

Ezra smacked Jamie upside the head. "She's cute—is that something you get to say?!"

Carter looked down at me. "What do you mean? You’re going over by the cans? You can eat canned food?"

He sounded shocked too.

These people's brains still work in the strangest ways.

I rolled my eyes inwardly. I kept tapping, gesturing for Carter to go over there.

Carter sighed and carried me over. "What exactly do you want to do?"

“I’ve never heard of a zombie being interested in canned goods.”

Until the next second, when my fingers touched the cans.

The entire row of cans vanished.

Silence.

Then a beat later, all three of them shouted "Holy shit!" in unison.