Alice in Zombieland

“Yo, Kitty Kat,” someone called. I forced myself to stop staring at Red Hat and glanced—at one of the blonds. “Come over here and give me a proper hello. You know you want to.”

“What I want is for you to go to hell,” she called back.

“Aw, come on. Don’t be that way, baby.” He was the taller of the blonds, with cold brown eyes and a face that would have made the devil hide in a shadowed corner, sucking his thumb and crying for his mommy. Even though I couldn’t imagine him winning a girl like Kat, I could imagine him cheating. He had to be the ex. “You love me, ‘cause you just can’t help yourself.”

“I hope Rina gave you an STD.”

The boys around him snickered, and the fact that he maintained his grin—rather than murdering Kat—surprised me.

“That’s harsh, baby. I was just teasing when I called you by her name.”

“Both times?”

Yep. The ex. Sooo Trina the “two-faced, lying, cheating witch” had to be the very same Rina he’d messed around with over summer break. And, honestly? That totally blew my mind. Kat was one of the prettiest, most feminine girls I’d ever met, while that Trina person was hard-core.

Although, so was the ex. Besides that I’m-totally-a-serial-killer face, he had black bands tattooed around his wrists and brass knuckles tattooed over his … well, knuckles.

“I’m not mad, though,” Kat said. “You lied to me, and I lied to you. We’re even.”

Finally he lost the grin. “When did you lie?”

She gave him a Sweet’N Low smile, as if his amusement had been poured into her. “Every time we messed around. I didn’t actually enjoy myself, if you know what I mean.”

“Burn,” one of his friends said.

He shoved the boy away. “Don’t be that way,” he pleaded to her, and I would have bet he was only halfway kidding. There was a desperate gleam in those dark eyes.

“Don’t tell me what to do. And by the way, I’m not teasing when I do this.” Kat flipped him off times two, and all of his friends erupted into a fresh round of snickers.

His confident facade faded, but still he said, “I’ll change your mind and I’ll win you back. It’s just a matter of time.”

“Actually, it’s just a matter of time before I feed your balls to my dog.” In an aside to me, she said, “Remind me that I need to buy a dog.”

The black-haired one finally glanced over at us—yeah, I’d returned to staring at him—and I forgot all about Kat and her problems. Violet, I realized. Those eyes of his were the most amazing shade of violet. I’d never seen so beautiful a color.

Had to be contacts. Right?

He gave Kat a once-over and grinned a hello. I barely stopped myself from chewing on one of my nails, a disgusting nervous tic I’d broken years ago. Would he look directly at me?

Answer: yes.

The moment our eyes met, the moisture in my mouth dried up and I lost focus of my surroundings. He was all that I could see, all that I wanted to see. And in the span of a single second we were no longer across the hall from each other—

—we were pressed together, his arms wrapped around me, my arms wrapped around him, and we were kissing. Miracle of miracles, he was five inches taller than me, practically dwarfing me. I loved it! And oh, glory, I loved what we were doing….

I had never been kissed before, but his tongue was definitely in my mouth, and my tongue was definitely in his, and we were practically eating each other’s faces.

“Ali,” he breathed as he drew me closer, squeezed me tighter.

“Cole,” I breathed back. I couldn’t get enough of him and never wanted to stop. He was so warm. So very warm, when I’d been so cold all summer. No matter how many blankets I’d piled on top of me, I’d been cold. I wanted to stay here, just like this, forever.

My fingers tangled in his hair, knocking off his cap. He angled his head, taking my mouth deeper, harder.

“You taste good,” he rasped. He smelled of sandalwood and something fruity, like a strawberry lollipop just freed from its wrapper.

“Talk later. Kiss now—”

“—Ali. Ali!” Kat stepped in front of me. She was frowning, waving. “Hello? Anyone home?”

I blinked and realized I was in the same spot I’d occupied before. And with that realization came another. I’d never crossed the hall, never met the boy in the hat halfway—Cole, I’d called him—never plowed my fingers through his hair. Never touched him, and absolutely never kissed him, yet my lips tingled and I was having trouble drawing air into my lungs.

“You okay?” Kat asked, her concern evident.

She was so short I had no trouble peeking over her shoulder at the group of boys. Nearly everyone else had abandoned the hallways. Maybe because the tardy bell had been ringing—and was only now fading. Crap. Crap, crap, crap. How long had I been staring at that boy?

At least he was staring at me, too. Or maybe that wasn’t such a good thing. He was scowling at me, and it was the kind of scowl you saw on a guy in a dark alley just before he crunched your face into the dirt and stole your purse. One of his friends was tugging on his arm, trying to get his attention.

Red Hat snapped his teeth at me and turned away to stomp out of the hall. His remaining friends traveled after him, one of them muttering, “Mind telling us what that was about, my man?”

I leaned against the lockers to find my balance. Only then, with distance between us and his gaze unlocked from mine, did I manage to catch my breath. “The one with the hat,” I said to Kat. “What’s his name?” I probably should have assured her of my mental competence first, but I craved info about him too badly. And really, could I assure anyone of my mental competence just then?

Kat’s head fell forward, as if suddenly too heavy to hold up, but her penetrating stare remained on me. “Why? Are you interested in him?”

My mouth floundered open and closed. I was interested in knowing what had just happened. How I had just … envisioned kissing him. How that vision had seemed so real that I’d felt his heat, his strength. So real that my body had reacted physically.

“Just curious,” I finally said, trying for a nonchalance I didn’t feel. But my words were the straight-up truth. I was curious.

She wasn’t buying. “That’s Cole Holland, and girl, you so don’t want to date him. Trust me.”

Shock blustered through me. His name really was Cole? But … how had I known that?

You heard someone else call him Cole, that’s all. A subconscious thing.

Maybe. Probably. “Why?” I croaked.

“Because I’m totally trustworthy. Hello, you’ve met me, right?”

If I hadn’t been in such a state of upheaval, I would have rolled my eyes. “Not why should I trust you. Why don’t I want to date him?”

“Oh. Well, for starters, because you’re intimidated by him.”

“I’m not intimidated by him.”

She rose on her tiptoes to pat the top of my head, and said, “Since you won’t admit that little truth, how about this one? Because he’s the leader of that rabid pack of animals and he’s totally dangerous.”

Dangerous. Yeah, I got that. “You dated one of his friends.”

She spread her arms, as if I’d just made her point for her. “And look where I ended up—cheated on and brokenhearted.” The soft snick of closing doors filled the hall, and she glanced around. “Come on. Let’s finish this on the way to your class.”